This hour of the Limbaugh Wire brought to you by the “utopian bull feathers” of health care
By Simon Maloy

Rush continued with Colin Powell into the second hour, saying that what really irritates him about Powell is that during the '90s, when Powell was considering running for office, he wouldn't explain what his positions were or even which party he would run with. Powell was all about image and character, said Rush, and he knew that once he took positions on issues his approval ratings would go down. Rush also said he threw a “bomb” when he said Powell's endorsement of Obama was all about race. It was a taboo, but Rush said it.

Then it was on to Obama and health care, airing audio of Obama speaking this afternoon about meeting with wellness and prevention practitioners. Rush said it's a myth that preventative care saves money. Then Rush aired audio of Obama praising companies that have offered health care incentives to their employees and saying that if we can change the culture of a company then we can change the culture of the country. Rush was flabbergasted by this -- it's “bull feathers,” said Limbaugh. It's “gobbledygook” and “utopian bull feathers.” You can be incentivized all you want, exercise and diet all you want, said Rush, you're still going to get sick.

Fixing health care is “simple,” according to Rush -- make the patient the consumer and health care costs will come down. When someone else is paying for health care, Rush said, it doesn't matter how many incentives you offer, the prices will stay high. It's the same as renting a hotel room -- you get the room that fits your budget. Matt Ygelsias had a fine riposte to this minimalist free-market approach to health care -- the analogy between health care and commodities like hotel rooms breaks down when you consider the moral and social aspects of medicine that don't apply to Best Western suites. Rush then predicted that the next step, when health incentives fail, will be taxation of health benefits as “imputed income.”

After a quick commercial time-out, Rush read extensively from a New York Times op-ed declaring it a “myth” that “like magic, preventive medicine will simultaneously reduce costs and improve health.” Rush said he himself has experienced the myth of preventive care -- you go into the hospital with an upset GI tract, and three hours later you've had four tests to determine whether or not you have cancer. Prevention and incentives don't save money, Rush said, but "[m]eanwhile, you're doing everything Obama says. You're exercising -- and I'll bet half of you aren't going to do that. You're going to stop smoking, and you're going to eat balanced meals and all this, and you're going to do this to make the company boss happy. The boss is going to make you do it because to keep the government happy -- we're all going to end up wearing uniforms here, and we're going to get memos every morning on our computers from Washington telling us what we have to do every day in order to qualify to be in their good graces."

Rush's then took a call from a woman saying that she started monitoring politics daily after Obama became the Democratic nominee and that she's having second thoughts about having children in this America that she sees emerging. Rush said he's never seen so many people so afraid of the government, living in “abject fear.” Rush added: “We've always had these '60s radicals and leftists who have -- it's kind of ironic. They've always been afraid of what they called autocratic power, but now they voted for a guy who is an autocrat, who is an authoritarian, so it just matters who's wielding the power to them.” Then the caller asked where she should look for the silver lining, what sign can she look for to see if the pendulum is swinging, and whether it can be found in the “states' rights legislation.” Rush said we're in a mess that's going to take more than one swing of the pendulum to fix.

After the break, Rush returned to the pendulum and the silver lining. Rush said he's always relied on his infinite faith in the American people, who have always righted themselves from heading down the wrong path. Rush's faith, however, seems shaken: “Through all of these trials and tribulations, the country has survived. But it's -- I'll tell you one thing I have to accept; it's a new challenge now. Because I don't think even during the '30s, during the New Deal, this kind of massive, authoritarian power was sought.” Rush then asked if the country has reached the point where the majority of voting Americans can be persuaded and fooled by a demagogue, an empty suit who speaks in platitudes. “It appears so,” was his answer.

The country, Rush said, doesn't need to be saved from destruction, but it's being taken there. Someone will come along at some point to fix things, said Rush, but until that point the question must become something other than “what do I look for?” The question, said Rush, must become “what do I do?” Rush soliloquized that every generation thinks that the times are worse than the country has ever seen before. That's exactly wrong, said Rush, but it's a tough road because you'll run into people who don't think rationally. People on the left have beliefs, not thoughts. Rush consoled his audience that Obama can be overcome and defeated, but they'll have to realize that what Obama is doing is not going to work. The moment we get an economic uptick, Rush said, the parades in the drive-by media are going to start, but you have to take comfort in the fact (or Rush's word) that it ultimately won't work.

One more break before the hour ended, and Rush came back announcing with fanfare that “only 53 percent of Americans voted for Obama.” Only 53 percent? This meant, according to Rush, that there are lots of Americans yearning for something else. Then Rush took a call from a woman who supported the tax on sugary drinks, saying that sugar causes millions of deaths in the United States every year by way of diabetes, obesity, etc. Rush said this is “mind-blowing,” accused the woman of wanting to ban fruit because fruit has sugar, and that eventually she'll want to ban water because it makes people drown. We'd say that the whole conversation may as well have been dead air, but even that would have been more interesting.

Highlights from Hour 2

Outrageous comments

LIMBAUGH: Costs are going to add up. Meanwhile, you're doing everything Obama says. You're exercising -- and I'll bet half of you aren't going to do that. You're going to stop smoking, and you're going to eat balanced meals and all this, and you're going to do this to make the company boss happy. The boss is going to make you do it because to keep the government happy -- we're all going to end up wearing uniforms here, and we're going to get memos every morning on our computers from Washington telling us what we have to do every day in order to qualify to be in their good graces.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: We've always had these '60s radicals and leftists who have -- it's kind of ironic. They've always been afraid of what they called autocratic power, but now they voted for a guy who is an autocrat, who is an authoritarian, so it just matters who's wielding the power to them.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: Through all of these trials and tribulations, the country has survived. But it's -- I'll tell you one thing I have to accept; it's a new challenge now. Because I don't think even during the '30s, during the New Deal, this kind of massive, authoritarian power was sought. Sure, Roosevelt did everything he could to empower the Democrat Party, and I know that he did make some things -- make some attempts here: packed the Supreme Court, tried to get 12 terms or 12 years for himself, an additional term, try to get fingers in some businesses and so forth. It was hideous, but even that, we came out of it.