By Brooke Obie
Limbaugh started off with a bang when addressing the televised apology that Tiger Woods made this morning: “Greetings to you... philanderers, mistresses, porn stars all across the fruited plain.” Commenting on Tiger Woods' audience of family, friends, supporters, and press, Rush asked, “did they not want to put any attractive women in the front row just as a safety precaution?” He then went on to compare the male and female media figures' responses to Woods' apology, stating that the female response is “vicious,” concluding that he was “more fascinated by [the different reactions] than I am about what I thought about this.” And that says something.
After a commercial break, Rush read from a Time magazine article about Joe Stack, who flew a plane into a building housing IRS offices. Rush was upset that Time tried to link Stack to the Tea Party movement by including hyperlinks to information on the movement within the article. (Currently, there are no such links in the article.) He then went on to address the “mainstream media's” “empathy for” the “rage” of Muslim terrorists, while showing no empathy for Stack, and criticize the media for not speculating that the Alabama professor who went on a shooting spree might have been “inspired by Obama.”
Rush returned from another break to discuss the Dalai Lama's visit to the White House, particularly that the Dalai Lama was “escorted out of the back door...next to the trash bags” because “a debtor nation has to kiss the rear end of its creditors.” He then contrasted Al Sharpton's experience at the White House being able to use the front door and threw in “a little Negro dialect”:
LIMBAUGH: Now, what kind of class is that? What kind of class is that? I mean, that is zero class. Meanwhile, Al Sharpton goes out the front do'. Yes, I spoke a little Negro dialect there; I can do that when I -- when I want to. Al Sharpton goes out -- and in -- the front do'. In and out the front do'. Dalai Lama next to the garbage. Walks out the doors of the Palm Room of the White House by trash bags waiting to be picked up due to delays from the snowstorms. You know it's bad if the White House trash pickup is delayed.
He ended the hour by declaring that “the era of McCain is over,” and that bipartisanship cannot work, in response to the White House and Congressional leaders preparation of a detailed health care plan to pass through reconciliation if the Republicans will not compromise.
El Rushbo is the de facto leader of the GOP; attacks Bill O'Reilly
In the second hour of the show, Rush jumped to coverage of a press conference by Joslyn James, one of Tiger Woods' reported mistresses. He then read an email from a listener who asked: “What happened to the good ole days when sluts stayed sluts and kept quiet?” Rush couldn't control his laughter while reading it.
Rush then moved on to criticizing ABC News' declaration that the CPAC was about conservatives “uniting over anger.” While he was on the topic of CPAC, Rush took the opportunity to reiterate what we already knew: The GOP is "waiting for my next leadership step to see where I'm going to take them."
LIMBAUGH: By the way, did Romney give old El Rushbo a shout-out in his CPAC speech yesterday? Well, folks, it is now safe to talk Obama and failure. You know I -- I own the words “fail,” “failure,” and “failed.” I mean, I'm the one -- courageously, I might add -- that introduced them into the political world a little over a year ago when it comes to Obama.
[...]
You know this now, my friends, how easy it is for Republicans to start using the word “failure”? See how this works? This is called being on the cutting edge. And they're probably all waiting for my next leadership step to see where I'm going to take them.
After a commercial break, Rush attacked fellow conservative Bill O'Reilly, presumably for saying on last night's The O'Reilly Factor that “If [the Conservative Policy Action Conference] makes a weekend out of bashing Obama, they will be making a big mistake.” Doing his best Bill-O impression, Limbaugh mocked O'Reilly's supposed goal of “giv[ing] socialism a fair shake” and his criticism of those who “bash Obama”:
LIMBAUGH: [as Bill O'Reilly] All I'm telling you is that we've got to give socialism a fair shake for the folks. I'm not going to sit here and condemn it like these really -- right-wingers are. We've gotta give socialism a fair shake, and we here at the Factor are going to give socialism -- even communism -- a fair shake. We'll do an in-depth investigation. We'll report back because we're not knee-jerking; we are looking out for you, the folks.
CALLER: Yeah, I hear what you're saying, and when it comes to actual news, I don't get that from Bill O'Reilly. I get that from -- well, it used to be Brit Hume, now it's Bret Baier.
LIMBAUGH: Well, we just don't like all this Obama-bashing here at the Factor. That -- that's for these extreme right-wingers. This Obama-bashing, it's not productive. The Bush -- the Bush bashing wasn't -- wasn't productive. We're gonna give socialism and the destruction of the country a fair examination. And if we determine Obama that is destroying the country, we'll report it fairly as we look out for the folks.
Rush moved on to Nevada politics, explaining that Obama was “sealing Harry Reid's fate” by campaigning for Reid in Nevada today. Rush then went back to his coverage of the Tiger Woods saga and played a clip of Jocelyn James' press conference, which he deemed “the new version of The Vagina Monologues.”
Rush still invoking Hitler; global warming is “the Big Lie”
Rush used the final hour of the show to drudge up his old climate change falsehoods, declaring -once again - that global warming is a “hoax.” Forgetting, perhaps, that he already declared Obama's comments that the stimulus package is working “the Big Lie,” Rush is now saying that global warming is, in fact, the (old) new “Big Lie”:
LIMBAUGH: And all this [snow] means there's global warming. So the “big lie” has been exposed. It is falling apart. It is an abject, fully exposed joke.
Michael Burns and Michael Timberlake contributed to this edition of the Limbaugh Wire.
Highlights
Outrageous comments
LIMBAUGH: Have you seen the picture of the Dalai Lama being escorted out a back door at the White House next to the trash bags? I don't even think they gave the guy his coat. He's walking out of there in his Dalai Lama robe and sandals, surrounded by snow and ice and White House trash bags, ladies and gentlemen.
You see, a debtor nation has to kiss the rear end of its creditors, and the ChiComs implored Obama not to meet with the Dalai Lama, and Obama said “Screw you, ChiComs. I'll meet with him, but you're gonna walk him -- walk out of my house here next to the garbage.”
Now, what kind of class is that? What kind of class is that? I mean, that is zero class. Meanwhile, Al Sharpton goes out the front do'. Yes, I spoke a little Negro dialect there; I can do that when I -- when I want to. Al Sharpton goes out -- and in -- the front do'. In and out the front do'. Dalai Lama next to the garbage. Walks out the doors of the Palm Room of the White House by trash bags waiting to be picked up due to delays from the snowstorms. You know it's bad if the White House trash pickup is delayed.
[...]
LIMBAUGH: [as Bill O'Reilly] All I'm telling you is that we've got to give socialism a fair shake for the folks. I'm not going to sit here and condemn it like these really -- right-wingers are. We've gotta give socialism a fair shake, and we here at the Factor are going to give socialism -- even communism -- a fair shake. We'll do an in-depth investigation. We'll report back because we're not knee-jerking; we are looking out for you, the folks.
CALLER: Yeah, I hear what you're saying, and when it comes to actual news, I don't get that from Bill O'Reilly. I get that from -- well, it used to be Brit Hume, now it's Bret Baier.
LIMBAUGH: Well, we just don't like all this Obama-bashing here at the Factor. That -- that's for these extreme right-wingers. This Obama-bashing, it's not productive. The Bush -- the Bush bashing wasn't -- wasn't productive. We're gonna give socialism and the destruction of the country a fair examination. And if we determine Obama that is destroying the country, we'll report it fairly as we look out for the folks.
[...]
LIMBAUGH: We all know it's a hoax. We all know. Phil Jones, University of East Anglia, UK -- hadn't been any warming since '95. And the Medieval period probably was warmer than it is now. So he just threw Michael Mann from Penn State under the bus -- it's the hockey stick guy. The -- the head of the U.N. Climate Change Unit, he just -- he just bagged it; he just quit.
You know, Al Gore's in hiding. You can't find him. I think he's down in Rio in the summertime urging everybody not to do anything about snow -- it's gotta melt naturally, otherwise you'll destroy the planet if you [unintelligible]. The city of Washington, despite all the taxes people pay -- 25 percent of the snowplows don't work and they asked residents to get out there and shovel their own streets.
And all this means there's global warming. So the “big lie” has been exposed. It is falling apart. It is an abject, fully exposed joke.
[...]
This is the “big lie,” folks. This is the “big lie.” Something so audacious nobody could believe he could possibly tell something this false. So it's gotta be true. Nobody would have the audacity, the guts to lie this big. That's the whole premise behind the “big lie” -- and you're listening to it.
[...]
OK, so there you have it. The president of the United States ignoring facts to push a political agenda.