Hour 3: Rush misrepresents Chuck Todd's comments to claim he is "too invested" in Obama

This hour of the Limbaugh Wire brought to you by Barack Ogabe
By Simon Maloy

To kick off the final hour, Rush noted a Reuters article headlined, "Resistance grows to Obama's bigger government," and encouraged us all to look at the bigger picture. Rush took us back to January 15, asking us to imagine where the country would be if, between now and then, there had been no resistance to Obama's "assault" on capitalism. Before we could get around to envisioning that nightmare scenario, Rush explained why he took us back to that seemingly random date -- the very next day, Rush first said he wanted Obama to "fail." According to Rush, this was -- he was -- the tipping point, the "first breath" of opposition to Obama, without which there would be no opposition to Obama. But now, because of Rush's desire that Obama fail, people are starting to raise questions.

Finally we were able to move past Rush's ego, and Rush claimed that the Obama administration's goal was power grabs -- in the present and the future. That's why they need "chaos," according to Rush, as demonstrated by the flap over the AIG bonuses. Rush also asked us to remember the Obama administration's desire to regulate executive pay: "Why would a leftist authoritarian want that power? Well, if you control executive compensation, you can then start controlling any other kind of compensation. And if you control that, you have the right to take over the economy's central nervous system, do you not?" The purpose of all this, according to Limbaugh, is... political donations. So says Rush: "[R]ansom, in other words. Obama is basically asking for ransom from financial institutions: Pay me or I'll take you over. Donate to me and my party or I'll take you over -- the old protection racket." That's right, the man who proved himself to be the most effective and prolific fundraiser in campaign history is enacting a vast conspiracy to reshape the American financial system so he can do something he already does better than anyone else.

Just before the break, Rush took a few shots at NBC News' Chuck Todd -- one of those media figures who are "too invested" in Obama -- for saying that Obama was "Zen-like" in his 60 Minutes interview. Of course, Todd used that term in describing a "criticism" of Obama "that sometimes he doesn't seem to show that he feels the pain of what's going on in America."

In a quick segment between breaks, Limbaugh aired audio of today's hearing in the House with Secretary Geithner, during which, according to Limbaugh, Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) "shut down the entire conversation" Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-AL) was having with Geithner, because Bachus "was about to nail Geithner, not on the bonuses, but on the 170 billion in bailout money that 93 to $100 billon of which was sent to other banks, among them Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, and others." It's an interesting theory, but one that doesn't really stand up to scrutiny. According to the New York Times liveblog of the hearing, at 10:58 a.m., there were "questions about A.I.G.'s payments to counterparties, in which some bailout funds were used to pay financial institutions such as Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank in full. Mr. Geithner says his team did explore imposing a loss on the counterparties, but concluded that the Fed had no legal authority to do so." Rep. Frank should really learn to use his conversation-stifling gavel more consistently.

Back from another break, Limbaugh touched on one of the more unfortunate topics from yesterday's adventure with Mark Steyn -- the U.S. government buying condoms from China. Rush linked this to reports that one of the British prime minister's advisers will "warn that Britain must drastically reduce its population if it is to build a sustainable society." Rush went off on this for a while, claiming that you'd have to kill people to reduce Britain's population, and that such thinking represents "leftism" and "Democrat Partyism" and "liberalism." Rush then linked this to yet another unfortunate topic -- his mockery from last week of explorers trapped and imperiled in the Arctic Circle. According to Rush, this "idiot" and "lunatic" adviser to the British PM "should have been on that trek." The explorers were saved, by the way.

Oh, we almost forgot. In the middle of that rant about the British adviser, he "confus[ed]" Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe "with a well-known Kenyan named Barack Ogabe," saying: "Please forgive me. I did not intend that slip-up to be made. Barack Ogabe and Robert Mugabe, at least in human structure, are two different people. I don't know about policy."

Anyway, what remained of the show was spent on the AIG bonuses, with Limbaugh claiming that the government used "fear" (congressional hearings, ACORN, etc.) to compel AIG executives to return the bonus money, in effect levying a 100-percent tax.

That's it for this fine Tuesday's Limbaugh Wire. In our subjective and thoroughly biased opinion, Media Matters' Limbaugh coverage is the best around, so we strongly encourage you to read, listen to, and internalize every last bit of it. See you tomorrow.

Highlights from Hour 3

Outrageous comments

LIMBAUGH: All of this chaos, all of the effort to talk down the U.S. economy to create chaos is necessary for future power grabs. It's been in the works for some time. Treasury and the Congress work together to protect the retention contracts. They sanctioned those contracts.

Yet, now, they're angered and shocked and outraged those contracts were paid as promised. It makes sense if the end game is chaos after chaos after chaos to take over more and more of the private sector. And they are openly admitting this. They told The Washington Post and The New York Times that this is what they want to do -- stories yesterday and Monday, or Sunday.

And let's not forget that Obama wants to control the pay -- the compensation of all bank and non-bank executives too. Why would a leftist authoritarian want that power? Well, if you control executive compensation, you can then start controlling any other kind of compensation. And if you control that, you have the right to take over the economy's central nervous system, do you not?

[...]

LIMBAUGH: Barney Frank and the Obama administration are blackmailing the rest of the financial industry. This could happen to you. You could be next if you don't play ball with us. A polite way to say blackmail is leverage.

Regardless, this is de-facto nationalization of the entire economy. Remember, we have to return the wealth of the nation to its rightful owners, and in Obama's world, that's the poor and the middle class, who are only poor and middle class because all the spoils are being stolen from them by evil, greedy thieves.

So you destroy the private sector. And you do it with a mob demanding that you do so, as in going after AIG executives. That's how it starts: gin up the populist mob to support a takeover of the private sector. What this will then in turn create is political donations from all of the targeted companies -- ransom, in other words. Obama is basically asking for ransom from financial institutions: Pay me or I'll take you over. Donate to me and my party or I'll take you over -- the old protection racket. Now, in most instances, something as dramatic and overwhelming as this would be a tipping point.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: The standard of living around the world has increased in places where there are basic free markets. Where there aren't, of course, the standard of living has declined, such as Zimbabwe, the former Rhodesia, now run by Robert Ogabe -- Mugabe. I was confusing him with a well-known Kenyan named Barack Ogabe. This is Robert Mugabe.

Please forgive me. I did not intend that slip-up to be made. Barack Ogabe and Robert Mugabe, at least in human structure, are two different people. I don't know about policy, but, basically -- regardless, regardless. See, I'm embarrassed I stepped in that -- Barack Ogabe.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: Meanwhile, some jerk, some idiot, this guy should have been along on the trek to the North Pole. They got stranded. They're going up there to check the sea ice. They're up there -- they're skiing. They're skiing to the Arctic Circle, to the North Pole in March, and they got frozen out. The finally were saved. You know what saved them?

An airplane made in Canada: the DeHavilland Twin Otter. The Twin Otter is a very versatile airplane. It has -- if you want to put skis on it, you can do that. If you want to put pontoons on it for water landing, it'll do that. It'll land on a carrier, power on landings. It'll do any number of things.

So it landed and saved them, rescued them, dropped them food and got them out of there. An evil, combustible engine airplane saved these lunatics skiing to the North Pole in March to check sea ice. This lunatic from the UK should have been on that trek.

Enemies list

NBC News' Chuck Todd, for saying that Obama was "Zen-like" during 60 Minutes interview. Rush claimed Todd is "too invested" in Obama.

America's Truth Rejector

Falsely suggested that Barney Frank was stifling inquiry into AIG's payments to counterparties:

LIMBAUGH: What was happening here is Spencer Bachus was about to nail Geithner, not on the bonuses, but on the 170 billion in bailout money that 93 to $100 billon of which was sent to other banks, among them Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, and others, and he had set that all up and that's why the conversation on haircuts and 80-percent ownership and so forth.

He knows where Bachus is going with all this, and so, the -- Barney Frank once again shut down the entire conversation as it was about to nail Geithner on the real, real problem with these bailouts -- and that is the laundering of money to other banks.