Hour 3: Limbaugh Calls Obama "A Wrench Into Everybody's Future"

This hour of the Limbaugh Wire brought to you by Barack "The Wrench" Obama
By Simon Maloy

Rush got the final hour going by affording us a much-appreciated break from the bile and vitriol, explaining the vague details of his diet program. When he was through playing Jenny Craig, Rush explained that he had not intended to talk about Obama and GM for two hours, but the whole thing is just so "outrageous." This is evidenced, said Rush, by a New York Times story on Brian Deese, the "31-year-old who, in a first government job, finds himself dismantling General Motors and rewriting the rules of American capitalism." Rush was incensed that Obama hired a 31-year-old to do this, wondering how he's qualified to dismantle and put back together General Motors. Then he credited the blog Sweetness & Light for highlighting a Washington Post article from last November reporting that Obama "urged President Bush to support immediate aid for struggling automakers and back a new stimulus package, even as congressional Democrats began drafting legislation to give the Detroit automakers quick access to $25 billion by adding them to the Treasury Department's $700 billion economic rescue program." This, according to Limbaugh and the bloggers, contradicts what Obama said today about automakers "having relied on loans from the previous administration."

Then Rush reiterated his interpretation of Obama's "sacrifice" comments from this morning -- according to Rush, Obama is saying that your future is over, your purpose is to make sacrifices for your children and grandchildren, and that the middle class should forestall their pursuit of the American dream. This is tantamount to killing the American economy, said Rush. Democrats always claim they're on the side of the little guy, said Rush, but the little guy keeps losing his job. And every time Obama announces a fix to something, he says it's going to get worse.

Rush then said that the next hurdle in the middle class' pursuit of the American dream was outlined in a Politico article this morning, headlined "Obama health plan takes shape." The middle class are facing a huge tax increase, said Rush, because, as the Politico wrote, "some people will take a tax hit. The hot target at the moment: levying a tax on health benefits provided through employers, which currently aren't subject to taxation." This is scary stuff, said Rush, when you compound it with the fact that the Chinese are going to say screw exporting and screw the United States. If Obama gets everything he wants, Rush said, we're going to be $11 trillion in debt.

After the break, Rush read from a Reuters article, "Federal Reserve puzzled by yield curve steepening," which reported that the Fed "is not really sure what is driving the sharp rise in long-dated bond yields, and especially a widening gap between short and long term yields." According to Reuters, the rising yields could mean that "an economic recovery is more certain," or that "investors are worried about the deterioration in the U.S. fiscal outlook." Rush said that normally, if you invest in something and get a good return, it's good news - but in this case it might not be.

After another break Rush came back asking how many of us had read this piece in Pravda, "American capitalism gone with a whimper." Remember when people like Rush held up Pravda as the epitome of state-run media irresponsibility, instead of something to be credulously cited on their own radio programs?

Anyway, Rush took another caller, this one asking if anyone remembered last week when Obama said that the economy was back from the brink and that we ain't seen nothing yet. Rush said the caller was right, but he's not supposed to be that smart because he lives in Arkansas and thus was not supposed to be able to figure out Obama's hypocrisy. According to Rush, Obama's saying it's going to get worse, you have no hope, only your children and grandchildren have hope. But that's not even true, said Rush, because they will be born broke.

Rush's next caller professed to feeling like she is in the "Twilight Zone" because when she was growing up, Pravda told the lies, but now Rush is saying that Pravda is telling the truth (see our observation above). Anyway, the caller then thanked Rush for explaining to her that Obama is making the economy worse so that when it recovers he can take all the credit. Rush said that we have to define the economic recovery -- for most people, it will mean unemployment numbers recovering, but economists say that isn't going to happen. Rush said that the real estate market has to stabilize, and maybe it can stabilize in the next year (in time for the 2010 midterms) because the U.S. economy is a very powerful thing. But it's taking a lot of hits, said Rush. It's being "stomped on" and "depressed" by the Democrats. If the Democrats "get their way," said Rush, "if they get cap-and-trade and if they get taxing the health-care benefits as income, and they get their health-care plan, there's not going to be any economic recovery here. You're gonna have -- the only segment that's gonna be growing is gonna be government, and the only people who will be doing well will be working for government."

One more break and Rush explained for us one more time what's going on with the Sotomayor nomination -- Obama has a problem because she did say something very racist, and she'd bring that racism to the court. Nobody is denying the charge, said Rush. Actually, people are denying it - people like Sen. Lindsey Graham and Kathleen Parker, and SCOTUSblog guru Tom Goldstein.

Rush took one more caller to close out the show, this one from a man claiming he wants to "throw a wrench into Obama's plans for nationalizing the auto industry," and explaining that he and his friends would never buy a product from a company controlled by the federal government. Rush said that Obama has a plan to deal with people like him, and the caller said he has his own plan - to vote Obama out of office. Rush's conclusion to all this was: "[Y]ou're talking about putting a wrench in his plans -- Obama is a wrench into everybody's future."

And that's all folks - another Limbaugh Wire etched into digital stone. We'll be back tomorrow for more apocalyptic fun. Until then, please consider taking a look at Media Matters' continually growing and frequently interesting Limbaugh archives.

Highlights from Hour 3

Outrageous comments

LIMBAUGH: All of this is academic. But you know if they get their way, if they get cap-and-trade and if they get taxing the health-care benefits as income, and they get their health-care plan, there's not going to be any economic recovery here. You're gonna have -- the only segment that's gonna be growing is gonna be government, and the only people who will be doing well will be working for government.

[...]

CALLER: Yeah, Rush, I was calling to kind of throw a wrench into Obama's plans for nationalizing the auto industry. A group of friends of mine recently had a conversation, and what came out of that conversation I think was important because I think a lot of Americans feel the same way. And that is we would never buy a product from any company that was being controlled by the federal government. And a lot of that had to do with our hatred for socialism.

LIMBAUGH: Now, wait a second. Obama says he's not going to run the company, except for the most fundamental decisions.

CALLER: Well, Rush, we both know that Obama is lying through his teeth [laughing].

LIMBAUGH: All right, all right. So you're not gonna but a car -- you and your buddies are not gonna buy a car owned by the government -- a company owned by the government.

CALLER: Exactly. And I really think that --

LIMBAUGH: Obama's got a plan for that, I hate to tell you.

CALLER: Well, we have a plan too. And it's called we're gonna try to vote him out of office.

LIMBAUGH: You're gonna try to do what?

CALLER: Vote him out of office.

LIMBAUGH: Well, yeah. Yeah, good luck. He's in the process of stacking the deck against that option. You tell -- is there an alternative party out there?

CALLER: No, not yet.

LIMBAUGH: Well, there isn't yet; there probably will be. Here's where Odam -- you're talking about putting a wrench in his plans -- Obama is a wrench into everybody's future.