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It's too hard to get through to find someone after a short riff on a topic that 's ready to go. Try it sometimes. These have to be staged calls.

Let's see. Rush knows he wants to talk about Issues "A", "B", and "C". He tells his screeners. Thousands of calls come in. The screeners pick several callers to put on hold for each issue, perhaps with a specific perspective that Rush told them he wanted to get out (i.e. "give me a teacher who can tell me that her administrators told her to teach about condoms").

Then, as the show proceeds, Rush scans the on-hold list, and brings the right callers on just as he wants to cover that aspect of the topic. I think that is how the format is designed. It would be harder to do it the "staged" way that to do it this way.

I would accept you analysis, except, too often these callers are ready to "go" on some little side trip that Rush has taken. The topics aren't top of mind, it may only be for one call, it's not the topics that are covered in the rest of the show. No, these calls are happen too often and it can't be anything but staged.

I don't get to listen enough to determine if it the same voices, but again, these rants are too far off the beaten path for someone to already be on hold and it's too difficult to get through to find that one caller ready to go on an obscure topic.

It's more simple than that. Rush clearly states he takes the calls that "will make the host look good"! ;-)