This hour of the Limbaugh Wire brought to you by Bill Ayers... for some reason
By Simon Maloy

Well, it's Monday, and did you all hear the big news from the weekend? President Obama shook hands -- shook hands -- with President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela at the Summit of the Americas. It's the most controversial physical interaction between heads of state since Gerald Ford “found a quarter” behind German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt's ear in 1975. We're pretty sure Rush heard the news, and though he'll be hard-pressed to edge out Fox News for the most puerile reaction to this super-controversial handshake, we're confident he'll figure out a way.

Rush got the show started by saying that The New York Times reported that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times in one month, and that its source was “a left-wing blogger.” This, said Rush, is the new media model -- outlets closing bureaus and using left-wing bloggers as credible sources. In actuality, the Times' source were the actual memos; they just credited bloggers, including “Marcy Wheeler of the blog emptywheel,” who “discovered it in the May 30, 2005, memo.” Anyway, Rush went on to say that if someone can undergo waterboarding six times a day, it's not torture because he obviously figured out a way to “endure” it. Assuming that's true -- and that's quite an assumption -- Rush failed to take the next logical step: If people figure out how to “endure” waterboarding after the first 83 times, what was the point of the last 100?

Then Rush moved on to Obama's attendance at the “blasphemous” Summit of the Americas, which led Rush to conclude: “I don't care whether you're talking about domestic policy or foreign policy, it's not about the United States anymore, it's about Barack Obama. I really do believe the guy's got a God complex. I really do think he believes he is the one.” The funniest story out of the Summit, said Rush, was the Associated Press analysis comparing Obama to Mikhail Gorbachev. Rush's takeway was: “Gorbachev scrambled to shed the ideological entanglements leading the Communist empire toward ruin; Obama, according to AP, is doing the same thing. Obama is shedding incessantly the ideological entanglements that lead the U.S. to ruin. What are the ideological entanglements Obama is shedding? Capitalism.” Rush said that Obama is going around apologizing for America, but not himself, and that he's not representing the interests of the United States, but his own interests. Rush concluded: “This is not hard to understand. Please, folks, this is virulently anti-American leader Hugo Chavez. Do you realize that Obama and Chavez have more in common than they do not have in common?”

Looking back on all this, Rush attacked the “idiots” on the conservative side who say that Obama is a moderate centrist: “They've never understood who this guy is. He's either a useful idiot or he's worse. And I frankly think he's worse. I think he's stupid, Obama, but he's been trained well -- Bill Ayers, Jeremiah Wright, all of his liberal professors.”

After the break, Rush aired a montage of media personalities noting that after Chavez gifted Obama with the book, Open Veins of Latin America, it shot up to number two on the Amazon best-seller's list. Rush attacked the media for not pointing out that it failed to unseat the number one book on the list, Mark Levin's Liberty & Tyranny. Then he aired another montage, this one of administration officials downplaying the significance of “the handshake” between Obama and Chavez. Rush asked what the big deal was; why were they downplaying it? Because it's not good politically, Rush said. Things like this -- the encounter with Chavez -- are the kind of things you take care of beforehand, said Rush, and that they “wanted this to happen.”

After the break, Rush aired audio of Obama in Trinidad and Tobago responding to a question about whether his interaction with Chavez demonstrated weakness, which Obama disputed, saying that the American people rejected the idea that meeting with people unfriendly to the U.S. is “weak.” Rush wanted to know what else you could call it but “weakness” when you're running around the world apologizing for the country. Then Rush brought Bill Ayers into all this (the second time he mentioned Ayers this hour), pointing out that Ayers (“Obama's good buddy”) attended an education conference in Caracas and praised Chavez's educational reforms, and now Obama is accepting books from Chavez. He didn't explain what the connection was there very well, but he found it significant nonetheless. Rush then said that if Obama's goal is to go around and accept the premises of people who hate America as a means of forging relationships with those people, then anyone could form a new relationship with anyone. Rush could be the darling of the left, he said, if he were to simply apologize to everyone and say the left was right. But that relationship would only be about Rush, not conservatives in general, and that's Rush's point -- that this is all about Obama's interests, and not those of the country.

After another break, Rush took a call from a man explaining that the U.S. has to talk to these countries even if we don't like them, just like Rush talks with people he disagrees with. Rush said he doesn't talk to any of his enemies and he doesn't have to because his goal is to “defeat” them. We wouldn't have to deal with Venezuela, according to Rush, if we had a president and a “Democrat Party” that would be willing to drill domestically, but instead the Democrats want Obama to go around and “kiss the ass” of Chavez.

Highlights from Hour 1

Outrageous comments

LIMBAUGH: I don't care whether you're talking about domestic policy or foreign policy, it's not about the United States anymore, it's about Barack Obama. I really do believe the guy's got a God complex. I really do think he believes he is the one.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: We have a comparison here: Gorbachev scrambled to shed the ideological entanglements leading the Communist empire toward ruin; Obama, according to AP, is doing the same thing. Obama is shedding incessantly the ideological entanglements that lead the U.S. to ruin.

What are the ideological entanglements Obama is shedding? Capitalism. Now would somebody explain to me the connection here? How can you claim that Gorbachev and Obama are the same when they were trying ostensibly to shed different ideological entanglements?

[...]

LIMBAUGH: This is not hard to understand. Please, folks, this is virulently anti-American leader Hugo Chavez. Do you realize that Obama and Chavez have more in common than they do not have in common? The only thing -- one of the big things they don't have in common -- and I think this is an important point -- first, you've got Obama over there kissing the ring of the Saudi King.

And what are the Saudis? What do we care about the Saudis for? Oil. So, he's kissing their hand, kissing their -- oh, he goes down to Venezuela, and he yuks it up. Yuks it up with Hugo Chavez, who has insulted the United States of America, insulted George W. Bush at the UN two years ago -- called him the devil. Said I can still smell the sulfur here in the room.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: I can't help, you know, think of the idiots on our side -- these so-called intelligent conservatives, who kept saying, “Well, at least he's a centrist. At least Obama is following Bush's foreign policy. At least he's appointing centrists on foreign policy and defense.”

They've never understood who this guy is. He's either a useful idiot or he's worse. And I frankly think he's worse. I think he's stupid, Obama, but he's been trained well -- Bill Ayers, Jeremiah Wright, all of his liberal professors.

Clips from this hour

Limbaugh: "[I]f somebody can be water-tortured six times a day, then it isn't torture"

Limbaugh: Obama is “either a useful idiot or he's worse, and I frankly think he's worse”

Limbaugh: “Do you realize that Obama and Chavez have more in common than they do not?”

Limbaugh on AP comparison between Obama and Gorbachev: Obama is shedding “ideological entanglements” of capitalism