Sean Hannity recently interviewed Rush Limbaugh and much was made of Limbaugh’s warning to Osama Bin Laden that, if he wanted to “demolish the America we know and love,” he had better hurry because “Obama’s beating them to it.” That was certainly worthy of attracting attention as a classic articulation of Limbaugh’s patently asinine opinion. However, there was another segment of the discussion that didn’t get much play despite being at least as disturbing and stupefying:

Limbaugh: “People ask me about the Fairness Doctrine all the time and I’ve been watching something here – newspapers are losing money. Advertising revenue is down, circulation. But radio companies, too, Sean. Television companies – their advertising revenues are down. Advertising as a whole is down.

Now, what happens if they have to file Chapter 11? What if all these radio companies can’t make their debt payments next year or the year after that and have to go Chapter 11? If Obama is controlling the banks and the banks then will or will not lend to the broadcasters and the newspapers to make them solvent, we could reach a point where Obama controls radio and TV, because he will own it by virtue of the banks he controls owning it.

This is a very stealth way – you don’t need the Fairness Doctrine. You don’t need localism. […] So, if you think that the media in this country cannot also be owned by Barack Obama, think again.”

So, just to break this down…Obama is somehow going to wind up owning all of the banks. Then, he will instruct the banks that he owns to attach conditions to any loans they make to failing media companies. Those conditions will, presumably, include the forced carriage of liberal programming and, perhaps, even the cancellation of programs like Limbaugh’s. In this way the Fairness Doctrine will have been implemented by stealth and Obama will emerge as the owner of all of the media, in addition to the banks, the auto manufactures, the health care providers, the United Nations, the World Wrestling Federation, and Disney World.

This is conspiracy theorism run amuck. Limbaugh is connecting dots that only exist in his OxyContin riddled brain. The right wing’s incessant paranoia with regard to the Fairness Doctrine – which no one is pursuing in Congress or regulatory agencies, and for which Obama has publicly stated his opposition – is warping their their judgment beyond any hope for normal human comprehension (see the related posts below). This obsession is threatening to turn their entire movement into either a political relic or a pathetic joke (most likely, both).

And I still can’t figure out why these people, who regard Obama as an incompetent who could not survive without his TelePrompter, are still terrified of his omnipotent evil genius that will subjugate them all to slavery were it not for the eternal vigilance of superheroes like Rushman and his Boy Hannity.