By Zachary Pleat

Rush: Obama's career “is nothing but a collection of words”

Saying he doesn't care about the shortlist of Time magazine's Person of the Year, Rush read off the list and ranted that the American worker is not on the list. Rush then shared a NewsBusters post by the Palin-struck Noel Sheppard about government monitoring of social networking sites. He then predictably crowed about a report that another Democratic Congressman won't run for re-election next year.

Rush then played some audio from President Obama's appearance on 60 Minutes this past weekend, focusing along with everyone else on his quote that he didn't “run for office to be helping out a bunch of fat cat bankers on Wall Street.” Rush then continued to denigrate President Obama by dismissing his career as just “words”, which leads to the question of just what El Rushbo's career is. He then engaged in his typical narcissism and added a “reverb” sound effect to his broadcast and read a couple of pages from Obama's Dreams of My Father to demonstrate how, in Rush's view, Obama hates capitalism and bankers.

After his first break, Rush started playing “new audio” of Obama proposing expanding Medicare as an option for expanding health insurance coverage. Rush also played very old audio of Obama declaring that he is “a proponent of single-payer health care”, which Rush smeared by stating “that's what they have in Cuba.” Later on, Rush complained about the State Children's Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP), complaining that there is only “a few years” that “they have not gotten their hands on yet.” Apparently, policies to increase the health insurance coverage of children is a bad thing in Rush's eyes. Later on, Rush continued his nonsensical crusade against Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, renaming him “Senator Whiteacre” and hilariously and erroneously claimed that he knows more about health care reform legislation than Congress:

LIMBAUGH: If there's any deference, these people need to defer to us. We are more informed than over half the people voting on this bill. We know what's in it more than those who are going to vote on it know what's in it. And the reason is we care about what's in it. They really don't.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: We do know what we're talking about. The people we are talking about either don't know what they're talking about or they are lying to us about what's in the plan.

Later on, Rush repeated the tired falsehood that Barney Frank and policies encouraging lending to low-income homeowners was to blame for the financial collapse, then also somehow blamed Obama for it as well:

LIMBAUGH: And let me go back to this bank business, and Obama saying that he wasn't elected to bail out a bunch of fat cats. Because I think if anybody caused the problem, it's not the banks; it was people like Obama and his foot soldiers in the federal government who enforced his diktats. Or dictates, if you want to pronounce it that way.

Rush continues attacking Climatic Research Unit with debunked falsehoods

Back for the second hour, Rush took issue with a Politico article, immediately baselessly claiming that the cost of health care reform is $2.5 trillion. Moving on, Rush continued to read stories about Tiger Woods' alleged infidelity. He then read a Fox News article detailing Senator McCaskill's plan to vote against health care reform if it doesn't save money. Rush then played audio clips of Reps. Barney Frank and Jan Schakowsky offering their support of single-payer health care, then invoked his “reverb” sound effect again to say that they have a hatred for capitalism and private industry. After a few too many emails complaining about the “reverb” sound effect, Rush later played around with different settings to find one that worked for his studio crew.

After another break, Rush took a caller who ridiculously claimed that health care reform would mean the end of privately-provided health care, and that patients would have to wait 36 weeks to see a doctor, a figure she admitted she made up after Rush questioned her on it. Of course, as BusinessWeek reported over two years ago and a recent survey mentioned in Newsweek points out, Americans already face long wait times to see a doctor.

Rush then continued to attack climate science via the stolen Climatic Research Unit emails, engaging in a debunked falsehood that the scientists at East Anglia University destroyed the raw data that their findings were based on, when the data is in fact still at the met offices where it originated. As overblown as usual, America's Truth Rejecter then demanded that these scientists face criminal charges. Later on, Rush read a UK Times story that suggests a treaty on climate change is stalled for several more years, but didn't seem to buy that he could relax about this issue.

Prompted by a caller who cited an American Thinker article, Rush spent the beginning of his third hour discussing a Law & Order: Special Victims Unit episode in which conservative radio hosts were “connected [to a] psychotic murderer” who listened to them. Unsurprisingly, Rush then went into another fit of the -isms:

LIMBAUGH: The Democrat Party is the home today of renegade communists, out-of-work liberals and socialists, and Marxists. That's where they've gravitated to, and they happen to be running it now. And their buddies in entertainment are no different.

After playing an audio clip of President Obama talking about health care reform on 60 Minutes, including his quote that the legislation would continue to reduce the deficit, “according to the Congressional Budget Office,” Rush simply lied and said that it doesn't reduce the deficit, according to the CBO. Rush continued to play audio from the interview, stopping it every so often to continue his habit of launching ugly smears at Obama:

LIMBAUGH: Who is Obama to come around and say, “I, I, I know what to do with health care”? All Obama wants to do is put the government in charge of it with himself in charge of the government. Power-thirsty little man-child, ladies and gentlemen, who is not naive about what he is doing.

After a short break, Rush played an audio clip of Obama grading himself on his performance as president so far, then continued his year-long complaint that President Obama is out to destroy the U.S. economy:

LIMBAUGH: You have to understand when you listen to this that Obama is grading himself on how well he is executing his plan to wreck the U.S. economy. So if he manages to nationalize another one-sixth of it with health care, his grade will go up, 'cause her question was, “What grade would you give yourself for this year?” So keep in mind he's grading himself on how well his plan to destroy the U.S. private sector is going.

Rush then took a caller who complained about a carbon offset experiment that General Motors is participating in, according to Mother Jones magazine. El Rushbo used this as an opportunity to end the day's show on this conspiracy-ridden note:

LIMBAUGH: But we know that Copenhagen is not about climate change; it's not even about the weather. It's not about saving the planet. It's another liberal ruse to redistribute wealth from rich nations to poor. It's really about destroying the United States. Like I've -- folks, we've -- we're a great nation at great risk in a dangerous world. We always have been. As the nations of the world's lone superpower we are envied and despised, and we are blamed and targeted. That's always been the case, and we've always had leaders which know this -- who know this. We've always had leaders who knew their job was to protect and defend the United States. What we face now is the same kind of attitude about this country from the people who now lead it. That is genuinely scary. The threat is also internal now. So Copenhagen is all about coming up with plans to separate the United States from its money and other rich -- relatively rich western nations and societies. It's been in the works for a long time. Copenhagen is just the latest iteration of the effort. And I do believe it's about some people acquiring vast wealth in the carbon trading scheme by planting trees. It's a total hoax from start to finish, and it always is about enriching somebody.

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

Highlights

Outrageous comments

LIMBAUGH: But look, anybody who has been following Obama and his career, meaning his words, his -- his career is nothing but a collection of words, either that he has spoken or that he has ostensibly written in his two books. That's his career -- words. If you want to understand Barack Obama's career, it's words. And if you've followed his words, you would long be aware of his attitude towards capitalists.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: If there's any deference, these people need to defer to us. We are more informed than over half the people voting on this bill. We know what's in it more than those who are going to vote on it know what's in it. And the reason is we care about what's in it. They really don't.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: We do know what we're talking about. The people we are talking about either don't know what they're talking about or they are lying to us about what's in the plan.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: And let me go back to this bank business, and Obama saying that he wasn't elected to bail out a bunch of fat cats. Because I think if anybody caused the problem, it's not the banks; it was people like Obama and his foot soldiers in the federal government who enforced his diktats. Or dictates, if you want to pronounce it that way.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: Who is Obama to come around and say, “I, I, I know what to do with health care”? All Obama wants to do is put the government in charge of it with himself in charge of the government. Power-thirsty little man-child, ladies and gentlemen, who is not naive about what he is doing.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: You have to understand when you listen to this that Obama is grading himself on how well he is executing his plan to wreck the U.S. economy. So if he manages to nationalize another one-sixth of it with health care, his grade will go up, 'cause her question was, “What grade would you give yourself for this year?” So keep in mind he's grading himself on how well his plan to destroy the U.S. private sector is going.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: But we know that Copenhagen is not about climate change; it's not even about the weather. It's not about saving the planet. It's another liberal ruse to redistribute wealth from rich nations to poor. It's really about destroying the United States. Like I've -- folks, we've -- we're a great nation at great risk in a dangerous world. We always have been. As the nations of the world's lone superpower we are envied and despised, and we are blamed and targeted. That's always been the case, and we've always had leaders which know this -- who know this. We've always had leaders who knew their job was to protect and defend the United States. What we face now is the same kind of attitude about this country from the people who now lead it. That is genuinely scary. The threat is also internal now. So Copenhagen is all about coming up with plans to separate the United States from its money and other rich -- relatively rich western nations and societies. It's been in the works for a long time. Copenhagen is just the latest iteration of the effort. And I do believe it's about some people acquiring vast wealth in the carbon trading scheme by planting trees. It's a total hoax from start to finish, and it always is about enriching somebody.

“Socialism” watch

LIMBAUGH: The Democrat Party is the home today of renegade communists, out-of-work liberals and socialists, and Marxists. That's where they've gravitated to, and they happen to be running it now. And their buddies in entertainment are no different.