This hour of the Limbaugh Wire brought to you by the "liberty" of tea parties that "black people" don't find attractive
By Simon Maloy

Happy Friday, everyone. We emerged relatively unscathed from Mark Steyn's latest guest-hosting adventure, and now it's Mark Davis' turn behind the golden microphone.

Davis got the show rolling by decrying how "ardently" the Obama White House is "beating the drum" for prosecutions of "people who kept us safe." Davis said that political and ideological disagreements are the "music of democracy," but when you intend to "criminalize" any "opposition to your narrative," that's "pathological, and that's what we're seeing." Davis said he obviously recognizes there will be presidents with whom he disagrees, noting that we "survived" eight years of the Clinton administration, but Obama is different. Obama's first 100 days, according to Davis, has been "a nightmare that he could not have envisioned," proclaiming "This is the worst hundred days ever in my lifetime, and I think I'd say that if I were 150 years old." Our personal opinion is that William Henry Harrison's first 100 days were the worst ever, mainly because he didn't get to 70 of them.

Then it was on to the tea parties. Davis noted that he emceed a tea party in Dallas last week, and he told the attendees not to gripe but to be proud that "hateful" people like Janeane Garofalo had attacked them. That's what the left did, said Davis, they attacked the tea partiers as "mentally retarded" so that they wouldn't have to address what was actually said at the rallies. Davis counseled the tea partiers to wear those attacks as a "badge of honor," and then announced that Byron York of the Washington Examiner (formerly of National Review) will be joining him at the top of the second hour.

Coming back from the break, Davis took a call from a man who said that the tea parties were not grassroots, but were organized from the top down by the Republican National Committee and other large organizations. Davis said the vast majority of people showing up to the tea parties had no idea that Dick Armey was involved, and the idea that Armey "pushed a button" that made the tea parties spontaneously occur is ridiculous. The caller then said that he'd never met one of these America-hating, flag burning liberals Davis and his colleagues keep talking about, and that he's actually seeing a lot of "Obama Derangement Syndrome" out there, much like there was "Bush Derangement Syndrome" for the last eight years. Davis said the difference between ODS and BDS was not in the "vociferousness," but the "content."

Another break and Davis was back, explaining that "there were people of all sizes, shapes, stripes, economic levels, and yes, races" at the tea party he hosted in Dallas. Davis added: "I mean, did they tend to be pretty white? Yeah. Hang on, maybe talk shows of the future will deal not with the question of, you know, 'What is it we're doing that repels black people?' but 'Why aren't black people more attracted by liberty?' "

"Why aren't black people more attracted by liberty?" Seriously?

We didn't have a whole lot of time to dissect the many layers of wrongness in that question, because Davis moved on to his next caller, a tea party organizer who was proud of the attendance she saw at her rally. Davis asked her where she thought the path from the tea parties would lead, because the "goals" of the tea parties won't be achiever, Davis said, until a bunch of Republicans are kicked out of Congress and replaced with Republicans.

After plugging a "massive" July 4 tea party event (more "grassroots" organizing from the biggest radio program in America), Davis took another call, this from a man who said conservatives need to be less defensive and more aggressive. Davis said this notion that conservatism is "recoiling" is "very February," explaining that a whole bunch of conservatives are more excited now than they were a few months ago, and now they have hope for 2010. That hope, we should note, is not shared by many.

Rounding out the hour, Davis took a call from a woman who was saddened to see the country slipping away and the national debate getting nastier. Davis agreed that civility has been on the wane, but that you can't blame it on talk radio, least of all on the man for whom he is guest-hosting, because "actual, civilized discourse" is what Rush is all about. We at Media Matters have nearly five years worth of evidence to the contrary.

Highlights from Hour 1

Outrageous comments

DAVIS: From the perspective of a lifelong conservative, these Obama years, these -- this first hundred days is a nightmare that I could not have envisioned as I watched him take the oath of office. Watched it, right there, went to the inauguration. I tend to go to all of these and quite the emotional rollercoaster that is between seeing someone sworn in you voted for and admire and seeing someone sworn in whom you just brace yourself and hope that things don't go as badly as they might. Well, it's -- at that time, at that time, between the election, let's say, and the inauguration, people were calling me and saying that "the Earth is gonna spin wildly out of its orbit, this is going to be just horrible." And I told every caller in that regard, "Look, I am similarly braced. Let's wait and see what the man actually does. Let's react not to our very well-founded fears, but let's react to what he actually does."

Well, how's that working out for everybody? Because I've spent just about every day reacting to what the man has actually done, and except for beefing up troop forces in Afghanistan, and I don't know, I mean, I don't know -- and the Easter egg roll, I have found everything to be abhorrent. This is the worst hundred days ever in my lifetime, and I think I'd say that if I were 150 years old.

[...]

DAVIS: All right, having -- having put the character type, the species of human that is the tea party organizer/tea party attendee under the microscope to see, it's funny because you can't generalize. At the tea party in Dallas that I was proud to emcee, there were people of all sizes, shapes, stripes, economic levels, and, yes, races. I mean, did they tend to be pretty white? Yeah. Hang on, maybe talk shows of the future will deal not with the question of, you know, "What is it we're doing that repels black people?" but "Why aren't black people more attracted by liberty?" There's your question.

Clips from this hour

Limbaugh fill-in: "Why aren't black people more attracted by liberty?"

This hour of the Limbaugh Wire brought to you by Nixon's investigations into White House criminality
By Simon Maloy

As advertised in the first hour, Davis got the second one started with a conversation with the Washington Examiner's Byron York about the Obama administration's "patholog[ical]" attempts to "criminalize" the opinions of the Bush torture memo authors. York said he'd had an opportunity to speak with Bush solicitor general Ted Olson about the potential interrogation investigations, who told York that Obama had opened the door to subpoenas and such and that he can't close it now. Davis noted that the White House had reportedly backed off the investigations, but asked if they could go forward in Congress without Obama's support. York said he's trying to figure out where the White House stands on all this, alleging that they're playing both sides in backing off the investigations, but at the same time releasing photos of the interrogations. After some brief discussion of how great York, Bill Sammon, and Michael Barone have made the Examiner, Davis asked York to predict the fates of Janet Napolitano and Kathleen Sebelius. York said he thought Napolitano wouldn't be leaving Homeland Security anytime soon, but Commerce nominee Sebelius isn't "out of the woods" yet.

After the break, Davis told everyone that he had attended the last White House Christmas party of the Bush administration, and actually met with the former president in the Oval Office about a week before he left office. Davis said he told this story because Bush told Davis at the party that he was going to return to Texas "with his head held high," and Bush "did exactly what he said he was going to do." Davis then said they had to extend this tea party spirit to 2010 and 2012 because they need to end "the pernicious agenda that seeks to rob us blind, establish an even deeper, more profound culture of dependency, and sacrifice our liberties in the process."

Davis then took a call from a man who asked whether Richard Nixon, upon assuming office, conducted criminal investigations into the Johnson and Kennedy administrations regarding their disastrous prosecution of the Vietnam War. Davis said this was a great point, that the war was at its worst point when Nixon came in, and Nixon still managed to beat the stuffing out of anti-war candidate. Personally, we think Richard Nixon is a very, very poor choice of presidents to talk about when addressing potential crimes committed in office.

The Davis purported to explain why the "left" is still so "angry" despite having control of the White House and Congress. There are two reasons, said Davis: 1) the left are "political bigots" who don't want to govern but rather want to destroy the reputations of those who oppose them, and 2) the Democrats they've elected to office aren't liberal enough for the "radicalized" left.

After another quick break, Davis exhorted conservatives to master Facebook and Twitter as the Obama campaign did, and to use that technology to organize July 4th tea parties with the intent of "keeping our hopes alive for somehow derailing this demonic train from its tracks, a train that send us in the abyss of debt and cultures of dependency." Davis then took a call from a man hoping to organize tea parties in Michigan for Independence Day, and claiming that there were several Democrats at his tax day tea party who were concerned about spending. Davis said that it is so much easier to find someone upset about spending than about taxation because spending resonates with everyone, no matter how much you make. Taxation, he said, is different because Obama and his "minions" are being crafty in claiming that they are going to cut taxes for 95 percent of America. Davis said their real intention is to find people who pay only a little in taxes and reduce their tax burden to zero so they'll be rendered "numb and disinterested" in the tax debate. We're not sure how any of that makes sense, but it's refreshing to hear a conservative to acknowledge that Obama actually does want to cut taxes.

Another break and Davis was back, praising the AP's Jennifer Loven and ABC's Jake Tapper for pressing White House press secretary Robert Gibbs at a recent press briefing on President Obama's call to trim $100 million from the Cabinet budgets. After giving Tapper and Loven a "standing O," Davis said: "And what we may actually have here, and this is funny -- I mean, I look for optimism in every corner, or reasons for optimism, and if this indeed -- if this is indeed the White House that is so radically pathologically left, so socialist-leaning, so Marxist-resembling, that even the White House press corps' eyebrows go up."

Rounding out the hour, Davis took a call from a gentleman in California upset that Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats had been briefed on interrogation methods back in 2002. Davis said there's vagueness as to what happened -- the Democrats say they were briefed on the techniques, but they were not told that they would be used. According to Davis: "That's a very nuanced point that she will probably cling to to avoid just what you're talking about, namely the double standard of it be tolerable in 2002, when America was serious about the war, versus now, when most Americans are not and the president is not." Davis thanked the caller, who he said resided in "the People's Republic of Nancy." Davis closed everything out by explaining why harsh interrogation tactics were not a big issue in 2002: "Because we hadn't forgotten yet."

Highlights from Hour 2

Outrageous comments

DAVIS: And I just so yearned to tie ourselves back into sort of the premise of the day, taking the tea party spirit and just reaching for that November 2010 election day finish line, and then reaching for that November 2012 finish line, when hopefully what's finished will be the pernicious agenda that seeks to rob us blind, establish an even deeper, more profound culture of dependency, and sacrifice our liberties in the process. This must stop. And you know this Rush Limbaugh show is going to be a major outpost at which observations are made for the progress of that effort.

[...]

DAVIS: The left is frustrated again because the moment they got power, now they gotta actually go to work. What they really want to do is ruin the reputations of anybody who ever disagreed with them. The tax cuts must be portrayed retroactively as evil. The war, even though it's working, must retroactively be referred to as some abysmal failure. Conservatives who rise up on something like a tea party day must be savaged reputationally. So -- and these are political bigots. Political bigotry is the same as racial bigotry or religious bigotry -- just hating somebody because what they are! Now do we practice that sometimes? Yeah, sure. Is there such as thing as somebody who will discover that you're a liberal and will no longer shake your hand or even give you the time of day? Yeah, and you know what? That's ugly too. You know what the difference is? Our political bigots are not in Congress. Political bigots on the right tend not to be in important policy-making decisions.

[...]

DAVIS: But there is just no doubt that this is taking the place of five thousand phone calls, five thousand -- email now seems sluggish to me. My head is a-spinning. The notion of composing an email, putting together a send list, oh, who do I want to get this or not, I mean Twitter, hello? Boop! Gone. Facebook, much the same. And to their credit, the Obama folks had this down as of summer of '08, and that's part of what cleaned our clocks. And as we work our way toward 2010 and 2012, we must become masters of this domain. Or at least competitors in this domain. There's also an observation that I heard made recently that I think is some genius. In terms of organizing and in terms of keeping -- keep hope alive -- great, I'm quoting Jesse Jackson now in terms of keeping our hopes alive for somehow derailing this demonic train from its tracks, a train that send us in the abyss of debt and cultures of dependency.

[...]

DAVIS: If what you describe actually happened, here's the -- here's the great vagueness that she can benefit from. In those 2002 hearings, there were absolutely Democrats in the room. They were absolutely briefed on its potential use. Her quote is, "We were not, and I repeat, were not told that waterboarding or any of these other enhanced interrogation techniques were used. What they did tell us is that they have some legislative counsel opinions that they could be used." That's a very nuanced point that she will probably cling to to avoid just what you're talking about, namely the double standard of it be tolerable in 2002, when America was serious about the war, versus now, when most Americans are not and the president is not.

"Socialism" watch

DAVIS: And what we may actually have here, and this is funny -- I mean, I look for optimism in every corner, or reasons for optimism, and if this indeed -- if this is indeed the White House that is so radically pathologically left, so socialist-leaning, so Marxist-resembling, that even the White House press corps' eyebrows go up. [whistling] We may be on to something here.

Clips from this hour

Limbaugh fill-in: White House is "socialist-leaning," "Marxist-resembling"

This hour of the Limbaugh Wire brought to you by the "pantywaists" of "the left"
By Simon Maloy

Davis kicked off the final hour still talking about Twitter and Facebook, saying that this sort of technology could change politicking in the near future. Speaking of politicking and technology, Davis wondered why the glut of presidential candidates these days still needed to travel all over the country. Davis said there's a charm to retail politics, and it's unfortunate that technology has supplanted certain aspects of our interpersonal communications, but when it comes to running for president, you don't really need to meet a candidate. It doesn't make any difference. And yet, Davis said, you're nevertheless going to see all the Republican candidates flock to Iowa and New Hampshire so they can go to the pancake breakfasts.

Davis then took a call from a man who was very upset at Obama's inconsistency in being open to investigating the authors of the torture memos, but not the CIA personnel who performed the interrogations. Davis said that to the "left," protecting the country by using those tactics is "evil." But Davis said that Obama and the White House were trying to look "moderate" in refusing to prosecute the CIA, but instead going after the lawyers who devised the "Constitutional" means by which the interrogations could be conducted. The effect of this, Davis said, is that advisers will refuse to offer advice to the president out of fear of going to prison later on down the road, adding: "And that's what's funny about the left is they -- I think they really do believe that 10, 15, 20 years from now, that America and the world will look back and say that they were right, that for them to be pantywaists and softies on terror will be viewed as admirable."

After the break, Davis proclaimed "the shameful moment of the week" was Energy Secretary Steven Chu's remark during the Summit of the Americas that, as a consequence of rising sea levels due to climate change, "some island states will simply disappear." Davis called it "shameful" and "science fiction." Actually, no, it's not. The IPCC noted that studies have been done on the impact of climate change on island states, and one such study found that "states such as the Marshall Islands, Tuvalu, and Kiribati would suffer 'profound' impacts, including disappearance in the worst-case scenario; 'severe impacts,' resulting in major population displacement, would be experienced by the Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru, and Tonga; 'moderate to severe impacts' would be felt by Fiji and the Solomon Islands; and 'local severe to catastrophic' effects would be experienced by Vanuatu and Western Samoa."

Davis took another caller before the break, this one from Staten Island, who objected to compulsory union membership. Davis agreed with the caller, and lamented Rush's "travails and trials and tribulations" with New York City, which he said was a shame because New York City and the state as a whole are great. Davis then asked if Rudy Giuliani really wants to be governor of New York, and if there was any job he wanted short of president. Well, judging by the way Rudy ran his last presidential campaign, we're not so sure he really wanted that job either.

After the break, Davis offered an impassioned plea for allowing cameras in the Supreme Court, saying he would watch the court on TV just to see the "brilliance" of Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. He also conjectured that lots of people who opposed cameras on the court 20 years ago now support the idea so that they can see the liberal justices "go wacky" and turn "the United States into a social project Petri dish." We'd like to point out at this juncture that Justice Scalia apparently dislikes quite strongly the idea of televised Supreme Court proceedings.

Then it was time for another caller, this one saying he's been reading a lot of Alexander Solzhenitsyn lately and that the U.S. is starting to look Stalinist to him. Davis said that "it's easy to be generic overreactor guy and say, 'Obama! He is Castro! He's Hitler!' I mean, you know, please, you can find all of that. But the way to go at this is not to overstate it but also not to understate it." Davis then explained that at his Dallas tea party there was a speaker who had escaped from Cuba as Castro was seizing power, and " the list of things he said happened had way too much overlap with the United States in 2009 to make anybody comfortable." Davis added: "Is it apples and apples? Of course not. But even to lean, to walk, to have a flavor in that direction, toward that kind of communism and Marxism, should shock every American."

Davis took one more caller between breaks who wanted Davis to explain how Obama's policies are making us less safe. Davis said that the idea that the war on terror has created more terrorists is, of course, obviously true. It was just like with Germany and Japan -- if you go to war with someone, of course you're going to make them mad.

He closed out the show by going after Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, specifically for an exchange she had with Rep. Dana Rohrbacher (R-CA) during House testimony on whether she would support Dick Cheney's request to have declassified memos that demonstrate the effectiveness of the harsh interrogation techniques. Davis said Clinton refused to answer because she would have to acknowledge that the techniques worked.

That does it for the Wire this week, and we have to say that we're glad the week is over. There's only so much shrill, anti-Obama hyperventilating a body can take, and we reached our saturation point some time Tuesday afternoon. So while we take the weekend to detox and reset for Monday's return of El Rushbo, we highly recommend that you check out Media Matters' Limbaugh archives. They grow by leaps and bounds every day, even when Rush isn't around. Have a good weekend.

Highlights from Hour 3

Outrageous comments

DAVIS: And that's what's funny about the left is they -- I think they really do believe that 10, 15, 20 years from now, that America and the world will look back and say that they were right, that for them to be pantywaists and softies on terror will be viewed as admirable.

"Socialism" watch

DAVIS: At the Dallas tea party, we had a bunch of speakers, a ton of speakers. And one of them was a gentleman who had escaped Cuba within a year after Castro took over. And I know it's easy to be generic overreactor guy and say, "Obama! He is Castro! He's Hitler!" I mean, you know, please, you can find all of that. But the way to go at this is not to overstate it but also not to understate it. And what this gentleman did is he gave a list of events of things he saw through his own eyes in 1959 and '60 as Cuba came under the clutches of the communist murderer Fidel Castro. And the list of things he said happened had way too much overlap with the United States in 2009 to make anybody comfortable. Is it apples and apples? Of course not. But even to lean, to walk, to have a flavor in that direction, toward that kind of communism and Marxism, should shock every American.

Clips from this hour

Limbaugh sub on SCOTUS cameras: People could see when "Kennedy goes wacky or Ruth Bader Ginsburg, you know, invokes foreign law or they start making up stuff"