This hour of the Limbaugh Wire brought to you by every health care falsehood from yesterday's program
By Greg Lewis

Bringing today's tally up to four, Rush began the third hour of the program with another piece from the American Thinker, titled, “Health Care Is Not That Complicated.” Then he went back to an Associated Press article he mentioned in the previous hour, headlined, “Obama may have to wait for health care passage.” Rush again expounded on Obama's “charmed life,” saying that Obama's political career is only 5 minutes old -- 150 days in the Senate, and “rabble rousing” as a community organizer."

Then Rush further elaborated on his idea from the previous hour that everyone should have catastrophic health insurance. Rush said that Reagan passed the Medicare Catastrophic Coverage Act in 1986, but the seniors “threw a fit” when they found out their premiums were going up, and it was repealed -- the American Association of Liberal Retired Persons (AALRP) “blew a gasket” about this, said Rush. He figured this was how the term “greedy geezer” was coined. We're not sure Reagan is the best person to cite when talking about Medicare, given that Reagan famously once said that if Medicare isn't stopped, “one of these days you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it once was like in America when men were free.” That prediction hasn't really panned out. But perhaps Rush and the other conservatives who are essentially saying the same thing today about health care reform will have better luck.

Rush then went back to the clips he played on yesterday's show of town meetings on health care with Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD) and Kathleen Sebelius. Rush had a new clip to add, one of Rep. Russ Carnahan (D-MO) talking about health care at a local event. Rush said that in the sound bite, the audience was “laughing” at his speech.

Then Rush went through a series of audio clips from Katie Couric's interview with Obama on last night's CBS Evening News. One of the questions he singled out was Couric asking, “if the stimulus plan isn't really working” then “why should Americans sign off on spending billions of dollars on health care reform?” Obama disagreed with the framing of the question, and credited his administration for stabilizing the financial markets. This was problematic for Rush: "[D]o you realize what a myth the financial markets are?" asked Rush. “Twenty three trillion to make them all solvent is what somebody said it would cost -- 23 trillion! There haven't been a trillion hours since Christ was born. Or a trillion -- a trillion seconds maybe. Ah, something like that. Twenty-three trillion!” We'd like to briefly point out that the $23 trillion figure Rush is throwing about is rather far from reality.

After the break, Rush read from an email he “intercepted” from a “liberal, pro-government run health care advocate” that was sent to his organizing group. Rush proclaimed that the “libs” are upset with him again. He then theorized that the reason Obama was in a hurry to pass health care reform was because Obama and Rahm Emanuel are going to tell members of Congress that their fates will be like those of Sebelius, Cardin, and Carnahan -- their constituents will hang them out to dry during their August recess, so they have to pass it now. So, if we heard this correctly, Rush is saying the real reason why the White House wants to pass health care reform is that voters will be upset if it isn't passed? That would seem to suggest that Americans really, really want health care reform and they want it now. We're not sure Rush really thought this one through beforehand, but we'll take it -- Rush Limbaugh says Americans want health care reform passed immediately. Thanks, Rush!

Of course, that's not what Rush is really saying; he's saying that the White House is telling Democrats that the voters are so much more informed on the bill than they are, and they'll rip them to shreds on the issue if the bill isn't passed. This, of course, assumes that constituents will only ask their members of Congress about the health bill if it doesn't pass, which makes absolutely no sense.

Rush came back from another break playing an audio bite from Obama's conference call with bloggers, in which a blogger asked him about the now-debunked editorial in Investor's Business Daily alleging that the House health care bill makes private insurance “illegal.” We dealt with this claim yesterday too many times to count, and there was an audible thud in our cell office as our heads slammed into our desks when he brought it up again today. Then Rush repeated his claim that Obama would deny your grandmother a pacemaker and make her take painkillers instead:

LIMBAUGH: Let's just zone you out. Let's just zone your grandmother out, loop her out, put her on the pain medicine, and she won't even know that she's going to die. In fact, she won't remember dying. Can you believe this is happening in our country? I can understand some of the -- you know, calling up Kim Jong Il. I can understand somebody calling up Hugo Chavez or Fidel Castro, if they could get through, “Can you do something about -- my -- you know, my grandmother is only 50. No, too old! No money. Dead!” Hang up. But calling the president of the United States? And asking this kind of question?

After some more discussion of Pelosi's “parade of victims” today, Rush took another caller who asked if “chameleon” Obama would move back to the center for the 2010 elections. As you might expect, this led Rush to another one of his rants that Obama is a radical leftist and will do whatever has to be done to save his presidency. Rush speculated that Obama might even enjoy it if the GOP took over one of the houses of Congress so that he “can share the blame” like Clinton did. Liberals are dishonest, hold people in contempt, only want power, etc etc etc.

Rush returned from another break with a story of the type that he just “loves” -- an article on how this July 21 was the coolest on record in Nashville, Tennessee, which is where Al Gore lives. You want to know why Rush loves stories like these? Because they appeal to the facile mind that dismisses thoughtful analysis of an issue like climate change in favor of calling Al Gore an idiot. And, sure enough, Rush had a good laugh at this, saying that global warming doesn't exist, just like there isn't a health care crisis, but Obama said he has to raise taxes to fix both of those things.

The day's final caller told Rush that whenever Obama is asked a hard question at press conferences, he goes into a “rant” and doesn't actually answer the question. Rush said that's the point -- Obama uses long answers to limit the number of questions and “dazzle” people with his “command of intricate detail.”

Rush closed out his show with audio from fellow broadcaster Al Sharpton's radio show. The clip featured Sharpton explaining to his audience that Obama wasn't “lying” about reparations because he never said he supported them. Rush, a modern day W.E.B. DuBois, is never shy about confronting race issues head-on, so we'll just let his words speak for themselves:

LIMBAUGH: What they don't know is that in -- Obama's entire economic program is reparations. If I were Sharpton, if I'd been guest-hosting Sharpton's show and I got a call like that, somebody complaining, I'd say, “No, don't do -- hey, hey, hey, shh, shh, [unintelligible] the truth here. Everything in the stimulus plan, every plan he's got is reparations. He's going to take from the rich -- he's going to take from them, he's going to give it to you. It's just can't happen overnight. Be patient.” That's what's -- redistribution of wealth, reparations, returning the nation's wealth to its rightful owners, whatever you want to call it. It's reparations.

“This has been fun today!” proclaimed Rush as he brought his program to a close. We're not sure if we agree -- at least not by his definition of fun -- but we'll still be back tomorrow. If you're looking for something to keep you, err, entertained for the next 21 hours, the Limbaugh Wire archives should fit the bill.

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

Highlights from Hour 3

Outrageous comments

LIMBAUGH: Let's just zone you out. Let's just zone your grandmother out, loop her out, put her on the pain medicine, and she won't even know that she's going to die. In fact, she won't remember dying. Can you believe this is happening in our country? I can understand some of the -- you know, calling up Kim Jong Il. I can understand somebody calling up Hugo Chavez or Fidel Castro, if they could get through, “Can you do something about -- my -- you know, my grandmother is only 50. No, too old! No money. Dead!” Hang up. But calling the president of the United States? And asking this kind of question?

[...]

LIMBAUGH: What they don't know is that in -- Obama's entire economic program is reparations. If I were Sharpton, if I'd been guest-hosting Sharpton's show and I got a call like that, somebody complaining, I'd say, “No, don't do -- hey, hey, hey, shh, shh, [unintelligible] the truth here. Everything in the stimulus plan, every plan he's got is reparations. He's going to take from the rich -- he's going to take from them, he's going to give it to you. It's just can't happen overnight. Be patient.” That's what's -- redistribution of wealth, reparations, returning the nation's wealth to its rightful owners, whatever you want to call it. It's reparations.

America's Truth Rejector

Rush wildly overstated the projected cost of the bailouts:

LIMBAUGH: Oh, yeah, they'll rescue the economy out there. So, none of that's true. Think about the financial markets -- you know he stabilized financial markets? It wasn't the stimulus plan; Bernanke has flooded the financial markets with dollars! And I saw the other day, it's -- if we fully bailed it out -- do you realize what a myth the financial markets are? Twenty three trillion to make them all solvent is what somebody said it would cost -- 23 trillion! There haven't been a trillion hours since Christ was born. Or a trillion -- a trillion seconds maybe. Ah, something like that. Twenty-three trillion!