What You Think You Hear Might Not Be What You Hear

I've often scoffed at people who say, "Artists don't know what's in their work." They must know, I think. But not so. Everyone can look at a painting and take something out of it that someone else doesn't see.

It's similar with a TV show, a speech, a radio show host. IN this case, Rush, he's thinking he's making a certain point, and yet he's not - at least for some people. (Not necessarily the people in Rio Linda, either.)

Here's his comment from Friday's show on Thursday's third hour monologue:

RUSH: Now, I had a bunch of e-mails regarding my monologue opening the third hour yesterday. Do you remember that monologue, Snerdley? You remember what it was? It was me pointing out, Obama's not unhappy at all with himself or what has happened here, that he's very happy, he succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. And I also pointed out how Obama's looking forward to Republicans winning the House and maybe even the Senate so that he can run against them in 2012 instead of having to run against his open party. Listen to these two e-mails, both from subscribers to the website, RushLimbaugh.com.

Dear Rush,
Assuming what you said on today's program's true, why vote in November? I mean, what's the point? I mean, if we have no prayer, if our side winning is what Obama wants, why even vote?

Dear Rush,
Your third-hour monologue today I found to be very depressing. I've always felt that elections were all we had to right the wrongs and make changes and because of that I was enthused about the upcoming elections. You seem to indicate that our winning these elections are really part of the Obama strategy because it will give him an issue to run against in 2012. Essentially I heard your comments to say he's already won, we have very little we can do about it, including winning elections. I found this to be very depressing. I'm beginning to lose my enthusiasm. Do you really believe that all is lost or am I misreading your comments? I think Obama is a punk and I can't believe you think that he's whipped us by nature of winning the election two years ago and that there's no way to turn this thing back around.

Now, I had not stopped to consider that anybody would react to my monologue that way, and there were more than these two, but when I read e-mails like this, "Okay, now, what did I say that made them think it was a wash?" All I was trying to do was to keep it in context, the discussion...."

Now, I understood what Rush was saying, it's interesting that apparently a lot of people reacted the way these two emailers reacted.

I don't think there's anything Rush can do about...or any speech maker. People just interpret what they hear in different ways, depending on their mindset.