By Zachary Pleat

Rush: “Barack Obama Senior was a communist”

Rush started off his Open Line Friday by reading a story on stoplights “freezing over,” which he of course turned into a tiring attack on Al Gore, and then a quick jab at “shovel-ready” “green jobs.” He then happily announced that the Group of 77 developing countries (which actually represents at least 130 countries now) has walked out of the U.N. Climate Change Conference at Copenhagen. Just for kicks, Rush then smeared President Obama's father:

LIMBAUGH: The way to think of this guy is Barack Obama Senior. This is the kind -- Barack Obama Senior was a communist, this guy's a communist, and if it weren't Lumumba Stanislaus Di-Aping from Sudan it would be Barack Obama Senior, were he still alive.

Next, Rush -- perhaps not the best person to comment on other people's marital problems -- continued to abide by his promise that he's “not going to talk about it” by reading a New York Daily News story containing some details about Tiger Woods' reported affairs.

Back from a break, Limbaugh wondered aloud whether it was worse that Tiger Woods supposedly paid for sex or that Sen. Max Baucus paid for sex “with taxpayer money.” Rush's source for this is a Politico article which details a $14,000 raise to a “female staffer in 2008, at the time he was becoming romantically involved with her.” El Rushbo then offered this explanation of the Democrats' economic policies for economic growth:

LIMBAUGH: Why are we listening to any of those guys in Washington? They're making our situation worse. They said in writing yesterday the solution to our problem is to spend more money. That's what got us into the problem in the first place. Too much debt. That's like saying to Tiger Woods, “Go get another girlfriend. It'll solve your problems. Or five more girlfriends, and you'll solve your problems even better.”

Coming back from another break, Rush had this to say about education:

LIMBAUGH: What the hell is smart? This has always been something that has bugged me. Common sense is smart. Education does not mean you're smart. In fact, education, depending on where you get it, can corrupt you. There are idiots with degrees all over Washington, D.C.

Rush then brought up a USA Today story on concerns about enforcement of carbon emissions caps. Naturally, he used it to rant that global warming is a hoax yet again, about which he has been in overdrive since the emails from researchers at the Climatic Research Unit in the U.K. were stolen and posted online. Rush and other conservatives have distorted those emails to claim they undermine the overwhelming scientific consensus on climate change. Incidentally, FactCheck.org weighed in on this subject, debunking many claims used by climate change deniers like Rush. Sorry, El Rushbo, but in Rep. Joe Wilson's immortal words, "You lie!" Of course, Rush then channeled his inner Lord Monckton to shout that the Copenhagen treaty will establish a world government. Later on, he ranted that the climate change movement was “about redistribution” of wealth.

Rush: Reported Russian nuclear missile test is “hilarious”

Carrying over into most of his second hour, Rush then spent a lot of time criticizing Senate Democrats for their criticism of Republicans and Limbaugh himself for obstructing health care reform. After hypocritically attacking them for supposedly being focused on Obama's reputation during the health care reform debate, Rush launched into a very haughty rant:

LIMBAUGH: So I'm a part of a conspiracy here with the public against this new president, Obama? This is how these fools think, folks. It's all about Obama; it's not about the people. It's all about Obama and the Democrats and their power. Here's a question. I have a question for Sheldon Whitehouse and his master, Harry Reid.

Why do you reject what the people are telling you? Why do you hate the American people? Why do you hold the American people in contempt? Why do you insist on enslaving us in some kind of government-run health system, when they're telling you loudly and repeatedly they do not want this? Why don't you believe in the public's will? Why don't you understand that they understand what you're doing? Why don't you believe in representative government? Why don't you believe in the limits placed on you in the Constitution?

What do you think your role is? To flood the zone with so much confusing rhetoric and stuff that you're just going to swamp people? What is your role here? Are you mini little dictators talking about wanting us -- Obama to fail. What -- what is -- you want Obama to succeed regardless what it is he's trying to do? Tell me, Senator Whitehouse, why haven't you supported an amendment that would apply the same government health care you would impose on the rest of us on you and your own family? Why are you such a self-serving hack, Senator Whitehouse? If this is so wondrous, if this health care bill is so miraculously needed and wonderful, why don't you sign on to it?

Tell me, Senator Whitehouse, who died and named you chief of doctors? Who died, Senator Whitehouse, and named you chief of nurses and hospitals and nursing homes? Tell me, Senator Whitehouse, who gave you the power over our health decisions? Tell me, Senator Whitehouse, who are you? Who appointed you? Who appointed you to suggest that we follow your mandates on any aspect of our health care? Who are you? Where's the resume? I want to see it.

Incidentally, several Senate Democrats have sponsored an amendment to require members of Congress to enroll in the public option.

Next, Rush gleefully read an AP story that pointed to a failed Russian intercontinental ballistic missile as the cause of the strange lights observed in the sky above Norway. Apparently, Rush simply "hope[s] he fails" so much that a Russian ICBM launch timed to roughly coincide with Obama's acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize is a good thing, as long as Rush can spin it as Vladimir Putin mocking Obama's call for disarmament.

Rush advances right wing's false smears against Jennings

For the beginning of his final hour of the day, Rush incredulously read a report that the U.K. Met office is predicting 2010 to be even warmer than 2009 has been. El Rushbo -- wrong as usual -- then muttered that 1934 was the hottest year globally on record and that NASA issued a correction about that. A bit later in his show, Rush complained about over 1,700 scientists in the U.K. signing a statement defending evidence of human-caused climate change, declaring that they were “signing onto a hoax.” Later in the show, Rush attacked NASA scientist James Hansen as a “fraudster,” and then claimed there are no visible effects of climate change. Unfortunately for him, Rush's favorite ex-governor disagrees with him on that.

Moving on, Rush cycled through a series of articles on the economy to attack Democrats:

LIMBAUGH: It's not the recession that's killing innovation. What's killing innovation is the Democrat [sic] Party and President Obama. They are not kindling the human spirit to create better ways. This is not how you create innovation, this is not how you inspire people to innovate when you're on the verge of passing legislation that will destroy the private sector, raise taxes, and punish achievement. And have a pay czar out there, because if you succeed too much, the pay czar's going to be knocking on your door and telling you how much you can pay yourself and your other employees. It is not the recession killing innovation. In fact, innovation is largely key to coming out of recessions. If there's no innovation going on out there, it's because nobody's being inspired to it, and we know why. The Democrat Party and President Obama.

Rush then had a female student from Hillsdale College on the phone who mentioned a book she had read about how to get married. Rush, with his infinitely twisted logic, steered the conversation to his participation in the right wing's long-running smear campaign against Department of Education official Kevin Jennings, and then echoed noted anti-gay bigot Pat Robertson in relating gay marriage to bestiality.

A little while later, Rush took a call from a guy who wondered why there was no liberal equivalent of the Doctor of Demagoguery, Rush Limbaugh. Instead of simply saying that liberals are incapable of lying so much, Rush engaged in his characteristic narcissism:

LIMBAUGH: There is. Except it takes about a hundred people. There's CBS, there's NBC, there's ABC, there's MSNBC, there's CNN, there's New York Times, there's The Washington Post. There's all kinds of them out there. It's just it takes all of them to equal one of me, and I don't think they even get close.

Zachary Aronow and Kate Conway contributed to this edition of the Limbaugh Wire.

Highlights

Outrageous comments

LIMBAUGH: The way to think of this guy is Barack Obama Senior. This is the kind -- Barack Obama Senior was a communist. This guy's a communist. And if it weren't Lumumba Stanislaus Di-Aping from Sudan, it would be Barack Obama Senior, were he still alive.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: Why are we listening to any of those guys in Washington? They're making our situation worse. They said in writing yesterday the solution to our problem is to spend more money. That's what got us into the problem in the first place. Too much debt. That's like saying to Tiger Woods, “Go get another girlfriend. It'll solve your problems. Or five more girlfriends, and you'll solve your problems even better.”

[...]

LIMBAUGH: What the hell is smart? This has always been something that has bugged me. Common sense is smart. Education does not mean you're smart. In fact, education, depending on where you get it, can corrupt you. There are idiots with degrees all over Washington, D.C.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: It's not the recession that's killing innovation. What's killing innovation is the Democrat [sic] Party and President Obama. They are not kindling the human spirit to create better ways. This is not how you create innovation, this is not how you inspire people to innovate when you're on the verge of passing legislation that will destroy the private sector, raise taxes, and punish achievement. And have a pay czar out there, because if you succeed too much, the pay czar's going to be knocking on your door and telling you how much you can pay yourself and your other employees. It is not the recession killing innovation. In fact, innovation is largely key to coming out of recessions. If there's no innovation going on out there, it's because nobody's being inspired to it, and we know why. The Democrat Party and President Obama.

Ego on loan from Narcissus

WHITEHOUSE [audio clip]: This is about creating a political defeat for the president of the United States on their side. Nothing to do with health care, entirely about creating a defeat for this new president, when, in the face of all the obstruction that the distinguished senator from Michigan described so eloquently, this record-breaking, unprecedented in the history of the Senate obstruction that we're seeing, the person who I think right now seems to characterize the leadership of the radicalized right wing that is running the Republican Party, Rush Limbaugh, is telling the other side that they haven't been obstructive enough.

LIMBAUGH: Yeah, it's true. He's exactly right about that. Damn right. But only one correction, Senator Whitehouse. It is necessary to create a political defeat for the president. I don't deny that we're after that, but it's necessary to save the country, sir. It is necessary to save the United States of America as it as founded. It's necessary to defeat the president politically and this bill, 'cause this bill isn't about health care, Senator. What must it be like to be one of a hundred people in the most amazing deliberative body in the world and have the people who elect 'em be 25 times as smart and informed as they are on this. What an idiot.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: Well, here's Sheldon Whitehouse. And notice this “new president, this new president, we just want to politically defeat this new pre”-- I don't care if he's new, I don't care if he's old, I don't care if he's black, I don't care if he's -- I don't care. All I care about what he's trying to do to this country and stopping it. So, Senator, you are exactly right.

But I'm not alone, Senator. Do you realize that support for this bill in the Senate is plummeting, it is cratering? You're down into the low 40s and high 30s in some polls, Senator, of people who approve of this. The vast majority do not want this thing to pass. And are you telling the world, Senator, that the American people, who a vast majority of whom oppose government-run health care, do so not because of what the plan would do to them, but because they want Obama to lose? Are you saying the entire American population opposing this is only interested in Obama losing?

So I'm a part of a conspiracy here with the public against this new president, Obama? This is how these fools think, folks. It's all about Obama; it's not about the people. It's all about Obama and the Democrats and their power. Here's a question. I have a question for Sheldon Whitehouse and his master, Harry Reid.

Why do you reject what the people are telling you? Why do you hate the American people? Why do you hold the American people in contempt? Why do you insist on enslaving us in some kind of government-run health system, when they're telling you loudly and repeatedly they do not want this? Why don't you believe in the public's will? Why don't you understand that they understand what you're doing? Why don't you believe in representative government? Why don't you believe in the limits placed on you in the Constitution?

What do you think your role is? To flood the zone with so much confusing rhetoric and stuff that you're just going to swamp people? What is your role here? Are you mini little dictators talking about wanting us -- Obama to fail. What -- what is -- you want Obama to succeed regardless what it is he's trying to do? Tell me, Senator Whitehouse, why haven't you supported an amendment that would apply the same government health care you would impose on the rest of us on you and your own family? Why are you such a self-serving hack, Senator Whitehouse? If this is so wondrous, if this health care bill is so miraculously needed and wonderful, why don't you sign on to it?

Tell me, Senator Whitehouse, who died and named you chief of doctors? Who died, Senator Whitehouse, and named you chief of nurses and hospitals and nursing homes? Tell me, Senator Whitehouse, who gave you the power over our health decisions? Tell me, Senator Whitehouse, who are you? Who appointed you? Who appointed you to suggest that we follow your mandates on any aspect of our health care? Who are you? Where's the resume? I want to see it.

[...]

CALLER: Why don't you have a Democrat counterpart? Why is there no liberal El Rushbo?

LIMBAUGH: There is. Except it takes about a hundred people. There's CBS, there's NBC, there's ABC, there's MSNBC, there's --

CALLER: The AP.

LIMBAUGH: -- CNN, there's New York Times, there's The Washington Post. There's all kinds of them out there. It's just it takes all of them to equal one of me, and I don't think they even get close.