Rush falsely claimed Obama administration to “purge” Republicans from government

By Tom Allison

Rush kicked off today's show promoting a RedState article that falsely claimed the Obama administration, through the Office of Personnel Management, “intends to purge all Republicans from the federal bureaucracy.” Rush commented that this is an attempt to “purify” the government. Not surprisingly, out came the comparisons to totalitarian regimes, Marxism, and Hugo Chavez.

Rush claimed that former President Bush left a lot of democratically appointed employees from the Clinton administration. Rush said he saw similarities between the Office of Personnel Management memo and “the unconstitutionality of the czars.”

Rush then talked about an address he gave to the Boy Scouts of America function, where he said he delivered a “profound heartfelt tribute” to Roger Ailes for creating the “miracle” that is Fox News. Rush added that “Fox is winning,” and also reported that there were “a lot of Fox people there” and he was honored to be a part of it.

Rush: Obama is “a destructive ideologue”

Rush dove head first into an all-out assault on President Obama's economic policies, claiming that the "man-child" president doesn't really want to create jobs but instead wants to “wipe out the rich.” Discussing Obama's purported communist tendencies with a caller, Rush also commented that Obama doesn't know better because that's how he was “raised.” Limbaugh then floored it on the anti-Obama rhetoric:

LIMBAUGH: Here's the truth, folks. I gotta say it. I have to say it again. Obama is open to learning and understanding. He is on a mission. And when his mission -- he's not open -- when his mission succeeds, the rest of the nation's actions, people, the whole country fails. That's his mission. His success is the failure of capitalism or the destruction of capitalism.

What we are witnessing is a failed presidency. It's evidenced each and every day. We are in the midst of a failed presidency. We are being led by a destructive ideologue, who is on a mission -- and he's told us -- to remake this country.

Rush also couldn't figure out why using unspent TARP money to pay down the budget deficit made sense, arguing that it's like borrowing money to pay back a debt. Rush also didn't believe that U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry is genuinely cautious about authorizing more troops for Afghanistan, suggesting that it's all too politically convenient.

Reading from an Associated Press article, Rush revived the comparison of Japan's “lost decade” to the American recovery, something Media Matters for America has repeatedly analyzed and corrected.

Rush couldn't resist smearing Anita Dunn, commenting that Obama might drop her off in China during his upcoming trip to Asia.

Rush claimed that “there was no private sector growth” in the third quarter of this fiscal year, suggesting that someone should FedEx his Wall Street Journal op-ed to the White House because there were some “good ideas in there.” Several economists disagree.

Rush compared Pelosi to Hitler and health care reform to Dachau

Rush continued ranting about the state of the economy, gleefully blaming Obama for the unemployment rate and labeling the stimulus package “a slush fund” for congressional campaigns and saying it's a way for Congress to buy support from the AMA and AARP.

Rush also theorized that people in Washington actually think Republicans aren't getting jobs on purpose just to make Obama look bad. And finally, in an attempt to pack in as many tired falsehoods and smears in an hour of radio as possible, Rush repeated the false claim that failure to buy health insurance under the House health care bill would result in jail time.

But why stop at mischaracterizing provisions of the House bill. Why not compare Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Hitler and government's involvement in health care to the Dachau concentration camp?

LIMBAUGH: And by the way, the media tweak of the day: Hitler put people in jail to lower the unemployment numbers. Another media tweak, that's how Dachau started. We have 35 seconds if you think we should bleep or edit this out. I frankly think we should not. I didn't say anything about Obama there; I'm just giving a little historical truth.

Is this is all about Pelosi? This is all -- how many seconds we got before we bleep it? Twenty? I'm not going to bleep it out, Snerdley. Look, this is Pelosi. She called us Nazis, swastikas during the tea parties. Now they call us teabaggers. She said it's OK to put people in jail for not buying health insurance. Well? Historical -- OK, well, we can't bleep it now, Snerdley. The delay went by.

Rush later announced an on-air “unemployment summit” to coincide with Obama's job summit, where, for three hours, Rush will take calls from Americans looking for work, something Limbaugh claimed Obama should be doing.

Rush: "[W]e don't have the guts to keep [Muslims] out of our institutions"

Rush read from a New York Times piece on the emotional and psychological impact the recession has had on families with unemployed parents. Always playing the victim, Rush interpreted the article as “anti-male” and “anti-father” because it framed familial problems around the father being home.

Back from the break, Rush again mocked the World Wildlife Fund ad featuring children warning against climate change. Rush then talked about a Hill newspaper article on the White House hinting that budget reconciliation could still be used to pass health care in the Senate, claiming that “they're breaking their own rules.”

Rush also opined on whether the CDC was inflating the risk of swine flu for counting the number of deaths “caused by complications related to swine flu” and called the government response another Obama and government failure.

Rush promoted a Hot Air post on reports that alleged Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan might have been wiring money to Afghanistan. Rush then ranted about other possible Islamic extremists in the military, suggesting that we hold a summit on what to do about them. Later on, Rush exaggerated Hasan's role on the George Washington University task force, agreeing with a caller that “a terrorist” helped shape foreign and domestic policy. Rush concluded that the Democrats' strategy of treating terrorism as a criminal matter will not stop future attacks. After all, Rush said, "[W]e don't have the guts to keep [Muslims] out of our institutions."

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

Highlights

Outrageous comments

LIMBAUGH: Now last night, flew into New York -- actually, I was in Westchester County. The Westchester-Putnam County Council of the Boy Scouts of America awarded my good friend Roger Ailes the 2000 night -- the 2009 Good Scout Award. As you know, he's the CEO of Fox News Channel. And I was -- I just randomly opening my mail one day and I got an invitation to go to this thing, and I moved the schedule around to be able to go up there and do it because I wanted to -- you know, I asked for seven or eight minutes to speak and they gave it to me.

And I did a profound, heartfelt tribute to Roger and what he means to the country, what he means -- has meant to me, the miracle that he has created, the culture that he's -- one man -- they got 1,700 people that work at Fox. Roger's never been on camera. Roger is not actively in the director's chair every day for all these shows, and yet he's created this culture where everybody there is on the same page and proud, and they're winning. Four times the audience of all the other three combined. And it's just incredible.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: All of this has been a scam. Folks, the bottom line is TARP, stimulus -- it's the Chicago way. All this is, is getting money that you could have never voted through Congress to pay off your political buddies and buy votes like with the AARP and the AMA and whoever else you're gonna need. It's a slush fund. You wonder why they haven't spent but 14 percent of the stimulus? Because they never intended to.

It's a slush fund. It's gonna be used for Democrat re-election campaigns next year. It is used to pay off members of Congress and whoever for their votes on needed Obama legislation. I mean, this is classic, right out of the way Marxists and socialists and Stalinists do things. It's just -- imagine a slush fund of over a trillion bucks, almost 2 trillion, and that's what we're looking at here.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: Here's the truth, folks. I gotta say it. I have to say it again. Obama is open to learning and understanding. He is on a mission. And when his mission -- he's not open -- when his mission succeeds, the rest of the nation's actions, people, the whole country fails. That's his mission. His success is the failure of capitalism or the destruction of capitalism.

What we are witnessing is a failed presidency. It's evidenced each and every day. We are in the midst of a failed presidency. We are being led by a destructive ideologue, who is on a mission -- and he's told us -- to remake this country.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: Being charitable -- as charitable as I can -- this may not be Obama's fault. He is who he is. He was raised by communists. He was mentored -- well, it was Frank -- Frank Davis was an avowed communist. His father, Barack Obama Senior, was one as well. Now, we know that he's been educated in the Ivy League, which teaches the unfairness -- inherent unfairness in this country that capitalism's unfair, that it leads to unequal results, discrimination, poverty for some, wealth for others. I mean, he's been taught that this country's unjust and immoral, which is why I suggested, you know, a couple of night classes on capitalism.

“Now, Rush, don't you think that he's actually been exposed to it?” Oh, I think he's been exposed to it, but from a standpoint of how unfair, how mean-spirited, and how unjust it is. Well, you -- look it. You know what your kids are faced with in school every day, what they're being taught about American history, and what they're being taught about the evils this nation perpetrated after it was founded, even before it was founded, when our ancestors arrived here. You can imagine what this guy's been taught, and we know that he thinks it. He said it in his books, all over the place, various interviews. So, he is who he is.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: And by the way, the media tweak of the day: Hitler put people in jail to lower the unemployment numbers. Another media tweak, that's how Dachau started. We have 35 seconds if you think we should bleep or edit this out. I frankly think we should not. I didn't say anything about Obama there; I'm just giving a little historical truth.

Is this is all about Pelosi? This is all -- how many seconds we got before we bleep it? Twenty? I'm not going to bleep it out, Snerdley. Look, this is Pelosi. She called us Nazis, swastikas during the tea parties. Now they call us teabaggers. She said it's OK to put people in jail for not buying health insurance. Well? Historical -- OK, well, we can't bleep it now, Snerdley. The delay went by.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: I guess we're just on the verge of internment camps. I know a little bit about those internment camps. The Japanese in this country -- Japanese soldiers were permitted to fight, you know, the Japanese descent, but not in the Pacific theater, they were sent to Europe. They were not, you know -- we did things differently back then. We were threatening -- the Japanese bombed us; we said, OK, we're not taking any chances, and it was a liberal Democrat that did it.

And now, we've got Obama in the White House and they're talking about an internment of Muslims out there on left-wing talk shows? Don't have the guts -- I mean, we don't have the guts to keep them out of our institutions, much less in -- I'm not suggesting -- I think it's just paranoia these people are constantly living in, and they're paranoid of us. They think we're going to demand it and Obama's going to do it, which is simply laughable.

America's Truth Rejector

LIMBAUGH: This is what Marxists do. This is a purge. This is typical of Marxist regimes, totalitarian regimes. And I -- I'll tell ya what: I hope the next Republican administration learns this lesson, because there are going to be thousands of Maoists, sleazing their way into the bureaucracy after whatever number of years Obama is in the White House. The bureaucracy is being polluted with these people and -- just as the Democrats and Obama are gonna purge all Republicans from the civil service.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: And the interpretation of this is clear. That's why I keep an eye on Venezuela, I keep an eye on totalitarian regimes, because this is a purge, to purify the federal government.