This hour of the Limbaugh Wire brought to you by ACORN's billions
By Simon Maloy

Top of the second hour, Rush touched on some poll numbers, specifically a Public Policy Polling survey of North Carolina that put Rush's favorability rating at 31 percent. This, according to Rush, means he's one of the most popular people in the country! Forgive us for being sticklers, but it actually means that he's popular with less than one out of every three North Carolinians. Regardless, Rush claimed that this poll is evidence that the Democrats are really, really scared of Rush and his articulation of conservatism, and that Democrats are trying to discredit him in states that they want to keep blue.

After once again proudly declaring his opposition to Obama's particular brand of “socialism,” Rush launched into an extended plug for Mark Levin's new book, Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto. Levin, apparently, will appear on the second hour of the program tomorrow, so we'll have that to look forward to. Anyway, according to Rush, Levin is one of the few people -- along with Rush and Hannity -- fighting for American liberty. He's a genius, he's brilliant, and “a bare-knuckles fighter for freedom,” fighting against those who “snatch liberty from people at every turn with a heart that is as cold as ice.” Things went on in this vein for some time, with Rush fantasizing about the book attaining underground fame on par with The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism. Rush then proclaimed it astounding that the book has sold so many copies without him even mentioning it. Rush concluded that this means people out there are thirsty for this sort of thing.

Back from the break, Rush commiserates with Snerdley that no one is outraged by ACORN creating “mobs” in Connecticut to travel by bus to protest at the homes of AIG executives. In venting his outrage, Rush repeated that old conservative chestnut that ACORN “got three and a half billion dollars from the stimulus bill.” If you're surprised to hear that ACORN is so well-funded by the government, don't be... because they're not. On both sides of the next break, Rush read extensively from a Connecticut Post article on the “bus tour” organized by ACORN and the Connecticut Working Families Party. According to Rush, he's the only person speaking out about this because everyone else is “scared to death” of being “demonized.”

Then it was time for a caller, who asked Rush if the return of AIG bonuses to the government sets a dangerous precedent. Rush claimed that Obama and the Democrats pulled a fast one, using “mob rule” and “popular psychology” in proposing a 90-percent tax to which no one objected. The caller then urged Rush to devote an entire show to Obama's alleged “hypocrisies.” Rush declined, however, saying that “hypocrisy” does not go far enough: “He's taking away freedom incrementally, each and every day, making another big grab at it. That's not hypocrisy, that's tyranny.”

Back from the break, Rush shifted from Obama's incremental, big-grab freedom destruction program back to the ACORN bus tour and his own extraordinary bravery in criticizing it. Why are people scared to raise their voices in opposition? According to Rush: “Nobody's going to stand up and oppose it, especially if most of the people on the protest tour are minority, most of them are very poor. Nobody wants to be critical of either group, so you have to sit there and just sort of, you know, you know, I understand where they're coming for. I know where they're coming from, and that's a shame, and so forth.”

Rush closed out the hour with another caller, once again trashing Geithner's toxic asset plan and claiming that it would have been better to suspend income and payroll taxes for an entire year. That, according to Rush, would revive the economy.

Highlights from Hour 2

Outrageous comments

LIMBAUGH: Mark Levin is a bare-knuckles fighter for freedom. The left labels him mean and angry, while Obama is labeled as compassionate and reasonable and engaging, while fighting to snatch liberty from people at every turn with a heart that is as cold as ice. So we've got Levin's book, Liberty and Tyranny. It embraces liberty. It's out. It is number one wherever books are sold. Obama's plans -- they're also out for taking it away. You can read them every day in The Washington Post.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: I think it's worse than hypocritical. Hypocritical doesn't begin to describe it. And by the way, hypocrisy is not an indictment of Democrats. Democrats are hypocritical every day, and they're never held to account. Hypocrisy only damages Republicans. We're missing the boat if all we want to say about Obama is he's hypocritical.

Obama is, while everybody stands around cheering, is taking away individual liberty and freedom as quickly as he can while smiling and laughing about it on Leno, smiling and laughing about it on 60 Minutes with Steve Kroft, and while his mindless Obama-bots are out there cheering for him at every town meeting and so forth. He's taking away freedom incrementally, each and every day, making another big grab at it.

That's not hypocrisy, that's tyranny.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: So you have a bunch of ignoramuses in this country whose emotions are being played, and they're being ginned up, and they're joining these protests and so forth -- nobody's going to do anything to stop it. Nobody's going to stand up and oppose it, especially if most of the people on the protest tour are minority, most of them are very poor. Nobody wants to be critical of either group, so you have to sit there and just sort of, you know, you know, I understand where they're coming for. I know where they're coming from, and that's a shame, and so forth.

Well, Snerdley, I agree that somebody better stop it now, but it's not -- it's not -- I don't know who's going to stop it. The Obama administration - the president is not going to speak out against this. The president is encouraging this. The president could stop this with a snap of his fingers. The president loves this. It's his group. ACORN got stimulus money to do this kind of thing. It's his group. This is where he trained, ACORN. This is exactly the kind of chaos that his administration wants.

“Socialism” watch

LIMBAUGH: Our opposition to Obama is indeed based on N-O. We say no to socialism. We say no to government berating the private sector for the purpose of taking it over. What's negative about that?

America's Truth Rejector

Repeated false claim that ACORN received billions in stimulus cash:

LIMBAUGH: Is nobody upset here that a group of people that Obama used to work for, ACORN, which got three and a half billion dollars from the stimulus bill -- is nobody upset that our country has been turned into a banana republic because this Obama support group, this election fraud group, is up conducting tours of a mob of angry people by the homes of executives of AIG? Is nobody upset about this?

Echo chamber

Promoted Mark Levin's Liberty and Tyranny; Levin will be on the show tomorrow.