In which Rush describes Obama's "Mussolini-type" tactics
By Greg Lewis

Yesterday on his program, Rush, in the midst of his comparing-Obama-and-Democratic-leaders-to-Nazis-and-Hitler-fest, took a moment to point his heated rhetoric at environmentalists. Rush mentioned that he posted two links on his website in order to "illustrate what a bunch of radical, environmentalist wacko insaniacs the Nazis were." One of the links he haphazardly placed on his website, however, actually reached the exact opposite conclusion Rush tried to make -- and it probably explains why he later removed the link from his website. And after some poking around on the subject, we came across former Seattle Times blogger David Postman who actually took this question to several historians familiar with these subjects. For example, Thomas Zeller, co-editor of the book How Green Were the Nazis?, stated that he "would not claim that Nazis were in the vanguard in the field of conservation." Postman went on to argue that "conservation leanings of some Nazis were not a creation of the Third Reich, but merely a holdover from an idea that existed before the Nazi era." Basically, saying the Nazis cherished nature is like saying Mussolini's Fascist Party cherished traditional Italian cooking -- you'd be tying the regime to something that has historically been a part of its culture. And even then, you'd still be ignoring the fact that the ideals of modern environmentalists don't line up with those of the Nazis.

"Open Line Friday" began with Rush reminding us of all the "crap" he took when he was "six months ahead of the game" and he said he wanted Obama to fail. Then Rush moved on to going down the list of town hall-related headlines on Drudge: town halls turning violent in Florida and St. Louis, including a "black conservative" who was "roughed up" by union thugs, doctors showing up to a town hall in Houston, and "tempers flare" at Michigan town meeting. Then Rush mentioned that the unemployment rate isn't 9.4 percent, arguing that if you look at the U6 number, it's 16.3 percent.

Then Rush said that Obama needs to learn something from Bill Clinton, and do what he did whenever he was in trouble -- consult with his ministers. As you might imagine, this was just an excuse for Rush to play a series of Rev. Wright sound bites on his show, telling Obama to return to his preacher and his church.

After another replay of his "comedy" bit from earlier this week about how health care reform would kill senior citizens, Rush noted that some of his listeners are losing spirit because they are perceiving to have lost the momentum. Rush countered this emotion, telling his audience that when you're in an argument, and the other side changed the argument, it means they're losing. Rush continued to describe what has happening at the town halls:

LIMBAUGH: I mean, it got violent. The union thugs from SEIU and AFL-CO were -- CIO were called out here to keep the halls only halfway filled with opponents. Those people are getting in there when these members of Congress get stand up and start talking and lying about it, these people are reacting. We haven't lost the momentum on this. What's happened is that the president of the United States has marshaled his forces against over half the country. He gave 'em a pep talk yesterday and said, "We push back twice as hard."

After repeating that he doesn't believe that members of Congress are receiving death threats, Rush said that union thugs are showing up at these town halls to intimidate senior citizens. Then after explaining how he would sell health care if he were a politician on recess, Rush talked about Obama's remarks last night at a rally for Virginia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Creigh Deeds. Rush descried Obama's attitude as angry, nasty, and cocky, and that he was "whining and moaning like a spoiled child" for saying that he inherited this economy from Bush. He also complained that Obama sounded like he was campaigning, playing this line from his speech, conveniently leaving out the part in bold:

OBAMA:I need every one of you to knock on doors and make phone calls, and get fired up once again so that we can go towards the future, confident with Creigh Deeds leading the great commonwealth of Virginia.

Yeah, he sounded like he was in campaign mode because he was campaigning for Creigh Deeds, and urging those in the audience to get "fired up" for Creigh Deeds.

After the break, Rush noted that Rep. Brad Miller, who claimed he received a death threat, is now claiming that hundreds of members of Congress have gotten death threats. Rush criticized Miller for making such a baseless claim. Then Rush said that Pelosi saying people are showing up to protests with swastikas is not the first time Democrats have done this. His proof of this was a clip from a 2001 interview Obama did with a local Chicago station, falsely suggesting that Obama believed that the U.S. court system "eight years ago" was "Nazi-like."  

After the next break, Rush read from an Associated Press article reporting that the White House was advising Democrats on health care protests. Rush said the White House is having to provide instructions on how to "sell this lie." "The dirty little secret," said Rush, "is Obama has to lie. He can't tell the truth. This country is not of the same values. This country is now oriented in a core value way the way Obama is, and more and more people in the country are seeing this, and learning it, and living it."

In response to that, we're just going to reprint Simon's eloquent prose from earlier this week on Rush talking about Obama's "different" values:

And here, folks, we get to the nub of things. Rush let slip the real reason behind all these attacks on Obama -- he's different from you. He's not like you. That's why Rush brings up Obama's birth certificate, that's why Rush jokes about Obama's brother in Kenya, that's why Rush reads fringe screeds about Obama wanting to govern like an African colonial -- it's all about forwarding the ugly notion that Obama is foreign and dangerous.

Then Rush read a Washington Examiner piece reporting that a "revolt" brewing among AARP membership against the organization's leadership on health care reform. The Rush took a caller who explained that he attended the town hall last night in St. Louis for Rep. Russ Carnahan, and described how things got a little out of control. Rush said that one of the six people arrested at the event was a reporter, and wondered how that could have happened. Was he wearing a purple shirt with the SEIU logo?

Anyway, Rush went on to describe the "union thugs" at these events who were "big" and intimidating. This is the exact opposite of what people thought they were getting then they elected Barack Obama. This was as good of an opportunity as ever for Rush to bring fascism into the fold:

LIMBAUGH: Obama sends out his army. You gotta -- folks, this is -- this Mussolini-type stuff. This is the president of the United States, who cannot deal with opposition, there will not be any, he is going to silence it -- sending his union thugs out to physically assault in some cases and to, in all cases, intimidate average Americans who just want some answers.

Then Rush took a caller who said they were protesting the Pelosi event in Denver. Rush seemed a little outraged when the caller informed him that the homeless shelter which Pelosi was there for was funded by stimulus money.

Rush returned from another break by reading an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal by Scott Rasmussen. Rush said that he would like to see what happens if Rasmussen's health care polls asked questions that were more "informative." And of course, by informative, he meant more full of lies. He suggested the questions should cover how the government would get into your bank account, how it would require end of life counseling, and eliminate private insurance. Do we need to say that these claims are still all false?

Rush closed out the hour with a caller who was gravely concerned with what Obama was doing, and upset that he was telling people to get "fired up." Rush said the proof of success of the protests so far was the reaction of the president and the union thugs.

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

Highlights from Hour 1

Outrageous comments

LIMBAUGH: And by the -- it was a Democrat official who slapped -- a Democrat official slapped a guy named Osteen, who was just trying to talk to her husband about the plan. I mean, it got violent. The union thugs from SEIU and AFL-CO were -- CIO were called out here to keep the halls only halfway filled with opponents. Those people are getting in there when these members of Congress get stand up and start talking and lying about it, these people are reacting. We haven't lost the momentum on this. What's happened is that the president of the United States has marshaled his forces against over half the country. He gave 'em a pep talk yesterday and said, "We push back twice as hard."

[...]

LIMBAUGH: The dirty little secret is Obama has to lie. He can't tell the truth. This country is not what Obama is. This country is not of the same values. This country is not oriented in a core-value way the way Obama is, and more and more people in the country are seeing this and learning it and living it.

"Fascism" watch

LIMBAUGH: Obama sends out his army. You gotta -- folks, this is -- this Mussolini-type stuff. This is the president of the United States, who cannot deal with opposition, there will not be any, he is going to silence it -- sending his union thugs out to physically assault in some cases and to, in all cases, intimidate average Americans who just want some answers.

In which Rush complains his Nazi comparisons were taken out of context
By Greg Lewis

The second hour got rolling with Rush declaring that he is very "optimistic" and doesn't agree with those in his audience who think their message is being lost. Then Rush argued that Obama is destroying the Democrat [sic] Party, citing Rasmussen's latest generic ballot poll to point out that the leadership of the party is "hard left wing" but the party's grassroots is not. Not all voters, said Rush, are "Greenpeace wackos." Rush went on to argue that Democrats are not reaching independents, and represent an ever-shrinking percentage of the population. If Obama told the truth about his agenda, he would never have been elected president.

After criticizing Congress for ordering more private jets, and the Obama family for getting burgers and fries, he accused the "union thugs" of ratcheting up the tension and claimed that the President and his party were conspiring against the people.

Then Rush moved on to more warning -- as he's been doing all week -- of Blue Dog Democrats based on how they will vote on health care. He warned that they will get to decide their own "political fate" when they get a chance to vote for this, and that they can't call themselves fiscally conservative if they vote for this. Either you represent people who sent you to Washington, warned Rush, or you throw in with Obama, Pelosi, union big shots and tort lawyers.

He again claimed that there was no "incidents of violence" until Obama's thugs showed up. Rush went on:

LIMBAUGH: I can't sit here and express to you how shocked and stunned that this is happening in the United States of America, that we have a president who has abandoned the office now. He may as well be back on the campaign trail. He speeches are cocky, nasty, arrogant. He's out there inciting violence. White House officials say, "We're going to push back twice as hard." The Chicago way -- you bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun. That's the president of the United States.

After the break, Rush took a caller who attended Rep. Castor's (D-FL) town hall-gone-bad, the same event Rush mentioned on his show yesterday hours before it turned violent. The caller described how the unfortunate turn of events impacted her and her husband. Rush asked what the caller thinks after all of this as a citizen. The caller's husband, a union member, said he was "distressed." Rush asked if the events "intimidate[d]" them -- the caller responded that it hasn't, and has just made them angrier. Rush said that he was glad they were more "fired up" than ever.

Coming back from another break, Rush went back to how Pelosi said that there were swastikas at some town hall events, and how this meant, according to Rush, that the Speaker of the House was calling "you" Nazis. Rush also said that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said "you" are sabotaging democracy. And yet what Rush said yesterday is what was "irritating" to elements of the state-controlled media.

For example, said Rush, did you know Rep. William Jefferson was convicted? Rush claimed that The New York Times didn't even note his party affiliation in their report. This is absolutely false -- the Times did report that Jefferson is a Democrat, right there in the second paragraph.

Then it was more about how the media reacted to Rush comparing Obama and Democrats to Nazis and Hitler on his show yesterday. Rush was in full-on complaining mode:

LIMBAUGH: And so when reporting what I said yesterday on the similarities between the radical leadership of the Democrat Party and the Nazi Party of Germany, they have had a cow. They have gone ballistic, and it's interesting that they have left out who started it.

So that's it, folks. Rush is justifying his hateful rhetoric that filled every nook and cranny of his program yesterday by saying that Pelosi started it. The media took him out of context, apparently, in their reporting of his remarks. What context? we ask. Rush repeatedly compared Democrats to Nazis on yesterday's show. If he wants to play the childish game of "she started it" he can. But it's patently absurd for Rush to make repeated comparisons between Obama and Hitler and then complain when the media reports on his words that context was missing.

Rush went on to air several clips of the media criticizing his Nazi comparisons, including criticism of Rush comparing Obama's health care logo to the Nazi swastika, which Rush again defended, even though it's idiotic and such comparisons have been denounced by the Simon Weisenthal Center.

Anyway, Rush continued on for several minutes defending his comparisons because, you see, when you take them in context of what Pelosi said, they're apparently justified. This was followed up by Rush again playing misleading audio from Obama's 2001 radio interview (see Hour 1) and Dick Durbin in 2005 comparing U.S. torture interrogation to dictators. His rant concluded with this:

LIMBAUGH: If anybody's sabotaging democracy, it's today's Democrat Party. If anybody is sabotaging democracy, it's President Barack Obama and his administration. If anybody's sabotaging democracy, it is the leaders of the House and Senate Democrats, who are ramming legislation through without any committee hearings, without any debate. If there is a sabotage of the democrat -- democratic system, it is being conducted by the Democrat Party.

Before the commercial break, Rush gave a quick plug for a "friend" of the organization Patients First, which happens to be a "project of" conservative group Americans for Prosperity.

After another break, Rush took a caller who said he feels like he's living in Iran the way the government and the media are conducting themselves, and argued that that people don't understand the groundswell going on right now. Rush went on to read a post at Pajamas Media by Victor Davis Hanson.

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

Highlights from Hour 2

Outrageous comments

LIMBAUGH: No incidents of violence until Obama's crowd showed up. I can't sit here and express to you how shocked and stunned that this is happening in the United States of America, that we have a president who has abandoned the office now. He may as well be back on the campaign trail. He speeches are cocky, nasty, arrogant. He's out there inciting violence. White House officials say, "We're going to push back twice as hard." The Chicago way -- you bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun. That's the president of the United States.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: Folks, yesterday on this program, I had a pointed and very factual reaction to Nancy Pelosi accusing those of you showing up at tea parties of wearing swastikas. Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House, said you are Nazis. The leader of the Democrats in the Senate, Harry Reid, said you are sabotaging democracy. You are sabotaging the Democrat process. This was all very irritating to elements of state-controlled media. Not what Pelosi or Reid said -- in fact, they didn't even talk about that.

In fact, did you know the other day Congressman William Jefferson of Louisiana was convicted? In the New York Times they never even mentioned his party, which is why when I kept referring to him it was always Congressman William Jefferson, Democrat, Louisiana. They never put his party affiliation. And so, when reporting what I said yesterday on the similarities between the radical leadership of the Democrat Party and the Nazi Party of Germany, they have had a cow. They have gone ballistic, and it's interesting that they have left out who started it.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: You've been throwing this around left and right because you don't like to debate the issues. You can't date debate the issues in this health-care bill. You cannot dare. You don't have the issues on your side. If anybody's sabotaging democracy, it's today's Democrat Party. If anybody is sabotaging democracy, it's President Barack Obama and his administration. If anybody's sabotaging democracy, it is the leaders of the House and Senate Democrats, who are ramming legislation through without any committee hearings, without any debate. If there is a sabotage of the democrat -- democratic system, it is being conducted by the Democrat Party.

In which Rush hypes the protest of the St. Louis SEIU
By Greg Lewis

Rush began the final hour of the week with a message for those in his audience who are afraid the argument is being lost, and are upset that town hall meetings are no longer being reported on for their content. Rush said they need to realize the fevered emotional pitch about this, and how people are fed up, and that every action Obama and his "union thugs" take is just firing people up even more.

Rush went on to read extensively from a press release from the St. Louis Tea Party calling for a protest of the local SEIU office in response to what happened at last night's town hall event for Rep. Carnahan. Rush went on to say that this is "Obama's army," argued that there was no violence prior to union thugs showing up at events, and gave out the address to SEIU's St. Louis offices.

Then Rush said that Obama is "giddy" that only 240,000 more Americans lost their jobs and stated that the "full" unemployment number counting those who have given up looking for work is actually 16 percent. Then Rush aired an audio clip of Obama today stating that these numbers could mean that the worst "may be" behind us. Rush asked his audience if they felt "saved."

After the break, Rush mockingly declared that Obama has "rescued us from catastrophe," and non-mockingly called Obama a catastrophe. Then he was back to arguing that, based on the U6 numbers, unemployment didn't actually "dip." Rush said that Obama mentioned they still expect unemployment to still hit 10 percent this year. Rush quipped that they know it's probably "already there now" and that they're just "cooking the books."

"Open Line Friday" rolled on with a caller who told Rush the health care bill is "generational genocide" and that people who are fighting it are heroes. Rush said that doctors are now showing up at town halls, and when that starts happening en masse, it will start "compounding" all of this. The next caller said that Americans are opposing health care out of "self defense," and echoed Rush in saying it was like Nazism, just like the movie Logan's Run. Rush responded, saying that he was reading Andrew Breitbart's Big Hollywood blog about late night comedy shows "starting to turn" on Obama, and made a passing reference to the recent passing of Walter "Klondike."

After another break, Rush gave a plug for the "brilliant" Heritage Foundation and took another caller, who told Rush her theory that the government has a "vested interest" in letting seniors die because that would result in a huge windfall in the death tax. Rush disagreed, saying that we're all going to die anyway. Rather, Rush thought their plan was more "nefarious" than that, and suggested that "having senior citizens die earlier than normal by denying them life saving healthcare coverage also will allow them to reform Social Security." Elaborating on his new conspiracy, Rush added: "I mean, you don't pay the people that are dead. Sometimes you do pay survivors under some versions of the program." And then it was more fearmongering on government making your health care decisions for you:

LIMBAUGH: But even before you get to that, it's none of Barack Obama's business who lives and who dies in this country, and it's none of Nancy Pelosi's business, and it's none of Henry Waxman's business, it's none of Barney Frank's business, it's none of Harry Reid's business who lives and dies. They want to make it their business by being the ones paying for it. They want to make it their business by being the ones who are charged with the responsibility of controlling costs.

Then Rush argued that if you were in Sen. Ted Kennedy's position -- 76 years old with a terminal brain tumor -- then you wouldn't be covered for treatment under government-run health care. Rush continued his broken record mantra: it's none of their business what happens to you, none of their business to decide who gets to live and die. We're talking about "authoritarian imperialists," he added.

The next caller expressed his concern over which was worse: being out of a job, or being retired and elderly. Either way, the caller explained, you're in a bad spot with the system they want to put in. Rush said it is about more than that, which is why Rush thinks "it's important that the elderly people, seasoned citizens understand what's going on." He added: "If you all get fully informed here as to what these people have planned for you, there's no way you should put up with it. It's none of their business what kind of healthcare you get and when and under what circumstance. It's just not Barack Obama's business."

One more break, and Rush was back, reading that Floyd Norris at The New York Times noted that, "For the first time since the Depression, the American economy has added virtually no jobs in the private sector over a 10-year period." Rush called this "drivel" that was put out there to prop up the catastrophe of President Obama, even though the economy boomed during the Bush years, despite the "mild" recession that Rush blamed on Clinton and 9-11. So let us get this straight -- Rush, who earlier today said Obama was "whining" like a spoiled child because he inherited a recession from President Bush, is now brushing off the 2001 recession as something Bush inherited from Clinton. To be clear, both the 2001 recession and the current recession started while Bush was in office, but Democrats are to blame for both in Rush's mind. You can only find hypocrisy like this on The Rush Limbaugh Show.

Rounding out "Open Line Friday," Rush took one more caller who discussed the different experiences she encountered at the town hall of a Republican representative and that of a Democrat representative. The caller also said that the problems with insurance was caused by Ted Kennedy's HMO legislation. Rush agreed with the caller on this point, and closed out the week by describing what "we" have learned today:

LIMBAUGH: What did we learn today? We have learned that there is a building, percolating, effervescing boiling-over passion and emotion for liberty and freedom. People do not want a bunch of inexperienced little mini-socialist statists running around controlling their lives. We have learned that the bloom is largely off the Obama rose. And we have also discovered, ladies and gentlemen, that [...] the bottom line is, we may be in the minority, but we're not anywhere near powerless.

Well on that note, we'd like to briefly note what we here at the Limbaugh Wire have learned today. We've learned that Rush has seemingly convinced his entire audience that every health care reform falsehood he has advanced on his show in recent weeks is true. The evidence of that is the fact that nearly every caller on his program today echoed to Rush their fear that health care will result in old people being killed.

And that concludes this week's Limbaugh coverage. We'd like to make a quick programming note before we go. Next week, the Limbaugh Wire will see some changes in format. We're really excited about what lay ahead for us, and we hope you are, too. As always, our recommendation for cozy summer weekend reading is the near-encyclopedic Limbaugh Wire archives.

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

Highlights from Hour 3

Outrageous comments

LIMBAUGH: I think something more nefarious, Pat, is having senior citizens die earlier than normal by denying them life-saving health care coverage also will allow them to reform Social Security.

CALLER: That's true.

LIMBAUGH: By not paying -- I mean, you don't pay the people that are dead. Sometimes you do pay survivors under some versions of the program. But even before you get to that, it's none of Barack Obama's business who lives and who dies in this country, and it's none of Nancy Pelosi's business, and it's none of Henry Waxman's business, it's none of Barney Frank's business, it's none of Harry Reid's business who lives and dies. They want to make it their business by being the ones paying for it. They want to make it their business by being the ones who are charged with the responsibility of controlling costs. They want to make as much of your life their business as possible. It's not just the elderly they're focused on; they're going to fund abortions as well as part of the health care plan.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: I want to get off the notion that this is about health care. If it works, if it gets you riled up when you find out that your end of life, this government's going to throw you out to pasture. If that works to keep you fired up, that's good. But this is about so much more than that. This is why I think it's important that elderly people, seasoned citizens understand what's going on. These have been traditional Democrat voters. And if you all get fully informed here as to what these people have planned for you, there's no way you should put up with it. It's none of their business what kind of health care you get and when and under what circumstance. It's just not Barack Obama's business.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: What did we learn today? We have learned that there is a building, percolating, effervescing boiling-over passion and emotion for liberty and freedom. People do not want a bunch of inexperienced little mini-socialist statists running around controlling their lives. We have learned that the bloom is largely off the Obama rose. And we have also discovered, ladies and gentlemen, that -- well, Snerdley wants you to say Rush rules, but the bottom line is, we may be in the minority, but we're not anywhere near powerless.

Enemies list

LIMBAUGH: I read a piece on Andrew Breitbart's bighollywood.com website the other day. Guy who used to be a writer for a late night comedy show, been monitoring the comedy shows, some of these late-night comedy shows are starting to turn on Obama -- Jon Stewart, you know. And he thought it was important that Jon Stewart is turning -- or starting to, because Jon Stewart -- in the 18-to-24 demographic, 18-34, is the most respected TV newsman. It's a comedy show. They asked the question, sometime after Walter Klondike passed away, and the -- so they -- a lot of people are going to be affected by this, and it's going to be much, much harder just to be a propagandist for Obama when it affects you personally as well.