This hour of the Limbaugh Wire brought to you by angry callers
By Greg Lewis

Rush began the final hour of today's program with more to say about Henry Gates. First, he noted that White House press secretary Robert Gibbs today said that Obama was not calling the police officer stupid. Rush pointed out that Obama said the police acted “stupidly.” Rush said Obama's reaction last not “was not presidential” and Obama should not have answered the question.

And here's where things took a turn for the worse. Rush described Obama's reaction that of a community organizer, the “ACORN reaction,” the “militant black reaction, the Cornel West angry reaction.”

His rant continued:

LIMBAUGH: And he sends a message to young people all over the country: Kids, your -- the cops are stupid. The president of the United States says the police act stupidly. All it does is cement in certain peoples' minds that there's a constant adversarial relationship with the cops. “The cops are bad. My president even knows that. The president says the cops are stupid. The president says the cops are racist, the cops are profiling,” and so forth.

This is agitation last night, folks, I'm -- that's why I'm very uncomfortable with this. Obama is not a force for positive race relations in this country. He is not a uniter. He played into stereotypes with this, and he repeats them. He should have kept his mouth shut; he's not capable of that. He should have kept his mouth shut. He doesn't know the facts; he wasn't there. He pops off just exactly as he would back in Chicago in the community organizing days. And he goes off about racial profiling, all the rest. Based on what? A limited amount of information about a single incident where he's quick to condemn the cop, the whole police department, white America.

Where to go from here? Ah, that's right, the economy. Rush read from a few articles, the first from The Wall Street Journal, then from the Associated Press, about the lousy job market and Obama "fading to reality" in the polls. Then Rush read the latest Rasmussen right track/wrong track poll. Rush said this is why Sen. Reid said is putting off the health care vote. Rush again warned that when they come back to vote on health care in the fall, that he would be ready.

Then Rush read a few more items in his Stack of Stuff. There was a Politico article about Democrats “concern[ed]” about Sen. Barbara Boxer, and Rush also talked about Hillary Clinton's trip to Thailand, where she discussed policy regarding Iran. Finally, Rush read from an article on The New York Times' jump in profits. Rush said this should be a lesson for liberals on managing budgets. Rush pondered if this would be reflected in their editorials or reporting -- no, it wouldn't, because for them, real world experience is “trumped” by statist, radical ideology. After a break, Rush quickly touched on another Hillary article, about the North Koreans calling her “vulgar,” among other things.

Then Rush took a caller who proclaimed that her “anger and hatred” for Obama was “growing by the day.” She went on to brag about her health insurance, an asked why the media would not say what the “real” number of uninsured was. Then she brought up Graeme Frost, the 12-year-old boy who, in the caller's estimation, was paraded around when the Democrats were pushing SCHIP a couple years ago. The caller said his parents were “loaded” and that people like that who “don't want to pay” for health insurance. (Actually, both of those claims are false.) The caller continued her rant, calling people without health insurance “idiots.” Rush said the caller's complaint isn't limited to health care -- people are fed up with paying for a lot of things which people aren't taking responsibility for.

After another break, Rush mentioned Obama's “rock star” reception just now at his town meeting in Pittsburgh. Rush was wary of the idea of cheering government officials like they're rock stars. Rush also took a moment to bring up the latest Fox News poll, zeroing in on a particular piece of data showing that Americans think that fixing the economy is more important right now than fixing health care. First of all, that's a false choice -- our health care woes are inextricably tied to the state of the economy, so to say you can fix one without addressing the other is a fallacy. Secondly, there is one bit of economy-related data in that poll that we noticed right away, but which must have slipped past Rush: when asked who is to blame more for the current state of the economy, Obama or George W. Bush, 61 percent of respondents blamed Bush. What's more, the crosstabs on that question show that more Republicans blame Bush for the economy (34 percent) than they do Obama (30 percent). So despite Rush's many, many, many foam-dripping rants on the subject, Americans just aren't buying into the fantasy that President Obama managed to ruin the economy in six months.

Then it was time for another very special caller, this one hyping the twin themes of deception and honor. He argued Obama was deceiving us with his influences -- like Bill Ayers, Rev. Wright, Saul Alinsky -- as well as deceiving us with the birth certificate “falsification question,” his ACORN connections, and his agenda. It was a “culture of deception” as the caller described it. This went on for a few minutes, with the caller's uninterrupted rant finally climaxing with his claim that Obama's “cult of deception” was “approaching treason.” To his credit, Rush refused to “go there” on the treason charge, but he generally agreed with the caller, which is unsurprising considering the caller just made all the same points Rush has been making for months. Also unsurprising, Rush launched into his own rant about how liberalism is “deceit” and communism is “lies,” and how rising unemployment is being done “purposefully.”

From there, Rush repeated his parachute analogy from Hour 1, and then his Titanic analogy from yesterday. Then he teased his interview with Greta van Susteren again. And after one more break, it was an ad for the Heritage Foundation, and that was it. Is it fair to say his show ended with a whimper today? Whatever. As always, we'll be back tomorrow, rain or shine. And as always, our ever-compelling and ever-amassing Limbaugh Wire archives are probably the best thing you'll find on the Internet, period.

Simon Maloy, Zachary Pleat, and Ariana Probinsky contributed to this edition of the Limbaugh Wire.

Highlights from Hour 3

Outrageous comments

LIMBAUGH: What we got last night -- the president's reaction to this -- was not presidential. The presidential reaction is “I don't know everything that happened. I know Gates, friend of mine - I don't know what happened. And I'm going to leave this up to the local authorities when all the details are known, blah blah blah.” Just stay out of it.

But, what we got was the reaction of a community organizer. We saw the community organizer that is Barack Obama. We got the ACORN reaction last night. We got the militant black reaction, the Cornel West angry reaction. But basically, we saw a community organizer in action last night.

And he sends a message to young people all over the country: Kids, your -- the cops are stupid. The president of the United States says the police act stupidly. All it does is cement in certain peoples' minds that there's a constant adversarial relationship with the cops. “The cops are bad. My president even knows that. The president says the cops are stupid. The president says the cops are racist, the cops are profiling,” and so forth.

This is agitation last night, folks, I'm -- that's why I'm very uncomfortable with this. Obama is not a force for positive race relations in this country. He is not a uniter. He played into stereotypes with this, and he repeats them. He should have kept his mouth shut; he's not capable of that. He should have kept his mouth shut. He doesn't know the facts; he wasn't there. He pops off just exactly as he would back in Chicago in the community organizing days. And he goes off about racial profiling, all the rest. Based on what? A limited amount of information about a single incident where he's quick to condemn the cop, the whole police department, white America.