This hour of the Limbaugh Wire brought to you by Nixon's investigations into White House criminality
By Simon Maloy

As advertised in the first hour, Davis got the second one started with a conversation with the Washington Examiner's Byron York about the Obama administration's “patholog[ical]” attempts to “criminalize” the opinions of the Bush torture memo authors. York said he'd had an opportunity to speak with Bush solicitor general Ted Olson about the potential interrogation investigations, who told York that Obama had opened the door to subpoenas and such and that he can't close it now. Davis noted that the White House had reportedly backed off the investigations, but asked if they could go forward in Congress without Obama's support. York said he's trying to figure out where the White House stands on all this, alleging that they're playing both sides in backing off the investigations, but at the same time releasing photos of the interrogations. After some brief discussion of how great York, Bill Sammon, and Michael Barone have made the Examiner, Davis asked York to predict the fates of Janet Napolitano and Kathleen Sebelius. York said he thought Napolitano wouldn't be leaving Homeland Security anytime soon, but Commerce nominee Sebelius isn't “out of the woods” yet.

After the break, Davis told everyone that he had attended the last White House Christmas party of the Bush administration, and actually met with the former president in the Oval Office about a week before he left office. Davis said he told this story because Bush told Davis at the party that he was going to return to Texas “with his head held high,” and Bush “did exactly what he said he was going to do.” Davis then said they had to extend this tea party spirit to 2010 and 2012 because they need to end “the pernicious agenda that seeks to rob us blind, establish an even deeper, more profound culture of dependency, and sacrifice our liberties in the process.”

Davis then took a call from a man who asked whether Richard Nixon, upon assuming office, conducted criminal investigations into the Johnson and Kennedy administrations regarding their disastrous prosecution of the Vietnam War. Davis said this was a great point, that the war was at its worst point when Nixon came in, and Nixon still managed to beat the stuffing out of anti-war candidate. Personally, we think Richard Nixon is a very, very poor choice of presidents to talk about when addressing potential crimes committed in office.

The Davis purported to explain why the “left” is still so “angry” despite having control of the White House and Congress. There are two reasons, said Davis: 1) the left are “political bigots” who don't want to govern but rather want to destroy the reputations of those who oppose them, and 2) the Democrats they've elected to office aren't liberal enough for the “radicalized” left.

After another quick break, Davis exhorted conservatives to master Facebook and Twitter as the Obama campaign did, and to use that technology to organize July 4th tea parties with the intent of “keeping our hopes alive for somehow derailing this demonic train from its tracks, a train that send us in the abyss of debt and cultures of dependency.” Davis then took a call from a man hoping to organize tea parties in Michigan for Independence Day, and claiming that there were several Democrats at his tax day tea party who were concerned about spending. Davis said that it is so much easier to find someone upset about spending than about taxation because spending resonates with everyone, no matter how much you make. Taxation, he said, is different because Obama and his “minions” are being crafty in claiming that they are going to cut taxes for 95 percent of America. Davis said their real intention is to find people who pay only a little in taxes and reduce their tax burden to zero so they'll be rendered “numb and disinterested” in the tax debate. We're not sure how any of that makes sense, but it's refreshing to hear a conservative to acknowledge that Obama actually does want to cut taxes.

Another break and Davis was back, praising the AP's Jennifer Loven and ABC's Jake Tapper for pressing White House press secretary Robert Gibbs at a recent press briefing on President Obama's call to trim $100 million from the Cabinet budgets. After giving Tapper and Loven a “standing O,” Davis said: “And what we may actually have here, and this is funny -- I mean, I look for optimism in every corner, or reasons for optimism, and if this indeed -- if this is indeed the White House that is so radically pathologically left, so socialist-leaning, so Marxist-resembling, that even the White House press corps' eyebrows go up.”

Rounding out the hour, Davis took a call from a gentleman in California upset that Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats had been briefed on interrogation methods back in 2002. Davis said there's vagueness as to what happened -- the Democrats say they were briefed on the techniques, but they were not told that they would be used. According to Davis: “That's a very nuanced point that she will probably cling to to avoid just what you're talking about, namely the double standard of it be tolerable in 2002, when America was serious about the war, versus now, when most Americans are not and the president is not.” Davis thanked the caller, who he said resided in “the People's Republic of Nancy.” Davis closed everything out by explaining why harsh interrogation tactics were not a big issue in 2002: “Because we hadn't forgotten yet.”

Highlights from Hour 2

Outrageous comments

DAVIS: And I just so yearned to tie ourselves back into sort of the premise of the day, taking the tea party spirit and just reaching for that November 2010 election day finish line, and then reaching for that November 2012 finish line, when hopefully what's finished will be the pernicious agenda that seeks to rob us blind, establish an even deeper, more profound culture of dependency, and sacrifice our liberties in the process. This must stop. And you know this Rush Limbaugh show is going to be a major outpost at which observations are made for the progress of that effort.

[...]

DAVIS: The left is frustrated again because the moment they got power, now they gotta actually go to work. What they really want to do is ruin the reputations of anybody who ever disagreed with them. The tax cuts must be portrayed retroactively as evil. The war, even though it's working, must retroactively be referred to as some abysmal failure. Conservatives who rise up on something like a tea party day must be savaged reputationally. So -- and these are political bigots. Political bigotry is the same as racial bigotry or religious bigotry -- just hating somebody because what they are! Now do we practice that sometimes? Yeah, sure. Is there such as thing as somebody who will discover that you're a liberal and will no longer shake your hand or even give you the time of day? Yeah, and you know what? That's ugly too. You know what the difference is? Our political bigots are not in Congress. Political bigots on the right tend not to be in important policy-making decisions.

[...]

DAVIS: But there is just no doubt that this is taking the place of five thousand phone calls, five thousand -- email now seems sluggish to me. My head is a-spinning. The notion of composing an email, putting together a send list, oh, who do I want to get this or not, I mean Twitter, hello? Boop! Gone. Facebook, much the same. And to their credit, the Obama folks had this down as of summer of '08, and that's part of what cleaned our clocks. And as we work our way toward 2010 and 2012, we must become masters of this domain. Or at least competitors in this domain. There's also an observation that I heard made recently that I think is some genius. In terms of organizing and in terms of keeping -- keep hope alive -- great, I'm quoting Jesse Jackson now in terms of keeping our hopes alive for somehow derailing this demonic train from its tracks, a train that send us in the abyss of debt and cultures of dependency.

[...]

DAVIS: If what you describe actually happened, here's the -- here's the great vagueness that she can benefit from. In those 2002 hearings, there were absolutely Democrats in the room. They were absolutely briefed on its potential use. Her quote is, “We were not, and I repeat, were not told that waterboarding or any of these other enhanced interrogation techniques were used. What they did tell us is that they have some legislative counsel opinions that they could be used.” That's a very nuanced point that she will probably cling to to avoid just what you're talking about, namely the double standard of it be tolerable in 2002, when America was serious about the war, versus now, when most Americans are not and the president is not.

“Socialism” watch

DAVIS: And what we may actually have here, and this is funny -- I mean, I look for optimism in every corner, or reasons for optimism, and if this indeed -- if this is indeed the White House that is so radically pathologically left, so socialist-leaning, so Marxist-resembling, that even the White House press corps' eyebrows go up. [whistling] We may be on to something here.

Clips from this hour

Limbaugh fill-in: White House is “socialist-leaning,” “Marxist-resembling”