Hour 3: Limbaugh Continues To Promote Birther Conspiracy Theories

Do you like to yell nonsense about Obama's birth certificate? Then you, too, can be featured on The Rush Limbaugh Show!
By Greg Lewis

Rush got the third hour going by reading a Time magazine article about utility companies "scrambl[ing]" to meet the power needs of electric cars. The stupid environmentalist wackos, declared Rush, don't realize their electric cars do not come from clean energy. We guess it didn't matter to Rush that the article wasn't actually about what he thought it was -- it had nothing to do with energy sources, but rather energy infrastructure to meet the demands of an influx in plug-in electric vehicles in California. In other words, he simply jammed an irrelevant story into his "idiot" environmentalist narrative.

Then Rush pondered what would happen to abortion under "ObamaCare." Rush said the government won't be able to refuse to pay for abortions. Then Rush speculated about medical ethics, wondering what would happen if they could identify the genetic marker for homosexuality. Rush said if this happened, then the gay community would quickly "convert" from being pro-choice to pro-life.

Moving on, Rush followed through on his promise last week to contrast Vice President Joe Biden with former Sen. Bob Torricelli (D-NJ). We won't bore you with the particulars of this inside joke from Limbaugh Land, but what this consisted of was having his audio engineer pair snippets from Biden's speech last week touting the impact of the stimulus on the economy with sound bites of CNBC's Maria Bartiromo announcing dire economic news.

Then Rush went back to wading in the swamp of Birther nonsense. He played an audio clip from a town hall meeting with Rep. Mike Castle (R-DE) featuring a woman yelling about Obama's lack of birth certificate and claiming that he was actually born in Kenya. Rush repeated the woman's claims and noted that "all kinds of stuff is bubbling up out there." That's true, there are "all sorts of stuff" out there, and it's crazy. What makes this bit of lunatic idiocy different from other similarly lunatic bits of idiocy is that this one was broadcast across the nation on The Rush Limbaugh Show without so much as a word in contradiction.

After the break, Rush took a call from a critical care physician who explained to Rush that at the hospital where he works, all patients, who have a wide range of insurance coverage, get what they need. Rush told the caller that we never hear the horror stories of people being denied the health care we need. The caller then announced that he is going to quit medicine if the Obama health care reform passes because it would force him to deny care to old people at the behest of some "high school dropout" bureaucrat in Washington. Rush, as you might have guessed, was quite pleased with the caller's outlook.

Rush took another break, and returned this time to discuss Obama's speech last week at the NAACP -- or the NAALCP as Rush calls the group (the "L" standing for "liberal") -- Centennial Convention. Rush felt as though the speech vindicated his sentiment that Obama was in fact making racism worse: "This guy is out there stoking more hatred among these people. He is not bringing us together. Where's the unity?"

Rush proceeded to critique bits of the speech, explaining that Obama was listing all of the "excuses" the left makes for African-American failure. "Bill Cosby got drummed out of the black race for saying this stuff, right?" When Obama described how he wanted kids to "aspire" to be a Supreme Court justice and president of the United States, Rush said that Obama meant, "unless you're Clarence Thomas," Condoleezza Rice, or Thomas Sowell. Then you can "forget aspirations" because people like Obama will chop you into liver.

Then Rush played another bit from the speech, audio of Obama saying that he "had some breaks" in life. What were the breaks? asked Rush. Meeting communist mentors? While we were contemplating just how much sense that retort made, Rush concluded that the speech "didn't inspire anybody" and "reinforced" the existing attitude that exists in the "race business today."

Rush returned to health care with a caller who asked about health savings accounts. Rush explained to the caller that HSAs would help bring the free market system back to health care, but Congress has killed it.

After one more break, Rush took a caller who stated that Walter Cronkite did more to cost U.S. lives in Vietnam than anyone else, because the will to win went south after Cronkite famously declared that it was clear that the war was lost. Rush said he had recently discussed Cronkite with fellow radio host Mark Levin, who suggested Cronkite was so adored because he looked like Walt Disney. What it came down to, though, was that Walter Cronkite -- the man who arguably did more to shape modern television journalism than any person before or since -- was eulogized on The Rush Limbaugh Show as just another insidious liberal who was responsible for the deaths of American soldiers.

And that brings us to the end of today's edition of the Limbaugh Wire. We hope you had as much of a thrill reading it as we did writing it -- particularly the Birther parts. Those are always fun. As always, we'll be back for another round tomorrow, adding more content to the ever-expanding Limbaugh Wire archives.

Simon Maloy, Zachary Pleat, and Ariana Probinsky contributed to this edition of the Limbaugh Wire.

Highlights from Hour 3

Outrageous comments

LIMBAUGH: Folks, this is the original litmus test. This is the original list of sins. This guy is out there stoking more hatred among these people. He is not bringing us together. Where's the unity?