Hour 1: Rush joins Morris in claiming Obama wants his own financial plans to fail
Written by Media Matters Staff
Published
This hour of the Limbaugh Wire brought to you by the growing, chaotic conspiracy
By Simon Maloy
Good afternoon from the Limbaugh Wire. We're still recovering from our marathon speed-reading of Mark Levin's Liberty and Tyranny, so forgive us if we're a little loopy.
Rush kicked off today's show with yet another recitation of his grand unified conspiracy theory of Obama chaos, which was enacted to enable government control of everything. But there was a new twist this afternoon -- he's discovered a fellow traveler in the personage of Dick Morris. Rush agreed wholeheartedly with Morris' self-professed conspiracy theory that Obama wants his own financial plans to fail so he can enact some grand socialist dream. Rush said Morris was taking it to a “new level,” and it is all about chaos.
Chaos! Like the chaos being caused by Secretary of State Clinton “going down to Mexico, saying it's our fault. It's the drug habits of Americans that are driving these gangs, and it's making the gangs pull the triggers. It's making the gangs get the guns.” We're not sure how this creates “chaos,” but we are pretty sure that there's nothing wrong about what Clinton said, and, as we pointed out yesterday, the Bush administration similarly “promis[ed] to reduce demand for illegal drugs and to combat trafficking in weapons and bulk cash” as part of the Merida Initiative to curb drug violence in conjunction with the Mexican government. The Merida Initiative was endorsed by the Heritage Foundation.
Want another example of Obama-caused chaos? How about the sun? Rush read extensively from a New Scientist article about space storms and how the sun could create a disaster on Earth large enough to destroy the Eastern United States in 90 seconds. Once again, we weren't sure what this had to do with... anything, but Rush enlightened us. After attacking “people that buy into global warming” who supposedly “say the sun has nothing to do with anything to do with whether it's warm or cold here on the Earth,” Rush claimed that the proposed solutions for these catastrophic sun storms will be the same solutions that have been offered for global warming. According to Rush, it's all part of a daily drumbeat of “doom and gloom,” the solution to which is always “the government.”
That was a lot of theorizing for one 25-minute block, so Rush took a quick break and came back attacking Will Ferrell's send-up of George W. Bush, “You're Welcome, America.” Rush said that you'll never see anything like that about Obama, even though Obama is “truly dangerous.”
Another break, and Rush came back armed with a little Orwellian alarmism, comparing Obama's recent media blitz to 1984's omnipresent symbol of repressive totalitarianism, Big Brother: “I don't know how many of you read Orwell's 1984, but the supreme leader was Big Brother, and not only was he on TV 24/7, you couldn't get him off of television.” While we were reeling from the stunning originality of this comparison, Rush turned his sights on the president's online town hall earlier today, speculating that the White House may have conspired with ordinary citizens to rig the questions and answers, claiming Obama has a “network of people that'd go for this -- ACORN.”
Then it was on to the tyranny of smart meters. Rush aired audio of Obama explaining that smart meters, installed in homes, can help Americans regulate their energy usage. This, according to Rush, meant that Obama thinks “you're too stupid” to regulate your own energy usage, and claimed that smart meters -- with input from Google -- are an attempt by the government to worm its way into your house to tell you how and when to use your thermostat. According to Rush, this is “tyranny, pure unadulterated tyranny.”
So in case you're keeping score at home, the Limbaugh-Morris grand unified conspiracy theory of Obama chaos now encompasses Obama, the Democrats, Hillary Clinton, Mexico, the Bush administration, the Heritage Foundation, the New Scientist, global warming activists, ACORN, Google, and the sun.
Highlights from Hour 1
Outrageous comments
LIMBAUGH: Chaos -- the chaos on the border. Mrs. Clinton going down to Mexico, saying it's our fault. It's the drug habits of Americans that are driving these gangs, and it's making the gangs pull the triggers. It's making the gangs get the guns. It's making the gangs trying to get into the United States. It's the United States' fault. The chaos on the border -- that's exactly what they want. Everywhere you look -- you need to look around. You can't avoid it. There's chaos everywhere. And you'd have to think -- well, we elected a guy to stop all this.
[...]
LIMBAUGH: Now I'd like to know if any of these people buy into global warming -- any of these people that issued this report, because the people that buy into global warming say the sun has nothing to do with anything to do with whether it's warm or cold here on the Earth.
[...]
LIMBAUGH: For those of you who read the book 1984, Big Brother was everywhere. No matter where you went, Big Brother was on television, on the radio. It didn't matter where you went. I have a simple question: When do all television sets just eventually default to the Obama channel? There has to be an Obama channel now, and at some point, the government, the FCC, is going to encode broadcast signals so that your TV or your receiver defaults to the Obama channel all the time -- same thing with your computer defaulting to the Obama page.
Last Thursday, we had Obama on Leno. On Sunday, we had Obama on 60 Minutes. On Monday, we had the networks replaying Obama on 60 Minutes and Leno. On Tuesday, we had the all-channel press conference -- Tuesday night.
Today -- now wait a minute, scratch that.
On Thursday, we had Leno. On Friday, we had wall-to-wall media coverage of Obama on Leno. Then on Sunday, we had 60 Minutes. Monday, we had wall-to-wall media coverage of Obama on 60 Minutes. On Tuesday, we had the all-channel press conference from the White House. Yesterday, wall-to-wall media coverage of the Obama press conference.
Today, Thursday, a virtual town meeting in the White House -- Obama doing an internet, on-line town meeting. Tomorrow, it'll be wall-to-wall coverage of the Obama town meeting.
As I -- I don't know how many of you read Orwell's 1984, but the supreme leader was Big Brother, and not only was he on TV 24/7, you couldn't get him off of television.
[...]
LIMBAUGH: I don't know if he knows the questions in advance. It'd be easy to sit here and be cynical and say that Obama's people wrote the questions and then wrote the answers, and all of it's on the prompter. But I think that even if they did write the questions, they had to do it through real citizens, and he's got a network of people that'd go for this -- ACORN. He's got a bunch of people that would go for this.
[...]
LIMBAUGH: You see, you are too stupid to know when it's peak usage, despite the fact that your drive-by media and utility companies are warning you every five seconds, everyday, when it's 100 degrees in August. You might also know you're at peak usage when there are brownouts if you live in California, thanks to Enron. Yes, we know. But you're too stupid to know even this, so you need a smart meter in your house.
A smart meter's called a thermostat, and many people already have them in their homes, but, according to Obama, you don't know how to use it. So we're going to put another thermostat in there that's going to send out little warnings or red lights or start blinking when you're at peak usage and you can then turn off your lights, and then you can turn down or up your thermostat, whichever is called for.
And then we're going to help you sell back energy that you've generated in your home through a solar panel, and we can be done -- we can create jobs by doing this right now. How? Obama just said that the federal government is going to find a way into your house to tell you how and when you can set your thermostat. And he wants to hire a bunch of new government workers to get in your house to do this.
Remember in the UK, they've already spent 30,000 pounds -- we had this story yesterday -- with spy planes flying over neighborhoods with cameras that produce an infrared reaction, and they can detect homes that are overusing the approved amount of electricity and energy. We don't even need electricians in your home. We can just have spy satellites do it.
The point is the Obama administration wants to know when you are breaking the rules. The Obama administration wants to know when you are exceeding your allotment, all this couched in: “You can save the planet and we can help you do it” -- tyranny, pure unadulterated tyranny.
Echo chamber
Cited Dick Morris' conspiratorial speculation on Fox News regarding Obama wanting his own programs to fail.
Clips from this hour: