Oh Rush, you never fail to make us lolsob. And for this reason you are Media Matters' Totally Full of Shit Guy of the Year, which is not what they call it but I think we all know what they mean. The Media Matters team has concocted a delightful romp through Limbaugh's 2011 crazy (which is a lot like his 2010 crazy, and his 2009 crazy, and so on, back to whenever he valiantly tried to evolve from an orangutan and gave up). It's really long, so here are some of the highlights:
- "I don't need scientific proof because to me the people who are promoting manmade global warming are a bunch of frauds." Limbaugh knows global warming is a lie because the people who talk about it are liars. How does he know they're liars? Duh, they talk about global warming.
- "I happen to believe in God. I believe in a loving, brilliant — I know that this — there is no way, I don't want to sound simpleton here, but there is not — it is not possible that we would be created by a creator in such a way that we would destroy by virtue of our created existence our own planet and environment." That's right: Global warming doesn't exist because Limbaugh knows God's business better than God does, and God just wouldn't do that. (This is especially rich because he dismisses climate change as "a religion" with "no evidence," then counters with speculations about God's priorities.)
- "I'm not an ostrich. I live in Realville. I'm the mayor. I'm the town council president. I'm the police chief. There aren't a whole lot of people that live in Literalville, but I do." This is quite possibly the greatest quote of all time. Limbaugh is mayor of Realville, and the mayor of Realville can't be an ostrich, because ostriches don't even have Foursquare! He is also the police chief and the town council president because Realville is a dictatorship, which is why he doesn't actually live there; he lives in Literalville, which is the next town over.
- "I have a theory about global warming and why people think it's real. Go back 30, 40 years when there was much less air conditioning in the country. When you didn't have air conditioning and you left the house, it may in fact have gotten a little cooler out there, because sometimes houses become hot boxes. … Now, 30, 40 years later, all this air conditioning, and it's a huge difference when you go outside. When you go outside now, my golly, is it hot." Because scientific temperature data is definitely affected by whether or not you're schvitzing.
- "We know global warming is a hoax, and we know that elements of NASA have been part of it. And we know that the regime runs NASA. We know that the regime has shut down the shuttle — no more manned space flights, we know that the regime was going to turn NASA itself over to Muslim outreach." You … what?
- "Did you know, ladies and gentlemen, almost no temperature records were broken in last week's 'record-breaking heat'?" I did not know that! Possibly because it's demonstrably false.
- "Basically you have here a crackpot leftist scientist with influence in NASA coming in the form of an actual NASA employee producing actual NASA documents warning that if we don't adopt lunatic global warming policies of Al Gore's, space aliens will invade us to wipe us out, to prevent us from destroying our climate!" I'm just gonna leave this here and back away.
There's a lot more, and I mean a LOT MORE of Limbaugh's patented brand of "it's a hoax because I just SAID it's a hoax, did you not hear me or what" brand of denialism over at Media Matters' handy compendium. Thanks for an entertaining year, Rush! But don't feel like you have to keep up this level of comedy. Really, you've done enough for one lifetime. Really.
