Fail Quote(s) of the Day: Limbaugh lies, smears about Gulf/BP oil spill

This latest anti-Democrat, anti-Obama rant from Rush Limbaugh is so fucking moronic, so utterly ridiculous, that I just had to use the whole, nearly 4-minute-long diatribe for today’s Fail Quote segment. First, here’s the video, courtesy of (as always) Media Matters:

NOTE: Open the full post to see above video.

Here are some notable excerpts (transcribed by me):

We live in an era where the Democrat Party is actually trying to convince people that BP wanted this to happen; that BP – that oil companies in general hate the Earth, hate the climate and hate people, and they hate animals. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be in the business. Oil is nothing more than a giant poison and anybody involved in it needs to be in jail.

Quetzalcoatlus (artistic depiction) Mmmm, sauropods [click for full size]

Wow. A strawman that size could scare away a flock of Quetzalcoatlus. I’m not sure if that piece speaks more about Limbaugh’s delusions, or a reverse projection of his own demonizing animosity towards Democrats and liberals. No-one ever said that BP intended for the spill to occur (keep in mind that it began with an explosion that cost them one of their own rigs, along with the lives of 11 workers), or that oil companies are the latest hate-filled incarnation of the Devil on Earth. What Democrats have been saying, and that Republicans have been ignoring (and continue to do so), is that the regulations and measures in place to safeguard against these types of catastrophes are either far too lax or simply inadequate, and that those in charge of enforcing them are too often corrupt or incompetent. No-one’s saying that this was done deliberately, but merely that it’s the result of human greed and shortsightedness.

However, half-a-point (and only half) to Limbaugh for saying that we liberals believe that oil companies hate the environment and wildlife. However, we don’t think Big Oil hates them, so much as they simply don’t give a dying pelican’s oil-smeared ass about them. Their persisting careless attitude towards the spill and its devastation, and particularly, their bumbling attempts at improving their PR, is ample evidence of this.

Next, Limbaugh once again shines his staggering lack of common sense and ecological knowledge upon us:

The oil that’s in – that remains in the Gulf eventually is gonna be evaporated, emulsified, eaten alive by the ocean. It’s not gonna happen overnight, but it’ll take care of it. […] Oil is comparatively easy to dispose of in the water, but once it gets to the beaches, the marshlands, sinks into the soil, it is almost impossible to clean that up.

He repeats this a little later on as well. Now, for starters, he’s partially right: yes, the ecological system in the ocean is set up to be able to deal with leaking oil and remove it. After all, there’s always oil dribbling out of the seafloor somewhere and the ocean hasn’t suffered for it so far. The problem, though, is that when we’re talking about the ocean dealing with the occasional bit of oil, we’re talking about small quantities or the occasional little burst. Not a fucking six-mile-wide plume gushing from a broken pipeline at 60,000+ barrels a day. Saying that oil in the ocean is normal and that the ecology can take care of it is the same sort of logic as saying that the brain is protected by your skull; therefore, it’s perfectly fine to drop a bowling ball on it from ten feet above. Or that, because your eyelashes work at keeping the sweat out of your eyes, you can test its efficacy by pouring a bucket of water over them.

It’s not the mere oil itself that’s bad for the ocean and the environment. It’s all about quantity. And a 60,000 barrel-a-day leak that lasts for weeks and months (and counting) is not something the ocean is able to deal with. How anyone claiming to be a sane and rational individual can fail to see this is mind-blowing.

But in case you thought that was all, Limbaugh now returns to the attack with his paranoid delusions:

I think one of the reasons Obama delayed a request from [Louisiana Governor] Bobby Jindal is ’cause he’s Republican. They needed this disaster. Oh, they wanted it. They exploited it. And for a Republican to move in, when Obama had done nothing, and to actually make a visible difference that could have a huge impact on saving the way of life along the Louisiana Gulf coast – Mississippi, Alabama as well – that won’t do!

Yes, Limbaugh. It’s all because the Alabama governor is Republican. The lack of an efficient response has nothing to do with, say, the overwhelming scale and complexity of the situation, the stretching thin of resources, the incompetence of BP’s clean-up efforts and the general mismanagement of all the regulations that ought to have prevented such a disaster in the first place – it’s all about you poor persecuted Republicans.

But just you wait, for Limbaugh finishes in style:

Obama needed oil-soaked beaches to make his propaganda point. Obama needs pictures of pelicans immersed in oil so he can continue his jihad against oil. He needed the photo ops. He was gonna stop any further off-shore oil production in our lifetimes, and now he’s got ’em.

…

Last January, when Limbaugh insinuated that Obama would siphon the aid money being sent to charity and humanitarian organizations to help Haiti following the devastating earthquake, Roger Ebert responded by declaring in an open letter that Limbaugh “should be horse-whipped” for such an grievous insult to the President. What, I ask, should he now get for claiming that Obama just loved the idea of devastating one of the most ecologically and economically important areas on the planet, at least to the United States, and exploiting the disaster for his own political gains?

Anything that doesn’t involve setting him on fire probably isn’t good enough.

(via @mmfa)