By Greg Lewis

Limbaugh: If “Fox News is talk radio,” then “MSNBC is pornography, and Obama likes MSNBC. CNN is child porn”

Rush wasn't sure where to begin today, he announced as his program started for the day. After reading a string of headlines about unemployment and the economy, Rush referenced a Wall Street Journal column by Daniel Henninger, and then stated that Obama is “saying Fox News is talk radio,” adding:

LIMBAUGH: I am living rent-free in this guy's head. Fox News is talk radio. If that's true, MSNBC is pornography, and Obama likes MSNBC. CNN is child porn.

Then Rush mentioned that Dick and Liz Cheney are out there saying Obama is lying about the Bush administration not leaving a battle plan for Afghanistan. But Rush quickly moved onto topics more pressing -- there was another kids-singing-about-Obama tape out there! This one featured students from an “unknown” elementary school singing about the election of Barack Obama -- during the month of February, as Rush informed us. Gee, why might students be singing about the first African-American president during the month of February? We wonder ...

Anyway, Rush then read from the Associated Press about White House economist Christina Romer saying that stimulus impact will level off next year. Rush then aired a clip of Pelosi talking about a second stimulus on CNBC, declaring that she didn't “get the memo” about what Romer said. Rush said that we're dealing with “genuine idiots” who are economically illiterate, and that there is more evidence every day that we have a willful and purposeful destruction of the U.S. economy by the entire Democrat [sic] Party. He followed this up with a new Paul Shanklin skit with Shanklin-as-Obama announcing that we are returning to the “new normal” of high unemployment.

Rush asserts that Romer is “essentially saying Obama has failed”

After the break, Rush continued to discuss the economy:

LIMBAUGH: The economic news continues to be -- unbelievably horrible and bad. And by the way, I think Christina Romer saying, “This is it, we've had the big bang for the buck that we're gonna get on the stimulus.” Is she not saying, ladies and gentlemen, that Barack Obama's stimulus has failed? 49 out of 50 states report job losses after the stimulus. So, his own economic adviser, Christina Romer, essentially saying Obama has failed.

Following his reading about unemployment in Washington, D.C., Rush jumped on a Gallup's quarterly approval average slipping nine points to 53 percent. But wait! Rush was deeply concnerd about the results of their poll average, but he wanted to point out that the number Gallup came up with shouldn't be trusted:

LIMBAUGH: Now forget the number -- 53 percent -- because I don't think it's that high. I don't think he's got -- I don't think over half the country approves of the job he's doing.

See? Limbaugh doesn't think that over half the country approves of Obama, which is what the poll average says, but he still appears to trust the rest of the poll's findings, or else why would he cite it?

Anyway, Rush went on to talk about how the public doesn't trust the government anymore, or the media, or Obama's “radical” staff. Rush also took issue with Politico's reporting about conservatives causing problems for the Republican Party. As usual, Rush was irked at this and lashed back at the drive-bys, stating that it was talk radio trying to save the country by waking people up and alerting them to what was really happening.

Rush went on to read straight from the pages of the Heritage Foundation's Foundry blog, and returned from the next break to read about a spike in robberies in Washington, D.C.'s Metro system. Rush said this was “Obama's Washington,” and that this “rampant crime” was just the tip of the iceberg.

Rush: “The people who are reporting the truth in this country are the targets of this administration”

Then Rush picked up on the latest “pay czar” story -- that Kenneth Feinberg plans to cut salaries of executives at companies that took TARP money by up to 90 percent. Rush acknowledged that his audience has mixed feelings on the story, but went on to spend the next hour explaining to them why they're wrong if they support the pay cuts.

Rush started off by referencing a Fox News article about Feinberg having “independent authority” to make the decision about pay cuts. Rush went on to repeatedly claim that this meant that Obama didn't know about what Feinberg was doing. Rush called it a “level 10” BS alert that we're supposed to believe Obama didn't know his pay czar was acting like “fascists,” just like we're supposed to believe that Obama had no idea Anita Dunn and Ron Bloom “idolize” Mao and that Van Jones was an “avowed” Marxist and communist. Rush went on to relate this all to Obama's attacks on Fox News:

LIMBAUGH: So it's no wonder Obama's out there attacking me and Fox News. Who else will report this? That's what's really going on here. The people who are reporting the truth in this country are the targets of this administration: Fox News, talk radio, me in particular. That's what's going on.

Then Rush read from the American Thinker about a lack of coverage of Sen. Lieberman's hearing yesterday about the H1N1 vaccine shortage. Rush said if this hearing happened during the Bush years, there would have been a big media outcry over it. He then issued this challenge:

LIMBAUGH: There was one news agency that reported the results, the story, at all. It was Fox News. You can go to Google, you can go to AOL, you can go to any search engine you want and try to find any mainstream story of Lieberman and a hearing with three administration officials on the shortage of H1N1, and it's not there. They didn't report it, only Fox did.

Hmmm ... so Fox News where the only ones to report on it, eh? Well, we took up Rush's challenge and went to Google only to find that Rush was right that the “one news agency” that reported on the story was Fox News. Just kidding! We actually found reports on Lieberman's hearing by Reuters, AFP, The Washington Post, and the Chicago Tribune, just to name a few “mainstream” reports. So, as usual, Rush was full of it.

Following another break, Rush took a caller who told Rush he understood his principle in opposing Feinberg's policy, but could find anything wrong with the specific instance in which Feinberg was asserting this agenda. Rush said it came down to practical reality -- that if you don't pay the “best and the brightest,” they'll leave these companies and go elsewhere. Then he brought up more of his tired fascism accusations:

LIMBAUGH: The Obama administration -- this is fascism. They're still privately owned, but they're being run by who? Not even Obama, we're told. The freaking pay czar, who doesn't even have to tell Obama what he's doing. So he doesn't have to stop at the execs; he can limit the pay of the janitors. He can limit the pay of anybody he wants, and pretty soon it's gonna spread beyond companies that took TARP money.

Rush channels Mark Levin's Liberty and Tyranny rants: “Do you realize, ladies and gentlemen, that what we are living through right now is exactly why the Revolutionary War was fought?”

The second hour began with Rush talking about the media template in reporting on Feinberg's plan to cut executive pay and bonuses, which is that the pay cuts were “demanded” by the public, so it had to happen. Rush went on to question where we draw the line of the government's power if they have the authority to play a role in a product or service in which they have a stake in. Would that mean the government could control who went to what college and studied what field because they “subsidize” student loans?

As he continued ranting about Feinberg, Rush did his best to channel fellow radio host Mark Levin (minus the shrill voice that evokes the feeling of running your eardrums through a cheese grater) and explained how he was speaking out against the “wanton abject taking of” our liberty and freedom and how he was arguing against “tyranny.” Rush explained that Obama's attacks on Fox News are about sweeping the playing field of opposition.

Rush returned from the next commercial break with more of his Levin impersonation:

LIMBAUGH: Do you realize, ladies and gentlemen, that what we are living through right now is exactly why the Revolutionary War was fought? What we are living through right now is exactly why the Constitution was written, to limit the powers of a tyrannical government. And we have fought numerous wars to preserve that liberty for ourselves and even other nations, and now we appear to be just giving it away. For what? Somebody tell me what's good about this, somebody explain to me why we are giving away our liberty, giving in to tyranny. For what?

Then Rush aired a series of sound bites from Dick Cheney's speech last night while accepting an award from the conservative Center for Security Policy. Rush heaped praise on the comments of the former vice president and echoed Cheney's criticism of Obama. Rush added that not only is Obama selling out the military, as charged by Cheney, but that he's selling out all of us as well.

Rush went on to take a caller who was happy with Feinberg's proposed executive pay cuts. Rush reminded the caller that the media is backing up the decision by Feinberg -- who acted without Obama's knowledge -- because people like the caller were demanding that the Wall Street executives be financially “raped.”

Following another break, Rush declared that Obama and Congress ought to have their own salaries cut by 90 percent, asking why we bow down to their tyrannical authority. The Rush read quotes from Robert Gibbs “firing back” at Cheney's comments. In response to this, Rush hit back “twice as hard” with a couple of older New York Times articles that Rush claimed proved Cheney's point. The first article was an example of how the media went out of their way during the Obama transition to point out how the Bush administration was briefing the incoming Obama staff about matters of national security.

Then Rush pulled out another Times article from 1993, which reported the Clinton health care bill would have sought to regulate medical specialties, which Rush claimed proved his point about Obama wanting to regulate more than just pay cuts to TARP recipients.

The next caller on the program complained about the hypocrisy of the executive pay cuts, and wondered why they didn't go after Hollywood actors for the vast salaries they make for starring in bad movies. Rush said the entertainment industry might not be off the hook, it's just that right now they're going after people who they think the public has no sympathy for. The next caller Rush took asked when there would be constitutional challenges in court against Obama's policies. Rush didn't there would be many challenges because Wall Street companies have an “abject fear” of the administration.

The final hour got started with Rush digging into his Stack of Stuff. Rush read about recently proposed Federal Reserve guidelines for bank executive compensation. Rush exclaimed that this was proof pay cuts wouldn't be limited just to companies that took TARP funds. Then Rush read the aforementioned Wall Street Journal Henninger column at length, and followed it up with an AP report on Sen. John Kerry becoming an “all-around adviser to Obama” following his recent success in negotiations over a runoff election in Afghanistan. Rush read the article at length, complete with frequent interjections mocking Kerry, and quipped at the end of the segment:

LIMBAUGH: Kerry says he advised the president to know the outcome of the Afghan elections before sending more troops there. You know what? As I go through this, I'm just -- I realize it's a damn good thing we didn't wait for Hitler to lose an election before we landed at Normandy.

Rush says it's “hard to disagree” with Louis Farrakhan's theory that purpose of H1N1 vaccine is to “Kill as many as you can”

After a few more hits from his Stack, Rush read about Louis Farrakhan telling an audience that the H1N1 vaccine was created to kill people. Rush joked that it's hard to disagree with [Farrakhan] on this," adding:

LIMBAUGH: I mean, after the stories we have discussed just this week on cancer testing now being no good, we've -- cash for no babies, carbon credits for not having babies, that's the only way to save the planet. We've got death panels in Florida. We have an administration in love with the teachings of Chairman Mao. So Farrakhan comes along and says that the swine flu was developed to kill people -- no, the vaccine, I'm sorry, swine flu vaccine developed to kill people, and he seems perfectly within the realm of reality to me with all the other news that's going on out there. He said that the people who won't take the vaccine are wise, which includes me. Minister Farrakhan has unknowingly, probably, announced me as wise.

Now, at any other point of my life, I would think, wow this guy lost his marbles, a true fruitcake, gone over the edge, an order of fries short of a Happy Meal. But how could you -- with everything else going on in the country today, how in the world can you just discard this?

Rush on comparisons between Obama administration and Nixon's enemies list: “Nixon was just trying to get a fair shake”

The next caller on the show wanted Rush to “restore order” after she watched a bit from Oprah recently about happy socialist countries. This led Rush to chime in about a recent exchange on MSNBC between anchor Andrea Mitchell and Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN), in which Mitchell “lectured” Alexander about his comments comparing Obama's criticism of Fox News to Nixon's enemies list. After playing the audio bite of the conversation, Rush said:

LIMBAUGH: My goodness! So here she is, a real newswoman, lecturing a senator. “I don't think you want to go there, Senator. I might tell Obama what you said. I don't think you wanna go there, Senator.” This administration has gone far beyond what Richard Nixon even contemplated. This administration is targeting individual private citizens and a network. This administration is doing everything it can to silence and put out of business its opposition or its critics. Nixon was just trying to get a fair shake.

Next, Rush got into a heated debate with a caller over whether or not the government should be allowed to have a say in how student loans they distribute are used. The caller had participated in a South Carolina program many years ago which her student loans in exchange for teaching in a poor school district. The caller was glad the state had such a program, or else she wouldn't have been able to finish college. Rush lectured the caller on how she was wrong. After cutting the caller off, Rush yelled out “I am not wrong” several times and went to commercial. He came back a few minutes later and closed out the show by saying the call was “one for the ages.” Rush took issue with the caller trying to control the conversation, adding, “and we're not even married.”

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

Highlights

Outrageous comments

LIMBAUGH: Obama is out there saying that Fox News is talk radio. I am living rent-free in this guy's head. Fox News is talk radio. If that's true, MSNBC is pornography, and Obama likes MSNBC. CNN is child porn.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: The economic news continues to be -- unbelievably horrible and bad. And by the way, I think Christina Romer saying, “This is it, we've had the big bang for the buck that we're gonna get on the stimulus.” Is she not saying, ladies and gentlemen, that Barack Obama's stimulus has failed? 49 out of 50 states report job losses after the stimulus. So, his own economic adviser, Christina Romer, essentially saying Obama has failed.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: What's happening here, folks, is Obama's numbers are tanking. The Gallup poll -- it is devastating what the Gallup survey shows. Obama's quarterly approval average slips nine points to 53 percent. Now forget the number -- 53 percent -- because I don't think it's that high. I don't think he's got -- I don't think over half the country approves of the job he's doing.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: So it's no wonder Obama's out there attacking me and Fox News. Who else will report this? That's what's really going on here. The people who are reporting the truth in this country are the targets of this administration: Fox News, talk radio, me in particular. That's what's going on.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: There was one news agency that reported the results, the story, at all. It was Fox News. You can go to Google, you can go to AOL, you can go to any search engine you want and try to find any mainstream story of Lieberman and a hearing with three administration officials on the shortage of H1N1, and it's not there. They didn't report it, only Fox did.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: The Obama administration -- this is fascism. They're still privately owned, but they're being run by who? Not even Obama, we're told. The freaking pay czar, who doesn't even have to tell Obama what he's doing. So he doesn't have to stop at the execs; he can limit the pay of the janitors. He can limit the pay of anybody he wants, and pretty soon it's gonna spread beyond companies that took TARP money. These people who put their companies on the hook are gonna get the hell out, and the second-teamers will step in and run things into the ground, in partnership with the government that intends to take over these businesses. There is -- the unintended consequences here are things that you need to look at.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: Do you realize, ladies and gentlemen, that what we are living through right now is exactly why the Revolutionary War was fought? What we are living through right now is exactly why the Constitution was written, to limit the powers of a tyrannical government. And we have fought numerous wars to preserve that liberty for ourselves and even other nations, and now we appear to be just giving it away. For what? Somebody tell me what's good about this, somebody explain to me why we are giving away our liberty, giving in to tyranny. For what?

[...]

LIMBAUGH: Kerry says he advised the president to know the outcome of the Afghan elections before sending more troops there. You know what? As I go through this, I'm just -- I realize it's a damn good thing we didn't wait for Hitler to lose an election before we landed at Normandy.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: I checked the email during the break. “Rush, it sounded like you didn't think Farrakhan's kind of loopy here for saying the swine flu was developed to kill people.” Uh, folks, it's hard to disagree with him on this. I mean, after the stories we have discussed just this week on cancer testing now being no good, we've -- cash for no babies, carbon credits for not having babies, that's the only way to save the planet. We've got death panels in Florida. We have an administration in love with the teachings of Chairman Mao. So Farrakhan comes along and says that the swine flu was developed to kill people -- no, the vaccine, I'm sorry, swine flu vaccine developed to kill people, and he seems perfectly within the realm of reality to me with all the other news that's going on out there. He said that the people who won't take the vaccine are wise, which includes me. Minister Farrakhan has unknowingly, probably, announced me as wise.

Now, at any other point of my life, I would think, wow this guy lost his marbles, a true fruitcake, gone over the edge, an order of fries short of a Happy Meal. But how could you -- with everything else going on in the country today, how in the world can you just discard this?

[...]

LIMBAUGH: My goodness! So here she is, a real newswoman, lecturing a senator. “I don't think you want to go there, Senator. I might tell Obama what you said. I don't think you wanna go there, Senator.” This administration has gone far beyond what Richard Nixon even contemplated. This administration is targeting individual private citizens and a network. This administration is doing everything it can to silence and put out of business its opposition or its critics. Nixon was just trying to get a fair shake.