This hour of the Limbaugh Wire brought to you by the "mythical" homeless veteran
By Simon Maloy

Good afternoon, everyone. A quick glance at our TV screen revealed that the Dow, as of this moment, is up about 200 points. As a colleague pointed out, this can mean only one thing -- Obama secretly left the country last night. But where could he have gone? Our guess: He traveled to the foreign, exotic land of Hawaii to pressure state officials to pick a random hospital as his "birthplace" and name it a national landmark. That might sound crazy, but it makes just as much sense as Rush's Obama/Dow theory.

El Rushbo kicked off today's show by returning to the Somali pirate saga, playing a sound bite of Obama declining to comment on the ongoing situation. According to Rush: "This is President Obama voting present, declining to comment. This is President Obama not wanting to address anything that is hard. Addressing things that are hard bring your approval numbers down." Rush went on to attack Secretary of State Clinton for saying during a press event with the Moroccan foreign minister yesterday that the "world must come together to end the scourge of piracy," and laughing as she was recounting America's cooperation with Morocco in combating piracy in the early 19th century. Rush said that Clinton "warned" us all about this "3 a.m. phone call," but both she and Obama are "inept" in their handling of this. They "don't know what to do."

Rush returned from the break still on the pirates, claiming that Hillary Clinton's "cackle" with the Moroccan minister was "irresponsible," as was Clinton describing piracy as "criminal activity." You'll recall that Limbaugh was cracking jokes about the very same hostage situation yesterday. According to Rush: "The whole reason that there is a resurgence of piracy, which is something that was thought to have been stamped out a couple hundred years ago, is precisely because idiots like Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama think pirates and terrorists -- and this is terrorism -- are criminals, not enemies." The administration and "the left" don't get it, according to Rush. They "fervently believe[]" America has enemies by virtue of its own existence, and because it steals from the poor nations of the world. Rush's conclusion from this? The left believes "these pirates, in a way, I mean, it's brothers in arms. You don't understand. They're mad. They have a poor country. We don't. We gotta understand them."

After another break, Rush came back saying he might have to correct himself for saying earlier that the Somali pirates are "Muslims." He had to correct himself because Obama said in Turkey that the United States is not at war with Islam, and we're not at war with the pirates, which means they must not be Muslim. Fine bit of (il)logic there. Anyway, Rush went on to speculate that the pirates might be Orthodox Jews or Southern Baptists.

Then Rush aired audio of Obama speaking at Walter Reed hospital this morning, describing how he thanked wounded soldiers for their service in Iraq. Rush was outraged that Obama would do this, because he's a member of the "Democrat Party" that last year was supposedly calling U.S. soldiers murderers, terrorists, torturers, and rapists. But, Rush claimed, the soldiers became heroes after Obama was inaugurated. Rush went on to attack Obama for "trashing" his country again at Walter Reed, saying that veterans returning from service "go without the care that they need. Too many veterans don't receive the support that they've earned. Too many who once wore our nation's uniform now sleep in our nation's streets." That's "another myth," according to Rush, and there are "[n]o pictures of this." If it really is such a big "myth," then someone ought to tell these guys.

One more break and Rush came back noting a Rasmussen poll saying that 53 percent of Americans prefer capitalism to socialism. "Obama doesn't believe in capitalism," Rush said, and Obama is loved across the world because the world hates the people he represents -- the capitalists in America. Rush went on to rip the GOP for not putting forth a presidential candidate that would defend capitalism.

Highlights from Hour 1

Outrageous comments

LIMBAUGH: The president of the United States declined comment about the situation with the Somali pirates and the captain of the U.S. ship who is being held hostage. If you had trouble understanding this, can we get a quick reaction to the pirates -- the Somali pirates? And Obama said, "Thank you, guys, we're talking about housing right now."

This is President Obama voting present, declining to comment. This is President Obama not wanting to address anything that is hard. Addressing things that are hard bring your approval numbers down.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: So, we worked in the -- the cackle, the laugh here. I mean, it's just, to me, it is irresponsible. We're in the midst of an American hostage situation and she's laughing. "And we worked together to end piracy off the coast of Moro-" [laughing]," as though -- "we ended this all those years ago" [laughing], "and damn it, it happened again."

[...]

LIMBAUGH: The pirates, way back -- "criminal activity" is the choice of words here that I wish to focus on. Pirates were defeated. Global trade blossomed in the time -- she's laughing about all the -- when the Barbary Pirates were defeated, Thomas Jefferson was the first to tackle the Muslims in this country, the -- well, militant Muslims, and of course, we joined forces [laughing] with Morocco to wipe out the pirates.

But the pirates ended up being defeated. Global trade blossomed as a result. They were not considered criminals with the same rights as, say, accused tax cheats. The pirates were considered enemies of the human race. In other words, they were alien enemy combatants, who were deemed to have no claim on the rights afforded to criminals by the civilized world. It was -- they were not treated, when they were dealt with all of these years ago, by the authorities in the world back then -- they were not dealt with as simple criminals.

And the reason people are, "Oh, piracy. I mean, that's so John Paul Jones and Davy Jones' locker. Dead piracy, where is this coming from? Why is this returning?" The whole reason that there is a resurgence of piracy, which is something that was thought to have been stamped out a couple hundred years ago, is precisely because idiots like Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama think pirates and terrorists -- and this is terrorism -- are criminals, not enemies.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: This administration does not get it. The left in this country does not understand the concept that this country has enemies. Well, they might understand that we have enemies. What they're wrong about is why.

They believe -- and I'm not exaggerating this an iota. I firmly believe this. The -- Hillary Clinton, the Clintons, the left, the Democrat Party, most of it, elected Democrat Party fervently believes we have enemies because it's our fault. We have made enemies by virtue of our own existence. We made enemies because we are braggadocios. We swagger. We're the only superpower. We're too big. We steal and plunder all of the rich resources of the world and the treasure, and we bring those resources home, and we live a lifestyle unlike anywhere else in the world. And we are stealing from the world's poor.

This is what Obama believes. It is what Hillary believes. That is why, throughout the G-20 and Obama's disastrous tour, the whole point was to cut the United States down to size. "And so, these pirates, in a way, I mean, it's brothers in arms. You don't understand. They're mad. They have a poor country. We don't. We gotta understand them."

[...]

LIMBAUGH: Now, you know, I may need to be corrected here, ladies and gentlemen. I just identified the Somali pirates as Muslim. I could be wrong about this. The president said that we are not at war with Islam. He said it in Turkey. He said it I think a couple of times on his trip to Europe that we are not at war with Islam.

Now, apparently, elements of Islam are at war with us, but we are not at war with them. So, if we're not at war with Islam, then it must mean the Somali pirates are not Muslim, right? 'Cause we're not at war with them.

I hope you're following me on this. I'm just describing what the president said while overseas on the "cut America down to size" tour. We're not at war with Islam. We're not at war with them. So, the pirates must obviously be something other than Muslim. Maybe they're Orthodox Jews. Well, if they aren't Muslim, they gotta be something. Maybe if it's not Orthodox Jews, maybe it's Reform Jews. Maybe it's Evangelicals. Everybody knows Evangelicals are mad as hell these days about a whole bunch -- maybe the Somali pirates are actually Evangelicals. Maybe they're Southern Baptists. Who knows?

But they can't be Muslim because we're not at war with Islam. I suppose they could be a rogue band -- a very, very, very tiny, small infinitesimal minority of Islam. But we're not at war with Islam. The president said so.

So the Somali pirates -- I mean, the story is that they're Muslims, but that can't be, because we're not at war with them. My guess is it's the Orthodox Jews. Orthodox Jews committing piracy in the open seas off Somalia over there, there's no question in my mind.

America's Truth Rejector

Implausibly suggested that there are no homeless veterans sleeping in the streets:

LIMBAUGH: And then, he just -- he couldn't stop when he was ahead. He then had to go on to trash his own country again.

OBAMA [video clip]: We have a sacred trust with those who wear the uniform of the Untied States of America. It's a commitment that begins at enlistment and it must never end. But we know that for too long we've fallen short of meeting that commitment. Too many wounded warriors go without the care that they need. Too many veterans don't receive the support that they've earned. Too many who once wore our nation's uniform now sleep in our nation's streets. It's time to change all that.

LIMBAUGH: Another myth. He told another whopper of a lie yesterday or the day before about a question that he was asked by the press that he wasn't asked. He was out there telling the -- telling some people the press asked, "Did you solve everything this week?" And Jake Tapper says nobody asked him that.

So, now, the nation's vets are homeless. They're sleeping under bridges. No pictures of this.

Clips from this hour:

Limbaugh on Obama's remarks about homeless veterans: "Another myth"

Referencing Obama's comment that we are not at war with Islam, Limbaugh says "it must mean the Somali pirates are not Muslim," says "maybe they're Orthodox Jews"

After saying markets "are plummeting" because of Obama's return to U.S., Limbaugh's has new theory: This may be "a temporary bear market rally"

Limbaugh on the left's views: "These pirates, in a way, I mean, it's brothers in arms. We don't understand. They're mad. They have a poor country"

Limbaugh's history: "We probably did blow up Morocco, showed them who's boss"

This hour of the Limbaugh Wire brought to you by campaign falsehoods -- horribly stale, but no less wrong
By Simon Maloy

Rush came back for the second hour shocked that the White House is disputing allegations that Obama "bowed" to the King of Saudi Arabia. There's no question, according to Rush. It was a "submissive" and "disgraceful" bow. But Rush was outraged that the White House was even responding. This is something you ignore, according to Rush, so people can keep on talking about it without ever really coming to a resolution. No, really, that's what he said. Anyway, Rush suspected that the reason the White House responded to this was to distract the media from reporting on the "disaster" of Obama's European tour. This didn't make a whole lot of sense to us, seeing as Rush has been going on for the past week about how the U.S. media will not report on the alleged failures of Obama's tour because they're "too invested" in Obama's success. If they won't report on it anyway, why do they need to be distracted?

Then Rush transmogrified into the ghost of campaign past, returning to Obama's praise of wounded veterans today, and contrasting that with Obama's 2007 comment on Afghanistan: "We've got to get the job done there and that requires us to have enough troops so that we're not just air-raiding villages and killing civilians." Absent from Rush's analysis was the fact that Obama was right, and Defense Secretary Robert Gates apologized to the Afghanis: "I offer all Afghans my sincere condolences and personal regrets for the recent loss of innocent life as a result of coalition airstrikes. While no military has ever done more to prevent civilian casualties, it is clear that we have to work even harder."

Anyway, we weren't quite done with the campaign ghosts quite yet, as Rush returned to Obama's 2008 Berlin speech, airing audio of then-candidate Obama saying :"As we speak, cars in Boston and factories in Beijing are melting the ice caps in the Arctic, shrinking coastlines in the Atlantic, and bringing drought to farms from Kansas to Kenya." This was offensive to Limbaugh because Obama's half-brother "lives in a nine-foot square hut" in Kenya. We're not sure what that has to do with anything, but we're duty-bound to report it.

After the break, Rush played another clip from the Berlin speech, with Obama saying: "I know my country has not perfected itself. At times, we've struggled to keep the promise of liberty and equality for all of our people. We've made our share of mistakes. And there are times when our actions around the world have not lived up to our best intentions." According to Rush: "So there you have it. And this is the essence of Barack Obama: to go around the world, apologize for America, admit what he thinks are the imperfections; to disown and ignore the entire concept of American exceptionalism." Now, taken in isolation, that clip of Obama Rush played certainly could lend itself to that interpretation -- that Obama eschews "American exceptionalism." But let's take a look at what Obama said immediately after the clip Rush played -- you know, the context. So said Obama:

OBAMA: But I also know how much I love America. I know that for more than two centuries, we have strived -- at great cost and great sacrifice -- to form a more perfect union; to seek, with other nations, a more hopeful world. Our allegiance has never been to any particular tribe or kingdom -- indeed, every language is spoken in our country; every culture has left its imprint on ours; every point of view is expressed in our public squares. What has always united us -- what has always driven our people; what drew my father to America's shores -- is a set of ideals that speak to aspirations shared by all people: that we can live free from fear and free from want; that we can speak our minds and assemble with whomever we choose and worship as we please.

Wow, certainly looks like Obama was saying that America is pretty ... what's the word we're looking for? Oh, right. Exceptional.

Leading into the commercial break, Rush took a call from a woman who wondered why Obama declined to comment on the pirate issue in the clip Rush had played, given his vaunted multitasking skills. It's because there was no teleprompter, Rush said. At this point, we found ourselves glad that Rush left the tired and well-worn ground of campaign falsehoods and returned to making ultra-fresh teleprompter jokes.

On the other side of the commercial break, Rush took a call from a man saying the Obama administration and the Clintons don't want to embrace the legal principle that would classify pirates and terrorists "enemies of the human race," because the left sympathizes with the motives of terrorists. Rush completely agreed and reprised his theory that "[p]iracy is rebounding precisely because of the American left and the European left's lack of intestinal fortitude -- gonads, if you will -- to categorize these people as they really are and to pursue them on that basis." According to Rush, "enemies of America are friends of the Democrat Party."

After another break, Rush came back quite exasperated over an email he received from a distraught listener who was upset over a bit from the first hour in which Limbaugh admitted he "lied" about meeting with Obama back in January. We didn't include it in the first hour because it took way too long to set up and dealt with something that happened three months ago. But anyway, Rush had to go through it again and explain what he said and why it was so funny and how he can't do "brilliant" bits like this anymore because no one will understand them and the media will misconstrue them, etc. Anyway, this served to reinforce for us a precept that we've held for quite some time -- if you have to explain a joke, it ain't that funny.

Rounding out the hour, Rush took a call from a man suspecting that Obama would re-adopt the term "war on terror" so he could take credit for winning it and be a "wartime superhero." We thought this sort of conspiratorial thinking would be right in Rush's wheelhouse, but he disagreed, saying that Obama "intends" to fall flat on national security, because, in Obama's thinking, "U.S. national security is going to be improved by making us weaker."

Highlights from Hour 2

Outrageous comments

LIMBAUGH: Folks, let's not forget here -- let's not forget just how outrageously treated the men and women of the U.S. military were by the Democrat Party for the entire duration of the Iraq war, not just the last couple or three years. It was just a year ago that Obama was chiming in on all this.

In fact, Associated Press, August 14th, 2007: Presidential hopeful Barack Obama was warned by a friendly voter Monday to avoid public spats with his Democrat rivals. But remarks he made later could add fuel to the criticism against him. Asked whether he would move U.S. troops out of Iraq to better fight terrorism elsewhere, he brought up Afghanistan. He said, "We've got to get the job done there and that requires us to have enough troops so that we're not just air-raiding villages and killing civilians."

So, here is our president, in the campaign, August 2007, saying we gotta do more than kill civilians.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: One more sound bite from our archives: President Obama in Berlin on July 4th -- 24th, sorry, July 24th, last summer.

OBAMA [audio clip]: People of Berlin, people of the world, this is our moment. This is our time. I know my country has not perfected itself. At times, we've struggled to keep the promise of liberty and equality for all of our people. We've made our share of mistakes. And there are times when our actions around the world have not lived up to our best intentions.

LIMBAUGH: So there you have it. And this is the essence of Barack Obama: to go around the world, apologize for America, admit what he thinks are the imperfections; to disown and ignore the entire concept of American exceptionalism.

As somebody with this view of America has been elected president is still something I have trouble believing. I don't know that I've actually gotten over this. I mean, I'm an adult, and it is what it is, and you have to deal with it. But I can't -- we've actually elected somebody with this attitude about his own country to be president.

I'm not gonna bother analyzing the voters. You know, they're cult followers. They don't care what he says; it's how he says it, blah, blah, blah, blah. I -- there's no suitable explanation that's good. There's no explanation that will excuse this.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: You know, people are like, "How come piracy is rebounding?" Piracy is rebounding precisely because of the American left and the European left's lack of intestinal fortitude -- gonads, if you will -- to categorize these people as they really are and to pursue them on that basis.

"We can't torture them." When we don't torture -- whatever we do is called torture. Everything we did to get answers was called torture. We can't do that.

We're mean. We're the bad guys. We put them up in a hellhole called Guantánamo Bay and Abu Ghraib. We're the bad guys. We're setting a bad example for the world. These people are just from an oppressed minority. We're too big. It's totally understandable why these people would hate us. We're the world's superpower. We steal the resources of the world to enrich ourselves, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

The Democrat Party -- enemies of America are friends of the Democrat Party.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: He intends to. There is -- U.S. national security is going to be improved by making us weaker. That way we'll be less of a threat.

This hour of the Limbaugh Wire brought to you by revisionist economic history
By Simon Maloy

We've reached the final hour, and Rush is feeling demoralized, but promised to soldier on regardless. For once, we sympathize with the man... Anyway, he kicked it off by attacking Brown University for dropping Columbus Day and renaming it Fall Weekend because students urged the change "after controversy arose over the nature of Christopher Columbus' conquests and treatment of Native Americans." Rush laid into these Brown students, comparing their intellectual aptitude to the vast wastelands of the Sahara desert.

Then it was time for Rush's daily Tea Party plug, revisiting yesterday's conspiracy theory that ACORN will dispatch its elite infiltration units to cause violence at the Tea Parties in order to discredit them. Rush noted that Politico is reporting that ACORN is going to stage its own protests outside post offices to bring fairness to the tax code. Rush didn't really make a whole lot of noise about this, but we think he's missing the bigger picture. Just like how the White House is trying to distract the media by talking about the Saudi King, ACORN is trying to distract the media away from covering its Tea Party infiltration by staging these post office protests. And it is probably paying for all this with the $4 billion it got from the government! It all makes perfect sense...

Anyway, after attacking The New York Times and the Boston Globe over their ongoing dispute over the Globe's viability, Rush aired some audio from Obama's remarks this morning on housing, encouraging Americans to refinance their mortgages and to visit MakingHomeAffordable.gov to find out if they're eligible. Rush told his listeners not to fall for this, but said he might go to the website and plug in his $15 million mortgage to see if it will even accept it. Then he aired audio of Obama warning Americans against "scammers" offering to lower their mortgage rates. This was funny to Rush: "[H]e realizes he's got competition. He's in competition with the loan sharks, ladies and gentlemen."

After the break, Rush purported to offer the audience some examples of news stories that are not news, the most prominent being the New York Times' report that "President Obama plans to begin addressing the country's immigration system this year" despite political difficulties caused by the recession. Rush said this was not news because he predicted it last January, airing a clip of himself saying that immigration reform ("amnesty," as he dubbed it) will be taken up again by Republicans or Democrats at some point in the future. Eat your heart out, Nostradamus.

As a counterweight to his slandering of the Brown University students at the top of the hour, Rush took a call from a college student claiming that his liberal economics professor was constantly running down supply-side economics, saying it doesn't work and that it exacerbates income inequality. Rush said supply-side does work. It works every time. It's brilliant. Just look at Ronald Reagan, said Rush. When he came into office, the top marginal tax rate was 70 percent, he cut it to 28 percent, and suddenly, the economy was hunky-dory. And it was all thanks to supply-side economics, which, according to Rush, is "simply capitalism," and leaves money in the hands of the people, not government. We found it an interesting theory, but there was one niggling little detail that eluded us -- specifically how Reagan's multiple tax increases squared with this brilliant example of supply-side economics in motion. Anyway, Rush peppered the conversation with some digs at the student's "walking liberal cliché" professor who just wants to make "everyone miserable," and found it sad that his parents paid so much money for tuition when all this young man had to do was call in to Rush's show for free to learn the "truth."

Rush closed out the show by taking one more call, a devoted fan who nonetheless disagreed with Rush's attacks on the unions. Rush said he didn't have time to get into this because there were only a few seconds left in the program and promised to call the guy back tomorrow. But in that time, he did have Rush deny he'd been "critical of unions, per se"; rather, he'd been critical of the union leadership. Mere seconds later, Rush reiterated his devout reverence for "individuality" and said that when you join a union, "you're giving away your individuality." We look forward to the conversation resuming tomorrow.

Speaking of tomorrow, that's when we'll be back, as we're all out of Limbaugh for today. We do hope you'll join us again, and to better understand our jokes so we don't have to explain them, please take a moment to peruse Media Matters' complete and unabridged Limbaugh coverage.

Highlights from Hour 3

Outrageous comments

LIMBAUGH: Making you money? What is it? MakingHomeAffordable.gov. Go in there and plug in your pathetic figures, listen to the administration's website tell you whether you qualify, but don't go out there -- don't go out there. And if anybody that demands money up front -- that's right. The government demands money all the time, at the end, from the front, from the rear, from the down, from the up. What do we got? We got scammers out there?

Obama is admitting that there are scam artists in America now that he's president? They're going to take advantage of the people? Don't be fooled. So, he realizes he's got competition. He's in competition with the loan sharks, ladies and gentlemen.

Clips from this hour:

Limbaugh: "Piracy is rebounding precisely because of the American left and the European left's lack of intestinal fortitude, gonads, if you will"