Rush claims town hall was a “stacked deck” and phony

By Tom Allison

Right out of the gate, Rush claimed that his prediction that the New Hampshire town hall would be a “stacked deck” and phony" came true, despite reports to the contrary:

LIMBAUGH: I predicted it halfway yesterday. Right before Obama's -- we now know, by the way, the whole thing yesterday was a stacked deck. That thing in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, was totally phony. The little girl that asked a question is the daughter of a huge Obama supporter.

Rush reminded his listeners that yesterday he predicted that if there was a disturbance at Obama's New Hampshire health care town hall meeting, especially one involving swastikas or Klan outfits, “they would be union supporters.” Rush was convinced of a conspiracy:

LIMBAUGH: And so now, there was -- I get up, well, it was last night or this morning and I'm diligently doing show prep as I always do, I go to the Drudge page and say, whoa, Congressman David Scott, sign outside the office, swastika painted on it. Ha ha ha. How convenient. How absolutely convenient.

Rush also played the audio from a CNN segment reporting on the vandalism, and was convinced that the swastika at Scott's office and “is too politically convenient.” Rush couldn't stop there, going on to insult CNN correspondent Robin Meade, calling her a "dummkopf" and an “infobabe.”

LIMBAUGH: I'm sorry, folks, I don't buy this. This is too politically convenient. We know that Obama staged an event yesterday. The Democrats are staging events; that's what they do. They don't stay in reality, they don't tell the truth. I am not buying that this happened when an angry anti-health care person putting a swastika -- I think the Democrats are doing it themselves, trying to make it -- and because they know that dummkopfs like this infobabe are going to blame it on me.

Rush recommended that if the Democrats want to get anything done they should disassociate themselves from their “greatest liabaility” Barack Obama and “get him off the circuit.”

LIMBAUGH: I tell ya, the Democrats -- if the Democrats want a shot at getting what they want, they need to pull Obama off the circuit. They need to get him off the circuit; they need to get him off the stage. He is an idiot. He displayed it yesterday. He is not their hope; he is a disaster. He is now out there saying stupid stuff.

After stating Hitler comparisons are “beyond the pale,” Rush compares Health reform advocates to “national socialists of Germany”

Despite his obsession with comparing progressives to Nazis and Hitler, Rush declared: “And I'm not going to sit here and take it anymore. I am not going to sit here and sit idly by while a bunch of fascist socialists in this country try to smear and impugn mainstream conservatism rooted in the founding of this country with a genocide of 6 million Jews in World War II. That's what they are trying to do.” After attempting to separate the Nazis from the Holocaust, Rush said that “to sit here and be compared to the monstrous genocidal Adolf Hitler, that's beyond the pale.”

Of course, Limbaugh has invoked Hitler numerous times in the past when discussing Obama, and went on to compare the Democrats to Hitler's party, stating, “If you want to do a comparison, just taking this health care bill. you want to do a comparison between the people pushing it and the people opposing it, to national socialism in Germany, it ain't a contest. The people pushing this health care bill have for more in common with the national socialists of Germany -- exempting genocide -- than any of us who are opposing this health care have.”

Another edition of “What's actually in the bill”

Rush read from “regular citizen,” “not a doctor or a lawyer,” Duke classics professor John David Lewis' evaluation of H.R. 3200 that predicts many scary outcomes from the bill, including: “Successful business owners will bear the highest cost of this plan” and that “This is government rationing, pure, simple, and straight up.”

Rush moved on to Obama's 2007 speech at Hampton University in which he criticized then-President Bush's handling of Hurricane Katrina and suggested Bush was ignoring the “quiet riots” in black America. From this, Rush concluded that the media and Obama supports are calling Obama's critics racist.

Rush's first call was from a woman who attended Obama's New Hampshire health care town hall, and claimed that Organizing for America bused in supporters of health care reform to the event. Limbaugh took this as yet more evidence that the entire event was staged.

After the break, Rush read from a Joe Klein post on “death panels” and called Klein a “doofus.” Rush also promoted a Lee Seigel post on The Daily Beast that continued to fearmonger over Obama's (non-existent) plans for euthanasia.

Closing out the second hour, a caller told Rush that Democrats have issued a “declaration of war” against opponents of healthcare reform and compared the debate to Germany invading France. Rush disputed that assertion, explaining that the Germans had tanks, but told the gentleman that if he meant that Obama has declared war on the founding principles of the country, then “I see what you mean.”

Rush labels Clinton “Sexcretary of State”

Rush opened the third hour of the show by reading the headline and lede from an Associated Press article on Hillary Clinton, and just couldn't resist smearing the Secretary of State:

LIMBAUGH: This headline is from state-controlled Associated Press: “U.S. Official Gropes to Explain Clinton's Outburst.” U.S. officials are groping for Hillary. This is something none of us can see. “State Department struggled Tuesday to explain Sexcretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's face-off with a Congolese student, suggesting the translator's nervousness sparked the outburst with the mention of her husband's name.”

Later, Rush went on to contrast Sen. Claire McCaskill bemoaning the “rudeness” of protesters at one of her town halls with a speech Clinton gave in 2003, in which she said “I am sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and you disagree with this administration, somehow you're not patriotic.” Rush stated that "[i]t's all fine and dandy for Mrs. Clinton to act like everybody's third and fourth ex-wife."

Rush went on to promote an article by the Heritage Foundation titled “Seven Myths About Raising Taxes.” After minutes of flacking for the conservative organization and recommending that his listeners become members, Rush concluded that people will think you're a thinker.

Rush is incredulous that the government would get in the way in health care at all, comparing Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements to the government paying him reimbursements instead of from advertisers.

“Real men, macho men, i.e. conservative guys” aren't “putting stress on the health care system”

Rush read an article from U.S. News and World Report on a study concluding that “Middle-aged men who are most devoted to traditional beliefs about masculinity are half as likely as other men to get routine medical care.” Rush used this to claim that “real men, macho men, i.e. conservative guys” aren't “putting stress on the healthcare system.” Instead, Rush stipulated that “It is the wuss liberal guys, showing up for every imagined problem, beleaguering the health care system.”

Rush did not mention that the article quotes a researcher saying that “we could help men's health if we could dismantle this idea that manhood and masculinity is about being invulnerable, not needing help and not showing pain.” It is also striking that Rush equates the “macho men” in the study to “conservative men” when the report states: “All participants were white.”

Staying on the gender theme, Rush read from a Raleigh News Observer article about a woman suing for gender discrimination after men in a local tennis league refused to play her. Rush said it reminded him of the “early days of the feminazis” when women tried to take over men's clubs and told a joke about how the first piece of equipment in a women's locker room was a vacuum cleaner.

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

Highlights

LIMBAUGH: The reason we're not supposed to talk about the Nazis is because of the genocide of 6 million Jews. So, no comparison to Nazi Germany and German socialism. We can't go there simply because of the genocide of 6 million Jews. When Pelosi starts calling -- saying people running around carrying swastikas, that is what she means. She is trying to associate people like you and me with that event in the world. And I'm not going to sit here and take it anymore. I am not going to sit here and sit idly by while a bunch of fascist socialists in this country try to smear and impugn mainstream conservatism rooted in the founding of this country with a genocide of 6 million Jews in World War II. That's what they are trying to do. That's the association they are trying to link.

And as such, everybody's afraid to bring up Germany and World War II, because that's all anybody is going to think. So when you say somebody's like Hitler, they're like, “Oh, you can't say that, nobody's as bad as Hitler.” Well, let me make a point. The Nazis were national socialists. Forget the genocide here -- that came toward the end of what they were doing. They got started in the mid-'30s, actually a little prior to that. Don't forget what they were doing, but they were national socialists. They were not liberty-loving individuals. They did not preach respect for human beings. They were not for small, decentralized government anywhere. They were not for honest capitalism. They were national socialists, and it was national socialism, and the view of big government, and the idea that that some were better than others, which led to that monstrous genocide.

The two are not separately contained, and to sit here and be compared to the monstrous genocidal Adolf Hitler, that's beyond the pale. And that's what Pelosi's trying to do, and that's what Dingell's trying to do when he has one of his staffers running around with a swastika, or, -- or -- or -- or Obama is Hitler. Why? Why do we have to ignore all of the national socialism of Nazi Germany just because of the monstrous genocide? This experiment in national socialism in Germany went on for well over 10 years. And I'm gonna tell you right now. If you want to do a comparison, just taking this health care bill. you want to do a comparison between the people pushing it and the people opposing it, to national socialism in Germany, it ain't a contest. The people pushing this health care bill have for more in common with the national socialists of Germany -- exempting genocide -- than any of us who are opposing this health care have. We are not in any realm close.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: Now, what this tells me at this brief point in the story is that conservative men, who are real men, are putting far less stress and pressure, financial or otherwise, on the health care system. It is the wuss liberal guys, showing up for every imagined problem, beleaguering the health care system. The metrosexuals -- exactly right, Snerdley. The metrosexuals.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: Here we have a study showing that real men, macho men, i.e. conservative guys, are not going to the doctor. They're not putting stress on the health care system. They're not going in for unwanted -- or unnecessary operations, no feet getting chopped off -- no, none of this. It's the wuss guys that are -- now we've got all this pressure being brought to bear on the health care system. Macho guys ought to be being celebrated. Instead this story rips 'em a new one for not going to the doctor often enough.

Ladies' man

LIMBAUGH: This headline is from state-controlled Associated Press: “U.S. Official Gropes to Explain Clinton's Outburst.” U.S. officials are groping for Hillary. This is something none of us can see. “State Department struggled Tuesday to explain Sexcretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's face-off with a Congolese student, suggesting the translator's nervousness sparked the outburst with the mention of her husband's name.”