40 years later, Rush still bitter about Woodstock and '60s culture

By Greg Lewis

This week of The Rush Limbaugh Show began with Rush decrying the most politically correct hurricane track he has ever seen. He said that people are so desperate for a hurricane that they're calling a “cluster of thunderstorms” a tropical depression, and the projection cone covers every major city in Florida. Rush said they're desperate to prove global warming exists.

Then it was on to health care reform. Rush said whether they call them “death panels” or not, the point is that we spend money only on the sick, not the healthy, so that in order to cut costs and cover more people, we have to spend money we don't have and cut costs on the sick. Then Rush declared that there would be no point to liberal reform without the public option:

LIMBAUGH: [A]nd there is going to be a public option. There is no reason to have this kind of liberal reform without a public option. All this talk about a public option -- dropping it or maybe putting it back in, whatever they're going to call it -- if -- there's no reason to do this kind of reform from this standpoint -- from Obama, from the liberals in Congress -- without the government running it. If that's not on the table, there's no reason for them to reform it.

Rush said that whether they call it a public option or a co-op, they will get it at some point, and he warned his audience not to fall for the head-fakes. It's all a game designed to react to the opposition and get you to cool down.

Then Rush moved on to the media's coverage of the 40th anniversary of Woodstock. While the drive-bys are reliving Woodstock and reporting on its anniversary by detailing its importance, Rush said the media is making it out to be something it's not. To counter this, Rush read a story he described as a “real-life reality check.”

The story Rush cited was that Bob Dylan, who Rush described as part of the Woodstock generation, getting questioned by police over the weekend. Rush's point was that Woodstock wasn't important because the police officer who questioned Dylan wasn't familiar with the man or his music. Rush compared the incident to the arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates a few weeks ago:

LIMBAUGH: Now, the situation was resolved uneventfully, the peace officers and Bob Dylan going their own way. There were no problems, not like Henry Louis Gates and Sergeant Crowley. Contrast that with you know, what I call the Boston Massacre, the insult that rocked the nation. The Professor Gates affair. The police didn't recognize a professorial professor, and they reacted when yo' mama got confrontational. They said, “Wait a minute, we're going to arrest you dude, you're being contentious here with no reason.”

Rush said the learning experience here is that a rock composer and singer can teach civil behavior better than a tenured college professor. Rush also quipped that Dylan “can't sing” and that “so many” of these '60s icons can't sing, but everyone was so stoned that they thought these guys could sing.

The next story up was about Cash for Clunkers. Rush read that dealers might stop selling new cars under the program unless they're reimbursed more quickly. Rush said that this was another example in the body of evidence of the government's inability to run anything efficiently. He also claimed that many of the car models in the top 10 being purchased in the Cash for Clunkers program are foreign, and falsely stated that no GM or Chrysler cars were on the list -- ignoring the Dodge Caliber and Chevy Cobalt.

After the break, Rush was still focused on the Dylan story. Rush said that Dylan was in a black neighborhood and got profiled, and that's why the residents of the neighborhood called the fuzz.

Rush says “it's just not the case” that his show is filled with hate, racism, and bigotry

Then Rush moved on to “the hapless” Kathleen Sebelius on CNN's State of the Union yesterday. Rush aired an audio clip of Sebelius saying that the public option is not an essential element of health care reform. Rush said that she's a liberal, and choice and competition is not what they want. If it was, then government should get out all together and let the market take over. And Rush ranted against the co-op as well, saying that he know his “liberal lingo,” and they're acting like we're too stupid to know what they're all about.

Rush continued on this note, claiming they can cover the uninsured without this, and that they want single payer and are not going to give up. Then Rush noted he went to the Democrat [sic] Underground website, which he called the most concentrated collection of sheer lunatics, and described them as “livid” over the public option being taken off the table. Rush said it was hilarious to see lunatics get upset when their elected lunatics don't deliver.

Rush declared that the town hall eruptions that he credited his audience for “engaging in” are working. Then Rush teased a series of sound bites from the media reacting to Rush's recent comments about Nazis, and calling it racist:

LIMBAUGH: I mean, it's gotten to the point -- they've played this card for 21 years. It doesn't work anymore. You don't have the number-one most listened-to radio show in America, the most respected, the most feared, the most loved, the most whatever, if it's filled with hate and racism and bigotry and all this -- it's just not the case. They just keep going back to that same play in the playbook, and it's not work -- but they are desperate.

After another break, Rush criticized the media for not even attempting to question authority in power. Rush, who has “studied” Obama's “five minute career,” know that you can't believe Obama because he hasn't told the truth about “any number of things.” Rush then played an audio clip of Eddie Bernice Johnson on State of the Union, saying that private insurance companies have failed in insuring everybody, which is why there needs to be some kind of competition. “Now that's just rich, this is just loaded,” said Rush, adding:

LIMBAUGH: How about this: If the insurance companies wanted to insure these people now, they'd be insured. Yeah, I guess if General Motors wanted everybody to have a car, everybody'd have a car. If people that build houses on the beach wanted everybody to have a house on the beach, they would give them a house on the beach. If the insurance companies wanted to insure these people, they'd be insured? This woman doesn't even understand how the private sector works.

Rush to Obama: “You idiot”

Then Rush moved on to some audio bites from Obama's town hall in Grand Junction, Colorado on Saturday. The first was an audience member asking how a private insurance company would be able to compete with a public plan. Rush said the questioner was “amazing,” and assumed that he must listen to The Rush Limbaugh Show. Rush also said the called “nuke[d]” the entire foundation of Obamacare. Then Rush aired some of Obama's response to the question, and called it “rambling,” again asserting that the audience member got Obama to admit his whole plan won't work. Rush criticized Obama for again invoking his comparison of the Post Office to FedEx and UPS. He can't believe Axelrod and Rahm Emanuel are still letting him say that, and called Obama an “idiot.”

Coming back from another break, Rush read some polls showing the public is skeptical of health care reform and the effect of the stimulus. Rush said Obama is losing traction because his ideas are not working, but it's not time to get giddy. Rush also noted that flag@whitehouse.gov, the “snitch website,” was officially dead. He also mentioned that a “third party” was sending out the Axelrod emails. Rush said that explanation was possible, but not likely.

Rush: “Nobody called [Obama] Hitler”

Hour 2 began with Rush teasing “inflammatory” sound bites from the drive-bys about himself. First, Rush went back to his January 16 show, when he first uttered the words, “I hope he fails” about the impending Obama presidency. Rush said this is important to remember, because “he is failing, and I'm happy. And you're happy. Fifty-seven percent of the American people think no health care change is better than his plan -- or 52 percent, 54 percent, I'm sorry -- 57 percent say the stimulus isn't working and it might be making things worse. I'm winning. He's failing. The American people don't want Obama to succeed.”

Rush said that the media is so mad they can't see straight, and went on to air several audio clips of CNN's Don Lemon interviewing author Tim Wise about his new book, Between Barack and a Hard Place: Racism and White Denial in the Age of Obama. Rush said this is the kind of lying that passes for wise commentary on the left, as he launched into another attempt to defend his recent Nazi Germany comparisons:

LIMBAUGH: I never said Obama hates white people. He's got a chip on his shoulder about the unjust and immoral past of this country. I never called him Hitler. And let's not forget -- you dopes at CNN and everywhere else, could you please for 21 years behind this microphone, I have listened to people like you try to equate conservatives with Nazism and with Adolf Hitler, and I'm fed up with it. Hitler was a man of the left. Adolf Hitler was much closer to you guys than he is to me or any of my friends. And Nancy Pelosi started this, she called the people turning up at town hall meetings Nazis -- they were wearing swastikas. And you're purposely leaving that out of this so you can run with your template.

Rush continued, claiming that "[n]obody called [Obama] Hitler." He went on:

LIMBAUGH: But you compare his health care plan to the national socialist health care plan of Germany, I'm gonna find a lot of similarities there. You won't find any similarities between whatever conservative health care plans there are and what the national socialists did. But nobody -- we've written about this extensively, Andy McCarthy has -- nobody's talking genocide here, nobody's talking racism. We're talking socialism, and we're talking how it doesn't work.

Then Rush aired more of Lemon's interview with Tim Wise, in which Rise explained that protesters are using language like “take back America,” and said that the country's founders envisioned a system of white supremacy, which is why race is playing a big role. Rush was “steamed” by this assertion. Rush explained how many of the founders had agonized over slavery, and that is why they created the Constitution in a way that allowed it to be changed later.

After the break, Rush took his first caller of the program, who explained her first time protesting at a local town hall event. Rush said this was a great illustration of how the protestors show up because of passion. It's genuine, unlike the union members and Obama people showing up because they're given orders.

Rush on TheRoot.com's Kai Wright: “So, the racists are out there charging race when the health care debate has nothing to do with race”

Then Rush aired a series of audio clips from NPR's All Thing Considered on Saturday, featuring TheRoot.com senior writer Kai Wright discussing how he thought the rage we see at town halls isn't all about health care, but about anxieties felt by a segment of the population that feels shut out, and tied this idea to birthers and militias. Rush stated that NPR is doing their best to impugn the American people on behalf of Barack Obama. Rush said that people are really worried about Obama and the government deciding who gets treated and who doesn't. The next audio clip featured Wright saying that the protesters are being exploited by the GOP and people like Rush. Rush claimed that he's not exploiting anything, just watching it, and criticized “egghead elitists” in the media who are “meeting their Waterloo” by carrying Obama's water.

After another break, Rush had some more words for Kai Wright:

LIMBAUGH: [H]is website is theroot.com, and this is the guy who said the health care debate is all about race. You know whose website that is? Skip Gates. That guy is -- that website is Henry Louis -- the professor from Harvard who screamed racism. So, the racists are out there charging race when the health care debate has nothing to do with race, it has nothing to do with militias, it has nothing to do with birthers, it has nothing to do with anything other than genuine substance and passion.

Then Rush took a caller took issue with the media saying that town hall protesters need to have “common courtesy.” Rush agreed, saying that sitting back and acting civil is what gave us the stimulus. Rush claimed that “nobody” is getting into congressmen's faces, but they should be because the plan being rammed down their throat takes away freedom and liberty. Rush was also annoyed that you never hear that ACORN or union people need to be more civil, and you never hear the media criticizing liberal protestors as using bad tactics. The next caller on the program said that 7 months ago, Democrats said they had a mandate because 52 percent of Americans voted for Obama, but now 54 percent are against health care reform. Rush said this doesn't matter because they would say they had a mandate with only 10 percent supporting their plan.

Rush challenged by caller on “death panels”

One more break for the hour, and Rush was back with another caller who happened to challenge Rush's claims about end of life counseling in the House bill. Specifically, the caller said what would have been in the bill was a “great program” because Medicare didn't cover it previously, and stated that Rush was repeating Betsy McCaughey's line that it would lead to government bureaucrats denying you coverage. Rush objected to the caller, saying that he had “not used the word death panels, with the except of quoting Sarah Palin." The caller also pointed out that the provision in the House bill didn't mandate end-of-life counseling. From that point, Rush went on about how if it was such a good plan, why would they have removed it from the Senate bill?

The next caller on the program was considerably less defiant, and noted her experience with Canadian health care compared to U.S. health care. Rush responded by ranting about how government programs are often failures. Meanwhile, Obama socialists are offering a “tempting lie” that individuals will pay nothing for health care.

Kicking off the third hour, Rush said that he wanted to go back to the claim that we spend $8,000 per person on health care in this country. He explained that it is a rhetorical trick to blur the debate. Rush again theorized that health care money is only spent on the sick, so cutting spending on health care would result in less care for the sick. Responding to the contentious caller from the previous hour, Rush read portions of the House bill regarding end of life counseling and declared: “When you go through this, it sure sounds like a government panel is going to be deciding a lot of stuff. And it will.” Rush continued:

LIMBAUGH: And here's the insidious part of this -- the most insidious part of this, any government plan, any government plan -- the vast medical expenditures in this nation become nothing more than a government budget item. And this is what concerns me the most society-wise; it will forever transform the relationship between Americans. I mean, we're no longer individual citizens, we're no longer consumers. We will instantly become rivals, we're going to be come competitors vying against each other for precious health-care dollars.

[...]

The old American live-and-let-live attitude will be instantly impossible. Social cohesiveness and civil society is going to be terrifically wounded. In the end, every American is going to resent or is going to want to beat out every other American in the race for medicine. And it's all going to be “it's me or him” when you become nothing more than a budget item, and that's all we'll be once the government takes over this, if they ever do.

Rush: “I don't tell lies on this program”

Then Rush moved on to conservative columnist David Brooks on last Friday's NewsHour, airing a sound bite of Brooks saying that Rush and Palin were saying things that were “off the charts untrue,” and that Obama is also overpromising to a significant degree. Rush's response? That he doesn't lie on his show:

LIMBAUGH: I don't tell lies on this program. It is not necessary. I don't have to lie about my beliefs. I don't have to lie about what liberals want to do. I don't have to lie about what liberals say. I don't have to make it up. I do not make up one thing. I do not lie. I don't even exaggerate other than for the purposes of humor and satire. I haven't said one lie about what Obama's plan is.

Rush went on to call Brooks a “lying machine.” Then he read much of James Taranto's column in the Wall Street Journal, which declared that Sarah Palin “won the debate” over death panels. Rush explained how the left was scared to death of her.

After the break, Rush read a CNN Money article about China buying oil fields around the world. Rush asked when we would wake up and realize that we're borrowing money from the ChiComs to build “worthless” windmills and electric cars. Staying on that subject, Rush read from a Scientific American article about electric cars putting pressure on the country's electrical grid. Ignoring that the article explains how electric cars are significantly more efficient than ones powered by an internal-combustion gas engine, Rush argued that electric cars would be mostly powered by coal and oil power plants. Rush added that the Chevy Volt is able to achieve 230 mpg by being dropped from the space shuttle.

Then Rush read from a Boston Globe article on the use of stimulus money to subsidize rental units in American cities. Rush thought we already had this -- “they're called housing projects.” After reading the article's quotes from Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), Rush was aghast that they were turning the Bush idea of an “ownership society” into something that Frank opposed, describing this as “upside down.”

The next caller on the program informed Rush that as a heart surgeon, Medicare does reimburse him when he informs an elderly patient about end-of-life issues when consulting them about heart surgery. The caller agreed that Obama wants control with the provision in the House bill.

After another break, Rush said that Obama had been promising that if you like your insurance, you can keep it. But at Friday's town hall, he said that it's “more than likely” you can keep it. Rush said it used to be “definitely” and that Obama is lying through his teeth about this. After more ranting about Obama's town hall performances and the “hapless and clueless” Kathleen Sebelius, Rush took another caller who also argued that Medicare already covers end-of-life issues like hospices, and that counseling is part of that. Rush then went on about Obama no longer having the credibility he had ad the height of his popularity. Rush then reminded his audience that Obama had always spoken in platitudes, and that is how he was elected.

One more break, and Rush concluded his program by referencing a Politico article about the Republican Party “gain[ing] steam as health care bill sputters.” Rush rejected this, and explained that it was conservatism that deserves credit, not the GOP. The final caller spoke of his mother-in-law's health insurance through the state of Illinois, and how the state's program recently ran out of money, so they will no longer cover her expenses above what Medicare covers.

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

Highlights

Outrageous comments

LIMBAUGH: If you're going to cut medical costs, the only way to do it is to cut it on people who -- on whom you spend it, and that's the sick. And I guarantee you, whether there's a death panel counseling you on your death at the end of your life, whether it's a government panel, or whether it's a doctor doing it or whoever, if there is -- and there is going to be a public option. There is no reason to have this kind of liberal reform without a public option. All this talk about a public option -- dropping it or maybe putting it back in, whatever they're going to call it -- if -- there's no reason to do this kind of reform from this standpoint -- from Obama, from the liberals in Congress -- without the government running it. If that's not on the table, there's no reason for them to reform it.

Do you think, for example, that if we're going to talk about reforming health care, that Obama will say, “Hey, let's look at some private sector reforms. Let's see [unintelligible] the private sector can maybe --.” That's not going to be on the table. And so if we're going to have health care reform, it's going to be what Obama wants. This is all these people have wanted for 50 years is the government to run it. Whether they call them health care exchanges or whether they call them the public option or whatever, there's not gonna be a health care plan that doesn't get us there at some point.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: Now, the situation was resolved uneventfully, the peace officers and Bob Dylan going their own way. There were no problems, not like Henry Louis Gates and Sergeant Crowley. Contrast that with you know, what I call the Boston Massacre, the insult that rocked the nation. The Professor Gates affair. The police didn't recognize a professorial professor, and they reacted when yo' mama got confrontational. They said, “Wait a minute, we're going to arrest you dude, you're being contentious here with no reason.”

[...]

LIMBAUGH: Now, I got a bunch of sound bites -- Cookie gave me a bunch of sound bites today form the media that are really over the top. And even some people -- well, basically from the media, that this is all racist. That my opposition to Obama is racist, that your opposition to Obama's racist, that I'm inspiring racism. I mean, it's gotten to the point -- they've played this card for 21 years. It doesn't work anymore. You don't have the number-one most listened-to radio show in America, the most respected, the most feared, the most loved, the most whatever, if it's filled with hate and racism and bigotry and all this -- it's just not the case. They just keep going back to that same play in the playbook, and it's not work -- but they are desperate.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: Now, that's just rich. This is just loaded. How about this: If the insurance companies wanted to insure these people now, they'd be insured. Yeah, I guess if General Motors wanted everybody to have a car, everybody'd have a car. If people that build houses on the beach wanted everybody to have a house on the beach, they would give them a house on the beach. If the insurance companies wanted to insure these people, they'd be insured? This woman doesn't even understand how the private sector works.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: And it's important to remember this, because -- he is failing, and I'm happy. And you're happy. Fifty-seven percent of the American people think no health care change is better than his plan -- or 52 percent, 54 percent, I'm sorry -- 57 percent say the stimulus isn't working and it might be making things worse. I'm winning. He's failing. The American people don't want Obama to succeed.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: So this is the kind of lying that passes for reporting and wise commentary on the left. I never said Obama hates white people. He's got a chip on his shoulder about the unjust and immoral past of this country. I never called him Hitler. And let's not forget -- you dopes at CNN and everywhere else, could you please for 21 years behind this microphone, I have listened to people like you try to equate conservatives with Nazism and with Adolf Hitler, and I'm fed up with it. Hitler was a man of the left. Adolf Hitler was much closer to you guys than he is to me or any of my friends. And Nancy Pelosi started this, she called the people turning up at town hall meetings Nazis -- they were wearing swastikas. And you're purposely leaving that out of this so you can run with your template.

And then, of course, the White House, the Obama machine starts attacking half the American people, calling them an unruly mob. You guys have got it bassackwards here in terms of what's happening out there. Nobody called him Hitler. But you compare his health care plan to the national socialist health care plan of Germany, I'm gonna find a lot of similarities there. You won't find any similarities between whatever conservative health care plans there are and what the national socialists did. But nobody -- we've written about this extensively, Andy McCarthy has -- nobody's talking genocide here, nobody's talking racism. We're talking socialism, and we're talking how it doesn't work.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: I just found out something. You know that -- the past two sound bites that we played, this guy Kay or Kai Wright, K-A-I, I don't know how to pronounce it -- his website is theroot.com, and this is the guy who said the health care debate is all about race. You know whose website that is? Skip Gates. That guy is -- that website is Henry Louis -- the professor from Harvard who screamed racism. So, the racists are out there charging race when the health care debate has nothing to do with race, it has nothing to do with militias, it has nothing to do with birthers, it has nothing to do with anything other than genuine substance and passion. And that is a growing majority of the American people want no part of what Obama is offering. I think it's fabulous. And these -- these people in the media, wherever they are, you guys are really gonna have to step back, and you're gonna have to start looking at yourselves. You are making idiots, fools of yourselves.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: I don't tell lies on this program. It is not necessary. I don't have to lie about my beliefs. I don't have to lie about what liberals want to do. I don't have to lie about what liberals say. I don't have to make it up. I do not make up one thing. I do not lie. I don't even exaggerate other than for the purposes of humor and satire. I haven't said one lie about what Obama's plan is.

America's Truth Rejector

LIMBAUGH: Except one thing. You mean Betsy McCaughey, and I have not said that. I have not --

CALLER: You have not repeated Betsy McCaughey?

LIMBAUGH: No -- I have not used the word death panels, with the except of quoting Sarah Palin. I have talked about the reality of what's gonna happen. Here's what I have said: In the first place -- I want to -- before I get to that, I do want to object -- I don't think the government has any business telling doctors that they're gonna sit and talk to people about end of life. I don't think that's the government's job, or it's not -- none of Obama's business or any bureaucrat that he would select.

CALLER: Can I interrupt you again and say, we're talking about the provision where the government didn't force doctors or tell doctors. The provision clearly stated, and I read it myself --

LIMBAUGH: Then why did they pull it out? Why did they pull it out if it's so damn good? They pulled it out because it is what people think it is.

CALLER: Why do you think, Rush, why do you think?

LIMBAUGH: Why do I think what?

CALLER: Why do I turn on the news program and not hear the word death panels?

LIMBAUGH: Why do I think what?

CALLER: Why do you think they took the provision out? Why do you think they took it out? Because --

LIMBAUGH: Because -- because it was something the American people understood and don't want.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: When you go through this, it sure sounds like a government panel is going to be deciding a lot of stuff. And it will. There's no way around this. And here's the insidious part of this -- the most insidious part of this, any government plan, any government plan -- the vast medical expenditures in this nation become nothing more than a government budget item.

And this is what concerns me the most society-wise; it will forever transform the relationship between Americans. I mean, we're no longer individual citizens, we're no longer consumers. We will instantly become rivals, we're going to be come competitors vying against each other for precious health-care dollars. You're gonna look at other people in your country, your neighborhood, your state as rivals, as potential enemies in the competition for government health care dollars. And this is often gonna happen in life-or-death situations. The old American live-and-let-live attitude will be instantly impossible. Social cohesiveness and civil society is going to be terrifically wounded. In the end, every American is going to resent or is going to want to beat out every other American in the race for medicine. And it's all going to be “it's me or him” when you become nothing more than a budget item, and that's all we'll be once the government takes over this, if they ever do.