Rush Limbaugh tears apart 10th grade essay on national syndicated radio show. For real.

A couple days ago Obama was at a town hall meeting, and he compared the recession we're in right now to the Great Depression of the 20s and 30s. Obviously it's not an equal comparison, but I'm sure you could get a few economists to draw some parallels, and that's what Obama was doing. Whether he was right or wrong isn't really important.

Rush Limbaugh picked up on Obama's remarks, and decided to talk about it on his radio show. You can find the transcript here.

The transcript is long, so I'll summarize and then get to why this is funny. Rush calls Obama stupid and wrong for making his comparison, and then gives his listeners what must have been a very boring lecture on the Great Depression if the length of the transcript is any indicator. In doing so, he "researches" the Great Depression by typing "Great Depression" into Google. This, alone, is funny to anyone who's been in middle school or above in the last decade. Apparently since Rush is a college dropout (a fact of which he's oddly proud, see transcript) he never learned that querying the entire Internet for a random search term doesn't really qualify as research.

Anyway, Rush pulls up some "sources" on the Great Depression and begins to trash them for being part of liberal, revisionist history. Here's where it gets good. The second source he quotes is an essay by one Paul Alexander Gusmorino, III. Sounds like a smart guy, so why not quote his essay?

Well... here's why not. Turns out the essay was written by Mr. Gusmorino when he was in the 10th grade.

Let's recap: Rush thinks Obama is wrong about the Great Depression. To prove it, he Googles "Great Depression" and cites an essay written by someone in the 10th grade, then proceeds to trash the essay from top to bottom. He's completely serious. It goes on for a long time; Rush Limbaugh is ridiculing a sophomore in high school on his nationally syndicated radio show for a long time. Nice.

But here's the other thing. I read the essay, and it's good. It's not thesis-level material or anything, but the writing is solid. I bet it got an A. For fuck sake, it's 3500 words. That's 18 pages, double-spaced in Word. I've never written an 18-page paper, and I almost have a bachelor's degree in philosophy.

So, here's my question. How would Rush Limbaugh do under similar circumstances? Could Rush write a paper like this and do as well? I don't think so, but I'd like to give him an opportunity to prove me wrong.

I'd like Rush Limbaugh to write a research paper and have a panel of non-partisan 10th grade history teachers grade it. Let's pick something that the liberals would have really gone crazy on with their revisionist history agenda, like the Vietnam war. Rush Limbaugh, I want you to write a 3500 word research paper complete with footnotes and bibliography on the Vietnam war using only books available in 1996 from a public library. No Google. Then we'll have some teachers grade it.

I will eat my own head if Rush gets higher than a B.

Funny, I didn't know Rush knew how to read.

I hate Rush Limbaugh.

He had to learn to after fastfood places stopped putting pictures he could prod at with his chubby fingers on their menus.

rush limbaugh's the highlight of my ride home. the guy's a pompous windbag blowing sheer hilarity.

I will agree with Obama that we are heading into another Depression if things don't turn around soon. However, I don't think we need another "New Deal" (original New Deal just expanded the programs Hoover set into place) since the reason we are in this mess currently is from government intervention. It would be better to let the blood letting happen and have the free markets correct its self. And Rush Limbaugh just says what ever will get him attention and is just a speaker head for the Neo-Cons.

I'm a big Philadelphia Phillies fan (HOW IS THIS NEWS?) and sometimes listen to them in the car while driving home or whatever. They're carried on 1210 AM - "The Big Talker", which, during the day is the Smerconish, Hannity, Limbaugh station.

Whenever I get in the car the next day and hear a portion of the Limbaugh show, it absolutely amazes me that not only do millions of people actually listen to this asshole, but also that they hold him up as some kind of paragon of truth and patriotism. It'd be funny if it wasn't so sad.

the only reason his fan base is so large is because he's a part of it. heyo!

I disagree with you, but that isn't the point I want to make here, the point I want to make is that neither party will do that, so that choice isn't even a menu option. That sounds more similar to the Republican and John McCain's party line, but that isn't what they will actually do. What they will actually do is argue that people who are losing their homes are in such a situation because they were irresponsible and it isn't the government's job to bail them out. While they're arguing that point they'll bail out every Fortune 500 company that is falling apart because of similar irresponsible actions on the part of CEO's, I suppose that an irresponsible decision made in your personal life is no longer irresponsible if you make it behind a very large desk between the hours of nine and five.

So I could argue whether or not it would be better or worse for the economy, but I'm not an economist so I would probably argue that very poorly, instead I'll point out that it's simply unrealistic.

Rush cracks me up.

Thistle: As it shouldn't. Trying to set a government enforced living wage is an absurd proposition. I understand the motives behind it, but if implemented, it would completely destroy the middle class.

We've noticed that over here. Our middle class is moribund; not a day goes by without some middle-class person trying to blow up Parliament. Bastards.

Actually the reason that they implemented a minimum wage was to actually hurt and destroy the poor and uneducated rather then the middle class. They figured that if they set a minimum wage that stores would have to pay they would rather not hire the poor and uneducated since the shops would try to get more bang for there buck. It no longer was that you go paid for what you are actually worth (some times bellow the minimum wage and most times above) and that is also why they have always kept the minimum wage under the standard of living.

I don't read the CE boards nearly as often as I used to but I like to make mental notes of who the total fuckwad idiots are.

Thanks for the head's up.

sockpuppet, i assume you're being sarcastic. Is there a living wage law in england?

fokid: i think he's right. He doesn't mean literal blood.

Yo baby! One more head's up. Today's a good day for the flow of information!

I know he doesn't fucking well mean literal blood.

Jesus fucking wept.

Would you care to articulate a defense of living wage laws?

What? That makes no sense whatever. Could you clarify which "they" you are talking about here? And what the purpose of the minimum wage is described as?

This isn't the most ridiculous thing I've ever read.

But fourth place isn't bad.

Indeed there is. Appeared a few years ago. 1999, I think.

I suspect that Australia and New Zealand's middle classes are in even worse shape, since they introduced minimum wage policies over a century ago.