This hour of the Limbaugh Wire brought to you by Obama trying to keep anti-American dictators in power
By Greg Lewis

Rush started the third hour of The Rush Limbaugh Show by reading a slew of articles. The first was from the Cybercast News Service, which reported that CBO ignored the economic impact of the cap-and-trade bill. Rush said the scoring wasn't possible because, once again, there wasn't a bill. We still have absolutely no idea what he's talking about here. Meanwhile, we're left to wonder how it was, exactly, that someone could propose a 300-page amendment for House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) to read on the House floor, if there was no text to amend in the first place. But that's your typical Rush Limbaugh Show, where amending nonexistent text and dividing by zero happen every day.

Reading from a post on ABC News' The Note blog, Rush laughed about this quote from Obama economic adviser Christina Romer: “We always knew we were not going to get all that much fiscal impact during the first five to six months. The big impact starts to hit from about now onwards.” Rush asked, how stupid do they think we are? He said the White House “just admitted” you weren't supposed to notice the effects of the stimulus yet, because it's “just ramping up now.” Then why is Obama predicting a 10-percent unemployment rate by the end of the year? asked Rush.

Then Rush moved on to a U.K. Times column by Irwin Stelzer that addressed Obama's relationship with unions. Stezler wrote, and Rush read: “Congress and the president are preparing to spur union growth by eliminating the secret ballot in union-recognition elections and, rumour has it, by writing advantages for union members into tax laws.” Not sure how many times we'll have to do this, but here we go once again -- the Employee Free Choice Act, which is what Rush and Stelzer are talking about here, will not “eliminate” the secret ballot in union elections. The New York Times reported: “Business groups have attacked the legislation because it would take away employers' right to insist on holding a secret-ballot election to determine whether workers favored unionization.” Stelzer also wrote that SEIU president Andy Stern has a weekly meeting with President Obama, which Rush explained meant that a “union thug” has a weekly meeting with “the Pope.” Rush ranted more about unions from this point on -- unions mean less productivity “by definition,” explained Rush.

Then Rush read from a NewsBusters post that highlighted a California politician describing conservative talk radio hosts as “terrorists.” Rush said not to think this is just a “misguided statement” but as the “meme” that has popped up in recent weeks, asking us if we remember the DHS report that labeled veterans as extremists. We don't remember it, largely because the DHS report didn't say that. It said that extremist groups would attempt to recruit veterans. Anyway, Rush added: “The left -- liberals -- are doing everything they can to make what's normal seem outrageous, and then they will move to outlaw it. That's the way totalitarians roll. Everything normal is outrageous, discriminatory, unjust, unfair, immoral, and everything that's perverted, abnormal; all of that, that's what's normal. That's what's got to be rewarded. That's what's happening.”

After the break, Rush was upset with the “state-run media” because they didn't “get” his joke from last week, when he said Sanford “could have been our JFK.” Rush aired audio from Sunday's CNN State of the Union broadcast, in which John King and Mary Matalin discussed this line, but as Rush claimed, both got it wrong. Then Rush tried to explain it -- we think he might have meant that Sanford could have been as successful in politics and adultery as Kennedy was. Rush thought it was hilarious, though. Count us surprised and confused, because, like King and Matalin, we didn't actually realize it was a joke either. As a great philosopher probably once said, if you have to explain your “joke” -- and it still doesn't make any sense -- chances are it wasn't funny.

After another break, Rush played an audio clip of Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) saying that Republicans are voting against the country and the world by voting against things like global warming. Rush declared that he is “apoplectic” over this, and that Waxman could not be more wrong. According to Rush, the “consensus” on global warming has “fallen apart” and nations with cap-and-trade programs have “pulled the plug” on them. And further displaying his outrage against disloyal Republicans, Rush blamed the eight of them for making “the damn thing pass.” Rush concluded that Waxman is a “dangerous idiot.”

Then Rush moved back to the subject of Honduras. After reading a Fox News article about the coup, Rush explained in his own words what happened: The people didn't like the totalitarian dictator giving himself another term without an election. While we're certainly not defending Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, this isn't actually what happened. The issue at hand was a referendum on whether to change the Honduran constitution to allow Zelaya to run for another term -- a referendum which, as the Fox News story explained, the country's Supreme Court found to be illegal. The coup occurred shortly before the polls were set to open.

Rush then repeated his earlier takeaway from the events in Honduras and the Obama administration's reaction to them:

LIMBAUGH: Liberalism and totalitarianism is getting kicked out everywhere but here, where it's taking root. And Obama, what's he -- he didn't want to meddle. But, you know, there's a common denominator when he meddles. Obama does whatever it takes to keep an anti-American dictator in power. He'll spare no effort. In Iran: “Oh, we can't meddle with what's going on over there. We can't meddle until we see what the outcome is.” And we didn't meddle.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: In Honduras, though, we meddled. In Venezuela, we had a soul shake, or whatever that black handshake is that he had with Chavez. We had a soul shake. Saudi Arabia: He bowed down.

In all these anti-American places, Obama'll do everything he can to keep those people in power. I'm sorry folks, but that's just fact. In Israel: “Throw them overboard. Throw them under the bus.” Hamas: “Empower 'em.” Iran: Don't really do anything about it. North Korea: Don't really do anything about it.

Then Rush took a caller who praised Boehner's handling of the Waxman-Markey bill on Friday. Rush joined the caller in heaping the praise. From there, it was more of the usual how to fix the party and the state-run media don't give things fair coverage ramblings between Rush and the caller. Rush explained an amendment in the Waxman-Markey bill that would apparently require an environmental inspection by a government inspector if you sold your house.

Coming back from the break, Rush elaborated on his claim that Obama was “meddling” in Honduras. This Wall Street Journal article, he said, backed up his claim. The Journal reported:

The Obama administration worked in recent days to prevent President Manuel Zelaya's ouster, said a senior U.S. official. The State Department, in particular, communicated to Honduran officials on the ground that President Barack Obama wouldn't support any nondemocratic transfer of power in the Central American country.

Here's where we'll point out that working to prevent a violent coup or a “nondemocratic transfer of power” is not the same thing as propping up an “anti-American dictator,” as Rush said.

Finally, Rush took a caller who asked about the “suppressed” EPA report that was skeptical of climate change, which he had first mentioned on Friday's show. Rush offered a one-sided explanation the report, its findings, and its alleged “suppression.” Well, once again, Rush demonstrated the acuity of our powers of foresight. We'll refer you back to the first hour and the pertinent details that we laid out: The EPA employee was an economist, not a climate scientist; the EPA did consider his findings and clearly found them to be lacking; and real climate scientists offer some pretty compelling reasons as to why the research was not worthy of inclusion.

That's all for today's Limbaugh Wire. If you haven't had quite enough yet, we encourage you to revisit weeks and weeks of misinformation and disingenuous arguments in our Limbaugh Wire archives, which, believe it or not, are quickly approaching Library of Congress-esque proportions.

Simon Maloy, Zachary Pleat, and Hannah Kieschnick contributed to this edition of the Limbaugh Wire.

Highlights from Hour 3

Outrageous comments

LIMBAUGH: The left -- liberals -- are doing everything they can to make what's normal seem outrageous, and then they will move to outlaw it. That's the way totalitarians roll. Everything normal is outrageous, discriminatory, unjust, unfair, immoral, and everything that's perverted, abnormal; all of that, that's what's normal. That's what's got to be rewarded. That's what's happening.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: Liberalism and totalitarianism is getting kicked out everywhere but here, where it's taking root. And Obama, what's he -- he didn't want to meddle. But, you know, there's a common denominator when he meddles. Obama does whatever it takes to keep an anti-American dictator in power. He'll spare no effort.

In Iran: “Oh, we can't meddle with what's going on over there. We can't meddle until we see what the outcome is.” And we didn't meddle. And, of course, then Ahmadinejad comes out and says, “You owe me an apology for meddling in our affairs.” Obama: “I'm not going to apologize. Why should I apologize to you, you little twerp?”

In Honduras, though, we meddled. In Venezuela, we had a soul shake, or whatever that black handshake is that he had with Chavez. We had a soul shake. Saudi Arabia: He bowed down.

In all these anti-American places, Obama'll do everything he can to keep those people in power. I'm sorry folks, but that's just fact. In Israel: “Throw them overboard. Throw them under the bus.” Hamas: “Empower 'em.” Iran: Don't really do anything about it. North Korea: Don't really do anything about it.