This hour of the Limbaugh Wire brought to you by the aggrieved tyranny of the “statists”
By Simon Maloy

It's the top of the second hour, which means, as promised, it's time for Mark Levin, author of the brand new Liberty and Tyranny. Rush kicked off the interview by asking Levin to explain why there are people in this country who hate it and want to destroy it. Levin says these people do exist, and that they hate -- HATE -- the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. They're not “liberals,” according to Levin, but “statists.” And, of course, President Obama is one of them. Conservatives, on the other hand, love the Declaration, the Constitution, etc. He may have even thrown the Articles of Confederation in there, too, we're not sure.

Anyway, Rush asked if it was safe to say that these “statists,” because they hate the Constitution, hate freedom and morality. Levin says that they hate God, because all our rights come from God, not man or government. As a consequence, according to Levin, the “statists” Obama and Pelosi “sound like they're God. I mean, they think they're God.” Recall that he's saying this to a man who regularly characterizes his “talent” as being “on loan from God,” and who, at his CPAC speech, joked that God “thinks he's Rush Limbaugh” and mixed up the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Rush then wondered if the “statist” voters are “salvageable.” Levin called them “malcontents” who never “take responsibility” -- they're always “aggrieved.”

Back from the break, Rush reminisced, saying that we had Reagan in the 1980s and the Republican Revolution in 1994, and asked Levin of conservatism: “Why do we have to keep re-teaching this? Why is it that people who read this stuff 30 years ago, 40 years ago, vote for it 20 years ago, can be so easily turned against it?” According to Levin, it's the “tyranny” -- presumably the “tyranny” of the “statist” Democrats, who use “brute force and emotion and propaganda” to keep conservatism down. You'll recall that just before the break, Levin was chastising “statists” for never taking “responsibility” and always being “aggrieved.”

One more break and one more segment with Levin, which Rush kicked off by relating his book to something that's happening today -- Obama and the liberals “confusing” liberty with “greediness.” From there we had a few minutes of lionizing the free market that the “statist” liberal Democrats allegedly hate. Levin made sure to remind Obama that his suits, cars, helicopters, and so forth are the products of “capitalism.” Rush threw the “teleprompter” into the mix, as is his wont. At the end of the interview, Levin offered a message to conservatives, telling them to be confident in conservative principles and to teach them to their kids whenever possible, and to do the same for their neighbors and friends. According to Levin, educated and confident conservatives are “more powerful than ACORN can ever be.” We're not sure, what with all those billions of dollars ACORN gets from the government...

After the next break, Rush aired a few clips of Gov. Jindal speaking at the NRCC last night about wanting Obama to fail. Rush couldn't have been prouder of the governor, saying that Jindal was articulating what he'd been saying all along -- that they want Obama to fail and America to succeed. Not to belabor this point, but we still can't figure out how wishing for a prolonged recession qualifies as wanting the country to succeed.

Just before the hour closed out, Rush asked if we could all dispense with the notion the media is promoting that Obama worked without a teleprompter last night... He didn't cite any specific media outlet that was promoting that notion -- probably because most of them were obsessing over how Obama used a different kind of teleprompter than he had previously used.

Rush also took a caller whose husband works for AIG. According to Rush: “You've got the president of the United States lined up against your family. That's what you have to realize.”

Highlights from Hour 2

Outrageous comments

LEVIN: The only thing that makes life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness unalienable is the belief in a creator, not the belief in man or some government. Man and government can't, in the end, confer these rights or legitimately deny them. This is a huge difference we have with the statists, whether they're modern statists or past statists. They believe rights are something to be rationed. If you agree with them, they give you rights. If you don't agree with them, they take rights away.

They believe that they're all-powerful. We don't. We believe they're Earthly. This is a huge difference between us and the statists. When you watch Obama doing his press conferences or Pelosi, these people sound like they're God. I mean, they think they're God. “We're going to do this.”

[...]

LIMBAUGH: I happened to just coincidentally run across Barry Goldwater's book, A Conscious of a Conservative.

LEVIN: Yeah.

LIMBAUGH: I read it -- parts of it -- and of course everything in it, I went, “Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know, I know, I know, I know.” And then I recall that we had Ronald Reagan for two terms, landslide majorities, and then I recall that we elected the House of Representatives Republican control in 1994, largely on a conservative contract with America.

Here's Goldwater's book. Here's your book. Here's all of these real-life experiences with Reagan. Why do we have to keep re-teaching this? Why is it that people who read this stuff 30 years ago, 40 years ago, vote for it 20 years ago, can be so easily turned against it?

LEVIN: Because tyranny is persistent. Tyranny has existed since the beginning of man. Liberty takes people to be resolute. It takes some thinking. It takes some proper education and understanding and it takes confidence. Tyranny takes brute force and emotion and propaganda, and so, it is we who have to be resolute.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: The country has been led by a tyrannical mob. The country has been worked into a frothing frenzy by a tyrannical mob, and they don't care what the bonuses are about. All they know is that the bonuses are their money and that this money is going to people who botched and destroyed the company. That's what the Obama administration --

CALLER: That's not exactly - that's not exactly true.

LIMBAUGH: I know it's totally untrue, but this is what the administration is putting out. You've got the president of the United States lined up against your family. That's what you have to realize. The president of the United States has seen to it that busloads of protestors -- if they find out where your husband and you live -- will show up on a bus tour to protest you.