This hour of the Limbaugh Wire brought to you by America's lost war for the economy
by Simon Maloy

El Rushbo kicks off the show explaining that 80 percent of the Commerce Department's job is "the weather." He professes his amazement that there haven't been any hurricane forecasts for 2009 yet, but he has it "on good authority" that there will be 500 named hurricanes, 450 of them being major storms. This line of thought was not explained and, thankfully, not pursued any further.

After some extended discussion of Secretary of State Clinton's "gaffes" and how "basic etiquette is missing" from the Obama administration, Rush enlightens his readers by explaining the Employee Free Choice Act in terms everyone can understand: "You are a small business employee. Your boss has a shop that is not union. After this legislation passes, one day, Tony Soprano will walk in with a lead pipe and he will start beating people upside the head to vote to unionize because you cannot vote in private." Now, this is so outlandishly wrong that it doesn't really merit refutation, but what the heck... No. EFCA doesn't do that.

Rush then turns to Warren Buffett's comments on CNBC yesterday morning disagreeing with Obama on EFCA, cap-and-trade, and private jets. According to Rush, Buffett threw Obama and his policies "under the bus," adding: "This is amazing! And no one in the drive-bys is covering this in any way with the weight that it deserves." If by "no one" he means USA Today, The New York Times, the LA Times, Bloomberg, etc, then his point is well taken.

Limbaugh then lumped in Buffett with Barton Biggs of Traxis Partners and CNBC's Jim Cramer (who has apparently lost favor with Rush), attacking them for criticizing Obama's policies, but still supporting his agenda. Rush is convinced that they do this because they're afraid to admit they made a mistake in supporting Obama... or "it's either that or they are afraid of their women at home or they are afraid of the media who will descend on them like the birds in the movie The Birds. They won't even be safe in phone booths."

Saving the best for last, Rush capped off the hour by announcing his intention to cut-and-run^TM in the "battle with the economy." He said we could quote him on it... so we will! "Suffice to say, it's around nine minutes to one Eastern Time on March the 10th and I, El Rushbo, proclaim this war is lost. If this is a war, if our battle with the economy to straighten it out and Obama is our general, this war is lost. You may quote me."

Highlights from Hour 1

Outrageous comments

LIMBAUGH: Let me give you an explanation of card check that everybody can understand. You are a small business employee. Your boss has a shop that is not union. After this legislation passes, one day, Tony Soprano will walk in with a lead pipe and he will start beating people upside the head to vote to unionize because you cannot vote in private. Card check is a public vote on whether to unionize.

So they send in a Soprano guy with a lead pipe aimed at your kneecaps or your head and they tell you, "It'd be a good idea if you participated in unionizing the shop." And then after they unionize the shop, they really couldn't care much less about your shop. All they want is your dues to be able to send it to the Democrat Party.

So, when you think of card check, think of yourself as a non-union employee at a small business. You love the guy you work for, maybe you hate him -- it doesn't matter -- and some guy, Tony Soprano, walks in threatening to beat you up on the side of the head if you don't vote to unionize. That's card check brought to you by the freedom-loving Obama Democrat Party.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: All of a sudden now, starting yesterday with Buffett, and moving forward into today, our problem with the economy is the equivalent of a war, right? It's a war. And we have one commanding general and that is Obama. One general, one war. It's a war now. We've got to focus everything on winning the economic war, right?

What time is it? Well, I don't know what real time is, 'cause my clocks are on our delay. Suffice to say, it's around nine minutes to one Eastern Time on March the 10th and I, El Rushbo, proclaim this war is lost. If this is a war, if our battle with the economy to straighten it out and Obama is our general, this war is lost. You may quote me.

"Socialism" watch

LIMBAUGH: Again, I express my frustration over how few smart people actually understand liberalism, understand radicalism. Obama is taking advantage of everybody being distracted by the economy to ram through all these socialist-type proposals that are going to fundamentally alter the basic structure of the country. He's doing it on purpose and these guys think he's just making some neophyte mistake.

He needs to focus on the economy. He's purposefully not focusing on the economy.

Ladies' man

LIMBAUGH: I wonder if James Carville and Paul Begala and Stan Greenberg are even, as we speak, conducting another one of their famous phone polls. I just hear Carville on the phone, "I just have a simple question for you. Yes or no: Do you loathe Warren Buffett? Is Warren Buffett a danger and a risk to America? Yes or No?"

And then the same thing about Jack Welch: "Is Jack Welch a crook? Is Jack Welch a crook or is he a good guy? You tell me right now." And they'll release the polls after they figure out how much damage Welch and Buffett are doing.

Look, we're on a roll here, folks. We may as well stick with this Jim Cramer, who, as you know, I came to his defense yesterday after he expressed stunned shock and dismay that his buddies in the Democrat Party liberal wing would target him and try to go after him. I said, "Jim," and he was dismayed that I would defend him. He's dismayed that people who disagree with him a lot would have one thing in common might come to his defense. So last night on Mad Money -- that's the title of Cramer's show -- he had this to say about me and Obama.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: After saying he agrees with almost all of Obama's agenda, he then trashes it. This is -- you know what we've got here? I'll tell you what we have here, folks. Speaking bluntly, as is the only way I know how, these guys cannot admit that they made a mistake in supporting and voting for Barack Obama. That's what they can't -- that's what they don't have the guts to admit. Not yet, not right now. They just can't make themselves do it.

It's either that -- it's either that or they are afraid of their women at home or they are afraid of the media who will descend on them like the birds in the movie The Birds. They won't even be safe in phone booths.

This hour of the Limbaugh Wire brought to you by our Founding Fathers
By Simon Maloy

Kicking off the second hour, Rush got a bit historical, explaining that he and all conservatives love the United States, but he can't abide "an administration, which is implementing policies that are anathema to the founding of the country in our view, in my view." Claiming to speak for the Founding Fathers, Rush sought to once again explain his wish that Obama should "fail," citing National Review alum Byron York's Washington Examiner piece today, "Why the Founding Fathers Would Want Obama's Plans to Fail." Limbaugh explained that the US government was not designed to ensure that the president succeed, but rather that the president fail when he or she is wrong. That's all well and good, but we can't recall the constitutional clause that explains Limbaugh's "hope" that Obama's economic recovery plan "prolongs the recession."

Coming back from the break, Limbaugh takes a call from a man who looks forward to the day we, as Americans, can celebrate victory over socialism. Rush once again declared the economic war lost.

Another break and Rush came roaring back with his two-pronged solution for fixing the economy, which is focused, again, on Obama's use of a teleprompter (take it away and let others speak publicly on the economy). El Rushbo then married his preoccupation with Obama's teleprompter to his preoccupation with Obama's call to The New York Times objecting to their question: "Are you a socialist as some people have suggested?" Rush played the entire audio of Obama's call to the Times and encouraged listeners to listen for Obama's "stuttering" and "bumbling." Afterward, he declared it "frightening" how different Obama's speaking style is when he is off prompter.

Just to hammer the point home, Rush sees the economic difficulties the nation is facing, and his reaction is to expound -- at length -- on the president's teleprompter habits.

Rush then took a call from a woman who hoped all the conservatives who sat on their hands in the last election are happy with the results. Limbaugh professed his shock that anyone could be surprised that Obama is a "radical," because he saw it and said it long ago. Rush topped off the hour by embracing the strategy mapped out by Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC), saying the he and other conservatives might not be able to stop Speaker Pelosi and Harry Reid, but "it's not written that we cannot take down his approval numbers. The key is his approval numbers."

Highlights from Hour 2

LIMBAUGH: Here we have an administration, which is implementing policies that are anathema to the founding of the country in our view, in my view. We have an administration implementing policies that are destructive to the way this country was founded, they are destructive to the opportunities for happiness and prosperity that this country has provided for 230 years and we're alarmed by it.

Echo chamber

Reads extensively from York's March 10 Examiner piece: "Why the Founding Fathers Would Want Obama's Plans to Fail"

Echoed McHenry in the need to take down President Obama's approval numbers:

LIMBAUGH: You say we can't stop Pelosi and Reid, we can't stop Congress. Folks, that may be true. That may be true, but there -- it's not written that we cannot take down his approval numbers. Remember, that's the key to all of this. The key is his approval numbers. As long as they stay up, he's going to get what he wants, because people are going to be scared to death to oppose him substantively, and it's a mistake to say that only he can take his approval numbers down.

The American people -- they're the focus of what we do here: their minds, their hearts, their education. We're not going to give up here.

This hour of the Limbaugh Wire brought to you by the Manchurian Candidate
By Simon Maloy

Rush kicked off the final hour by turning some lemons into lemonade, expressing his lack of animus toward conservatives who voted against McCain. Why? Because McCain wasn't really conservative anyhow -- he represented "watered down" conservatism, and now with Obama in office, conservatives have an opportunity to contrast "American conservatism" with "American liberalism." Sorry for mixing metaphors, but apparently you can make lemonade out of sour grapes.

After offering this pep talk, Rush read extensively from a "brilliant" column on Obama by American Enterprise Institute director of economic policy studies, " 'Manchurian Candidate' Starts War on Business." Despite Rush's ardor for the idea that Obama is a "Manchurian Candidate" of some sort, he was ultimately disappointed that Hassett concluded that "[i]t's clear that President Obama wants the best for our country." Yeah, how dare he punctuate that wild diatribe with a hint of reasonableness.

After the break, Rush offered some words of encouragement to a woman whose children are serving in the military. No, wait, sorry -- "words of encouragement" should have read "smears of Democratic voters and Obama's foreign policy." After declaring that "the foreign policy of this administration is to make friends with every enemy -- or as many as possible -- and to spit on our friends," Rush credited the U.S. military for "triumph[ing] over one of the most concentrated efforts to demoralize them that has ever been undertaken by their own country," perpetrated by "the Democrat Congress," "the Democrat Party," and "voters, average citizens who vote Democrat."

Then he got positively apoplectic over Obama's proposal, in the words of the AP, that the military "identify moderate elements of the Taliban and move them toward reconciliation." According to Rush, it demonstrated "scary, incompetent sophistry" and was "outrageous," "irresponsible," "incompetent," and "unforgivable."

Unfortunately for Rush, the AP also reported that the "idea of cooperation with some in the Taliban has been talked about for many months by American military commanders including Gen. David Petraeus, head of U.S. Central Command." We eagerly anticipate Rush's denouncing of Gen. Petraeus' "scary, incompetent sophistry."

Highlights from Hour 3

Outrageous comments

LIMBAUGH: It looks to me like the foreign policy of this administration is to make friends with every enemy -- or as many as possible -- and to spit on our friends.

CALLER: Yes, sir.

LIMBAUGH: And it's -- you -- OK. Why do this? Well, I think some of this is cultural. I think some in the Obama administration reject the traditions and institutions that have defined this country's greatness both domestically and in the arena of foreign policy, and they've got chips on their shoulders for whatever reason.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: The U.S. military in both Afghanistan and Iraq, for the first time in many of our lives, underwent and triumphed over one of the most concentrated efforts to demoralize them that has ever been undertaken by their own country.

CALLER: Yes, sir, by the Democrat Congress. Yes, sir, you're right. I called every one of them, too. I want you to know that.

LIMBAUGH: It wasn't just the Democrat Congress. It was the Democrat Party. It was voters, average citizens who vote Democrat, proclaiming victory was impossible, the war is already lost. And yet, the men and women on the ground, in the surge, in Iraq, prevailed. They overcame it all.

But it was striking for all of us, and it was hurtful, and it also made our blood boil to see the attempt to demoralize and dispirit members of our military by elements in our own country. That we had not seen before in such a concentrated way. There'd been pockets of it in Vietnam, after a while, but from the moment this war started, the Democrats sought to use it as a political wedge.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: Obama said we need to reach out. And get this -- if -- now, folks --

CALLER: To the Taliban. I know what you're getting ready to say.

LIMBAUGH: If you want real sophistry -- this is scary, incompetent sophistry. You're exactly right, Beverly, we need to reach out to moderate members of the Taliban, like we did the Shia in -- there are no --

CALLER: Yes, sir.

LIMBAUGH: -- moderate Taliban. There are no moderate Al Qaeda. They are either dead or alive, but they are not moderate. And we've got a guy who wants to attach U.S. political labels to extreme, radical, thug terrorist murderers. It is outrageous.

CALLER: Yes, sir.

LIMBAUGH: There's no such thing as a moderate Taliban.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: Now, Obama did not specifically say we want to have a meeting with the Taliban. He said we need to reach out to moderate elements of the Taliban, just like we did in Iraq, to gang up on Muqi's boys -- Muqtada al-Sadr.

But that is just -- again. I'll tell you what's really frustrating about that. It's that kind of irresponsible rhetoric -- whether he means it or not -- if he means it it's a double bad whammy. If he's just saying it as a politician would because he knows or thinks that most Americans are squishy and would do anything to avoid conflict, and some of you would say, "Well, there are moderates in all of our enemies. There are moderates." Just reach out -- if he thinks that'll keep his approval numbers up, that could be the reason.

Either way, it is irresponsible, and it is incompetent, and it is unforgivable to portray the Taliban or Al Qaeda -- it's the same thing as portraying Al Qaeda. Let's find a moderate bin Laden. It's just -- it's irresponsible, at the least. It's irresponsible and incompetent at the best. Well, there is no best -- at the worst.

Echo chamber

Read extensively from Hassett's "brilliant" Bloomberg column.