By Greg Lewis
Limbaugh started the day by making a fuss about an article on the front page of today's Washington Post. But first he read about a new Rasmussen poll finding that 73 percent of GOP voters say Republicans have “lost touch with their base.” Then Rush read from a Politico article about possible backlash from moderate Democrats over the White House's attacks on Fox News.
Rush finally got to the “unbelievable” Washington Post front-page article, which Rush described as the White House throwing Virginia gubernatorial candidate Creigh Deeds under the bus. Rush described how the major point here was how Blue Dog Democrats would view this, since it meant that if these moderates vote for health care and lose in their district, Obama would do nothing to help them. Rush summed up the message Obama was supposedly sending as such: Support me or else.
Then Rush adorned his pollster hat to again baselessly criticize the Post's poll from earlier this week on the public option:
LIMBAUGH: Don't believe all these polls, the fraudulent poll from The Washington Post earlier this week, 57 percent want public option. There has never been 57 percent for the public option, and there isn't in this poll. It is a fraudulent poll.
Rush also said that Deeds' instincts to keep Obama out of his campaign were “right on the money” and later denied the notion that Virginia was going “blue.” (Even if Deeds loses, it's worth noting the last two governors of the state have been Democrats, also the party to which both of its senators belong.)
Rush's message to Blue Dog Democrats: “You have to vote against this socialist, fascist agenda because it's the right thing to do”
After the commercial, Rush continued to focus obsessively on the Post story on Deeds. He used the opportunity to issue a message for Blue Dog Democrats:
LIMBAUGH: Blue Dogs, if you don't know it now, you're never gonna know it, but let me tell you something. You have to vote against this socialist, fascist agenda because it's the right thing to do. You are to stick with your voters on this; you are to stick with your constituents on this. You are to resist Obama and Pelosi and Reid, Reid being pressured ... Here is one case for you Blue Dogs, where your own political survival is in accord with the nation's survival. You Blue Dog Democrats are inexorably tied to those of us who want to save this country from the direction it's headed. So you have to understand here, you vote with Obama, you lose.
Rush Bizarro Reality: Nuh-uh, it's the Democrats who are the splintered party!
Rush continued his rant about the Democratic Party by claiming that it was Obama's party -- contrary to reports about a splintered GOP -- that was a mess. Rush described the Democrats as a “regional party” that is only strong in “pockets of cities” in the Northeast and West coast regions (and Virginia, and North Carolina, and Florida, and Colorado, and New Mexico, and Iowa, and Indiana, and Nevada, and that lone electoral vote in Nebraska -- but who's counting?).
Rush said his point was that Obama's and the Post's candidate is a dud, so Obama is already pushing him over a cliff. Rush continued to argue that Obama has done a lot of damage to his party and that Obama is out of touch with the public. He then threw in this Soviet comparison to Obama:
LIMBAUGH: Now, Obama will use whatever people or party or program he can to promote himself and his own power. He is a cult of personality, and this is how personalities -- cults of personality function. You know, Khrushchev -- I looked this up -- Khrushchev used the phrase “cult of personality” to make the first official denunciation of Stalin in 1957. He said Stalin built a cult of personality around himself. Well, Obama has done an American version of the same thing, or he's encouraging it, which is very different from other presidents.
Following another break, Rush returned to play the “sad” advertisement for Deeds featuring Obama and continued his rant about Obama's narcissistic Messianic complex:
LIMBAUGH: We -- to be honest here, folks, we joke about Obama's messianic complex, but he has it. He believes his life is a moment of destiny, and I don't think that president of the Untied States is his ultimate aim. I think Secretary General of the United Nations is his ultimate aim, after he turns our sovereignty over to it as much as possible with this new climate bill that they're gonna have in Copenhagen. I really think that's his ultimate aim, is to run the world. And I think that's what he believes the world wants. He's that delusional.
Rush claimed that the irony of all this was that Obama's supporters accuse Rush and other of calling them unpatriotic, but disagreeing with Obama is “treated” as unpatriotic. Rush noted this was the problem with tyranny.
Rush touts fake excerpt of Obama's undergrad thesis to label him an “anti-constitutionalist”
Moving on, Rush took a gander at a blog post by Michael Ledeen which purported to have an excerpt of Barack Obama's undergrad thesis that he wrote when he attended Columbia University. Ledeen sourced the excerpt to an obscure conservative blog, which claimed the excerpt came from Time's Joe Klein in an article that would supposedly appear in an “upcoming special edition about the president.” That post was written eight weeks ago, and that “upcoming special edition” of Time has yet to surface. Color us skeptical. (Ledeen later posted an apology for running with this “hoax.” Rush also cast some doubt as the program went on.)
Anyway, Rush went on to relate this to Obama's oft-discussed 2001 radio interview when he talked about his views on the Supreme Court. Rush used both Obama-attributed quotes -- one likely fabricated -- to call Obama an “anti-constitutionalist” and read a few quotes from Thomas Jefferson to argue with Obama's supposed thesis.
Rush began hour two of his show with a few more comments about Obama's thesis as reported on by Michael Ledeen. Rush said the supposed-thesis was also relevant in the way Virginia gubernatorial candidate Bob McDonnell's thesis has been used again. If we may interject with one important distinction about the two theses: McDonnell's was real; what Rush purports to be Obama's is probably fake.
Rush's grapes still sour over failed Rams bid
For the next 20 minutes or so, Rush revived his NFL-bid-failure pity party which we thought had come to a close days ago. So much for that. Anyway, Rush went through a series of sound bites of people in the media talking about Rush and generally defending him. This list of intellectual all-stars backing up Rush included comedian Jim Norton, Jesse Lee Peterson, and NFL linebacker Shawne Merriman. He also complained about news organizations retracting the fabricated quotes attributed to Rush after the damage had already been done. (Says the man who just ran with a dubiously cited excerpt from Obama's college thesis. More on that later.)
A caller then asked Rush about the public option opt-out proposal in the Senate. Rush wasn't familiar with the opt-out idea, but said there would be a public option no matter what since that was the whole point of national health care. Rush was skeptical of the opt-out line, claiming most people would be “forced into it” anyway.
Following the commercial break, Rush read a Wall Street Journal article on people trying to cheat on the new homebuyer tax credit. Then he took a caller who complained about Newt Gingrich endorsing the “RINO” candidate in the NY-23 race. Rush read from another Rasmussen poll and rambled on a bit about the “receding tide” in favor of conservatism. Rush went through his usual litany of perceived Obama offenses. Rush said that more and more people are “getting” Barack Obama.
Then Rush read from a post by Victor Davis Hanson at National Review Online that predicted that Obama would “set back racial relations to the 1960s,” among other things. Then a caller chimed in to say that pushing a liberal agenda on children is “shameful.” The next caller told Rush about a recent PBS Frontline special on the financial crisis. This provided a perfect opportunity for Rush to spout his favorite tired falsehoods about the Community Reinvestment Act and the Clinton administration causing the crisis:
LIMBAUGH: Ladies and gentlemen, they had to do what they were told. The federal government created policies that made them make these loans to people who couldn't pay them. That's what the subprime mortgage crisis is all about, and the architects of that are Bill Clinton, Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, and a whole bunch of other minor bit players. ACORN's involved, ACORN's running around, hassling banks if they don't make loans to people. And now, after following mandated policy, federal law -- what, the Community Redevelopment Act or something this was -- under Carter, the Community Redevelopment Act, but it was put on steroids in the late '90s with Clinton and the bunch, and they forced the banks to make these loans. And so these banks, after following orders, are now being blamed for the problem.
Rush proceeded to compare the financial crisis to how the underfunded levees broke because of Hurricane Katrina, and said that this is how tyranny starts.
Rush admits there's a “possibility” the thesis excerpt “is not accurate” but says he “know[s] Obama thinks it”
Finally we entered into the final hour of Rush Limbaugh for the week. Rush started by returning to the dubious excerpt from Obama's thesis, which Rush had some new developments to inform us about -- apparently he had gotten a note from a researcher telling him exactly what we told you above: that there is a good chance the excerpt is completely fabricated. Rush went along with the revelation -- sort of:
LIMBAUGH: So we have to hold out the possibility that this is not accurate. However, I have had this happen to me recently. I've had quotes attributed to me that were made up. And when it was pointed out to the media that the quotes were made up, they said, “It doesn't matter. We know Limbaugh thinks it anyway.” Sorta like Dan Rather said, “I don't care if these documents are forged, I know that Bush did what he did in the National Guard. I don't care that the documents are forged.” “I don't care if the Limbaugh quotes are made up.”
So, I can say I don't care if these quotes are made up, I know Obama thinks it. You know why I know Obama thinks it? Because I've heard him say it. Not about the Constitution, but about the Supreme Court. Again, 2001, FM radio station interview with him when he was a state senator in Illinois.
[...]
LIMBAUGH: So, we've got a supposed piece from his college thesis at Columbia, where he complains that the Constitution didn't talk about the distribution of wealth. So we know that it's on his mind. So even if he didn't say it, I know he thinks it. That's how it works in the media. And I do know he thinks it because I just heard what I heard, and so did you.
Then Rush aired several sound bites from Obama's speech yesterday, which addressed “pay czar” Feinberg's executive compensation cuts for companies that took TARP money. Rush called what Obama said about not wanting to “disparage” wealth “all a lie” because everything Obama is doing is oriented towards getting rid of wealth. Rush then recounted how Bush Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson “forced” these companies to take the TARP money. Then Rush went on to tell us one of his staffer's ideas for an “Obama Halloween” which involved literally taking candy from children to prove a point about Obama's “redistribution of wealth.”
After the break, Rush made a quick reference to Glenn Beck's latest White House witch hunt target, Anita Dunn: “Well, Bob Bauer happens to be the husband of Anita Dunn. Yeah, Anita Dunn, whose favorite philosopher is Mao Zedong.”
Then Rush took a caller who predicted conservatives would cave on health care because of their concern in getting women voters. Rush said he has railed against the idea that you can't win the presidency without the female vote, and said “group politics” is what Democrats do.
Rush on debunked thesis excerpt: “So we stand by the fabricated quote because we know Obama thinks it anyway. That's how it works in the media today”
Rush returned from another commercial break with another semi-retreat on the thesis story. Now he was trying to pass off the blog as “satire”:
LIMBAUGH: I'm also told that the blog containing the passage on Obama's thesis is a satire blog. And so it's one of these, like Scrappleface or The Onion or some such thing, so I shout from the mountaintops, it was satire. But we know he thinks it. Good comedy, to be comedy, must contain an element of truth, and we know how he feels about distribution of wealth; he's mad at the courts for not going far enough on it. So we stand by the fabricated quote because we know Obama thinks it anyway. That's how it works in the media today.
After some more ranting about TARP, Rush read from Politico about Rep. Mike Pence saying reports that GOP leaders worry about what Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh say are “hogwash.” Then Rush read a New York Times article about the ongoing White House-Fox News feud. Rush had this to say about it: “The whole reason for approaching Fox is because they have the audacity to expose who Obama really is by virtue of these close associate pals of his. Because he is Van Jones, he is ACORN, he is Anita Dunn.”
Zachary Aronow and Zachary Pleat contributed to this edition of the Limbaugh Wire.
Highlights
Outrageous comments
LIMBAUGH: In fact, this is a signal to all Democrats, folks, who will lose their seats voting to support Obama's fascist agenda, like national health care. He doesn't give a damn about you. Every Democrat reading this story today is seeing Obama doesn't care about you, he doesn't care about them, he doesn't care about their future or their constituents, and he will dump on you and blame you for losing.
So what are they to do? They are to vote against a socialist agenda. Here's -- Blue Dogs, if you don't know it now, you're never gonna know it, but let me tell you something. You have to vote against this socialist, fascist agenda because it's the right thing to do. You are to stick with your voters on this; you are to stick with your constituents on this. You are to resist Obama and Pelosi and Reid, Reid being pressured -- funny story from CBS about how a whole bunch of leftist groups are being weak and soft for not pushing the public option hard enough. Here is one case for you Blue Dogs, where your own political survival is in accord with the nation's survival. You Blue Dog Democrats are inexorably tied to those of us who want to save this country from the direction it's headed. So you have to understand here, you vote with Obama, you lose.
[...]
LIMBAUGH: Now, Obama will use whatever people or party or program he can to promote himself and his own power. He is a cult of personality, and this is how personalities -- cults of personality function. You know, Khrushchev -- I looked this up -- Khrushchev used the phrase “cult of personality” to make the first official denunciation of Stalin in 1957. He said Stalin built a cult of personality around himself. Well, Obama has done an American version of the same thing, or he's encouraging it, which is very different from other presidents.
[...]
LIMBAUGH: We -- to be honest here, folks, we joke about Obama's messianic complex, but he has it. He believes his life is a moment of destiny, and I don't think that president of the Untied States is his ultimate aim. I think Secretary General of the United Nations is his ultimate aim, after he turns our sovereignty over to it as much as possible with this new climate bill that they're gonna have in Copenhagen. I really think that's his ultimate aim, is to run the world. And I think that's what he believes the world wants. He's that delusional.
[...]
LIMBAUGH: Well Bob Bauer happens to be the husband of Anita Dunn. Yeah, Anita Dunn, whose favorite philosopher is Mao Zedong.
[...]
LIMBAUGH: The whole reason for approaching Fox is because they have the audacity to expose who Obama really is by virtue of these close associate pals of his. Because he is Van Jones, he is ACORN, he is Anita Dunn.
America's Truth Rejector
LIMBAUGH: Don't believe all these polls, the fraudulent poll from The Washington Post earlier this week, 57 percent want public option. There has never been 57 percent for the public option, and there isn't in this poll. It is a fraudulent poll.
[...]
LIMBAUGH: Ladies and gentlemen, they had to do what they were told. The federal government created policies that made them make these loans to people who couldn't pay them. That's what the subprime mortgage crisis is all about, and the architects of that are Bill Clinton, Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, and a whole bunch of other minor bit players. ACORN's involved, ACORN's running around, hassling banks if they don't make loans to people. And now, after following mandated policy, federal law -- what, the Community Redevelopment Act or something this was -- under Carter, the Community Redevelopment Act, but it was put on steroids in the late '90s with Clinton and the bunch, and they forced the banks to make these loans. And so these banks, after following orders, are now being blamed for the problem.
[...]
LIMBAUGH: So we have to hold out the possibility that this is not accurate. However, I have had this happen to me recently. I've had quotes attributed to me that were made up. And when it was pointed out to the media that the quotes were made up, they said, “It doesn't matter. We know Limbaugh thinks it anyway.” Sorta like Dan Rather said, “I don't care if these documents are forged, I know that Bush did what he did in the National Guard. I don't care that the documents are forged.” “I don't care if the Limbaugh quotes are made up.” So, I can say I don't care if these quotes are made up, I know Obama thinks it. You know why I know Obama thinks it? Because I've heard him say it. Not about the Constitution, but about the Supreme Court. Again, 2001, FM radio station interview with him when he was a state senator in Illinois.
[...]
LIMBAUGH: So, we've got a supposed piece from his college thesis at Columbia, where he complains that the Constitution didn't talk about the distribution of wealth. So we know that it's on his mind. So even if he didn't say it, I know he thinks it. That's how it works in the media. And I do know he thinks it because I just heard what I heard, and so did you.
[...]
LIMBAUGH: I'm also told that the blog containing the passage on Obama's thesis is a satire blog. And so it's one of these, like Scrappleface or The Onion or some such thing, so I shout from the mountaintops, it was satire. But we know he thinks it. Good comedy, to be comedy, must contain an element of truth, and we know how he feels about distribution of wealth; he's mad at the courts for not going far enough on it. So we stand by the fabricated quote because we know Obama thinks it anyway. That's how it works in the media today.