By Greg Lewis

Rush's entire show is 100% manufactured BS (yes, more so than usual)

Rush got the show started today by teasing a purported plan by Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Barack Obama to pass the public option by next Thursday. Rush was shy about revealing any details at the time, but promised to explain later in his show. Next, he played an audio clip of Jack Kelly on Fox News' On the Record with Greta Van Susteren talking about his “sources” who say French President Nicolas Sarkozy thinks Obama is naïve. Rush only partly agreed with Sarkozy's supposed feelings about Obama -- Rush said it's not that Obama is naïve, it's that Obama has an incredible ego and is purposefully creating dependence on government.

Rush on Obama: "[W]e're dealing with a guy who is out to destroy the whole concept of the West; western civilization"

From here, Rush ranted about Obama's U.N. speech last week, calling it sophomoric, and said that Obama “basically said my country sucked.” Rush added:

LIMBAUGH: Now that's -- I don't think that's naïveté, it certainly is ego. But, folks, we're dealing with a guy who is out to destroy the whole concept of the West -- western civilization, the West in terms of a geopolitical organization of nations, out to destroy it. We've never seen anything like this.

Next, Rush read a UK Times interview of Gore Vidal, in which Vidal said Obama was doing “dreadfully” as president. Rush seemed amused that “lunatic” Vidal “is seeing the lunacy” in the White House. Rush went on to say Vidal misses the point, because we're dealing with a guy, Obama, with a “chip on his shoulder” from the people around him: his church, Bill Ayers, Valerie Jarrett, and the Chicago political machine.

Rush makes utterly baseless claim: Mayor Daley “ordered” Obama to lobby for 2016 Olympics

Speaking of the Chicago political machine, Rush posited that the reason Obama was going to Copenhagen to lobby for the Olympics to be held in Chicago was because Mayor Daley “ordered” Obama to do so. What was Rush's evidence for this? Well, as appears to be the trend today, he had none. He just said it.

Next up, Rush complained about what Joe Klein said about talk radio on during an appearance on MSNBC. Rush aired a clip of Klein saying that Obama was so buttoned down about his lunch with Bill Clinton, that it makes you realize we don't really know much about Obama after all of his months in office so far.

Rush responded, promising he would tell Klein everything he wanted to know about Obama and that he would be right. He followed this up with a completely, utterly discredited audio clip featuring a conversation between Charlie Rose and Tom Brokaw, which is edited and clipped to make it sound like the two journalists are expressing concern about not “know[ing]” who Obama really is. Of course, it's all a made-up segment indicative of the fantasy world populated by Rush Limbaugh and his audience of Dittoheads.

Next, Rush read about a California initiative to cut and eliminate various taxes to solve some of their economic woes. Rush said that the reason states like California and New York were in trouble was because they were driving away all the “achievers” and entrepreneurs with high taxes.

Rush on strategy for Democrats to pass public option: “We may as well have a semi-dictatorship now”

After the break, Rush finally told us why we should expect the public option to pass by next week. To prove his point, he read from a couple of Heritage Foundation blog posts speculating on a possible legislative route that Democratic leaders might embark on that could include passage of the public option. Rush's response? To call it a “semi-dictatorship”:

LIMBAUGH: You know, the small-R republican that defines this country, representative repub -- it's gone. It's gone. We may as well have a semi-dictatorship now. We may as well have a semi-tyranny now, because the small-R republican that defined this form of government has just been whitewashed away.

Rush makes it obvious that he doesn't understand the basic concepts of health care reform being considered

After reading through the Heritage's surely solid reasoning, Rush took another commercial break and returned to spew several more minutes of absolute nonsense regarding health care reform. He continued to talk about Heritage's strategy outline for the Democrats, and after describing what Democrats might do (i.e. reading word-for-word from Heritage), Rush claimed that very little of this would be done publically, and that “you're gonna wake up one day and realize they all voted on single-payer health care with a public option on it.”

Except that there's no single-payer plan seriously being considered, so Rush is just making things up -- still. Also, if Rush understood the basic tenets behind health care reform on the table, he would realize the phrase “single-payer health care with a public option on it” makes zero sense. A single payer system wouldn't need a “public option” because single payer isn't the system we have, or even close to the system being proposed ...

Sigh. Why bother explaining this to a purposefully ignorant dimwit like Limbaugh?

Rush makes another baseless claim: Health reform will lead to Congress taking over hospitals, laboratories, the medical profession, and the insurance companies, all to benefit the SEIU

Anyway, Rush continued his nonsensical, fact-free rant, making more and more ridiculous, baseless claims about the effect that health care would have:

LIMBAUGH: In one move, the U.S. Congress will take over hospitals, will take over laboratories, will take over the medical profession, will take over the insurance companies. What they are planning -- let me put it to you in an even more understandable fashion. What they are plotting and hope to pull off by next week will make the takeovers of General Motors and Chrysler look like a joke. And once they've taken over the hospitals, the labs, the medical profession, insurance companies, guess who's gonna get patronage jobs in all these industries? The union people, particularly the SEIU union people.

So...Democratic health care reform will “take over” hospitals, laboratories, the medical profession, and insurance companies, all for the benefit of the SEIU? Please, Rush, please point to the part in any of the bills being considered where it says this will happen.

Still more baseless accusations -- Rush says Democrats are “using the power of government” to deny health care to “those who don't support them”

Rush continued his heated rhetoric fueled by his laughable misunderstanding of what health care reform would actually entail:

LIMBAUGH: The Harry Reid-Pelosi-Obama plan comes down to this: The Democrats are scheming against the American people, as they have been all along. The Obama administration, starting with the campaign, was a scheme against the American people and against the traditions and institutions that have defined this country's greatness. I know I say that like a broken record, but it takes repetition. The Obama administration is a scheme. The Obama campaign was a scheme. There's not gonna be any tort reform in this; if there is, it's just window dressing. And the purpose will be to siphon money from taxpayers and doctors and hospitals to the trial lawyers, who in turn will load up Democrat coffers from contributions.

And he made more outrageous assertions, based again on absolutely nothing:

And during every election cycle, the Democrats using the power of government, will reward those who support them and deny those who don't support them with any benefits.

We know we say it a lot, and risk sounding like a “broken record,” but Limbaugh is really going out on a limb more than usual today in making completely ridiculous claims with nothing to base them on.

Are you kidding us? Rush says health care will result in us becoming “slaves” to the Washington bureaucracy making health care decisions

Rush went on to talk about how communism, Marxism, and statism all create poverty, and how Obama would “rip up the Constitution if he could.” He described how this would all lead to slavery:

LIMBAUGH: The road to serfdom -- to steal the title of a great book by Friedrich von Hayek -- the road to serfdom is paved in Obamacare, that they want on his desk for signature by next week. It's not gonna be a matter of whether you can or cannot pay. It won't be a matter of whether you have coverage or don't have coverage. What'll matter is that all of us will be slaves, will have become slaves to the arbitrary and inhumane decisions of distant bureaucrats working in Washington, where there's no competition, nobody you can go to if you don't like what you hear from the bureaucrats that you have to deal with.

Coming back from another break, Rush continued his vitriolic and misinformation-filled rant. Rush said that the same people pushing government health care are the same people who drove the nation's finances “over the cliff.” He went on to say that Obama and other Democrats “reject” the founding principles of the country, but they are “too cowardly” and power hungry to say so.

Hour two: Rush continues with the health care “slave” rhetoric

So how was that for an entire hour based on not one iota of truth? Ready for hour two? We certainly weren't as Rush picked up with his nonsense right where he left off. He began by commenting on the Roman Polanski story, and comparing the idiot (our word) “liberals” (Rush's word) in Hollywood defending Polanski to your run-of-the-mill liberals in Congress and the general populace.

Next, Rush read the Drudge-touted story about a Michigan mother being told by the state that she was running an illegal daycare by babysitting for her neighbor. Rush wanted to wager whether this woman voted for Obama. The Rush moved on to the ABC report on health care available to members of Congress. Rush said that these “holier than thou condescending elitists” are on a mission, which involves enslaving us:

LIMBAUGH: So while they are on the way to enslaving us to a health care system that will turn every medical decision you have about yourself and your kids over to dealing with some faceless bureaucrat miles away, these same people have Cadillac, Mercedes -- whatever you want to call it -- health care coverage, for essentially $500.

But Rush continued with the same drivel he spouted all throughout the first hour of his program:

LIMBAUGH: So, while they're planning this big national takeover of the health care plan -- single-payer, government public option, all this to bring down costs, all this to improve your care, all of this to reduce fraud and waste in government, all of this to reduce the federal deficit.

See how he uses that string of incompatible buzzwords all in the same sentence? You can't have a single-payer public option. They're mutually exclusive forms of health care. Idiot.

He added:

LIMBAUGH: I have never had my intelligence insulted like it's been insulted with this entire health care debate.

You know what? We feel the exact same way.

Rush went on:

LIMBAUGH: [T]his health care reform is not about improving your health care. It's about enslaving you. This is what Democrats want; this is who they are. They don't like the Constitution. They don't like the concepts of freedom and liberty, private property rights. They look at the private sector as nothing other than an entity that provides them the money they need to rule.

Rush concluded this little bit of his rant by claiming that the concept of the representative republic is “being shattered.”

Then, Rush went on to play a few sound bites, the first from Sen. Chuck Schumer sounding optimistic about the public option after the Senate Finance Committee voted down his amendment earlier in the day. Rush said this is all a “joke, a lie” because the “whole plan” is going to be a public option (again, this doesn't actually make any sense).

Rush went on to inject more idiocy to the debate:

LIMBAUGH: Who is it that has set up death panels? Who is it that has written legislation that will have bureaucrats who does and does not get life-saving treatment, based on whatever criteria they want to use? These are Democrat-written bills in the Senate and in the House. Not one Republican word in any of these bills, right? It's this public option that is going to determine who among us lives and dies on the basis of who among us gets health care, gets treatment, based on whatever criteria they say is necessary.

The public option is going to “determine who among us lives and dies on the basis of who among us gets health care”? Once again, we beg of Rush to point to where in any of the bills it says this.

Rush: “It's the American left that wants you to die”

Anyway, Rush played a sound bite of Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) saying on the House floor last night that the Republican's health care plan is for “you to die quickly if you get sick.” Rush responded:

LIMBAUGH: Now that is simply outrageous. There is no Republican plan in any way, shape, manner, or form that comes close to this. The only plan that asks you to die and get out of the way is a Democrat plan.

[...]

It's the American left that wants you to die. They want you to die in the womb, and they want you to die when you're no longer productive toward the end of your life. It's the Democrat Party that's obsessed with your death. The Democrat Party that is obsessed not with life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, but the exact opposite. The party of abortion and euthanasia. Slavery, not liberty. And everyone being created miserable and mediocre. That's how they would rewrite the Constitution. They're in the process of doing it now, without actually touching the document.

Next, he played a clip of Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) on MSNBC commenting on Grayson's remarks, adding that there are a lot of people in his district dying because they don't have health insurance. After the break, Rush expressed his view -- contrary to what Cummings said -- that he doesn't believe anybody in this country is dying because of a lack of health insurance.

Rush repeated his opinion that the “Democrat [sic] Party” is “obsessed with death” -- abortion and euthanasia -- and also against the founding principles of the country. Then he took a caller who complained about the National Institute of Health getting stimulus money “just now.” This led Rush to talk about the controversy surrounding the National Science Foundation after another commercial break. The story involves employee misconduct, including employees looking at pornography at work.

Then Rush read another story dealing with the NSF and stimulus funds, this one about an Oklahoma State University professor having received a grant from the NSF, funded by the stimulus, to study Alaskan grandparents. Next, Rush forwarded the misinformation currently swirling around by the “safe school czar” Kevin Jennings. He read from a Washington Times piece comparing Jennings to Mark Foley.

After another commercial time-out, Rush read from a Chicago Tribune column by Garrison Keillor about health care. Rush criticized Keillor for suggesting Republicans should be “cut out of the health-care system entirely” because the “entire” party “has excused itself from meaningful debate.” Rush responded to Keillor stating that the columnist just had a stroke, but it has not “made him nice or smart.”

The next caller on the show complained that he kept hearing about the statistic that 42 thousand people die a year because they have no insurance. Rush said the number was false -- people don't die because they don't have insurance, they die because “people die.” Rush then challenged Rep. Cummings to “produce one death certificate” from his district which says the cause of death is from no health insurance.

Rush rehashes long-discredited smear that Ayers helped write Obama's first book

The third and (thankfully) final hour of the program began with Rush gloating about Sarah Palin's soon-to-be released book. First, Rush read a New York Post article about Palin's speeches being a “tough sell,” and claimed it was evidence that they want to destroy Palin. (The Post wants to “destroy” Sarah Palin? Really? The Post?)

Then Rush mentioned that Palin admitted to having a ghost writer, which led to Rush bringing up the long-discredited claim that Bill Ayers ghost-wrote Obama's first book:

LIMBAUGH: Now her book, 400 pages, she admits she's got a ghostwriter. Obama did not admit that he had a ghostwriter, and its beginning to look like he did. The American Thinker has run two pieces now on how Bill Ayers wrote Dreams of My Father, or memories, or whatever, one of the two books. There have been examinations of the styles, and Obama had failed at writing anything prior to that -- we've never seen anything else that he's written with those two books. And there have a lot of people doing research in this, the American people's published a couple stories about it recently.

Rush concluded that: “It was Ayers, Bill Ayers, many people conclude, who wrote the book.”

Wow, that was easy. Just for kicks, we're going to use the same logic to assert that many people conclude Rush Limbaugh is actually a reptilian space alien disguised as a human.

Rush also credited author Christopher Andersen's role in bringing this nonsense back to the surface.

Rush: Obama has “the same gift that Bernie Madoff had, an ability to tell and sell a convincing lie”

Rush went on to argue that if Obama was “genuinely” intelligent, then 80 percent of Americans would be clamoring for health care reform. Rush explained how Bernie Madoff had the “same gift”:

LIMBAUGH: If Obama genuinely had a gift, 80 percent of America would be clamoring for health care, they would want it now. He doesn't have it. He's got the same gift that Bernie Madoff had -- an ability to tell and sell a convincing lie, and an unyielding authoritarian determination to advance greedy, power-grabbing lies that ultimately destroy people's lives.

After some more banter on the “left's” support of Roman Polanski, Rush took a commercial break and returned with a rather eerie-sounding caller. The caller went on a long, uninterrupted rant; sounding terrified out of her mind about all the fearmongering Rush has been pushing today. We're not going to detail exactly what the caller said, but suffice it to say that if you've read the rest of our summary of today's show, you'll know exactly what she was terrified and outraged about -- two hours of lies. This, ladies and gentlemen, is why Rush Limbaugh matters. This caller demonstrated the type of emotional nerve he's capable of touching.

Anyway, the one noteworthy bit from Rush's response to the caller was when he said that, to the Democrat Party [sic], the enemy of this country is the American people:

LIMBAUGH: And what that means is they are scheming against the American people. The enemy of this government is not Muammar Gadhafi. The enemy of this government is not Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The enemy of this country is not Osama bin Laden. The enemy of this country is the American people. The enemy of the Democrat Party right now and getting what they want is the American people. And that's who they're scheming against. And you know that too, and that's why you're outraged.

This is not supposed to be a banana republic. This is supposed to be a representative republic with a small R, and they're obliterating it. They're been working at this 50 years or more; their dreams have come true. But they're overreaching and they're getting so much public opposition now that they're trying to figure out how to get past it and get done what they want and still maintain their power.

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

Highlights

Outrageous comments

LIMBAUGH: I think that Barack Obama and the gang which spawned him have an active dislike for this country as founded. You can hear it in all of his speeches. Every time he goes around the world, apologized for the Untied States -- that speech at the United Nations, everyone says it's sophomoric, probably was, in a strict analysis, on the basis of content and so forth. But if you listen to several things about it, you find there's hardly anything but -- hardly any naïveté there. It essentially said, “My country sucked! My country sucked and every one of you in this body who thought the United States was a bad deal, you're right. But look at what we've done to change it in the last nine months. Look at how much it's better since I'm here.”

Now that's -- I don't think that's naïveté, it certainly is ego. But, folks, we're dealing with a guy who is out to destroy the whole concept of the West -- western civilization, the West in terms of a geopolitical organization of nations, out to destroy it. We've never seen anything like this.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: You know, the small-R republican that defines this country, representative repub -- it's gone. It's gone. We may as well have a semi-dictatorship now. We may as well have a semi-tyranny now, because the small-R republican that defined this form of government has just been whitewashed away.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: This is essentially what reconciliation is all about. And in one move -- and they're targeting next week to get this done. In one move, the U.S. Congress will take over hospitals, will take over laboratories, will take over the medical profession, will take over the insurance companies. What they are planning -- let me put it to you in an even more understandable fashion. What they are plotting and hope to pull off by next week will make the takeovers of General Motors and Chrysler look like a joke. And once they've taken over the hospitals, the labs, the medical profession, insurance companies, guess who's gonna get patronage jobs in all these industries? The union people, particularly the SEIU union people.

The Harry Reid-Pelosi-Obama plan comes down to this: The Democrats are scheming against the American people, as they have been all along. The Obama administration, starting with the campaign, was a scheme against the American people and against the traditions and institutions that have defined this country's greatness. I know I say that like a broken record, but it takes repetition. The Obama administration is a scheme. The Obama campaign was a scheme. There's not gonna be any tort reform in this; if there is, it's just window dressing. And the purpose will be to siphon money from taxpayers and doctors and hospitals to the trial lawyers, who in turn will load up Democrat coffers from contributions. And during every election cycle, the Democrats using the power of government, will reward those who support them and deny those who don't support them with any benefits.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: The road to serfdom -- to steal the title of a great book by Friedrich von Hayek -- the road to serfdom is paved in Obamacare, that they want on his desk for signature by next week. It's not gonna be a matter of whether you can or cannot pay. It won't be a matter of whether you have coverage or don't have coverage. What'll matter is that all of us will be slaves, will have become slaves to the arbitrary and inhumane decisions of distant bureaucrats working in Washington, where there's no competition, nobody you can go to if you don't like what you hear from the bureaucrats that you have to deal with.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: So while they are on the way to enslaving us to a health care system that will turn every medical decision you have about yourself and your kids over to dealing with some faceless bureaucrat miles away, these same people have Cadillac, Mercedes -- whatever you want to call it -- health care coverage, for essentially $500.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: So, while they're planning this big national takeover of the health care plan -- single-payer, government public option, all this to bring down costs, all this to improve your care, all of this to reduce fraud and waste in government, all of this to reduce the federal deficit. I have never had my intelligence insulted like it's been insulted with this entire health care debate. The stimulus debate was almost as insulting, the idea that it's gonna stimulate the economy. There's nobody with half an economic brain who ever believed that, because it's not about stimulating the economy, and this health care reform is not about improving your health care. It's about enslaving you.

This is what Democrats want; this is who they are. They don't like the Constitution. They don't like the concepts of freedom and liberty, private property rights. They look at the private sector as nothing other than an entity that provides them the money they need to rule. Sadly, these people now control every branch of the government and they're adding 63 new federal judgeships that they will populate with people just like themselves, who down the road in any further dispute legally over whatever legislation passes, their buddies will side on the side and in favor of the government. Folks, it's being taken away from us right before our very eyes under false premise, under the guise of compassion.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: Now that is simply outrageous. There is no Republican plan in any way, shape, manner, or form that comes close to this. The only plan that asks you to die and get out of the way is a Democrat plan -- 1984, Richard Lamm, Democrat governor of Colorado, “Old people have a duty to die and get out of the way.” Back then, he was laughed off the public stage. “How some you say something -- die and get out of the way?” Twenty-five years later, Newsweek magazine has a cover story, “The case for pulling the plug on Granny.”

It's the American left that wants you to die. They want you to die in the womb, and they want you to die when you're no longer productive toward the end of your life. It's the Democrat Party that's obsessed with your death. The Democrat Party that is obsessed not with life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, but the exact opposite. The party of abortion and euthanasia. Slavery, not liberty. And everyone being created miserable and mediocre. That's how they would rewrite the Constitution. They're in the process of doing it now, without actually touching the document.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: Obama is a gifted liar, like all community agitators are. Community organizing is a lie. The amount of time Barack “I Have A Gift” Obama has been on TV, has not advanced his planned takeover of health care because Obama doesn't possess a gift like he promised Harry Reid. To get this health care passed, they're gonna have to do it despite us. His gift at selling and having people -- “Oh, I have a gift, Harry.” If Obama genuinely had a gift, 80 percent of America would be clamoring for health care, they would want it now. He doesn't have it. He's got the same gift that Bernie Madoff had -- an ability to tell and sell a convincing lie, and an unyielding authoritarian determination to advance greedy, power-grabbing lies that ultimately destroy people's lives.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: All of this is a tantamount admission that the American people don't want it. It's an tantamount admission but they cannot pass it with public support. And what that means is they are scheming against the American people. The enemy of this government is not Muammar Gadhafi. The enemy of this government is not Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The enemy of this country is not Osama bin Laden. The enemy of this country is the American people. The enemy of the Democrat Party right now and getting what they want is the American people. And that's who they're scheming against. And you know that too, and that's why you're outraged.

This is not supposed to be a banana republic. This is supposed to be a representative republic with a small R, and they're obliterating it. They're been working at this 50 years or more; their dreams have come true. But they're overreaching and they're getting so much public opposition now that they're trying to figure out how to get past it and get done what they want and still maintain their power.

America's Truth Rejector

LIMBAUGH: And by the way, very little of this is going to be made -- is going to be happening publicly. A lot of this is behind the scenes. You're going to wake up one day if all of this goes as Reid and Pelosi and Obama have it planned, you're gonna wake up one day and realize they all voted on single-payer health care with a public option on it.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: Who is it that has set up death panels? Who is it that has written legislation that will have bureaucrats who does and does not get life-saving treatment, based on whatever criteria they want to use? These are Democrat-written bills in the Senate and in the House. Not one Republican word in any of these bills, right? It's this public option that is going to determine who among us lives and dies on the basis of who among us gets health care, gets treatment, based on whatever criteria they say is necessary.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: Now her book, 400 pages, she admits she's got a ghostwriter. Obama did not admit that he had a ghostwriter, and its beginning to look like he did. The American Thinker has run two pieces now on how Bill Ayers wrote Dreams of My Father, or memories, or whatever, one of the two books. There have been examinations of the styles, and Obama had failed at writing anything prior to that -- we've never seen anything else that he's written with those two books. And there have a lot of people doing research in this, the American people's published a couple stories about it recently.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: You know, Obama also claimed to have a health care bill, and he claimed to have written his Dreams of My Father autobiography. This Dreams issue, who wrote his book, is now being discussed openly, American Thinker's had two pieces in the past two days that hammer away on the deception that he wrote the book. It was Ayers, Bill Ayers, many people conclude, who wrote the book.