The Friday Rush: Mr. Limbaugh, meet Mr. Godwin

Rush Limbaugh is exactly like Adolf Hitler.

Now, before you start in with the condemnations and Godwin references, let me explain. In saying that Rush Limbaugh is exactly like Adolf Hitler, what I mean is that they were both possessed of a gift for public speaking. I'm not comparing Rush to the Hitler that was responsible for millions of deaths across Europe, I'm comparing him to the Hitler that could give one Reichstag-burner of a speech. And for you to simply assume that in comparing Rush to Hitler, I was linking him to Hitler's horrific acts of genocide is wrongheaded and outrageous, and you should be ashamed of yourself.

This argument is, of course, ridiculous. I'm making it because Rush, after closing out last week with a spirited recitation of the ways in which Democrats are just like Nazis and making direct comparisons between President Obama and Hitler, offered this defense of himself on Monday: "But old [White House press secretary Robert] Gibbs here wants to say I was comparing the genocidal Hitler to Obama, and that's just typical of this bunch, to take that position on it. I was comparing one socialist to another, pure and simple." This is nuts. You can't subdivide Hitler. The reason Hitler comparisons are so heinous is because they implicitly link the other party to genocide. And Rush himself appears to understand this, but only when he believes he's on the receiving end of the comparison: "[T]o sit here and to be compared to the monstrous, genocidal Adolf Hitler, that's beyond the pale."

And Rush's defense that he was simply comparing Obama's and Hitler's affinity for "socialism" rests on the notion that Hitler was a man of the left, which is a boutique theory of right-wing revisionists, but would make any serious historian cringe. Painting Hitler as a liberal helps to reinforce Rush's idea that conservatism can do absolutely no wrong, and liberalism is the source of all evil in the world. He said as much last week during one of his pep talks for the faithful: "There is nothing wrong with conservatism." And you saw Rush stridently defend the notion this week as he proclaimed that the people displaying swastikas at the health care protests aren't the true-blooded American patriots who oppose Obama, but are actually ACORN members "using political jujitsu to try to make it look like opponents of Obama's health care plan are these radicals." He even went so far as to say that the swastika painted on a sign outside the office of Rep. David Scott (D-GA) was the work of "[s]ome Democrat lackey." Death threats against Rep. Brad Miller (D-NC)? "I, frankly, don't believe this. I don't believe these guys' lives are being threatened." The Southern Poverty Law Center's report on rising right-wing militias? "This is 100 percent total manufactured B.S."

But those, admittedly, are speculative examples. We can't be 100 percent sure that every person displaying a swastika at a town hall isn't an ACORN plant, or that the swastika painted on Scott's sign wasn't part of some sinister Democratic plot, or that the SPLC didn't just invent all its data. What we can be sure of, however, is that ex-Gov. Sarah Palin was 100 percent wrong when she wrote that Obama's health plan establishes "death panels" with the purpose of euthanizing the elderly and disabled. But in Limbaugh Land, conservatives are always right, no matter how wrong they are. So not only was Palin's "death panels" statement correct, her defense of it proved her "intellectual heft." According to Rush: "Seems to me if you go to her Facebook, she's done some homework on this health care bill. She has become on expert on Section 1233. ... I would suggest that anybody who doubts her intellectual heft or her ability to learn and study, go to her Facebook page and look at the notes she's taken."

So conservatives are always right and good, and liberals are always wrong and evil. But what happens when conservatives attack other conservatives? Earlier this week on Fox News, Mort Kondracke said "the [Republican] leadership is afraid of Rush Limbaugh," and Charles Krauthammer said of the rowdy town hall protests: "What's happening is this is causing a backlash. It's completely unnecessary. It is shooting yourself in the foot." This presented an awkward situation for Rush, particularly when you consider that Rush has expressed his desire to replace his own brain with Krauthammer's. His solution? To say they're still good conservatives, but they've been corrupted: "It's a classic example ... of inside-the-Beltway-itis. ... [N]o matter how smart you are, no matter how brilliant you are, no matter how often you are right, there's something about living, working, and breathing inside the Beltway that makes you ... unable to have a perspective identical to people who are living and working outside that place every day."

But one can't forget the basis for all this Nazi rhetoric and pie-in-the-sky conservative boosterism -- health care reform. Or, more accurately, brazen lies about health care reform. Let's consider, once again, the infamous death panels. Confounding logical thinkers everywhere, Rush found evidence of their existence in their non-existence: "There are and were death panels in [the bill] because the Senate has announced, 'We're going to pull them out. We're going to get rid of all that stuff.' So they were there." Not quite. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) announced that the Medicare reimbursement for end-of-life counseling had been dropped from the Senate version of the bill because it "could be misinterpreted." This, of course, followed Grassley's misinterpretation of the bill a day earlier, when he suggested it would establish "a government program that determines if you're going to pull the plug on grandma." The fact remains that the provision, whether it's in the bill or not, does not provide for "death panels."

Rush also used health care as a springboard into one of his favorite pastimes -- using Obama's own family to smear him. Specifically, Rush invoked Obama's stepbrother George, whom he endearingly referred to as "George Obongo Obango Odingo Obama" and Obama's "hut brother." Rush argued that Obama sees health care reform as being all about himself, since the president "doesn't give a damn" about his brother living in a hut. Don't worry if the connection eludes you, because it also eludes me, but the reality of the situation is that George Obama doesn't appear to want handouts from his White House-dwelling kin. In fact, George is currently writing a memoir to be published by Simon & Shuster, and his advocacy work on behalf of the poor gives him "an identification so strong that he chooses to live among them."

None of that matters, though, because Rush bringing up George Obama is all about one thing -- making Obama appear, as Rush himself put it, "not at all similar to the core of the American people." That's why Rush brings up Obama's birth certificate, or reads articles comparing Obama to an African colonial, or draws parallels between Obama and Hitler. He wants to give the impression that the president is foreign, shady, and dangerous.

But don't be alarmed by all this Nazi rhetoric from Rush, because it turns out that he hasn't actually been saying it! By his own accounting, Rush has been a voice for calm, explaining today that "[i]t is I who is denouncing all of this." Well, what about all those Hitler comparisons, Rush? "Nobody's calling Obama Hitler; nobody's calling Pelosi Joseph Goebbels." And since it wasn't Rush or the conservatives engaging in this sort of rhetoric, that really left only one other party to blame: "All these Democrats running around with all this hate speech aimed at the American people, and some of them now having to apologize for it."

So there you have a fine encapsulation of The Rush Limbaugh Show this week -- Rush never called anyone a Nazi, it was actually the Democrats who did that, because Rush is a good conservative, and liberals are just like Nazis.