Limbaugh: "There's No Difference" Between Jones, Obama, Wright, And Ayers

By Greg Lewis

Rush came back from his weeklong Hawaiian golf getaway, declaring that he wished Obama and Congress were still on vacation. He then observed that Obama's "indoctrination speech" was starting at the very same moment as his own radio program, which Rush thought was some kind of conspiracy. This was followed up with a new "comedy" skit about Obama giving his "indoctrination speech."

Highlighting unemployment numbers and Congress' approval rating, Rush declared the magic was gone for Obama, and that every time he speaks about health care, his numbers plummet further. Substance has taken over, said Rush, and nobody believes Obama is a centrist anymore. Rush also went over a Pew poll about Obama losing support among white voters -- he quickly came up with a conspiracy that the LA Times was running the story to set up the notion that criticism of Obama was based on race -- that's the reason for the poll, said Rush, and also the reason it was running in that specific outlet.

Then Rush turned to Van Jones, who recently resigned from his post as green jobs adviser for the White House:

LIMBAUGH: Lookit, folks. Van Jones is Jeremiah Wright is Bill Ayers. It was not an accident that he's in the White House. Van Jones is Obama. Mark Lloyd at the FCC is Obama. Jeremiah Wright is Obama. There's no difference. The only difference is that some of them make reckless public statements, but in terms of what he believes Obama's -- he's no different from Van Jones, that's why he was in the White House in the first place.

Rush speculated as to why the media didn't cover Van Jones for months. The reason he came up with is that not only were the media trying to help Obama by not reporting on Van Jones, but more importantly, they ignored him because they "hate" conservatives.

Rush: "Barack Obama is governing against the will of the American people"

Referencing a post at the American Spectator, Rush launched into a rant about Obama promoting chaos:

LIMBAUGH: All this chaos fits right into his plan -- 9.7 percent unemployment is exactly what the doctor ordered. All of this chaos, all of this disarray is exactly -- within our culture, within out economy, is exactly what he wants. He thrives on it.

Rush went on for a few more moments about how there is "nothing decent' happening in the U.S. economy. Then he theorized about Obama's health care plan, saying that no matter what the bill says, it will be "government run" care:

LIMBAUGH: Whatever they end up with, if there is a health care reform bill the Democrats in the House and Senate pass and send it up to sign, it is a government-run health care plan. I don't care what kind of language they use to try to convince you there won't be a public option. Barack Obama is governing against the will of the American people, and the purpose of the speech last night is to cast you as the enemy, is to cast the American people as the enemy while he attempts to cajole you and manipulate you.

Rush suddenly abandons "indoctrination speech" allegation -- now says "Obama just gave a speech that he doesn't believe a word of"

After the break, Rush commented on Obama's just-finished speech to students: Rush declared that Obama didn't believe a word of anything he just said. If he believed anything he said today, said Rush, then Obama wouldn't be trying to push through his agenda:

LIMBAUGH: He just gave a speech that he doesn't believe a word of. If he believed anything he said today, then he would not be trying to accomplish one item in his agenda. His agenda is based on the fact that you can't take care of yourself. His agenda is based on the fact that you are incompetent to make the right decisions. His agenda is that you need guidance and you need leadership and you need somebody making decisions for ya, you need a big government nanny because you're incompetent and incapable. He goes out and tell these students it's all up to you. Your country needs you. We want you to work hard -- not -- notice he used the word "I."

It was only about 20 minutes earlier that Rush was still warning of Obama's "indoctrination speech." This about-face happened so quickly, we got whiplash from it.

Anyway, this was quickly topped off with Rush's idea for a drinking game:

It's the middle of the day so I can't do a drinking game, but if this speech were given at night and I took a drink for every time he said the word "I," I would now be inebriated. "I" this -- I'm doing my best to get you your textbooks, I'm doing my best to get you a good environment, you gotta do the work. He doesn't believe a word of this.

Rush then went through a laundry list of half-baked "reasons" why Obama gave the speech, including helping his poll numbers, and to set up his health care speech tomorrow. After another break, Rush elaborated on this idea, explaining that Obama's speech today was actually not what he originally intended to talk about:

LIMBAUGH: The theme of his speech -- which was not the original intent of the speech, by the way. The original intent of the speech was a Dear Leader kind of thing, like -- right out of the pages of that potbellied tinpot dictator of North Korea, Kim Jong-Il. That's what it was gonna be. You gotta think about me all the time. You gotta write a letter to yourself about how you can help me.

We'd really like to take this opportunity to point out that Rush's claim that the "original intent of the speech was a Dear Leader kind of thing" is absolutely baseless.

Rush now baselessly claiming it was the White House who called protestors Nazis

Rush continued to discuss Obama's speech. Rush said that Obama told kids to take personal responsibility, but that is something Obama never does in his own life, according to Rush. Then Rush changed gears back to health care. His point was that Obama is so desperate to get a health care bill that he will actually resort to telling us the details in tomorrow's speech. Then Rush accused the White House of starting the rhetoric about Nazis at health care town hall meetings. Rush said it came from the Oval Office and the President (previously, conservatives had sourced these allegations to Nancy Pelosi. Rush is again just making things up here).

Rush went on to touch on the subjects of czars a bit more, as well as the way the drive by media "hates us" ("us" being Limbaugh and conservative "new" media). Then Rush went on about how all the '60s radicals were now running America's education system and in the Obama administration.

Rush accuses Obama of "Clinton-esque" lies about his childhood in school speech

Next, Rush went back to Obama's back-to-school speech, pointing out what Rush described as a fabrication. Rush singled out how Obama said in his speech that when he was living in Indonesia as a child, his mother couldn't afford to send him to the school where American students went to, so she woke him up at 4:30 every morning to give him extra tutoring. Rush asked why his mother didn't have the money to send Obama to the better school, describing Obama's supposedly rich family members. And why did it have to be at 4:30 a.m. if his mother didn't have a job? Rush pretty much accused Obama of making up the story, calling it Clinton-esque.

After another commercial timeout, Rush returned to play several sound bites from Obama's back-to-school speech. Rush said that some of it was "great stuff," but added that "it's not what [Obama] believes." After playing a clip in which Obama said there was no excuse for having a bad attitude in school, Rush declared:

LIMBAUGH: Now, this is laughable. I'm sorry if this sounds controversial, folks, but no excuses? He was elected by a bunch of whiners who wanted him to take care of them. That's who voted for the guy -- well, and some guilty white people who thought that maybe they could get rid of the nation's racial past for voting for the guy, but he was elected by a bunch of whiners who thought he was gonna fix everything.

Rush closed out the hour with a caller who said it was undemocratic for Obama to bypass local school boards, bringing his speech directly to schools and principals. Rush didn't really find this theory very interesting, saying there's nothing new about the administration acting antidemocratic. Rush said it's the content of the speech that remains the focal point, and claimed that while Obama was talking about personal responsibility, his agenda is "based on the idea that you don't have any."

Rush calls Obama a "busybody authoritarian"

The second hour of Limbaugh began with our beloved host said he was struck by how insincere Obama's speech was because it did not go along with his own agenda. Rush went on to read an excerpt from Obama's memoir, Dreams from My Father, in which Obama wrote about what his "mentor" Frank Marshall Davis had to say about Obama going to college. Rush said if Obama were sincere, he would have delivered a similar message to students today.

Anyway, Rush went on to describe Obama as a "busybody authoritarian who can't miss an opportunity to tell everybody what to do and how to do it better." Rush continued:

LIMBAUGH: The fact that he wants to insert himself in our businesses, our borrowing decisions, education, doctor visits, automobile production, hand-washing -- I mean, told kids to wash their hands. He wants to get himself involved in every aspect of our lives while telling these kids that personal responsibility's up to them.

This is not a country he wants to lead. This is a country he wants to change. This is a country that he wants to have an authoritarian collectivist government with a very odd group of friends and influences, from Bill Ayers to Van Jones, Jeremiah Wright, Frank Davis, and parents are supposed to apparently get comfortable with this. But it's just -- it's an amazing thing.

Rush then continued to demonstrate his complete lack of understanding of health care reform. He read a CBS News blog post about "robot" Obama campaign volunteers signing a petition supporting the public option. Rush said that whatever bill Obama ends up signing, it would be government run health care. Rush's reasoning was that you cannot have a health care reform bill by the government without having the government involved.

He continued to mock the idea of co-ops, health insurance exchanges, and a public option "trigger." Then Rush again "debunked" the idea that there were 47 million Americans lacking health insurance. Rush explained that many of them were "Martians" and also included people who didn't want insurance. Rush claimed that we could insure all of the people who couldn't get insurance and wanted it for about $30 billion a year. He also added that people can get health care if they're insured or not -- "it's called the emergency room."

Rush turns around Gibbs' Animal House analogy: "Barack Obama is Dean Wormer!"

After the break, Rush brought up Robert Gibbs' response to people protesting Obama's back-to-school speech, in which Gibbs said: "It's a sad state of affairs that many in this country politically would rather start an Animal House food fight rather than inspire kids to stay in school."

Rush decided to run with this analogy to the food fight in the classic comedy Animal House, turning it around on Gibbs:

LIMBAUGH: Why did audiences like the food fight so much? I'll tell you why -- because elitist control-freak arrogant frat boys who were secretly working with the jackass dean whose name was Wormer to get food thrown on their preppy clothes and their snotty, stuck-up faces. That's why people liked it -- because the elitists got it handed to 'em.

Rush explained his analogy, likening Obama to Dean Wormer and the elitist frat boys to people like Van Jones and Bill Ayers:

LIMBAUGH: Gibbs made the perfect analogy here with the Animal House movie, and he probably didn't even realize it. Barack Obama is Dean Wormer, and his administration is all of these elitist frat boy kids who think they're better than everybody else, lording it over everybody. He's working with an elitist fraternity with members in it like Van Jones and Bill Ayers and the state-controlled media, and their goal is to run the campus, the country for their own benefit, and the rest of us are just a bunch of Blutarski snobs not smart enough or cool enough to be in their fraternity.

Rush then noted the "circle of irony" in John Belushi's character in the movie becoming a US Senator, "[t]he guy who started the food fight at all the elitists." Rush called Gibbs a "flat-shoed, birdbrained idiot" and capped off his comparison of the Obama administration to the "cool" frat in Animal House:

We are -- we're the frat kids that are not cool. Your boss is Wormer, you're one of the assistants, and the rest of the administration's a bunch of too-cool-for-the-room frat-boy exclusive elitists, arrogant, impudent snobs looking down on us, and you want to ram your little agenda down our schoolkids' throats, and rather than bending over and saying, "Thank you, can I have another?" we said, "Keep your words out of our schools."

We have another piece to add to Rush's "circle of irony." One of the elitist frat boys in the movie, who Rush described as a natural fit in the Obama administration, according to the film's lore, went on to be an aide in the Nixon White House.

Rush declares Obama's school speech "100 percent conservative in its message"

Before going to another break, Rush said of Obama's speech that it was "100 percent conservative in its message. ... Because this is a conservative country, and the only way Obama can get his leftist agenda is to make people think he is not who he is."

Returning from a commercial break, Rush took a caller who asked why Obama would choose to be advised by a communist like Van Jones. Rush repeated his earlier point, that Jones is Obama, and that people don't want to believe these things about their president, and ranted for a while about Obama's "czars." Rush then accused liberals of governing against the will of the people.

Rush explained again how Obama is creating chaos by design, and conspired about Obama's speech tomorrow in front of a joint session of Congress. Rush explained that the speech was about Obama saving face, and called it a display of great weakness. Rush went on to explain the only "real" crisis facing this country:

LIMBAUGH: He has a personal and a political crisis on his hands of his own making. And you know, the only real crisis -- the only real crisis facing this country at this time is economic in nature. Specifically, the private sector has been half destroyed by the president's own hand. The bills that he has asked for and signed have damaged the private sector's ability to create new jobs.

Rush said that Obama's health care plan would add to the economic malaise, and would explode the deficit and joblessness. Obama, said Rush, would be asking Congress to make the economy even worse. Rush also said "death panels" don't have to be in the language of the bill to be in the bill. Just like the War on Poverty legislation didn't say it would wipe out the black family, that is what happened. Rush said the same would happen with death panels.

After another break, Rush read an AP report on Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) calling for a fine on families that don't have health insurance after reform goes into effect. Rush criticized Republicans for possibly going along with reform:

LIMBAUGH: Baucus is hoping his plan can win bipartisan support. If it -- if it wins bipartisan support, if there are Republicans that go along with this -- I mean, this is -- the Democrats are putting a gun to their heads. I know -- they just need Olympia Snowe, I know, they just need Olympia Snowe, and she's stupid enough -- ah ah ah -- she is silly enough.

Rush finished off the hour with another caller, who was critical about the conservative overreaction to Obama's school speech. Rush disagreed with the caller and reiterated all the same points about Obama's speech that he had been making for the past two hours.

Rush declares victory in Ted Kennedy funeral predictions

Hour 3 began with Rush touting the latest Washington Times conspiracy about the National Endowment for the Arts recruiting artists to create propaganda in support of the Obama administration's policy. Rush capped off his discussion with an audio clip of George Will discussing this on This Week.

After briefly discussing an Obama proposal to expand retirement savings options, Rush went on to gloat over predictions he made about the Ted Kennedy funeral. He had predicted a couple weeks ago that newscasters like Andrea Mitchell would say the rainy weather at the funeral would be symbolic of the heavens crying for Kennedy. Rush claimed victory with audio bites from Mitchell and Stephanie Miller making remarks of the sort that he predicted.

Then Rush went on to play sound bites from Obama's speech yesterday at the AFL-CIO Labor Day picnic. Rush described Obama as looking "mad and angry" while giving the speech. He also described the audience at the speech as "idiots," half of whom were without jobs, and Rush said that Obama's claims about what wasn't in health care reform (pulling the plug on grandma, insurance for illegal immigrants) were "patently untrue."

After the break, Rush took a caller who was concerned over doctor shortages if health care reform passed and more people had health insurance. Rush said that was a concern, as was death panels, and described how the town hall protestors were informed about these issues. Rush said the whole health care mess exists because government is involved in forcing solutions that are not market based.

The next caller said the strategy behind Obama's back-to-school speech was "ingenious" because it made conservatives who worried about it seem like a bunch of kooks after it turned out to be reasonable. Rush again baselessly claimed that what Obama said today wasn't his original intent, and that there was a genuine reason for the outcry.

After another break, Rush played a few clips from a Meet the Press roundtable discussion with Thomas Friedman and Tom Brokaw, in which they went over Van Jones' resignation and the role of the Internet. Rush accused Friedman of blaming the Internet, and noted the media distorting (note the New York Times' correction) Mark Steyn's comments when he guest-hosted for Rush last week. Rush also accused the media of failing to report on Jones until he resigned.

Another caller on the program talked to Rush about union members like himself defecting from their support of Obama. Rush thought that everybody out there ought to be realizing that they made a mistake last November, and that they should be there standing up, outraged and scared to death for the future of their country. Rush concluded that the kind of energy that was present at Obama's AFL CIO speech doesn't exist anywhere else in the country for Obama.

One more break, and Rush was back to saying how Obama's school speech was 100 percent conservatism. He posited that if George W. Bush had made the speech and mentioned "God" like Obama did, the left would be outraged "within five minutes" about it. The next caller on the program made some remarks about what Obama has said about personal responsibility, and the final caller was in the steelworkers union, and also didn't support Obama, and said union members were concerned about the stimulus.

Zachary Aronow and Zachary Pleat contributed to this edition of the Limbaugh Wire.

Highlights

Outrageous comments

LIMBAUGH: Lookit, folks. Van Jones is Jeremiah Wright is Bill Ayers. It was not an accident that he's in the White House. Van Jones is Obama. Mark Lloyd at the FCC is Obama. Jeremiah Wright is Obama. There's no difference. The only difference is that some of them make reckless public statements, but in terms of what he believes Obama's -- he's no different from Van Jones, that's why he was in the White House in the first place.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: Now there's also -- I read a piece, did massive show prep late yesterday afternoon and last night. And I don't even remember who wrote this piece -- it might have been Quin Hillyer at American Spectator. He said, look, it was a great August, but don't get giddy here. Don't get all excited, this is nowhere by any means over. And he made a point -- I love seeing it, because it's a point that I have been drilling home ever since Obama took office.

All this chaos fits right into his plan -- 9.7 percent unemployment is exactly what the doctor ordered. All of this chaos, all of this disarray is exactly -- within our culture, within out economy, is exactly what he wants. He thrives on it.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: Whatever they end up with, if there is a health care reform bill the Democrats in the House and Senate pass and send it up to sign, it is a government-run health care plan. I don't care what kind of language they use to try to convince you there won't be a public option. Barack Obama is governing against the will of the American people, and the purpose of the speech last night is to cast you as the enemy, is to cast the American people as the enemy while he attempts to cajole you and manipulate you.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: He just gave a speech that he doesn't believe a word of. If he believed anything he said today, then he would not be trying to accomplish one item in his agenda. His agenda is based on the fact that you can't take care of yourself. His agenda is based on the fact that you are incompetent to make the right decisions. His agenda is that you need guidance and you need leadership and you need somebody making decisions for ya, you need a big government nanny because you're incompetent and incapable. He goes out and tell these students it's all up to you. Your country needs you. We want you to work hard -- not -- notice he used the word "I."

It's the middle of the day so I can't do a drinking game, but if this speech were given at night and I took a drink for every time he said the word "I," I would now be inebriated. "I" this -- I'm doing my best to get you your textbooks, I'm doing my best to get you a good environment, you gotta do the work. He doesn't believe a word of this.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: The theme of his speech -- which was not the original intent of the speech, by the way. The original intent of the speech was a Dear Leader kind of thing, like -- right out of the pages of that potbellied tinpot dictator of North Korea, Kim Jong-Il. That's what it was gonna be. You gotta think about me all the time. You gotta write a letter to yourself about how you can help me.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: Now, this is laughable. I'm sorry if this sounds controversial, folks, but no excuses? He was elected by a bunch of whiners who wanted him to take care of them. That's who voted for the guy -- well, and some guilty white people who thought that maybe they could get rid of the nation's racial past for voting for the guy, but he was elected by a bunch of whiners who thought he was gonna fix everything.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: He's a busybody authoritarian who can't miss an opportunity to tell everybody what to do and how to do it better. The fact that he wants to insert himself in our businesses, our borrowing decisions, education, doctor visits, automobile production, hand-washing -- I mean, told kids to wash their hands. He wants to get himself involved in every aspect of our lives while telling these kids that personal responsibility's up to them.

This is not a country he wants to lead. This is a country he wants to change. This is a country that he wants to have an authoritarian collectivist government with a very odd group of friends and influences, from Bill Ayers to Van Jones, Jeremiah Wright, Frank Davis, and parents are supposed to apparently get comfortable with this. But it's just -- it's an amazing thing.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: Obama had to deliver a speech that was entirely conservative in its message -- 100 percent conservative in its message. Why? Because this is a conservative country, and the only way Obama can get his leftist agenda is to make people think he is not who he is.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: He has a personal and a political crisis on his hands of his own making. And you know, the only real crisis -- the only real crisis facing this country at this time is economic in nature. Specifically, the private sector has been half destroyed by the president's own hand. The bills that he has asked for and signed have damaged the private sector's ability to create new jobs.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: Baucus is hoping his plan can win bipartisan support. If it -- if it wins bipartisan support, if there are Republicans that go along with this -- I mean, this is -- the Democrats are putting a gun to their heads. I know -- they just need Olympia Snowe, I know, they just need Olympia Snowe, and she's stupid enough -- ah ah ah -- she is silly enough.

From the Department of Dumb Analogies

LIMBAUGH: But do you remember the food fight in Animal House? Somebody needs to tell Gibbs that Americans loved the Animal House food fight. It's one of the favorite parts of the movie. You seen it, Dawn? All right, let's remember what happened here. Why did audiences like the food fight so much? I'll tell you why -- because elitist control-freak arrogant frat boys who were secretly working with the jackass dean whose name was Wormer to get food thrown on their preppy clothes and their snotty, stuck-up faces. That's why people liked it -- because the elitists got it handed to 'em.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: Gibbs made the perfect analogy here with the Animal House movie, and he probably didn't even realize it. Barack Obama is Dean Wormer, and his administration is all of these elitist frat boy kids who think they're better than everybody else, lording it over everybody. He's working with an elitist fraternity with members in it like Van Jones and Bill Ayers and the state-controlled media, and their goal is to run the campus, the country for their own benefit, and the rest of us are just a bunch of Blutarski snobs not smart enough or cool enough to be in their fraternity.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: And do you remember the circle of irony in that movie Animal House? At the end of the movie, John Blutarski, who was played by -- ah, I'm having a -- John Belushi. John Belushi. The character John Blutarski went on to become a United States senator. Do you remember the end of the movie? The guy who started the food fight at all the elitists -- Gibbs, you're an idiot! You're a flat-shoed, birdbrained idiot. You have just used the perfect example.

We are -- we're the frat kids that are not cool. Your boss is Wormer, you're one of the assistants, and the rest of the administration's a bunch of too-cool-for-the-room frat-boy exclusive elitists, arrogant, impudent snobs looking down on us, and you want to ram your little agenda down our schoolkids' throats, and rather than bending over and saying, "Thank you, can I have another?" we said, "Keep your words out of our schools."