Please note -- all Limbaugh Wire transcripts are, by nature, Rush transcripts
By Simon Maloy

Happy St. Patrick's Day from the Limbaugh Wire. We've set ourselves up for this afternoon's Rush Limbaugh Show with some nice corned beef and enough whisky to take down a draft horse. So no different from other days, except for the corned beef.

Rush kicked off the show blaming reported death threats against AIG executives on the tone of “civility” Obama and his teleprompter brought to Washington. El Rushbo went on to announce that he was one of the few brave Americans to stand athwart the “lynch mob” mentality regarding AIG and the bonuses.

From there, it was a smooth segue into bestiality. Rush said -- wait, what? Yeah, bestiality... Specifically this St. Petersburg Times blog post on legislation to make bestiality illegal in Florida, and confusion from a state senator regarding the bill's exemption for animal husbandry. Mercifully, it was time for a break.

Coming back, Rush promised to explain to everyone out there what a “retention bonus” is, but first he had to take some unexplained shots at Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA). He aired audio of Frank in January 2007, refusing to allow a Republican representative to amend a bill to prevent, in Limbaugh's words, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's “sweetheart StarKist giveaway.” This, of course, was followed by Limbaugh's Abba-Barney Frank parody, “Banking Queen.” Since Limbaugh offered no explanation as to why this is relevant to... anything, we'll explain why it's a bunch of bull. Pelosi was not acting in the interest of the tuna company -- she was upholding policies she supported before the tuna company had any connection to her district. There was no “sweetheart StarKist giveaway,” but some lies are just too fun to let die.

Back from the break, Limbaugh accused the Obama administration of “ginning up” death threats against AIG executives, and then claimed that all this AIG outrage is a White House-created “diversion” to draw attention away from President Obama's “plummeting poll numbers.” As we noted yesterday, Limbaugh has an odd concept of what constitutes bad poll numbers.

After another break, Limbaugh was back, continuing to accuse the White House and the media of faking outrage, and attacking Republicans -- Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) specifically -- for not attacking Democrats over the bonuses. Rush explained that he really didn't have any expectation that Republicans would act properly, though, so he wasn't that surprised. Rush then took a caller who noted that the bonuses are just a tiny percentage of the stimulus AIG received. Rush enthusiastically agreed, saying it's like earmarks, and claiming that Democrats defended earmarks by pointing out how small a percentage of the omnibus bill they comprised. As we noted yesterday, Rush himself was quick to note the tiny percentages that the bonuses comprise, but was unconcerned with such percentages when voicing outrage over the “earmark-ulus” bill.

Rush then wrapped up the hour by again asserting his individuality, wondering aloud what it would be like to be part of a mob, to lose his individuality.

Well, the corned beef is gone, and we're already running low on whisky...

Highlights from Hour 1

Outrageous comments

LIMBAUGH: A lynch mob is expanding: the peasants with their pitchforks surrounding the corporate headquarters of AIG, demanding heads. Death threats are pouring in. All of this being ginned up by the Obama administration.

America's Truth Rejector

LIMBAUGH: I want to go back to a Barney Frank greatest hit: January 11th, 2007, on the House floor. This is right after the Democrats had retaken the House for the first time since 1994 -- this is after the 2006 elections. Barney Frank is acting as speaker. The speaker never goes to the speaker's chair. She's always stays back in her office and twists arms and does things. They have rotating members who go up there and act as the president of the House that day. The Senate does the same thing.

And this is during a time when it was been discovered that Nancy Pelosi had an exemption to some piece of bill for the StarKist tuna people, exempting them from some latest piece of legislation that was going to hamper other businesses. A Republican member of the House stood up, tried to make a point about Pelosi's StarKist giveaway by attempting to insert an exemption for Samoa into the stem cell bill, and Barney Frank did not want any part of it.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: Barney Frank again -- January 11th, 2007, refusing to let a Republican make a point about Nancy Pelosi's sweetheart StarKist giveaway, wanting the same thing for American Samoa.

Echo chamber

Cited March 17 Wall Street Journal editorial on AIG.