This hour of the Limbaugh Wire brought to you by the "hot" Uighur "babes"
By Simon Maloy

Here at the Limbaugh Wire, we don't care for raw tomatoes. This gustatory peculiarity usually earns us bemused looks from haughty gourmands, or expressions of sympathy that we'll never be able to enjoy the unadulterated delights of a Caprese salad. Occasionally, some nagging busybody good-natured observer will remark to us that taste buds change over time, and that we should give raw tomatoes another go, just to see if, by some strange biochemical alchemy, we now enjoy them. And every now and again we will give them another shot. The result, however, is always the same -- the offending fruit is pushed to the side of the plate, and we feel foolish for subordinating common sense to half-baked dreams of exploring new culinary vistas. We're reminded of our tomato travails on those rare occasions -- such as today -- when National Review's Mark Steyn sits in for Rush. We already know what the show will be like, but it's been so long since he last hosted that we try to convince ourselves that maybe we won't find him to be that bad -- maybe he won't talk about cat AIDS, or call President Obama "Princess Fluffy Bunny," or celebrate the "de-gaying" of marriage. But, as with tomatoes, the result is always the same -- we reproach ourselves for such pie-in-the-sky naïveté, and we're left with a bad taste in our mouths that requires lots of wine to wash out.

Anyway, Steyn got things going with a discussion of how funny the word "Uighur" sounds, particularly when pronounced phonetically. Then it was on to the big news items of the week -- North Korea is planning to celebrate July 4th by nuking Hawaii, Obama gave a press conference today on prescription drug plan for seniors that's sure to add to the deficit, and people are once again in the streets in Iran today. Steyn noted that the Iranian Council of Guardians (which he said sounds like something out of Star Wars) has found that in over 50 cities, the turnout was well over 100 percent. Steyn said that you can see why Obama is hesitant to criticize the Iranians -- apparently they've outsourced the running of the polling stations to ACORN.

Then Steyn credited the mainstream media for actually doing a "fine job," specifically praising CBS's Mark Knoller for his Twitter coverage of Obama's visit with his daughters to a Virginia ice cream parlor this weekend. Steyn also credited the New York Times for giving context to the story in reporting that this was "the latest in a series of restaurant visits since Mr. Obama took office." Steyn said this reminded him of Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, in which all news bulletins were concerned with the mundane doings of the king. Obama's visit to the ice cream parlor, noted Steyn, had no policy implications, as he didn't bring along Tim Geithner to nationalize the ice cream industry, nor did he bring along Barney Frank to introduce "sub-prime sprinkles." Steyn then credited Michael Goldfarb of the Weekly Standard for noting that after "some twitterers complained that maybe President Obama's time could be better spent given the crisis in Iran, Knoller responded, 'Surprised by the outrage at the ice cream outing. What is it you expect or want the US to do about Iran? Attack? War?' " Steyn loved this "false choice" between "war and ice cream," though he didn't stop to ponder the similarly false choice that the president should apparently be making between ice cream and Iran.

After the break, Steyn said that this will be a big week for Iran, and that there's a choice to be made regarding Iran, and it isn't hard to make. In the streets of Iran's cities, said Steyn, the people have to choose between freedom and death, and millions have chosen to live free. It's not difficult, said Steyn, adding that he doesn't know why the president thinks it is. It's the good revolutionaries versus the bad revolutionaries, Steyn said, so it shouldn't be hard to choose between a murderous regime and the people standing against them. Steny then lamented that we get all this "sophistry" from the "so-called realists" in Washington about how Obama shouldn't be seen as taking sides in this. Well, Steyn retorted, Ayatollah Khamenei has already blamed everything on the Americans, and if you're being blamed anyway, you should step up and take the right side.

After another break, Steyn remarked that he'd met a "hot" Uighur "babe" once, and that he would be open to the government resettling "hot" Uighur women in his "pad in New Hampshire." Then it was time for his first caller, who said that Obama is making the right choice on Iran, saying that we've been in trouble in the past giving supportive signals to rebellious people, and we don't need to involve ourselves until the people involved resolve their own crisis. Steyn said the caller was right, if people want freedom for themselves, they should rise up and take it, but what is at issue here is Obama deference to a regime that has been at war with the U.S. for three decades. We have a "debt of honor" to "destroy" this regime, said Steyn -- not directly, but at least through moral support to those who oppose it. After the caller asked if Steyn really believed that Obama taking that stance would really change anything, Steyn said: "Well, that's what the Iranian émigrés and that's what the leaders of this protest movement say, that they would like -- they're not asking for anything extraordinary, they're asking for him to be as butch and as macho as this president of France, that's all," adding: "Why can't he do that?" The caller said that "calm competence" is why Obama isn't doing that -- we've been doing "cowboy-ism" for too long, and it's the Iranian's responsibility to be "macho," not ours. Steyn said to the caller we have "unfinished business" with Iran, a gangster state which was enabled by Jimmy Carter. There is a debt of honor here, Steyn reiterated, and the "calm complacency" that the caller praised allowed this regime to be born. The caller actually said "calm competence," but we recognize that Steyn might have trouble recognizing competence when he sees it.

Steyn's next caller said that there were two horrible things about Obama saying there isn't much difference between Ahmadinejad and Mousavi -- people are dying in the streets for the freedom to make that choice, and those people are dying to show that the people are the real leaders of Iran. Steyn says he's right, Mousavi's positions aren't at issue here, it's about the right of the people to make that choice. What's important, Steyn said, is that you take a moral stand, and through that you can change the climate of opinion. Steyn says the signal the ayatollahs are getting from Washington right now is that Obama is a "gutless pansy" and a "stability fetishist."

One more break and Steyn rounded out the hour with a caller who wanted to correct him on the Uighurs -- they aren't just Chinese Muslims, they're also out of North Africa. Steyn said he didn't go to Harvard to get a "degree in Uighur-ology," but he thought that Uighurs were a Turkic group. Caller says that's not untrue, but there's also a huge community in North Africa. Steyn said he opposes releasing guys from Gitmo and sending them to Palau, but this might work -- if we can relocate the entire jihad to the beaches of Palau, this might work. This is like some bizarre version of Clue, said Steyn -- "it was the Uighur, with the Semtex belt, on the beaches of Palau." We've pointed out before that the Uighurs were taken off the "enemy combatants" list last year -- by the Bush administration -- and that they've never been charged with or convicted of terrorism.

Lauryn Bruck and Zachary Pleat contributed to this edition of the Limbaugh Wire.

Highlights from Hour 1

Outrageous comments

STEYN: Well, that's what the Iranian émigrés and that's what the leaders of this protest movement say, that they would like -- they're not asking for anything extraordinary, they're asking for him to be as butch and as macho as this president of France, that's all.

This hour of the Limbaugh Wire brought to you by doughnut holes and Tony Danza
By Simon Maloy

Steyn got the second hour rolling by saying it's a big week for health care, and that health care is a fascinating topic in how it has become the focus of the nation, even though there isn't a big health care problem. Steyn noted that The New York Times reported that Americans overwhelmingly support changing the health care system in this country, but buried in the ninth paragraph was the fact that 77 percent of Americans are satisfied with their health care. It was actually in the third paragraph, but who's counting ... Steyn said that even though people are satisfied, this is the "age of big government," so we're going to destroy that system by implementing government-run health care, which changes the relationship between the citizen and the state and is an "assault on citizenship."

Then Steyn noted that Obama said at his press conference this morning that he was going to plug the "doughnut hole" regarding prescription drugs for senior citizens, described by the AP as "a feature of the current drug program that requires beneficiaries to pay the entire cost of prescriptions after initial coverage is exhausted but before catastrophic coverage begins." Steyn was having none of this -- describing senior citizens as the "wealthiest demographic" in the United States, Steyn said: "We've still got to do something to plug this little hole in the donut for the prescription drug plans for seniors. Because, heaven forbid, heaven forbid that these seniors, these seniors should have to choose between prescription drugs and Tony Danza doing South Pacific in dinner theater." Actually, the "doughnut hole" can cost seniors thousands of dollars every year, so it's more likely that seniors have to choose between prescription medication and something other than Tony Danza. Like food. Or heat.

Anyway, Steyn said that you have to love the audacity of Obama -- he says he have to fix health care to control costs. Well, said Steyn, the costs of Medicare and Medicaid are rising far faster than the costs of health care in the private sector, due to the bureaucracy. So if you have to government taking control of everything, said Steyn, the costs are going to be out of control. The only way to control costs in a socialized health care system is by restricting access to the system, said Steyn. The essence of a government system is waiting -- waiting years for operations that in America are routine.

After the break, Steyn categorically denied that there is a "crisis" in health care, but when people call it a "crisis" they cite statistics like the life-expectancy differences between the U.K. and America. But this stat is meaningless, according to Steyn, because all life-expectancy estimates are rising. Steyn added: "You can never -- obviously, you can never spend enough on health care because the outcome is always going to be a disaster; you're still gonna die. We can spend even more trillions and trillions and trillions on health care and you are still gonna die. Even under President Obama -- even President Obama -- he can lower the rise of the oceans, but even President Obama has not found a way yet to eliminate death from the American way of life. So there is never ever going to be a perfect health care system." As we explained with Limbaugh and the carrots of immortality, this is a fine response to an argument nobody is making. No one thinks that reforming the health care will permanently stave off death, but they do think it will help people spend what time they have before death in good health. Anyway, Steyn explained that what's at issue here is liberty -- in Britain, they deny hip replacements to the overweight because they made the choice to chow down on Twinkies, even though they've already paid for that hip with their taxes. They say it's perfectly appropriate to ration health care based on lifestyle choices -- this is the government regulating every aspect of your life.

The problem with American health care, said Steyn, is that we've allowed too many third parties to intrude in what should be a customer-client relationship. Steyn said that a doctor friend his has started a cash-only system in California, and it's very affordable. The problem with health insurance, he said, is that you're buying insurance for something that's inevitably going to happen. Steyn said that you're not likely to crash your car and roll across the median, and that's why auto insurance is comparatively affordable. The idea that we're going to insure against the inevitable is an absurd thing, said Steyn, and Obama wants to make this worse. Obama's theory, said Steyn, is that we should have preventive medicine, but there are marginal benefits to that despite the huge costs, and those costs are attractive to Obama because it means the government takes a larger role in people's lives.

After another break, Steyn took a call from a gentleman who explained that his family situation undermines the liberal opinion that socialized medicine is great -- his daughter is receiving care from top-notch doctors who emigrated to this country to make money in our private system. Steyn said that talented medical professionals are coming to the U.S. to work not only because they can make money, but also because government-run systems in other countries are too controlling. The health care system becomes a problem once the government takes it over, said Steyn, because hospitals become dirty and disease spreads. Look at China, he said. They sleep with their pigs in the rural parts of China, and SARS jumped from pigs to humans. And then it spread to Canada after a medical professional contracted it and it incubated in a Toronto hospital.

One more break and Steyn came back with a caller who said he's the only Limbaugh guest-host she listens to, but she's really mad at him because she and her husband are in the "doughnut hole," and it's terrible because it costs $2,500 per month for their medication, which is more per month than they bring in. Faced with a real-life example of why mocking the "doughnut hole" as stripping people of their Tony Danza tickets is wildly off-base, Steyn hemmed and hawed for a few moments before saying there are there are two approaches to this. First, he said, the caller and her husband are disabled, and right from the start that puts them in an unusual category. Steyn then asked if the solution is to develop a vast universal plan for everyone that plugs that doughnut hole, or a more targeted one. Steyn thought the targeted reform is the way to go. The second way to look at it, according to Steyn, is that taking the government out of health care entirely would lower the costs of those drugs to reflect the market prices. Steyn said it would be in the caller's interest to support the "reprivatization" of the health care system. Steyn said the solution for her is not more government annexation, and he certainly didn't mean to insult her.

Lauryn Bruck and Zachary Pleat contributed to this edition of the Limbaugh Wire.

Highlights from Hour 2

Outrageous comments

STEYN: We've still got to do something to plug this little hole in the donut for the prescription drug plans for seniors. Because, heaven forbid, heaven forbid that these seniors, these seniors should have to choose between prescription drugs and Tony Danza doing South Pacific in dinner theater.

[...]

STEYN: You can never -- obviously, you can never spend enough on health care because the outcome is always going to be a disaster; you're still gonna die. We can spend even more trillions and trillions and trillions on health care and you are still gonna die. Even under President Obama -- even President Obama -- he can lower the rise of the oceans, but even President Obama has not found a way yet to eliminate death from the American way of life. So there is never ever going to be a perfect health care system.

This hour of the Limbaugh Wire brought to you by the child in every citizen
By Simon Maloy

One more hour to go, and Mark Steyn got it going by saying that national health coverage is just another excuse to regulate the lives of citizens, and is a symptom of the modern world. The real jump in life expectancy occurred in centuries past, said Steyn, when they began reducing child mortality, so the idea of annexing one-fifth of the economy for marginal benefits in life expectancy is ridiculous.

Then Steyn read from Robert Samuelson's Washington Post column this morning, in which Samuelson wrote: "Since 1960, government has changed radically. Then, 52 percent of federal spending went for defense, 26 percent for 'payments for individuals' -- the welfare state. By 2008, 61 percent consisted of 'payments for individuals,' 21 percent for defense." Steyn said that between 1960 and now, our perspective on the role of government changed. It used to be that people understood that there were grown-up responsibilities, but now those responsibilities have been transferred to the state. We guess that transition started when the hippies invented irresponsibility in the '60s. Anyway, Steyn said the problem he has with socialized health care is that it changes the relationship between the citizen and the state. Look at Canada, he said -- elections became about health care, and the Health Ministry became the most important government arm. And, Steyn said, their programs wouldn't even be affordable if the United States wasn't paying for their national defense. We're effectively subsidizing Euro-Canadian health care, Steyn said, and if we going down the socialized-medicine route then it will worsen health care across the world because we won't have the funds to research diseases. Why, Steyn asked, if the American system is so bad, is it the world leader in medical technology?

The reason to oppose socialized health care, said Steyn, is that it is the biggest single factor in the "enervation of the citizens' self-reliance." According to Steyn, when you accept that health care is too complicated for you to sort out on your own, you've effectively said that you're a child and you need the "government nanny" to do it for you. And once you start acting like a child, said Steyn, it's much easier for the government to control other aspects of your life. Steyn said you'd be surprised how easy it is to get free-born citizens to accept these sorts of things, and once you introduce routine government health care, it metastasizes and consumes private health care.

After the break, Steyn took a call from a gentleman who said that health care isn't like other goods (a topic we've touched on) because it is an inelastic market -- the market is the same wherever you go. As such, the caller said he'd like to see a single-payer system with a flat tax just for health care. Steyn said that the problem with a flat tax is that no matter what lever you set the tax at, it won't be enough to cover the costs because there is an inexhaustible demand. Steyn said he understood that health care does not have a normal market, but that's why he favors that it resemble a normal market as much as possible. Steyn said we have "chosen" to give ourselves a health care problem by allowing other parties to intercede between the doctor and the patient. It's complicated, Steyn said, because we're trying to design a health care system that will cover 300 million people with very different needs, and the government's control over that is huge. It's not possible to design a health care system for 300 million people, said Steyn, but designing your own health care program is very possible, and not leaving health care decision to the people will have disastrous consequences.

Another break, and Steyn was back with another caller who said that she'd recently chemotherapy for breast cancer, and while she was undergoing it she read that the U.K. had approved only two chemotherapy drugs for breast cancer, and she wouldn't have had access to the drug that killed her cancer had she been in the U.K. Steyn said she is a compelling reason for why people should be allowed to make their own decisions on health care. Steyn added that there is no free health care -- the government can only get money from you or, as Obama's doing, from your children on down the line. And there are costs of the socialized system that aren't factored in, said Steyn. When people have to wait at the doctor for hours, their employers lose money.

One more break and Steyn closed out the show with a pair of callers. After joking about Texas secession, Steyn's penultimate caller said she's retired and doesn't have a whole of money, but she nonetheless decided that she was going to spend all of her $250 stimulus check on good conservative causes to undermine Obama the "socialist twit." Steyn said by her using her stimulus check as "anti-stimulus," she's contributing in wrestling this monster to the ground.

Steyn's last caller said that Obama wants to implement socialized medicine, even though it's failed everywhere in the world, because he wants to government to have that money. Steyn said he's right, that money will go into the government's broad revenue stream, but it's also about the annexation of more and more areas of your life. Steyn said that if you believe in big government, you have to persuade the citizenry that big government is necessary, and to do that you have to arrange it so government plays a larger role in your life. We are in the situation, concluded Steyn, where basic aspects of your life are being annexed by the federal government, and that would have astonished anyone in William McKinley's day.

Thus ends another afternoon spent in the rhetorical clutches of Mark Steyn. The constant Uighur jokes were fairly rough, as were the repeated references to incontinence that we decided to leave out, but it might have been all worthwhile just to hear Steyn eat crow on his mockery of the "doughnut hole." Or we could just be deluding ourselves again, a la raw tomatoes. Anyway, we'll be back tomorrow for Mark Davis' curtain call as EIB guest host. In the interim, we encourage you to check out our Limbaugh archives -- we're going to spend that time thinking up better gastronomical analogies.

Lauryn Bruck and Zachary Pleat contributed to this edition of the Limbaugh Wire.