Monday, April 27, 2009

Limbaugh: "Obama is the second terrorist act"

Rush Limbaugh uttered those words today. (When Media Matters inevitably blogs this I'll update with transcript/audio.) Supposedly they were expressed by a house guest of Limbaugh during a get-together when Limbaugh and friends discussed conspiracy theories about who the force behind Obama is (e.g. George Soros or John Podesta.)

Limbaugh presented the idea that an Obama presidency is equivalent to a hypothetical second al Qaeda attack on the United States (which Limbaugh had just said would be of a larger scale than the 9/11 attacks) and thus terrorists have no need to attack the U.S. as a legitimate point of view. Indeed, the guests were all intelligent and involved individuals, said Limbaugh.

Can the bottom get much lower for talk radio?

For every person that keeps saying how great and intelligent Limbaugh is, I don't want to hear a peep of complaint the next time it is pointed out that this sort of rhetoric contributes to a destructive hate.

Update: I was off a bit. Limbaugh said "second terrorist act," not "second terrorist attack," as I originally had it in the post title. I've made the correction. Media Matter's Limbaugh Wire did indeed cover this, as expected.

Then Rush took a call from a woman who wanted to state her belief that it is George Soros, not Saul Alinsky, who is pulling Obama's strings. Rush said it doesn't matter who the person is, although Rush did say during this hour that Soros' "hatred of America is well-known." What matters is why there is a man behind the curtain in the first place. Rush then explained why they were talking about this -- because he and his friends were kicking around names of potential Obama puppetmasters over the weekend. Rush's favorite theory was from someone who said that there will be no second terror attack on America because "they don't need a second act; Obama is the second terrorist act."

Anyway, Rush found it "interesting" that everyone who opposes Obama thinks there has to be a man behind the curtain, and Rush stated in no uncertain terms that Alinsky is the puppetmaster. After saying that Alinsky's method was to get people to "unwittingly [buy] into your revolution," Rush added: "Obama is not charged -- he does not have the charge in the oath of office and the Constitution to do what he's doing. Presidents are stewards of the U.S. Constitution. They do not get to automatically rewrite it and change it, which is what he's doing, and what he's going to do more of." But then Rush shifted gears, seeing that John Podesta was on MSNBC at that moment, and claimed that it's probably John Podesta behind the curtain, perhaps realizing that if you're going to find a puppetmaster to demonize, it's best to have one that's still alive (or perhaps just random free-association bashing of progressives).

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