Limbaugh: Killer whales "watching what went on at the Abu Ghraib prison ... just needing to blow off a little steam"

Three weeks after radio host Rush Limbaugh characterized U.S. guards' abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison as "people having a good time" -- asking his listeners, "You ever heard of need to blow some steam off?" -- Limbaugh repeated his May 4 characterization of the abuse. On the May 26 broadcast of The Rush Limbaugh Show, Limbaugh read from a May 26 San Francisco Chronicle article that described how a "boatload of nature lovers" witnessed a "a life or death struggle as a pack of six killer whales attacked a gray whale calf, while its mother valiantly fought to shield her eight-ton baby" in California's Monterey Bay. Making fun of the "[w]hale fratricide on the open seas in front of a boatload of Liberal spectators," Limbaugh said, "I think these whales have been watching what went on at the Abu Ghraib prison. Whales just needing to blow off a little steam here, folks."

From the May 26 broadcast of The Rush Limbaugh Show:

LIMBAUGH: This story is from Monterey, California. "The boatload of nature lovers set out to celebrate Mother's Day whale watching on sunny Monterey Bay, only to witness the mother of all wild life battles. Instead of gentle giants lolling in the sea, they came" -- [laughter]. Imagine a boat packed full of Libs out there in Monterey Bay with their little cameras (laughter), they're going to take pictures of, I guess, whales jumping like in the Prudential Life commercial, or whatever it is.

Well, "they came upon a life or death struggle as a pack of six killer whales attacked a gray whale calf, while its mother valiantly fought to shield her eight-ton baby." Whale fratricide on the open seas in front of a boatload of Liberal spectators.

"As whale watchers looked on with a mixture of awe and sadness, mother killer whales, the most experienced hunters, took turns ramming head first, like six-ton torpedoes, into the baby calf's soft underbelly. Their force nearly knocking it out of the water, while others leapt atop the 20-foot baby trying to drown it." And yes, you heard right. These where female orcas doing this to the offspring of another whale, a gray whale.

Well, what this obviously proves, ladies and gentlemen, is that these whales have televisions. And I think these whales have been watching what went on at the Abu Ghraib prison. Whales just needing to blow off a little steam here, folks. This was probably an initiation right to birth. This happens in the whale world, we just never see it. We just happen to see it, we don't understand it. Yes.

—K.B.