This hour of the Limbaugh Wire brought to you by the TARP-Fairness Doctrine conspiracy
By Simon Maloy

So the big news of the day is General Motors declaring bankruptcy and the U.S. government assuming a 60 percent share of the once-venerable automobile giant, the UAW assuming a 17.5 percent share, and the bondholders taking 10 percent. This, as you might expect, is merely the culmination of President Obama's super-socialist plan to put everything under union control, punish the bondholders and the rest of the “productive class,” and transform the nation into a “left-wing fascist” paradise. At least, that's how it will be portrayed on The Rush Limbaugh Show. But before we get into it, it's important to point out that a) a majority of GM bondholders approved the bankruptcy deal; and b) they did so likely because their other option -- liquidation -- would have resulted in worse returns on their investments. Additionally, as Dean Baker explained, many of GM's bondholders can rightly be called speculators, “not long-term lenders but speculators who hoped to make a quick buck.”

Rush got the show started by professing to be in disbelief after listening to Obama's remarks on the GM bankruptcy. The news was depressing enough today, Rush said, before Obama got up there and said he doesn't want to lead GM as he laid out how he's going to lead GM. Rush said Obama just told the adult generation today that your life is not going to improve before you die, that what we're doing today is your sacrifice for your children and grandchildren. Obama said we're going to move forward on building these “little put-put cars,” said Rush, and the government is going to boost purchases of these kinds of cars. What's funny, according to Rush, is that GM already makes these kinds of cars around the world, but the bankruptcy deal will prevent GM from importing any of those cars made overseas -- they have to be made here. This means, said Rush, that "[y]our choice in the kind of car you buy will soon be over."

Obama, said Rush, is implementing his campaign agenda without any thought to current economic circumstances. Then Rush trained his sights on ABC's The Note, explaining in an aside that the “drive-by media” has been elevated to the “state-controlled media.” The Note's sin, in Rush's eyes, was writing that Obama “never signed up to be in the auto business. His election was about ending the culture wars. The old divisions were supposed to fade away. The economic mess? He inherited it.” Obama's election was all about creating and expanding wars between Americans, Rush retorted. He's a partisan liberal hack, which means the old divisions are going to get worse. Rush then allowed that “maybe” Obama inherited “some” of the economic mess, but he's building on it and making it worse with his “pure socialist agenda.” Rush elaborated: “You don't raise taxes in a recession. You don't do anything he's doing in a recession. He's doing it because that's what he planned to do from the first days he read Saul Alinsky, from the first days at ACORN, from his first days as an activist. This is what he and his wife have been dreaming of doing and are going to do it regardless.”

Then it was on to the Heritage Foundation as Rush read extensively from a Heritage Foundation Foundry entry on Obama's announcement of GM's bankruptcy. Rush said that Heritage has it exactly right -- Obama says one thing and does another. Rush then wanted us to listen to a sound byte that would make us cry -- something Rush said in September of last year about Obama's enemies list featuring the private sector. What we have now is Government Motors, Rush said, and the media should reflect that in their reporting. Obama left all the “bad news” about GM for CEO Fritz Henderson to lay out, said Rush. Then Rush aired a sound byte of Obama from March 30 saying: “Let me be clear: The United States government has no interest in running GM. We have no intention of running GM.” Rush said that statement “expired today.”

After the break, Rush aired a sound byte of Obama from this morning saying that there will be more job losses and plant closings, but this is sacrifice that is being made for the next generation. Rush said that Obama just said we have no future, and that everyone in the automobile industry is having sacrifice mandated upon them. Barack Obama now owns GM and Chrysler, Rush said, and whatever happens to these companies, Obama owns it. He's dictating to them the kinds of cars they're going to make, and he's providing the impetus to buy them. He aired another byte of Obama describing the GM of the future. Rush was outraged at the “audacity” of Obama -- who has never run anything, has never been in charge of one single for-profit enterprise, has never had to care about profit, and who “sneers at the whole concept of profit” as “stealing” and “raping” - to say that the GM of the future will succeed if “well-managed.”

Another break and Rush was back, shifting momentarily to the Sotomayor nomination. Rush said he's received a lot of email from people asking what he would do now that the GOP has “bailed” on him after he called Sotomayor a “racist.” They're not bailing on him, said Rush, they're just allowing Rush and Newt to do all the heavy lifting. Rush said that no one is denying what he said -- that Sotomayor would bring a form of racism and bigotry to the Supreme Court. Rush then said that he'll allow Sotomayor this -- she's likely a product of her upbringing and her education, which likely included a multicultural curriculum on how evil white people are. Rush also said that he's sure that Sotomayor, in her ruling against the white firefighters in Ricci v. DeStefano, “thought that this was justice. It was justice -- the white people need to have reverse racism and discrimination thrown at them because of all the horrors they committed.” However, said Rush, none of this is meant to distract from her “incompetence,” as evidenced by her statement that appeals court judges make policy. Rush added: “Folks, do you realize she would be -- if she stands by everything she said as a judge when she takes the oath of the Supreme Court Justice, she will be lying. You ever stop to think of that? She's the antithesis of the oath.”

Then it was time for a good old-fashioned conspiracy theory as Rush explained how “Obama is using the banks to advance all of his causes.” Specifically, his cause of state-owned media:

LIMBAUGH: The government owns the banks, or a lot of them. So what happens if the government then tells the bank, “OK, go ahead and make a loan to that company, Radio A.” It's just like General Motors -- the government then owns that radio company. And when the government owns the radio company, just like when they tell General Motors what kind of cars they're going to build, they will be able to tell radio stations and TV stations what their programming must be. This is a possibility. What is -- what is possible is the federal government actually owning a state-run media. Newspapers too.

After one more break, Rush said he didn't know the source of the story he was about to read, but he knew it was true -- Republicans grumbling about Obama traveling to New York City for “date night.” It's fine for Republicans to criticize this, said Rush, but in the end it doesn't matter. This is chump change, and the GOP shouldn't let it distract them from the serious issues. We all have to sacrifice except for the Obamas, said Rush, and his supporters love that, but the easy way out for the GOP is to grumble about this trip.

Rush closed out the hour with a few more sound bytes of Obama from this morning. In one of them, Obama said he doesn't want GM living as a ward of the state. The “bottom line” on this, according to Rush, is that Obama wants us all living as wards of the state.

Highlights from Hour 1

Outrageous comments

LIMBAUGH: General Motors makes these kinds of cars around the world. General Motors builds these cars in Europe, General Motors builds these cars in China and other places. This deal, from what I have been given to understand, will prevent General Motors from importing any of those cars that are made already overseas. They're going to have to be made here. Your choice in the kind of car you buy will soon be over.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: This guy came into office with an agenda, a pure socialist agenda, and he's implementing it without regard for current economic circumstances. You don't raise taxes in a recession. You don't do anything he's doing in a recession. He's doing it because that's what he planned to do from the first days he read Saul Alinsky, from the first days at ACORN, from his first days as an activist. This is what he and his wife have been dreaming of doing, and they're are going to do it regardless.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: In fact, Barack Obama sneers at the whole concept of profit. Profit, to him, is stealing. A company profits only by raping consumers and suppliers.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: I'm sure she thought that this was justice. It was justice -- the white people need to have reverse racism and discrimination thrown at them because of all the horrors they committed. She was raised that way, she grew up that way, and she was taught that.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: Folks, do you realize she would be -- if she stands by everything she said as a judge when she takes the oath of the Supreme Court Justice, she will be lying. You ever stop to think of that? She's the antithesis of the oath.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: The government owns the banks, or a lot of them. So what happens if the government then tells the bank, “OK, go ahead and make a loan to that company, Radio A.” It's just like General Motors -- the government then owns that radio company. And when the government owns the radio company, just like when they tell General Motors what kind of cars they're going to build, they will be able to tell radio stations and TV stations what their programming must be. This is a possibility. What is -- what is possible is the federal government actually owning a state-run media. Newspapers too.