RUSH: So I see they’re giving Miss America a little trouble here. You know, I was a judge in the Miss America Pageant some years ago, and it’s a lot harder work than anybody thinks. In fact, one of the judges, some Hollywood comedian, quit after the orientation when he figured out it was more than just looking at women in bathing suits. And I’m not kidding. He was stupefied at the fact that it was gonna take eight to 10 hours a day for five straight days to judge the pageant.

He just could not believe it, so he just vamoosed out of there, and it was a minor controversy as the officials huddled in another hotel room away from the rest of us judges. They didn’t want any controversy at all, so she came up with an explanation. Anyway, Miss Georgia, I guess she stumbled over the Tom Brady question during the question-and-answer portion of the judging. I thought the answer that she gave was right on the money. I mean, they asked her if she thought Tom Brady cheated.

She said (summarized) “I don’t know. I haven’t felt the balls yet. Only after I feel the balls will I know. I’m not a football player. I need to feel the balls. If I felt the balls, I could probably have an idea.” So what was wrong with that? You know, the other day I was watching the news and something just hit me, and I fired off an e-mail note. It’s actually more than a couple days ago. I guess it might be a month ago. I don’t remember what it was. It was your average news day on cable news.

I sent a note. It’s an anchorette. I know a lot of news babes, so I fired off an e-mail to them. I said, “When you sit there and do the news every day, aren’t you happy as hell you’re not in it? I know I am!” I think that has become what news is. You know, it isn’t news, really. It’s just the advancement of whatever the daily soap opera agenda happens to be, as determined by the people in power to do that. And that would be media types and political establishment types. ‘Cause the news is 90% politics.

I think a good way to describe what news has become is as you’re watching it you say, “Thank God it’s not me.”

As long as it’s not about you, you’re cool with it. It’s just one disaster after another. It’s just a highlight of all that’s wrong and then some in the country, and it creates an impression that there’s much, much more wrong than there is right. Except now that may be the case. But, anyway, it just struck me. I’m watching it every day and saying, “Boy, I’m glad it’s not about me! I’m glad I’m not in it,” even though I am. But I’m talking about average, ordinary low-information voter types.

I mean, they watch it and say, “Whew! Man, thank God I’m not in this.”