By Greg Lewis

Unsurprisingly, Rush started out today by bringing up Jimmy Carter. Rush said that by trotting out Carter, Carter weighing into the debate signals that the effort to reform health care is over with, because Carter is closely associated with economic malaise and failure. Rush called it disgusting, and said that the “worst president” in history is coming out to defend the man who will end up being an even worse president when it's all said and done. Rush said Jimmy Carter and Obama “deserve each other” because misery loves company, and called for a misery index for the Obama administration. Rush added that the difference between the two presidents is that Carter tried to reform the system from within, while Obama is reforming from the outside.

Rush said he had many examples of the state-controlled media crying racism, but that he wouldn't dignify them by playing the sound bites. He mentioned Michael Eric Dyson on Morning Joe accusing Rush of saying slavery was a good thing, which Rush denied having ever said. Rush declared: “The president of the United States is sitting here and promoting this division. He is encouraging it.” He went on to recommend that Obama give a speech to tell “the American people and the media to knock this racial stuff off.” Rush added: “He was supposed to be the end of all this, and instead what we have now is his party pushing the notion that all the opposition to Obama is rooted in racism.”

After spending time on Drudge's race-baiting story during his program yesterday, Rush again invoked the Illinois bus assault, tying it again to Obama:

LIMBAUGH: I mean, how far have we come? How Orwellian the establishment has become? Any criticism of Obama's political agenda is pronounced blatant racism, but a school bus full of black kids beating up a solitary white kid couldn't possibly be racism. How Orwellian has all this gotten?

Then Rush told us that he had a “legitimate” question to ask. He referenced Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA), who invoked the Ku Klux Klan when discussing Rep. Joe Wilson. Rush said the “only member” of the KKK to serve in our government is Democrat Sen. Robert Byrd, and played an unflattering sound bite of Byrd talking about Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968.

Anyway, Rush got on to his “legitimate” question. He explained how presidents are usually heavily scrutinized before being elected, and after being elected to office -- they are usually given a “media anal exam.” But Rush said no scrutiny has occurred with President Obama, and when these “checks and balances are MIA,” our nation is headed for trouble.

So Rush's question was: “Can this nation really have an African-American president?” He went on to add:

LIMBAUGH: Or will the fact that we have an African-American president so paralyze politically correct people in the media that the natural scrutiny and process through which all of our presidents are put through and vetted do not occur because of the fear in the state-controlled media of themselves being called racist and the desire to be able to call everyone else racist?

Rush continued in CYA mode, saying he had “no quarrel” with a president of any race. “Obama is not black to me,” said Rush, adding that he wouldn't care if Obama was a hermaphrodite or care what he eats or the color of his tie. Rush said he cares about Obama's intent to remake this country into a country unlike we have ever seen.

Rush declares that America is becoming a shadow of its former self

After the break, Rush said that Joe Wilson didn't call the president a liar, he just said “you lie” to the president. Rush talked about the Congressional Black Caucus demanding Wilson's rebuke, and how the House has now ended up with a list of words and thoughts you can and cannot say on the House floor. Rush said that America is becoming a shadow of its former self.

Rush also continued to rant about Jimmy Carter, criticizing his “ineptitude and manic incompetence” which was driven by paranoia and anti-Semitism, and added that Carter went against our country's interests in pursuit of a Nobel Prize. After yet again falsely claiming that Nancy Pelosi called “half the country Nazis,” Rush again stated that he didn't care where Obama was from or where he was born -- he only cares about what his intentions are for this country. Rush also declared that he would refuse to be silenced by baseless accusations.

Rush says the White House is “a bunch of cowards on matters of race”

Rush continued to talk about the House reprimanding Wilson after the next break, saying that the House “formally banned truth-telling.” He went on to accuse Democrats of frequently naming their legislation the opposite of what it really was -- for example, America's Affordable Health Choices Act is a bill to destroy private insurance and seize one-sixth of the economy. Rush said it was appropriate for Democrats to ban free speech when it happens to be accurate speech.

Then, Rush again asked if it was possible to have an African American president. Rush added that anybody who objects to this question are cowards about discussing race, and declared that the White House are “a bunch of cowards on matters of race.”

Then Rush continued to trash Carter, calling him “our national hemorrhoid.” In particular, Rush referenced Osama bin Laden's "reading list," which included Carter's book on Israel and Palestine.

LIMBAUGH: Jimmy Carter is the nation's hemorrhoid, folks, and we don't have a tube of Prep H big enough to deal with it. He's an anti-Semite -- ah, anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian Jimmy Carter; the national hemorrhoid.

[...]

Our national hemorrhoid is on display and has his greatest work being recommended by Osama bin Laden. What does that tell you?

Rush blames “chicks in government” and the “chick running” the House for new House decorum rules

Closing out the hour, Rush turned his attention away from race -- momentarily, at least -- and refocused his sights on gender. He recalled working in marketing for the Kansas City Royals, when during an off-season meeting, a Harvard sociologist came to a meeting to explain that the great thing about sports was that, unlike women, men could invest total passion into their team without consequences. Rush really liked the idea, and explained how politics is also like a sport, but you can't enjoy it without consequences. Anyway, his whole point here was to complain more about the new “dangerous” and “stupid” rules in the House.

But getting back to gender, Rush blamed the “chicks in government” for the new House rules:

LIMBAUGH: Those guidelines -- and I put them in the bottom of the stack -- those guidelines that I read, what can and can't be said on the floor of the House -- due in part to all of the chicks in government. A lot of what's happening in the state-controlled media is due to the chickification of the news. That list I read to you of what can and can't be said on the floor of the House of Representatives sounds like a list that a mother makes and puts on the door of the refrigerator to teach kids how to say things and not say things they shouldn't and should say. It may as well have attached that list with a magnet to the House refrigerator. And we have a chick running the place.

Rush went on to read a Politico article -- which he pointed out was written by a woman -- about women lawmakers outperforming men. Rush proceeded to make jokes about the “spending potential” of women. Rush stayed on this theme after the next commercial break, blaming women for the welfare state:

LIMBAUGH: Look, my only point here, folks, my only point here is that it is not an axiom, it is not axiomatic, it's not automatic that women, simply by virtue of their sex, make things better. It's also not true that women by virtue of their sex make things worse -- don't misunderstand -- except in politics. Well, why the hell do you think we even have a welfare state?

Rush: People out of work and “Dumpster-diving for sex” are “Obama's America”

The second hour began with Rush making more disparaging comments about Carter before moving on to a local news story involving Dumpster-diving, sex, and robbery:

LIMBAUGH: I suspect that these two people who dove into the Dumpster to have an intimate moment are two people that thought utopia had occurred with the election of Obama, and now they're out of work, they've probably been foreclosed on, they don't have a bed, and the Dumpster for sex looks like a step up to 'em. I think it's your average, typical Obama voter now -- destitute, disoriented, sad, totally discombobulated, can't figure it all out, so privacy? Hit the Dumpster.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: But this -- ladies and gentlemen, this is Obama's America. Where people out of work with no hope and no change certainly, are now Dumpster-diving for sex in addition to food, and others dive in after 'em to rob them.

Moving on (thankfully), Rush talked about the absurdity of ABC News apologizing to the White House for Terry Moran tweeting about Obama's off-the-record comment calling Kanye West a “jackass.” Rush had fun with the audio bite of Obama's foul mouth, and proceeded to play it after other bites for the remainder of his show.

Rush: "[R]acism in this country exists primarily on the left"

After the break, Rush remembered the 1980 presidential election and wondered if people who didn't think Carter was qualified to be president were racist. After some more Carter mocking, Rush said that if he were Obama, he'd try to shut Carter up. Rush said that Obama is trying to distract people from 10 percent unemployment and a $12 trillion debt, as well as nationalizing two car companies and giving $8 billion to ACORN in the stimulus (not even close). Rush ranted for a few more moments, and asked if Obama was “behaving like a racist” when he accused a white cop of racial profiling without knowing the facts (Obama didn't accuse the cop of racial profiling).

Then Rush took his first caller of the day, who answered Rush's earlier question in the affirmative -- yes, we can have a black president, but only if they are conservative because conservatives don't traffic in the politics of race. Rush said the caller had a good point, but pointed out that a black conservative would be destroyed by the drive by media. He added:

LIMBAUGH: The point of all this is that the racism in this country exists primarily on the left. ... Victimization of people, grouping people, condescension toward average Americans exists primarily on the left. They're projecting. You know this is a great illustration of projection. They're accusing us of behaving exactly as they do. They are accusing us of thinking exactly as they think.

Rush went on to play a sound bite of Barney Frank on MSNBC earlier today explaining that Senate Republicans who would want to sign on to health care reform aren't doing so because of opposition from within their own party, so it's a mistake for Obama to try to work with them. Rush said Obama's big mistake has been working with Democrats.

The next caller on the show asked if the new House rules applied to the president as well. Rush said he didn't know, and said that it doesn't matter because Obama "repeatedly lied and demeaned" the House chamber during his speech last week.

Rush played a new Paul Shanklin parody after the next commercial, to the tune of The Band's "The Weight" and featuring Shanklin as Obama, singing about pulling the plug on granny to get health care for free.

Then Rush read a Los Angeles Times article about Obama taking heat from the “other side of the immigrant healthcare debate” for pandering to people like Joe Wilson. Rush says the story illustrates how Joe Wilson was right because the “illegals lobby” is mad about Obama taking this position. Rush went on to read quotes in the article from members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, and asked why there isn't a “congressional white caucus.”

Next up for Rush was a New York Times economics article by David Leonhardt about wage growth and how the trend of firing and now hiring “isn't all bad.” Rush declared that the people who read the Times must be among the biggest klutz dunces in history. Then he took a caller who said Obama has set back race relations in the country by 50 years, and called the President's actions treasonous. Rush said the caller was “no jackass.”

Rush still trying to claim he “never called [Obama] a Nazi”

Rush continued to rip Carter after another commercial break. The next caller up said that Republicans have spent months calling Obama a socialist, Marxist, and a Nazi. Rush replied:

LIMBAUGH: Wait just a second now [...] Marxist, socialist, fascist, yes. I never called him a Nazi. That's what his people are calling us.

This is just another example of Rush's continued attempts to rewrite his show's history by claiming he never called Obama a Nazi. Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. Rush can keep trying to whitewash his past, but we'll continue to call him out on it.

Anyway, the caller gave in to Rush, but still claimed Rush called Obama a racist, a charge which Rush didn't remember making. Rush concluded the hour by repeating how he predicted that the race industry would grow, even though we don't live in a racist country anymore -- it's not 1864 or 1964, he said.

Rush started off the third hour by saying this wasn't the first time Obama played the race card (what wasn't the first time?). Rush said Obama also played it against the Clintons in the South Carolina primary. Then Rush moved on to a report that the House ethics committee would defer their probe of Jesse Jackson Jr. over whether he tried to buy Obama's Senate seat. Rush said this was racist because the House was able to rebuke Joe Wilson in one week.

Then Rush continued to mock David Leonhardt's Times article, calling it silly, and a blatant attempt to pump up a failing president and economic disaster. Rush went on to mock a Washington Post story about employers raising the cost of health benefits. Then he moved on to the newly released Baucus bill, and how “everyone” was ripping it to shreds. He read about Sen. Rockefeller (D-WV) warning that the bill would put a tax on the middle class.

After the break, Rush returned to talk about the grief he had been getting for his earlier rant about the “chickification” of politics and the media. He went on to read a CNN article about children's bedtimes to further his point:

LIMBAUGH: Well, this happens because this is what chicks in newsrooms think is -- it's not even news. No way is it categorized as news.

Rush calls Obama “Castro-like” for being on television “24/7”

The next caller on the program said Obama's health care plan would “off” all the baby boomers once they get on Medicare. Rush went on to talk about the latest Rasmussen poll showing 55 percent disapprove of Obama's plans for health care and talked about the 2010 elections. He added that by throwing out the race stuff, Democrats are making a “tantamount admission” that they're close to defeat. He continued:

LIMBAUGH: We've never had a president like this. We've never had a president with this all-consuming need to be on television 24/7. This is Castro-like. This is like Cas -- this is like a banana republic, with the leaders all over television all the time. Chavez -- this guy's on TV more than Chavez is, and Chavez has his own five-hour television show.

After another break, Rush read another Post article -- this one about young people having to pay the cost for health care reform. Then it was back to sound bites, with Rush playing a clip of Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) on MSNBC citing Maureen Dowd and Carter saying criticism of Obama was racist, but adding that we have to move on. Rush said the “whole DC amen chorus” picked up the Dowd line. The next clip featured Bill Cosby on MSNBC complaining about what Rush said yesterday about the school bus fight. Rush was perplexed that Cosby would say mean things about him, since Rush said he had been supportive of Cosby in the past:

COSBY (audio clip): It doesn't surprise me what Rush Limbaugh says. I said from the very day that people were hammering me because I was talking about our black children -- some of them coming out of the schools, yelling, cursing, and their behavior, et cetera, et cetera, at an NAACP meeting at Howard University. They were also concerned that people that like [unintelligible] Rush Limbaugh were going to find out these terrible things. When these people say this, they say it anyway. And then I said, what difference does it make? They've always thought about us in this manner anyway.

LIMBAUGH: Now, this is kind convoluted, because I have praised Cosby. Cosby has taken all kinds of hits because he has chided certain black parents for not doing a good job. So we cite him on this and he's taken a lot of hits. I mean, the NAACP took some hits on him and so forth. Now, I don't know what -- Bill Cosby and I have more agreement on these things than he would probably know.

Closing out the program, Rush read the New York Times article about the ACORN scandal, and said the Times was all about how ACORN was brought to their knees, but not about what they were doing -- a perfect example of what passes for journalism at the Times. The final caller of the day decried what he saw as a media double standard on race. Rush declared that what Jimmy Carter said was “not gonna fly.”

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

Highlights

Outrageous comments

LIMBAUGH: The president of the United States is sitting here and promoting this division. He is encouraging it. He has people in the White House: “Eh, we don't think it's so much race and so forth,” but he could put a stop to this and should. If Barack Obama wants to be the president that he told everybody he was going to be during the campaign, he needs to schedule a speech -- not five appearances on Sunday shows and Letterman. He needs to schedule a speech and say, “Stop this stuff. This is not productive, this is not helping America, this is dividing America.” He needs to say, “I know there is criticism of me and I know there's opposition to me. There have been criticism of every president. There's been opposition to every president.” But I guess all of a sudden now, we're not allowed to do that anymore. We can't criticize Obama. We can't do that, because it's all racist, but he needs to stand up and make a speech. And he needs to say, “We are going to heal these racial divisions.” If he were the real deal, folks, he would do this speech, telling the American people and the media and everybody to knock this racial stuff off, that he can handle the criticism. He was supposed to be the end of all this, and instead what we have now is his party pushing the notion that all the opposition to Obama is rooted in racism.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: I mean, how far have we come? How Orwellian the establishment has become? Any criticism of Obama's political agenda is pronounced blatant racism, but a school bus full of black kids beating up a solitary white kid couldn't possibly be racism. How Orwellian has all this gotten?

[...]

LIMBAUGH: I have serious concerns about today's media and their new standard, which is this: Any criticism of an African-American's policies, or statements, or misstatements is racist and that's it. Therefore, the question: Can this nation really have an African-American president? Or will the fact that we have an African-American president so paralyze politically correct people in the media that the natural scrutiny and process through which all of our presidents are put through and vetted do not occur because of the fear in the state-controlled media of themselves being called racist and the desire to be able to call everyone else racist?

[...]

LIMBAUGH: One of the three books that Osama bin Laden recommends Americans read and people around the world read is written by former President James Earl Carter, the peanut farmer, the carpenter, the foreign policy hemorrhoid. Jimmy Carter is the nation's hemorrhoid, folks, and we don't have a tube of Prep H big enough to deal with it. He's an anti-Semite -- ah, anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian Jimmy Carter; the national hemorrhoid.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: Our national hemorrhoid is on display and has his greatest work being recommended by Osama bin Laden. What does that tell you?

[...]

LIMBAUGH: I suspect that these two people who dove into the Dumpster to have an intimate moment are two people that thought utopia had occurred with the election of Obama, and now they're out of work, they've probably been foreclosed on, they don't have a bed, and the Dumpster for sex looks like a step up to 'em. I think it's your average, typical Obama voter now -- destitute, disoriented, sad, totally discombobulated, can't figure it all out, so privacy? Hit the Dumpster.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: But this -- ladies and gentlemen, this is Obama's America. Where people out of work with no hope and no change certainly, are now Dumpster-diving for sex in addition to food, and others dive in after 'em to rob them.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: The point of all this is that the racism in this country exists primarily on the left.

CALLER: Exactly.

LIMBAUGH: Victimization of people, grouping people, condescension toward average Americans exists primarily on the left. They're projecting. You know this is a great illustration of projection. They're accusing us of behaving exactly as they do. They are accusing us of thinking exactly as they think.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: We've never had a president like this. We've never had a president with this all-consuming need to be on television 24/7. This is Castro-like. This is like Cas -- this is like a banana republic, with the leaders all over television all the time. Chavez -- this guy's on TV more than Chavez is, and Chavez has his own five-hour television show.

[...]

COSBY (audio clip): It doesn't surprise me what Rush Limbaugh says. I said from the very day that people were hammering me because I was talking about our black children -- some of them coming out of the schools, yelling, cursing, and their behavior, et cetera, et cetera, at an NAACP meeting at Howard University. They were also concerned that people that like [unintelligible] Rush Limbaugh were going to find out these terrible things. When these people say this, they say it anyway. And then I said, what difference does it make? They've always thought about us in this manner anyway.

LIMBAUGH: Now, this is kind convoluted, because I have praised Cosby. Cosby has taken all kinds of hits because he has chided certain black parents for not doing a good job. So we cite him on this and he's taken a lot of hits. I mean, the NAACP took some hits on him and so forth. Now, I don't know what -- Bill Cosby and I have more agreement on these things than he would probably know.

America's Truth Rejector

CALLER: You know, Rush, you conservative Republicans have spent months calling President Obama a Marxist, a socialist, a Nazi, soft tyranny, and for months now --

LIMBAUGH: Wait just a second now, Lorraine X. Marxist, socialist, fascist, yes. I never called him a Nazi. That's what his people are calling us.

Ladies' man

LIMBAUGH: Those guidelines -- and I put them in the bottom of the stack -- those guidelines that I read, what can and can't be said on the floor of the House -- due in part to all of the chicks in government. A lot of what's happening in the state-controlled media is due to the chickification of the news. That list I read to you of what can and can't be said on the floor of the House of Representatives sounds like a list that a mother makes and puts on the door of the refrigerator to teach kids how to say things and not say things they shouldn't and should say. It may as well have attached that list with a magnet to the House refrigerator. And we have a chick running the place.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: Look, my only point here, folks, my only point here is that it is not an axiom, it is not axiomatic, it's not automatic that women, simply by virtue of their sex, make things better. It's also not true that women by virtue of their sex make things worse -- don't misunderstand -- except in politics. Well, why the hell do you think we even have a welfare state?

[...]

LIMBAUGH: Well, this happens because this is what chicks in newsrooms think is -- it's not even news. No way is it categorized as news.