By Tom Allison

Because for Rush, weather equals climate

Rush opened the show by reading various weather reports from around the country featuring colder temperatures and a projected milder hurricane season. “How's that global warming and climate change treating you?” he asked.

Rush revived attacks on Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson for their involvement in the Duke lacrosse case even though Rush himself repeatedly served up inflammatory comments on the subject.

Not surprisingly, Rush was still playing the victim over quotes that he says were fabricated to forestall his involvement with the St. Louis Rams and claimed that their distribution was all part of an effort to “destroy conservatism.”

Rush on Snowe, Collins supporting health bill: “Women!”

After the break, Rush talked about Sen. Susan Collins reportedly considering supporting healthcare reform. Similar to his attack on Sen. Snowe yesterday, Rush mocked surprise (“who would have thought this!?”) and declared, “Women!” Later in the show, Rush revisited a caller's theory that Snowe might be temporarily endorsing health reform only to “sabotage” and dilute the final product. Look for other conservative media running with this theory.

Of course, Rush couldn't resist talking about Seymour Hersh's recent claim that officials in the Pentagon are racially prejudiced against Obama and referred to Hersh as “a lunatic.”

Moving on, Rush decried the idea of the Obama administration attempting to tamp down executive bonuses at AIG, stating that White House official Kenneth Feinberg is “targeting the little guy” and later comparing him to a mobster holding a man out the window.

Rush also pushed a CNSNews.com column that criticized a provision of the Senate Finance Committee mark that allows for the DMV to help administer health insurance plans. Of course, the plan also enables Social Security offices, hospitals, and schools to do the same.

Some lies never go away

Limbaugh once again misrepresented “phony soldiers” smear:

LIMBAUGH: You know, my friends, it's amazing how fast things change. Just last year, one year ago, if you called a phony soldier a phony soldier -- if you called a legitimately phony soldier a phony soldier, the president of the Senate, the Senate majority leader, would run to the microphones and denounce you, and demand that your syndication partner make you apologize, or more. You were anti-American if you called a phony soldier a soldier, and you were against the whole military. That's what Harry Reid tried to portray me as.

Picking up on conservative blogs and Sean Hannity, Rush then played a clip from a 2007 Robert Reich lecture and claimed it was evidence of Obama's real health reform goal.

Rush: Obama official is “pay Nazi”

Rush continued to hammer on Feinberg for trying to reign in executive pay from companies receiving government loans, labeled some UAW workers as “unessential,” and referred to Feinberg as a “pay Nazi.”

LIMBAUGH: If you wanna go that route, if you wanna open that door, if you want a Pandora's box, then let's go to General Motors and Chrysler, which are now owned by Obama. Maybe the pay czar can look into the bonuses the UAW workers are getting. The sad state General Motors and Chrysler are in, could we not say that most of the workers there are unessential?

[...]

The little people. Nathan, you realize, maybe they're doing a good job. Maybe they're doing a good job and they -- would you reject it? These are the little people, these are the people Democrats supposedly look out for, and now they got their pay Nazi running around saying, “Those are unnecessary, nonessential people.”

And just in case anyone wasn't aware, Rush is no fan of Rep. Shelia Jackson Lee, celebrity blogger Perez Hilton, and the Rev. Al Sharpton and repeatedly attacked them throughout the broadcast.

Commenting that there is no “truth out there” in the mainstream media, Limbaugh proceeded to blame congressional Democratic leaders for America's economic decline and was upset that they would be involved in health care negotiations.

LIMBAUGH: These three white guys, these three questionable character people, author of much of the destruction of the U.S. economy and throughout our culture with their various pieces of legislation. These three people are meeting with the estimable Rahm Emanuel to decide how 300 million Americans will get medical care and how they will get health insurance. Three people are meeting today and the media is breathless in anticipation of this meeting: “Oh, it's exciting, there might be some big news that comes out of this.” There will be some big news. The big news accurately reported would be the further attack and destruction on the American private sector, the American economy. The blatant pilfering of one-sixth of the U.S. private sector, the U.S. economy, and putting in the hands of Barack Obama, he with a five-and-a-half-minute career and a bogus Nobel Peace Prize.

Rush “explain[ed]” his comparison of the NBA to the Crips and Bloods street gangs, claiming that he was merely “criticizing the mindset” and was “taken out of context.” Curiously he failed to provide any evidence for this, nor did he provide an excuse for his more recent declaration that basketball is “the favorite sport of gangs.”

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

Highlights

LIMBAUGH: Our generation may be, thanks to President Obama, the first one to make sure that our children's lives are not better than ours. It's heartbreaking. And it's frustratingly obscene when you realize it's all by design, it's all on purpose. Thank you, Olympia Snowe.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: If you wanna go that route, if you wanna open that door, if you want a Pandora's box, then let's go to General Motors and Chrysler, which are now owned by Obama. Maybe the pay czar can look into the bonuses the UAW workers are getting. The sad state General Motors and Chrysler are in, could we not say that most of the workers there are unessential? You let this happen, Barney Frank is out there -- now, Nathan, Barney Frank is out there saying he wants the power to regulate compensation at companies that have not received and will never receive federal money. All they want is the opportunity to prevent prosperity. They want everyone equal in their vaunted view, and the only way they can do that is to spread misery equally. They cannot make everyone prosperous; they don't want that to happen.

So if you're gonna let 'em slam on AIG -- and I'm speaking -- you may have a point of AIG being a bunch of schlubs, I don't know. That's not the point. I'm looking at the larger issue here. I'm looking at what our country is becoming and how it is becoming that way, and when people say “I'm looking at -- my tax dollars are paying out bonuses, and I wanna know, I wanna know --” Your tax dollars are not paying anything. We have a deficit of $1.4 trillion. Your tax dollars are worthless. If you have kids or grandkids, and who are not working, they're already being taxed. Their futures are being taxed. A $1.4 trillion budget deficit this year, almost 10 percent of the workforce unemployed, nothing being done about it, and what are they focusing on? Bonuses at AIG. For kitchen managers! The little people. Nathan, you realize, maybe they're doing a good job. Maybe they're doing a good job and they -- would you reject it? These are the little people, these are the people Democrats supposedly look out for, and now they got their pay Nazi running around saying, “Those are unnecessary, nonessential people.”

[...]

LIMBAUGH: These three white guys, these three questionable character people, author of much of the destruction of the U.S. economy and throughout our culture with their various pieces of legislation. These three people are meeting with the estimable Rahm Emanuel to decide how 300 million Americans will get medical care and how they will get health insurance. Three people are meeting today and the media is breathless in anticipation of this meeting: “Oh, it's exciting, there might be some big news that comes out of this.” There will be some big news. The big news accurately reported would be the further attack and destruction on the American private sector, the American economy. The blatant pilfering of one-sixth of the U.S. private sector, the U.S. economy, and putting in the hands of Barack Obama, he with a five-and-a-half-minute career and a bogus Nobel Peace Prize.

Harry Reid, Max Baucus, Christopher Dodd are going to decide how 300 million Americans deal with their medical challenges and problems. Those four people -- eh, add Emanuel, make it five. Those four people -- Emanuel's in there as the enforcer, anyone goes wayward and off track. I don't know what you call this, but this is not democracy. And it is not republican, with a small R. Call it what you want, but ask yourself if you want those three people, those three senators, deciding how health care happens and is paid for and who gets it in this country.