Hour 2: Limbaugh compares Obama to Kim Jong Il

This hour of the Limbaugh Wire brought to you by Obama and Kim Jong Il's shared propaganda strategy
By Simon Maloy

Rush came back for the second hour talking about his general disdain for physical exercise, and claimed his suspicions were confirmed by a Live Science article with the headline: "Exercise Good Even After Heart Failure." Rush explained that he knew what the article was getting at -- if your heart fails, you go to the hospital and get it fixed, and then exercise is supposed to help afterward. But the way the headline reads, according to Rush, is that if your heart stops, go jogging. (By the way, heart failure is not the same as cardiac arrest.) Rush went on to say his newest diet had reaped dividends, and that he plans to exceed his weight loss goal so that he can have a grand old time putting that extra weight back on.

Rush then returned briefly to the CBC's Cuba trip, saying that Rep. Laura Richardson's (D-CA) comments had reminded him of news reports from last year on the foreclosure of Richardson's house in Sacramento. Rush said this explains her affection for Castro -- there is no private property in Cuba, which means no one can foreclose on your house.

After a quick break, Rush took a call from a man who followed Cuba "very closely" and just recently learned that Cuba imports 84 percent of its food because the country is so poor. Rush said there's another reason they import food -- so they can export it right out again, as they have no other way of producing income. This led to an extended discussion of the Cuban embargo, with Rush ambivalent as to whether it should be lifted. Another caller said she traveled to Cuba on a religious visa, and Rush said the reason people travel to Cuba is so that they can offer their reactions to their trip.

After the break, Rush had a comparison for us: Kim Jong Il is knowingly lying when he tells his people that North Korea now has a satellite in orbit, and Obama is knowingly lying to his people when he says that stimulus spending is doing anything but "stimulating government." According to Rush: "The banking crisis is far from over despite all the stimulus." This is a fine response to an argument no one ever made -- that the government stimulus package would fix the financial crisis in less than two months. Anyway, these, according to Rush, are equivalent examples of "totalitarian" propaganda: "So, you've got propaganda in North Korea, you got propaganda coming out of Washington, D.C. -- the propaganda spread by media in both places."

Rush then took a call from an English teacher who thanked Rush for saying a couple of weeks ago that the smallest minority in the world is the "individual," because she has now incorporated that concept into her lesson plans. In response, Rush pointed to the latest Newsweek cover announcing "The Decline and Fall of Christian America." According to Rush, you can't listen to or read a speech by George Washington without seeing him reference God over and over and over, but ever since Washington, there has been an effort to disabuse people of the notion that America has a religious founding. This, says Limbaugh, "dovetails" with what's happening in schools today -- a "massive effort" to get people to think not as individuals but as part of a group, which is a bad thing (but remember, go to your local Tea Party on tax day!).

Anyway, the caller then announced that she had a "beef" with Limbaugh! We were excited, and so was Rush. Her "beef" had to do with Limbaugh's unhinged ranting a couple of weeks ago about Obama's advocacy of smart meters, which Rush claimed were an attempt by the government to worm its way into your house to tell you how and when to use your thermostat -- "tyranny, pure unadulterated tyranny." Now, we explained what smart meters are, and they're not part of an insidious government conspiracy, but apparently this woman's husband had come to believe they were and that had discouraged him from buying a flat-screen television. Rush responds: "I simply listened to what Obama said. He talked about it in a White House meeting with one of these groups that he then sent off into work groups. He said: 'And we're working on new thermostats that will report your electronic usage and will let you know when you are over your limit.' I said, what? Now a lot of people are saying that talking about this is just -- that this is conspiracy kooks that believe in this. Obama said it!"

No, actually, he didn't say it -- those are the words Rush put in his mouth. What Obama actually said -- the exact words that set Rush off initially a couple of weeks ago -- were: "We could set up systems so that everybody in each house have their own smart meters that will tell you when to turn off the lights, when the peak hours are, can help you sell back energy that you've generated in your home through a solar panel or through other mechanisms." That's it. No talk of "limits," no talk of government "monitoring," nothing of the sort. Anyway, Rush chastised the caller for thinking exactly as the Obama administration wants her to, and that the next thing is that she'll be afraid to call into Rush's show because a government agent might be monitoring her. And where would she get such an idea? Perhaps from Rush Limbaugh (falsely) claiming that the government has announced its intention to monitor her.

Anyway, Rush closed out the hour with some more bashing "climate engineering," claiming that the worst thing that could happen to liberals is that their solutions for global warming actually work, because that would deprive them of so many issues, politically.

Highlights from Hour 2

Outrageous comments

LIMBAUGH: I have a little comparison for you that I want to make. I want you to think about this. Last week, the North Koreans -- the Norks as they're affectionately known -- the Norks, led by Kim Jong Il, launched a missile. It went over Japan and landed ostensibly on-target in the Pacific Ocean, which is a huge target to miss.

Kim Jong Il arranged celebrations and big, massive displays of pride by ostensible Nork citizens over this great achievement. Because what he's claiming is they now have a satellite in orbit. The Norks have a satellite. They don't have a satellite. There's no satellite up there, but the Norks have put out this, and they got the people out there cheering, "Oh, wow, [unintelligible] national pride here. We Norks, we've put up our first satellite. We're really coming along."

This is pure propaganda now. At the same time, Kim Jong Il knows that there's no satellite up there. He's lying to his people. He's lying to his population. He's lying to the world about successfully launching a satellite.

Now we come to the United States of America, where the government of Barack Obama has stimulated the economy with not jut an $800 billion stimulus package, a $700 billion TARP payment -- I don't know how many trillions have now been used to stimulate the economy. And the government is telling everybody that this is great stuff, and it's going to have great effect. It's going to be great.

It's all propaganda. And Obama knows full well that his stimulus package is not going to stimulate anything but government. It's not going to stimulate jobs. It isn't going to stimulate private sector jobs. It's not going to stimulate economic growth. After all of this stimulus, we're still being told 10 percent unemployment to the -- 10 percent unemployment? The banking crisis is far from over despite all the stimulus.

So, you've got propaganda in North Korea, you got propaganda coming out of Washington, D.C. -- the propaganda spread by media in both places.

America's Truth Rejector

Falsely claimed Obama spoke of smart meters setting energy usage "limits":

CALLER: Before you switch to another caller, I do have a beef with you, though. Can I bring up my beef?

LIMBAUGH: You have a beef with me.

CALLER: Yes.

LIMBAUGH: By all means. It's beef week, so, fire away.

CALLER: You were talking about the electrical meters that were going to be installed that were going to monitor electrical use?

LIMBAUGH: Yes, the thermostats. Yes.

CALLER: Well, my husband heard that and is not too happy. We were looking at getting either a big-screen TV or a Select Comfort bed. And he is trying to put me off of spending that and putting money into the economy, because he thinks Obama's going to be looking at our electrical meters and complaining about how much energy we're spending.

LIMBAUGH: You know, you don't know --

CALLER: And do you think that --

LIMBAUGH: Let me tell you something. This is -- I'm glad you brought this up, because I simply listened to what Obama said. He talked about it in a White House meeting with one of these groups that he then sent off into work groups. He said: "And we're working on new thermostats that will report your electronic usage and will let you know when you are over your limit." I said, what?

Now a lot of people are saying that talking about this is just -- that this is conspiracy kooks that believe in this. Obama said it! And it's not -- and the first time he said it, it was not the first time he's talked about it. He's mentioned it in some of his writings and so forth.

This is -- this is why -- all -- to discredit something in this country, all you have to do is, "Ah, that's a conspiracy theory," because conspiracy theories are only believed by kooks. And nobody wants to be a kook. So you don't want to be considered a kook, just like you don't want to be falsely accused of being a racist or you shut up about it. But Obama said it. And Google is working on it. In some states, they've already got them.