By Morgan Weiland

Despite his day off, El Rushbo is spot on his Fox talking points

Limbaugh's back, reminding us that he “can't go away for one day without all hell breaking loose.” He attacked “Dingy Harry” Reid proposing the opt-out public option, which he declared is the “biggest scam.” He continued: “there is no opt-out, even if states vote to opt-out, you will not opt-out, because -- I'm going to explain all of this, this is so much smoke and mirrors.”

Limbaugh then ranted that the Obama administration is intentionally attacking America and the private sector. To prove his point he read from a New York Times article reporting that "[t]he bad economy is good for President Obama and Democrats as they try to reinvent the health care system with scant Republican support."

Limbaugh touts Gallup poll to push flawed notion U.S. is conservative

Reminiscing about his weekend, Limbaugh notes that he tried to get away from politics but couldn't help but notice that the GOP is running ads against Hoffman. Rush criticized Republicans for doing this, saying that they are pushing conservatives out of the party.

Continuing to riff on the power of conservativism, Limbaugh cited a recent Gallup poll finding that 40 percent of Americans describe their political views as conservative. But like the other conservative commentators who have touted the poll, Limbaugh missed the larger point: political scientists dispute the reliability of voters' identification with political ideologies, and other polling has found that a strong majority favored the more progressive position on a number of issues.

Limbaugh spins Obama thesis hoax story: “I am parodying what is happening to me”

Apparently defensive about getting the story wrong about Obama's “thesis,” Limbaugh established that the treatment he received from the media is analogous to how he is treating Obama:

LIMBAUGH: Now the setup for this, of course, is that was libeled and slandered by countless members of the media. Fabricated quotes, made-up quotes I never stated, never uttered, never wrote, nothing, were repeated all over this country by sports writers, television cable hosts, and so forth. After we proved to 'em that I didn't do it, they retracted them a week later, after the damage, and many of them said it still doesn't matter, we know Limbaugh thinks it anyway.

Now, you might be thinking that since Limbaugh is so keen on those who attributed unsourced quotes to him retracting those quotes or apologizing to him that he might do the same for Obama, but you'd be wrong:

LIMBAUGH: I learned that the whole thing was made up, it was a satire piece on an obscure website, and then I said, “OK, folks, I have to tell you, it's satire, it didn't -- there's no evidence that Obama ever wrote this.” But -- media tweak of the day -- “I don't care, I know he thinks it anyway. Because I've got audio of Obama saying it, talking about the Supreme Court.”

Rush didn't want to let this one go, and managed to paint himself as the victim when he was the one who misrepresented Obama. His target in this case was MSNBC's Chris Matthews:

LIMBAUGH: These people! [laughing] He has no clue that I am satir -- parodying what happened to me -- that he participated in. He participated in -- I don't think I got an apology on Matthews from this. “So we stand by the fabricated quote?” [laughing] It's -- I don't know folks, it's fun.

Limbaugh follows Fox in public option opt-out attack

After the commercial break, as promised, Limbaugh returned to bashing the public option opt-out provision unveiled by Majority Leader Reid yesterday. He again insisted that there will be no way individuals can opt out of the public option and there is no way the government or state legislature can opt out. Why, you ask? El Rusbo explains:

LIMBAUGH: Here is the truth: The citizens of this country, regardless of what state they live in, will have to pay for -- that is, subsidize through taxes and higher private insurance policy costs -- that the public option the government will set up. No citizen will be able to opt out of that, whether you are an employer or an employee or on your own. The -- it's an illusion. You're gonna pay for it no matter what.

Limbaugh apparently caught Fox News on his day off because his claim that everyone will be suckered into subsidizing the public option is exactly what Karl Rove said last night on Hannity. And just like Rove, Limbaugh would be wrong: all the bills that have included a public option to date have paid for it through the premiums of those who enroll in it.

Rove then flogged serial misinformer Betsy McCaughey's newest New York Post op-ed, in which she rehashes her tired claims that “ObamaCare” will “limit what doctors can provide their aging patients.”

Hoffman-booster Limbaugh joins right-wing blogosphere's criticism of Gingrich

Diving into one of his favorite topics of the day, Limbaugh hyped third party candidate Doug Hoffman as the legitimate GOP candidate in a special election for the New York 23rd District House seat.

He read from a Politics Daily article about Newt Gingrich “tak[ing] heat from the right” because he “endorsed liberal Republican Dede Scozzafava over Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman for the upcoming special election.” Diverging from Gingrich's assessment -- and joining right-wing bloggers in criticizing the former House Speaker - Limbaugh described Scozzafava as an extreme liberal Republican and an Obama Republican. He insisted that Hoffman's candidacy is not the same as running as a third-party option in a national election.

After the break, Limbaugh made a point of noting Sarah Palin's endorsement of Hoffman, and reiterates that it made him mad to see GOP ads running against Hoffman.

Limbaugh went on to discuss the New York race and Gingrich's endorsement with his first caller, telling her that he thinks that Gingrich is disconnected from the conservative roots that established his success. Pointing to a discussion Gingrich had with Fox News host Sean Hannity during which Limbaugh said he apologized for not recognizing that Obama was radical as quickly as Hannity did, Limbaugh mused that Gingrich might have “beltway-itus.”

Taking a few callers, Limbaugh returned to his public option opt-out bashing, insisting that polls finding majority support for the public option are fraudulent and that people actually support the public option because they think it's free. You know, like food stamps:

LIMBAUGH: 'Cause I guarantee you, to a lot of people, the public option means free. Public option means free whenever -- public option's associated with the government. And people think what they get from the government's free, the kind of people we're talking about. Oh yeah, your food stamps come in, you didn't pay for them, government gave them to me. Obama's stash, the poor people in Detroit: “Obama giving me the money. Obama from reserve funds, from his stash.” So, you can find people like that, say, “Support the public option?” “Is it free?” “Yeah.” “Fine, count me in.”

Limbaugh attacks Kerry as “favorite senator” of Al Qaeda, Viet Cong

Limbaugh moved on from health care to foreign policy, chastising Obama over his remarks yesterday on Afghanistan. Rush claimed he doesn't know where anyone ever got the idea that Democrats ever support the troops, adding that Obama certainly doesn't care about them. Discussing Obama's remarks that he “will never hesitate to use force to protect the American people or our vital interests,” and that he “will never rush the solemn decision of sending you into harm's way. I won't risk your lives unless it is absolutely necessary. And if it is necessary, we will back you up to the hilt,” Limbaugh asserted that no commander in chief would say this if he had any idea what his job was.

He added that Obama is actually just talking about Bush and Iraq and not Afghanistan, acting like a candidate and not the commander-in-chief.

Limbaugh then went off the rails, attacking John “Swifty” Kerry, who Rush thinks has taken over operational control of the war in Afghanistan, as “Viet Cong's favorite Senator” and " Al Qaeda's favorite senator":

LIMBAUGH: Isn't it wonderful how history repeats itself, ladies and gentlemen? The North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong's favorite senator, John Kerry, back to undermine another war. He undermined Vietnam, he undermined Iraq, and now he's undermining Afghanistan. Now he's Al Qaeda's favorite senator, and the Taliban's favorite senator, along with the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong's favorite senator. And probably the favorite senator of the Khmer Rouge of Pol Pot.

Rush is hot for global cooling

After attacking health care and foreign policy, Limbaugh moved on to climate change. He read from an Associated Press article about the fact that the United Nations is “signal[ing] that it was scaling back expectations of reaching agreement on a new treaty to slow global warming.” Rush riffed on global warming, attacking Lord Stern for calling on people to become vegetarians in order to combat global climate change. Rush then said all that vegetarians eat are beans, so vegetarians will cause global warming because ... well, you can just watch the scene from Blazing Saddles that he cited.

After the break, Limbaugh noted U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's New York Times editorial calling for compromise on climate change, and that Sens. John Kerry and Lindsey “Graham-nesty” signed on to a bipartisan initative last week, and proceeded to attack them all as one-worlders, power grabbers, anti capitalists and anti-freedom lunatics.

War on the poor, love for himself

Limbaugh rounded out the show by mocking Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius for saying yesterday on the Today show that it's dangerous to take kids out of school because many children depend on school for meals, flogging this as an example of our welfare state, which, to him, is a joke.

Oh, and did I mention that Rush managed to find the time -- twice -- to gloat that while CNN is dropping in ratings after inventing cable news, he is still doing amazingly well after having invented talk radio?

All in a day's work.

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

Highlights

LIMBAUGH: Lots popping today -- dingy Harry with his opt-out public option, which is the biggest scam. Folks, he just ended up losing Olympia Snowe's vote in the process here. But I need to have -- I need to explain this to you here -- there is no opt-out, even if states vote to opt-out, you will not opt-out, because -- I'm going to explain all of this. This is so much smoke and mirrors.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: I happened to go by the television set and I saw the story that the Republican Party was running ads against Doug Hoffman. And I said I hope people -- and I don't mean to keep saying this, folks, I really don't, but I said I hope people remember what I said about the Republican Party and conservatism and how they are trying to drum conservatives out of the party. It's interesting too, because the Gallup survey -- Gallup poll was released yesterday. Shows the public's conservatism is at a high-water mark. Forty percent of Americans call themselves conservative, 36 percent self-describe themselves as moderates, and 20 percent are liberals. And yet everybody seems obsessed with these moderates.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: All right now, he's provided nothing specific -- this is typical. He's come up with a theory on this public option state opt-out, and he's sent it over to the CBO to have it scored. I don't trust the CBO, for one thing, but that's not the point about this. I want to reiterate again that there will no way be any possibility you can opt out of a public option, and there's no way your governor or your state legislature or assembly will be able to opt out of it either, and I'm going to explain why.

As a side illustration, do you recall when Jimmy Carter declared a national speed limit of 55 miles an hour and states could opt -- you don't remember that? OK, I'll tell ya. Jimmy Carter declared -- that's the 55 mile-an-hour speed limit -- he declared it, and there was state opt-out. Now, the catch-22 was that if states opted out, they lost all federal highway funds, they lost any participation. But that's a side point; this is much worse than that. Here is the truth: The citizens of this country, regardless of what state they live in, will have to pay for -- that is, subsidize through taxes and higher private insurance policy costs -- that the public option the government will set up. No citizen will be able to opt out of that, whether you are an employer or an employee or on your own. The -- it's an illusion. You're gonna pay for it no matter what.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: I have to tell ya, this thing that happened Friday on this program with Obama's thesis -- it has been hilarious to watch the media cover this. I got two sound bites as an example. It is stunning to me how close-minded, narrow their world is, how absolutely ignorant they are. And I -- I'm not questioning their intelligence, but that's next. They're just ignorant, and they still have no sense of humor.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: OK, as always, it is up to me to provide context for the people who claim to be professional journalists and aware of everything. Now the setup for this, of course, is that was libeled and slandered by countless members of the media. Fabricated quotes, made-up quotes I never stated, never uttered, never wrote, nothing, were repeated all over this country by sports writers, television cable hosts, and so forth. After we proved to 'em that I didn't do it, they retracted them a week later, after the damage, and many of them said it still doesn't matter, we know Limbaugh thinks it anyway. We know Limbaugh thinks -- so last Friday, I get a note from a friend who says “Oh, you ought to see what's on this blog.” And I looked at it, it says Obama, his thesis from Columbia, so-called founders, never liked what they did with the Constitution, not enough talk about distribution of wealth and so forth, and I said, well, this has a ring of truth to it because we got Obama on radio from Chicago 2001 complaining about the Supreme Court not doing enough about redistribution.

So we ran with it, made a big deal about it in the first hour. In the second hour I got a note saying, “Hey, Rush, we looked at it this, we can't back this up, we can't find any actual sourcing for this.” So at that point, I warned the audience that it may not be true, that we are still checking it. Shortly thereafter, I learned that the whole thing was made up, it was a satire piece on an obscure website, and then I said, “OK, folks, I have to tell you, it's satire, it didn't -- there's no evidence that Obama ever wrote this.” But -- media tweak of the day -- “I don't care, I know he thinks it anyway. Because I've got audio of Obama saying it, talking about the Supreme Court.”

And we all got a great laugh about it, because I corrected it immediately, I explained that it was a hoax or it was satire, and then to tweak the media I said, “But I don't care. I'm sticking with it, because I know he thinks it anyway.” So, I dished out to Obama what the whole media did to me, and I dished it back to the media as well. And CoCo at the website called me on Friday, emailed me here, and said “Lookit, you want me to leave this thing up?” I said, “Yes, leave it on the website as is, so these idiot media people who want to find out what actually happened can go and take the time to read it and see it. And leave the original piece up where I got the first information that this is something he had written in his thesis.”

[...]

LIMBAUGH: Here's Chris Matthews last night on Hardball.

[begin audio clip]

MATTHEWS: Rush didn't realize that it was a joke and broadcast the thesis story Friday as evidence that the president is -- quote -- “anti-constitutionalist.” Later in that same show, Rushbo was told that the story was a hoax. Did he correct the record? Not exactly.

LIMBAUGH: I shout from the mountaintops it was satire. But we know he thinks it. Good comedy, to be comedy, must contain an element of truth. And we know how he feels about distribution of wealth. So, we stand by for the fabricated quote, because we know Obama thinks it anyway.

MATTHEWS: You can't beat that. Did you hear that? Rush stands by the hoax because he told his dittoheads a hoax contains truth. Well, it takes a true dittohead to register on that one.

[end audio clip]

LIMBAUGH: These people! [laughing] He has no clue that I am satir -- parodying what happened to me -- that he participated in. He participated in -- I don't think I got an apology on Matthews from this. “So we stand by the fabricated quote?” [laughing] It's -- I don't know folks, it's fun.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: You know, the Republican Party is -- I really do not know what Newt Gingrich was thinking. Maybe he hasn't gotten over the budget battle of 1995. Maybe -- I don't know, but this is stunning, what is happening. I blew my gasket, I ruined two hours of my day when I saw that the Republican Party was running ads against Hoffman. They have a death wish. The Republican Party has a death wish.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: 'Cause I guarantee you, to a lot of people, the public option means free. Public option means free whenever -- public option's associated with the government. And people think what they get from the government's free, the kind of people we're talking about. Oh yeah, your food stamps come in, you didn't pay for them, government gave them to me. Obama's stash, the poor people in Detroit: “Obama giving me the money. Obama from reserve funds, from his stash.” So, you can find people like that, say, “Support the public option?” “Is it free?” “Yeah.” “Fine, count me in.”

Outrageous comments

LIMBAUGH: Then he said, “We're not going to have a situation in which you are fully supported back here at home”? Mr. President, you are stuck on Iraq, and you are stuck in campaign mode of 2008. We do have a situation in which the troops are not fully backed here at home, by you, the commander in chief. “That is a promise I'll always make to you.” This is insulting, it is outrageous, it is incompetent, and it's delusional.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: Isn't it wonderful how history repeats itself, ladies and gentlemen? The North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong's favorite senator, John Kerry, back to undermine another war. He undermined Vietnam, he undermined Iraq, and now he's undermining Afghanistan. Now he's Al Qaeda's favorite senator, and the Taliban's favorite senator, along with the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong's favorite senator. And probably the favorite senator of the Khmer Rouge of Pol Pot.