This hour of the Limbaugh Wire brought to you by society's need for hypocrisy
By Greg Lewis

The third hour began with Rush commenting on Obama “pushing” his energy bill today, saying that the White House is panicking because of wavering Democrats. Rush said Obama's statement that whoever leads the world in green energy leads the world economy is “just not true,” advising to us “talk to Spain about it.” He was referring to a study that found Spain lost two jobs for every “green” job created. We should point out here that the study was conducted by a gentleman who is committed to combating global warming “alarmism” and apparently receives ExxonMobil money. Oh, and people who actually know what they're talking about say it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to compare Spain to the U.S. in this regard. Rush added: “I tire of having to deal with the lies and the misrepresentations.” We'd say “welcome to our world,” but for the fact that he's not actually dealing with “lies” and “misrepresentations”; he just thinks he is.

Anyway, this was as good an opportunity as any for Rush to wax poetic about coal. Charging that the coal industry is “under attack” by the Obama energy bill, Rush explained that that wind energy is far more expensive than coal. You see, said Rush, wind energy technology doesn't work because you can't guarantee the wind, and you can't store the energy. And as you might expect, any rant about coal by Limbaugh is bound to include some great cheap shots at those “nefarious” environmentalists. Rush explained that the market solved the energy problem “long before the current crop of crazy environmentalist whackos were even a gleam in their pony-tailed fathers' eyes, or a dream of their hair in the arm pit mothers.” He added: “You know, when Mr. Ponytail Guy or Mr. Hair-In-the-Armpits Woman had their little kids and they're thinking about changing the world for the better, the people that were making the world work did not decide on wind or solar. They decided on coal because it was cheap, it was dependable, and it worked. No, the robber barons did not foist anything on us, as Obama says.”

Rush made one more quick observation on energy before moving on: “All of this is just a panacea pie-in-the-sky promise that's based, it's -- follow the money -- it's simply based on money and Obama's sick desire to autocratically rule the country.”

Next, Rush had “one more thing” to say about the Sanford affair. He explained that people were telling him that the Republican Party needs to get rid of social issues because it is seen as hypocrisy in situations like this. But Rush rejected this idea. Instead, Rush argued that “society needs hypocrisy.” This actually went on for a few minutes, with Rush essentially making the case that hypocrisy helps preserve morality more effectively that “moral equivalency” does, which is what liberals try to impose on society.

After the break, Rush took a caller who made a breakthrough of sorts on “empathy.” The caller noted that Obama, in the ABC town hall, said it would be difficult to make medical decisions based on a person's “spirit.” The caller then employed a little rhetorical origami, and pronounced “spirit” the equivalent of “empathy” - the same “empathy” that Obama said a Supreme Court nominee must have. As such, the caller declared that he didn't understand Obama's message on “empathy.” Rush said this was brilliant, and elaborated further:

Empathy is nothing more than spirit or feelings or what have you, so based -- and -- but there's one caveat to this: empathy is a code word when Obama talks about judges having it. All he means by it is, “I want people who are racists and bigots on my Supreme Court who are always going to find for minorities and the underprivileged simply because they've gotten the shaft all their lives. I want people on my court who are going to rule against the so-called rich and the so-called powerful because they have carried the day for too long. So I -- empathy is just a code word for somebody who has sympathy for the downtrodden.

Rush came back with a quick Heritage Foundation advertisement and then another caller, who suggested that Republicans in Congress propose an amendment that would require members of Congress to go on the public option. Rush says that may happen, but continued to insist to his listeners to call their Senators and ask them if they would do this voluntarily. Then Rush read from a Financial Times article, headlined “Pessimistic executives cash out of shares,” to further advance his point that Obama is killing the human spirit. Of course, that makes no sense, and we don't have to explain why this makes no sense. But we will say that it's amusing to us that Rush, as the self-proclaimed leading voice for conservatism, should have any number of legitimate philosophical or policy differences with Obama that he could take up. Instead, he invents this cockamamie idea that everything bad that happens -- Sanford's affair, loss of confidence among U.S. executives that the global economy will recover -- is a consequence of Obama being on some insidious mission to “kill the spirit of America.” Something tells us it's this exact sort of absurd, knee-jerk antipathy towards the president the makes Rahm Emanuel smile every time he hears Rush referred to as the leader of the GOP.

The next caller on the program extolled Rush's analysis on hypocrisy, which gave Rush an opportunity to say verbatim what he had just explained twenty minutes ago. Then Rush rambled on about John Edwards' affair. The whole world knew he was having an affair, explained Rush, but only the National Enquirer reported on it. On the other hand, McClatchy had a reporter in Buenos Aires tracking down where Sanford's “babe” lived. Before going to a break, Rush quickly read about John Kerry's comment that it was “too bad” Sarah Palin didn't go missing.

After another break, Rush read from a National Review blog post by Jim Geraghty which suggested Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine was “missing.” It linked to a Washington Post article about Kaine's busy travel schedule -- because he's also the chairman of the Democratic National Committee. So Kaine isn't actually “missing.” Rush concluded the show with audio of Tom Ridge defending Colin Powell as a Republican. Rush was still flogging his feud with the former Secretary of State, but does anybody really care anymore?

And so we've reached the end of today's Rush Limbaugh Show, and thus the end of today's edition of the Limbaugh Wire. We'll be back tomorrow. In the meantime, you can review Simon's week-long impugning of my character in our stupendous Limbaugh archives.

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

Highlights from Hour 3

Outrageous comments

LIMBAUGH: It's because long before the current crop of crazy environmentalist whackos were even a gleam in their pony-tailed fathers' eyes, or a dream of their hair-in-the-armpit mothers, the market answered the question of the best way to provide for the electrical needs of the nations. And these were the choices that won: Coal, oil, nuclear. They won because the market decided it was -- they were the best. It was not because some nefarious scheme forcing these horrible products on us.

You know, when Mr. Ponytail Guy or Mr. Hair-In-the-Armpits Woman had their little kids and they're thinking about changing the world for the better, the people that were making the world work did not decide on wind or solar. They decided on coal because it was cheap, it was dependable, and it worked. No, the robber barons did not foist anything on us, as Obama says.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: And now to compare that cost against the real case scenarios for the effects of global warming, you realize that no rational person would believe wind power is any kind of a logical choice. Besides which, wind farms are ugly and everywhere they end up being, people start complaining about the noise they make. Even one guy - a story a couple weeks ago - even one guy put up a little windmill somewhere in his backyard and the noise from it drove his neighbors crazy.

All of this is just a panacea pie-in-the-sky promise that's based, it's -- follow the money -- it's simply based on money and Obama's sick desire to autocratically rule the country.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: That's right. Obama's trying to kill human spirit throughout the American economy. Yet you're right, he wants judges who use empathy totally in rendering legal decisions.

CALLER: I think it's --

LIMBAUGH: Empathy is nothing more than spirit or feelings or what have you, so based -- and -- but there's one caveat to this: empathy is a code word when Obama talks about judges having it. All he means by it is, "I want people who are racists and bigots on my Supreme Court who are always going to find for minorities and the underprivileged simply because they've gotten the shaft all their lives. I want people on my court who are going to rule against the so-called rich and the so-called powerful because they have carried the day for too long. So I -- empathy is just a code word for somebody who has sympathy for the downtrodden.

CALLER: Exactly.