An Interview with RUSH LIMBAUGH

By MARGARET CARLSON Rush Limbaugh

Q. You're unabashedly for Bush and against Clinton. Given 13 million devoted listeners, why is your guy 15 points behind?

A. I don't say that I have influence. I was totally opposed to the 1990 budget deal, and it still happened. I'm not an activist. I do not give out congressional phone numbers. I do not urge behavior. No tea bags. This is entertainment. And in strict marketing terms, does it hurt me to be the only guy not making Dan Quayle jokes?

Q. Weren't you for Pat Buchanan when he was running against Bush in the primaries?

A. That was my effort to send the President a message. The Republican Party and George Bush got in trouble when they moved to the left, when they signed on with the civil rights bill with its quotas and the tax increases. He let down people who elected him. And so he then attracts the Wimp II image.

Q. But isn't the problem that the President has stayed too far right instead of moving back toward the center as the general election gets closer?

A. Liberals lose presidential elections, conservatives win them. People look out over America and see over $1 trillion in transfers of money from producers to nonproducers, and it hasn't worked. And they see a continuing decadence. Most people don't look at Willie Horton and see a victimized black. They see an attempted murderer and a rapist, and they don't want people like that out of jail early.There's a seething undercurrent out there of people who are simply fed up with the intolerance of people on the left for people who wish to have decency and decorum in life.

Q. I know you're not a hater, but don't you think you come across as mean when you call feminists ugly women who can't get dates?

A. No, it's not mean. I once wrote a newspaper column when I was in Sacramento, and I said feminism was established so as to allow unattractive women easier access to the mainstream. There is a profoundly held, truthful belief rooted in there that is, in my mind, compassionate and sympathetic to women. But you have to think about it yourself in order to get it.

Q. I'm thinking.

A. Because of the shallowness of our society and because of the biological differences in men and women, attractive women have an edge at the outset. They are the first noticed in social situations, and they are highly thought of in business situations. It's just a fact. And in many cases attractive women have not had to prepare themselves as well intellectually because they've got these other things to rely on. Meanwhile you have women who don't think they fit into the category of attractive, pretty, beautiful, whatever, who nevertheless are intelligent and bright and witty, and who have devoted themselves to education, and they care seriously about advancing through life as much as anybody else does. And they are just fed up that a bunch of bimbos are either married to high-profile people or are employed by high-profile people and they aren't.

Q. So women go to law school because they're ugly?

A. I'm not saying that. I'm saying feminism was established, that the idea was, "Goddammit, we're going to have to have a political movement here to get what we're entitled to because it's not fair, we're not getting it out there."

Q. Isn't it like unionizing: people who can't assert their individual rights can assert them in a group? And women who only follow the traditional path have no protection when men go off and leave them, and then they have no career?

A. So what's the question?

Q. Well, even if you don't approve of women working for, as you might call it, life-style reasons, how about working so that they have a career to fall back on?

A. Absolutely. In both of my marriages, I never once insisted that my wife remain home. Whatever my wife wanted to do, she did. Be it go to school, be it go to work.

Q. Then the only thing you disagree with feminists on is abortion?

A. It's the most profound disagreement. I will never, ever accept that abortion is justified because a child might suffer or it is unwanted. Those are two of the most selfish, unpredictable reasons to abort a child that I can imagine. And they cut to the quick of why I'm opposed to it. If that were applied, Beethoven might not have lived. Jesse Jackson might not have lived, for crying out loud.

Q. I've never known a woman who is happy about having had an abortion. I have met women who are relieved that a child isn't being brought into this world who will have to rely on a mother who isn't going to be there, who has not the means or the wit to raise a child.

A. And I'll tell you, to prove my point about the pro-life or the pro-choice crowd, here on the one hand you've got liberals who want 12 weeks of unpaid leave to have a baby. But don't make them wait 24 hours to decide whether they're going to give birth because "Well, we may not be able to afford the 24 hours because it's going to cause us to miss work and to have to get a hotel room." Well, how are you going to afford three months without a paycheck for parental leave if you can't afford 24 hours off to decide whether to have it?

Q. Are you going to be like Buchanan and go from being a pundit to a politician?

A. I've never wanted to run for elected office because of what you have to do to get there and while you are there. It doesn't strike me as fun, walking around with shackles. I could not walk around with my hand out. You have to pay back with policy. I couldn't do it.