By Kate Conway

Declining to start the show on the high road, Rush kicked things off today with a brief criticism of House Energy and Commerce Committee chairman Henry Waxman's (D-CA) pronunciation of “Toyota.” (Waxman has been involved with hearings on Toyota's safety standards). Without a larger point to make about the Toyota hearings, Rush then asked his audience, “Where are the hearings on climate change fraud?” before mentioning a report released by Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) about “the controversy surrounding emails and documents released from the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit (CRU).”

After a few dalliances -- Rush expressed concern that Ohio AFL-CIO operations director Tim Burga said he's tired of rallies and wants to fight, then grumbled about Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-CA) breaking into laughter at a request to begin a meeting with the Pledge of Allegiance -- Rush returned to climate change. He played a clip of Inhofe saying climate scientists are acting more like political scientists, then a clip of Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) defending her affirmation of climate change by saying that she quoted the American scientific community, not the IPCC. She specifically referred to NOAA -- the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration -- and to NASA when Rush cut in:

LIMBAUGH: NOAA is as corrupt as the union -- or the IPCC is. NOAA is as corrupt, and James Hansen at NASA is as corrupt as Phil Jones. They're all - it's a worldwide cabal. So, this is their out now, this is their out. Oh, we're not relying on those frauds over there in Great Britain, no, no, no, we're relying on you American frauds, because they're our frauds. And, so that's how we're going to go patriotic on this. Our fraud scientists think they're Americans so that who we're listening to, we're not listening to the other guys.

Rush then gleefully cried, “Inhofe's got them by the shorts here!”

Then, introducing EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson as a far-left activist, Rush played a clip of her stating that the IPCC is still a useful source of scientific data and that the recent controversy over the source of information on glacial melting doesn't undermine the science indicating that climate change is a threat.

The rest of the segment was devoted to the economy. Rush read from a Reuters article about the number of mass layoffs in the United States increasing in January, and then read from an AP article about 17 percent increases in Wall Street bonuses. Rush declared that he believes the pay czar should be eliminated, but since Obama thinks the government should regulate bonuses, this article is evidence of failure on the part of the president:

LIMBAUGH: The city and state layoffs predicted by me continue to unfold right before our very eyes, and yet here's Wall Street with their bonuses up 17 percent. Now, my observation about this is very simple. As you know I don't think the White House ought to be deciding who earns what in this country, and I think this pay czar is a job that ought to be eliminated. However, however, Mr. Obama thinks the government should be in charge of bonuses and what has he told us? It ain't going to happen, they're not going to go to Vegas, the days of these big bonuses are over, except at Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase, where he likes those two guys. But everywhere else, ain't going to happen. No-o-o way, no way, and Obama's going to see to it and he got this pay czar, Feinberg. And Feinberg is going to go out there and make sure that this rape of the American people doesn't happen, and yet it did again. Bonuses are up 17 percent. Now, if Obama cannot control bank bonuses with a direct liaison to the industry called the pay czar, if he cannot control bank bonuses going up when he set up an office to do just that, why do we assume that his healthcare reform proposal will reduce costs or do anything that he says it's going to do? We shouldn't.

Heading into the first break, Rush left us with some brief thoughts on Obama's health care plan: He declared that there are three provisions to fund abortion in the plan, a topic Media Matters for America has already addressed, then called the plan a campaign document.

Next, Rush used a Reuters article about mass layoffs to launch an attack against the mainstream media. He played a few CNN clips from the summer of 2009 in which CNN anchors Melissa Long and Betty Nguyen, Wall Street correspondent Susan Lisovicz, and Your Money host Christine Romans expressed hope that the economy was on the upswing, then said of the women in the clips: “CNN infobabes giddy over the economy.” Rush then said that he loves illustrating the bias and incompetence of the state-controlled media.

Limbaugh asks if a caller who approves of Obama is “on welfare”

Next, Rush nearly found himself in a pickle when a caller expressed irritation with Glenn Beck's tendency to say that Democrats and Republicans are all the same. Rush danced around that by declaring that he has a policy of not criticizing other media figures who do what he does, and he is reluctant to say anything bad about Beck. He said he doesn't want to get into battles with people on his side, he wants to do battle with liberals and RINOs. He insisted that he was not “copping out.”

With political figures, however, it's a whole different ball game. Rush declared he doesn't understand what Mitt Romney is doing by endorsing Sen. John McCain; the era of McCain is over. He moved on to Sen. Scott Brown, with whom he was angry over the senator's vote to move along the jobs bill. Rush said that although he was glad that Brown doesn't support health care, he was displeased that Brown voted with the Democrats. Rush couldn't stay mad at him though, because he's better than Ted Kennedy. To prove his point, Rush proceeded to read from a Boston Herald article titled “Scott Brown fumes over health plan.”

A dissenting caller then used a variety of colorful analogies to share his distaste for Rush. After telling Rush that his callers all tell him he's walking on water when he's really sinking in quicksand, the caller said he believes the country is heading in the right direction and then hung up. For a moment it looked like Rush was going to keep his cool, but then he began to shake his head and gesticulate, asking: “What is he, on welfare?”

Returning to the topic of wayward Republican politicians, Rush stated that he'd hoped it would take Brown a little longer to succumb to “Potomac Fever.” He again said that he likes Mitt Romney but thinks he's making a poor decision in endorsing McCain's bid for re-election in Arizona. Although he understood why Sarah Palin would endorse McCain, Rush said he thought these endorsements were unnecessary. What do people have to gain?

A caller upset about Brown's vote on the jobs bill said that this is a reminder that we can't get too excited about seats changing from “D” to “R.” Rush said that was an excellent point, and took the opportunity to remind us that there is a conservative ascendency out there. He then recalled that it took Ronald Reagan three tries and eight years to get the Republican nomination before agreeing with the caller that Romney has no chance in 2012.

Rush finished out his first hour with complaints about the emails he receives -- apparently 10 of his listeners write him 50 times per day to tell him that he “sucks” for not seeing that all politicians -- not just Democrats -- also “suck.”

Limbaugh: The GOP is run by “country club, blue-blood, Rockefeller liberal types”

Rush opened the second hour by sharing a tasteful theory a fan emailed to him on why Romney endorsed McCain: “It's sort of like LBJ, you'd rather have him inside the tent urinating out than outside the tent urinating on you.” Rush noted that he doesn't buy into this theory, but he thought it was funny.

Rush declared that you will never catch him changing a core belief even though others do, because others have different motivations than he does. He explained that you can't get involved in supporting personalities; that's how we got Obama. Swinging this toward a message of hope for his listeners, he declared that there's been a change from the hopelessness of a year ago, when they felt like they had lost the country. Now, it's Obama who's getting shelled every day. Declaring that the GOP is run by country club, blue-blood, Rockefeller liberal types, he then explained the disconnect between the Republican Party and the Tea Party movement:

LIMBAUGH: This takes time. Where were we a year ago? Look at the hopelessness everybody felt a year ago. We thought we'd lost the country a year ago, and now it's Obama who's getting shelled every day. Now, I probably am correct when I say that the Republican Party right now is not trying to harness the fervor behind the Tea Party and the town halls. They're not there yet. We know this. We know the Republican Party -- we've talked about it. They're run by a bunch of country club blue-blood Rockefeller liberal types. And I've told you exactly why they don't like abortion. You think that's too simplified, but it's not. It's exactly what it's -- it's why the country club blue-blooders do not want any part of any Tea Party or any town hall [unintelligible] -- any people who believe that social issues are a matter, the reason -- the only reason social issues are a matter is because the government has made them issues. We haven't voted on all of these things. Supreme Court dictated abortion -- all these kinds of other things. Cultural rot. They ought not be political issues, but we had no choice, we didn't make them political issues. They did, and so we have to fight them. It's the nature of the game. The Republican Party is not yet there, trying to harness the fervor behind the Tea Party and the town halls. For any nonconservative, they're trying desperately not to get run over by the Tea Parties right now. They're trying to hold on to what they think is their right, and that is the birth right in fact as leadership of the Republican Party.

Getting excited about the resurgence of conservatism, Rush compared the current political atmosphere the first inning of the first game of the World Series, saying that last year we didn't even think we'd make the World Series. He proclaimed that this is an amazing success story: Last year at this time we thought we'd have health care and cap and trade by now, and that we'd see the makeover of the country from capitalism to socialism.

Then, revisiting the emails that say he “sucks,” Rush suggested that those who don't agree with him go ahead and create a third party, pick viable candidates. If you're the only ones who don't suck, he says, go show the rest of us how not to suck. Who are your candidates? Who are you going to run for President? Rush then declared that ideas and not personalities are what matter.

Rush then speculated that Brown voted as he did because he'll be up for re-election soon. Then Rush proudly explained to his listeners why he waited an hour into the show to share this ingenious insight. He played a clip from MSNBC in which he is named as someone who will denounce Brown's vote, informed us that he knew the “drive-by media” would be listening today, and he told us wanted to make them listen to him for a whole hour.

Oh, Rush. We would be listening anyway, but we're glad you know that every minute is a little bit painful.

He also threw in a classy comment about Diane Sawyer “practically having an orgasm” over Scott Brown's vote.

Rush played clip of Sen. Harry Reid saying that domestic abuse increases when men are unemployed, and then declared that women instigate half of domestic abuse. Rush then proceeded to read two news stories about domestic abuse perpetrated by women. He said that Democratic policies have led to massive unemployment (citing the Reuters article on mass layoffs one more time) and concluded that Democrats need to accept responsibility for domestic violence in the country.

Returning to health care, Rush stated that he believes the threat of using reconciliation in the Senate is a bluff. However, he thought the real difficulty in passing a health care reform plan will be in the House, because Blue Dog Democrats don't want anything to do with it. Rush liked Newt Gingrich's suggestion that Republicans request to be allowed to run half the health care summit, because such a thing would never happen -- thus disproving the notion of bipartisanship.

When a caller declared that she is “pissed off” that Republicans don't seem to understand that people want them to act like conservatives, Rush explained that he thinks Romney endorsed McCain because he wants McCain's endorsement in 2012. The caller declared McCain to be an idiot and asked who would want his support. Rush then said, while flailing wildly, that the Republicans are not the problem right now; it's the Democrats who are trying to take over the country.

Rush spent the majority of the next segment talking about Hofstra political science professor David Michael Green who, Rush said, is so angry we might be looking at another Amy Bishop. He also warned the Secret Service to keep an eye on Green. Rush read from a post on Green's blog in which he writes, “I hate Barack Obama, too. And my reasons for doing so are piling up fast. But I would never mistake him for a liberal. And that, in fact, is one of the things I most despise about this disastrous fool of a president.” Rush said this is the greatest testament in the world to the fact that “we” are winning, then continued to read the post before ranting that Green doesn't understand what's going on.

After a break, Rush finished his attack on Green, saying that he probably thinks that Castro and Stalin didn't do enough for the cause, either.

During what appeared to be an advertisement for the Heritage Foundation, Rush said that Heritage has called the health care summit a press stunt, which, Rush affirmed, “it is.” He said that Heritage has offered a number of bipartisan reform ideas, which he listed, before suggesting that listeners sign up for Heritage via a donation to the organization.

At the end of the hour, Rush recalled a story he once read about aging baby boomers who smoke marijuana all the time, then referred to an article about nursing home residents forming a biker gang. Just before going to commercial, he warned that some of the baby boomer generation, to which he belongs, will expect to sponge off the rest.

Rush opened hour three with one last dig at Green: a suggestion that the Secret Service ought to check if Green has an airplane.

He then turned back to the health care summit, this time declaring that it's no accident that Obama's plan doesn't contain enough detail for the CBO to score it: That way he can continue to pretend that his trillion-dollar bill lowers the deficit. Rush guessed that the real motivation behind Obama's health care plan is that Obama wanted to be able to say he had a plan like all the others wearing 'big-boy pants." Rush wondered who is advising Obama, then called the president an agitator whose objective is to take over the economy.

To this end, Rush read from a CNN Money story about how Obama wants to pay for health care reform, concluding that his plan is to “tax, tax, tax.” He said that what Obama has proposed is a tax bill.

Playing off an American Thinker article that referred to Obama as a “cargo cult President,” Rush discussed cargo cults. He told us that he didn't know what they were, but he kindly enlightened us in the same way he informed himself: by reading the relevant Wikipedia entry. Rush agreed with the American Thinker that Obama is like a primitive indigenous guy who wants advanced technology but doesn't understand how it is made. Rush explained that Obama thinks that if he goes and makes a speech, the gods will deliver what he wants, and that, as a god himself, he has the right to limit what others get, such as compensation on Wall Street.

Continuing on this topic, Rush explained that because cargo cult people had no idea where the cargo came from, they thought all they had to do was go through the motions -- building landing strips and mimicking radio communication -- and the gods would reward them. Similarly, Obama doesn't understand where the “cargo” comes from, and he thinks he just has to go through the motions.

Rush briefly talked about Zicam, then read from a TMZ article detailing accusations that Royals mascot Slugger the Lion injured a fan's eye with a hot dog. Following these enlightening minutes, a 15-year-old listener called in to ask Rush if he thinks the Republicans could take back the Senate. Rush thought that eventually they can, especially if Obama keeps leading the Democrats down a suicide path.

Then, when a caller asked why we aren't doing more to stop Iran's nuclear program, Rush responded that liberals think that it's the fault of American policies that people in the rest of the world hate us.

Ending the show on a lackluster note, Rush read from a Chicago Sun-Times article about the difficulty of reaching solvency in Illinois and a New York Daily News article about MTA layoffs in New York, then mentioned San Francisco teachers getting pink slips. To conclude, he asked how “that hope and change” is working out for us.

Kitty Kaletsky and Michael Timberlake contributed to this edition of the Limbaugh Wire.