The 12 craziest and most outlandish comments made by Rush Limbaugh in 2013

Robert SobelOrlando Liberal Examiner

October 22, 2013

One of the leading voices of the Republican party isn't in Washington or elected on a local level, he's listened to by millions of conservatives across the country on his radio show and his name is Rush Limbaugh.
After over two decades on the radio, Rush Limbaugh has been a strong voice for the Republican party, often keeping politicians "in check" due to the fear of a backlash from Limbaugh and his listeners. Like many years before, 2013 has been a wild year for politics and Rush Limbaugh and his outrageous comments followed right along. Here is a list of some of the most outlandish and off the mark comments made by the de facto voice of the political right in 2013.
1. January 7, 2013 - Accepting same-sex marriage could lead to normalizing pedophilia

"There is an effort underway to normalize pedophilia. Yep. And it has two aspects to it. One is that sex with children doesn't hurt them. Kids like it, and so do adults, and there's nothing wrong with it. It is something... I want to take you back. I want you remember the first time, wherever you were, that you heard about gay marriage, and I want you to try to recall your reaction -- your first gut reaction -- when you heard that some activists or somebody was trying to promote the notion of gay marriage. What was your initial reaction?...There is a movement on to normalize pedophilia, and I guarantee you your reaction to that is probably much the same as your reaction when you first heard about gay marriage....The people behind it are serious, and you know the left as well as I do. They glom onto something and they don't let go."

2. March 25, 2013 - Global warming a 'hoax,' scientists are pushing 'misinformation

"I mean a global warming advocate is as wrong as anybody could be about anything, folks. It's a hoax. There is no man-made global warming. It has been thoroughly debunked. The fact that it's a hoax has been proven, by them. E-mails that were uncovered at East Anglia University in Great Britain show that they worked together to perpetuate the hoax, that they lied about data, that they eliminate data that contradicted their political belief. So you'd have to assume from that that they are political advocates disguised as scientists who are purposely engaging in misinformation."

3. April 22, 2013 - 'Radical leftist professors' radicalized Boston bombers and Obama

"Now, see, this is where I am ripe for getting in trouble. Why is it so strange to believe that young kids could be radicalized in America? You got former bombers as professors in New York and Chicago. You have radical leftist professors who think this country's guilty, teaching kids every day about what's wrong with this country, about how unfair this country's been, how unjust, how immoral this country is since its founding. What in the world do we think elite education is in this country? When you have a study of High School textbooks, nine different textbooks, the longest reference to Abraham Lincoln is one paragraph, but all kinds of references to the horrors of slavery and evil Republican presidents, how great Bill Clinton is."

4. April 23, 2013 - Compares Boston bomber, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to Trayvon Martin

"You notice also that the news media are doing to Dzhokhar what they did to Trayvon Martin. They're regularly showing a photo of Dzhokhar that was taken when he was about 14...soft, angelic, nice little boy, harmless... cute big lovable eyes. Not at all what he looks like today...The news media seem to be making him look like an innocent little angel who was totally willing to drive over his own beloved brother to try to get away from his killing spree."

5. May 6, 2013 - Obama bragging about killing bin Laden led to attack in Benghazi

"The Benghazi thing happened on 9/11. It's not supposed to happen because Obama has told everybody that al-Qaeda's on the run and we'd beaten terrorism, that bin Laden is dead. Therefore, what's happening can't happen...
Nobody stopped to think that maybe killing bin Laden and running around bragging about it, as Obama did, might stir something up on September 11th somewhere -- and it did. The Benghazi attack wasn't over a video!"

6. May 20th, 2013 - Obama won't be impeached because he's the first black president

“In my humble thinking, the people of this country, if it came to this, are simply not going to tolerate the first black president being removed from office, and if that's not gonna happen, the rest of this is academic."

7. July 8, 2013 - Being unemployed isn't so bad because people have food and a TV

“Some people have said that I sound like I’m a little cold-hearted about this. I’m not. Unemployment in America. You've got your car. The way to put this. The unemployed are still eating, and so what’s the problem? The unemployed have their cell phones. They have their cars. They've got their flat screens and food. Being unemployed is not what it used to be. When you were out of work, you were in dire circumstances. And your unemployment compensation didn't come close to substituting what you lost when you lost your job. No, I am talking about incentives. What’s the incentive to work? There isn't near enough the necessity, and I am telling you, you take away the notion of careers from the American jobs experience, or universe whatever you want to call it. This is massive, massive change that is not, in this case, good.”

8. July 22, 2013 - It's 'preposterous' to blame white people for slavery

“This white guilt, it’s time for all this white guilt to end...If any race of people should not have guilt about slavery, it’s Caucasians. The white race has probably had fewer slaves and for a briefer period of time than any other in the history of the world...Now, sadly, we’re not talking about the rest of the world when the civil rights coalition gets ginned up. They’re talking about America and slavery and that can’t be denied, it happened. But, compared to the kind of slavery that still exists in the rest of the world and has existed, by no means was it anywhere near the worst.”

9. July 23, 2013 - The middle class has never helped the economy grow, the rich have

"The president is going to say that prosperity comes from the middle out. 'Prosperity needs to come from the middle out rather than the top down.' Never mind that this has never, not once, worked. It has never succeeded, this formula of the middle class leading the economic rebound. It's not possible. The middle class benefits from it, but an economic recovery is not caused by the middle class. An economic expansion is not caused by the middle class. The middle class, by and large, are consumers."

10. September 5, 2013 - The Iraq war was not a mess, Obama just can't stop blaming Bush

"That's the Obama administration in a nutshell: "How do we blame everything on the Republicans?" James Carville was on O'Reilly last night. We got the tape. Blame Bush! You know why this mess exists? Is because Bush went into Iraq, and everybody hated it, and now nobody trusts Obama to do the right thing because of Bush. If Bush hadn't made such a mess of Iraq, then everybody would be totally supporting Obama, but everybody remembers what a mess that was.
Hey, James? Let me tell you the truth -- something you know, my friend. Iraq was not a mess. You guys made it a mess in the US media and in the halls of Congress, but it wasn't a mess. You guys made it that. You convinced people it was a mess. This is cowardice, to go back and keep blaming this on Bush."

11. September 9, 2013 - Rush asks women: Are free abortions and birth control worth your horrible jobs?

"Women have decided to invest their chances in economic prosperity in Democratic party politics instead of working in the private sector and being 'A' political. All of these groups "throwing in" with the Democrats are at the lower level of income level and highest level of poverty. Their median income are the lowest, we went through all of these numbers yesterday,
So ladies, I need to ask you a question. I'm serious. Given the story, let me give you this number again. Sixty percent of the increase of employment for women, 2009 to 2012, are jobs that pay less than $10 an hour. So ladies, and I ask this question, I don't mean to sound domineering, cause I'm not....
Has it been worth it? To get all your free birth control? And your free abortions? While you’re waiting tables?"

12. October 1, 2013 - Democrats are happy about government shutdown, they want the pain

"If you remember, the Democrats thought the sequester would turn the American people against the Republicans forever because it was shutting down the military and shutting down Medicaid, Medicare, shutting down various important government functions, and it's turned out that the sequester is painless. And so the Democrats want a do-over, and that's what all of this is (the government shutdown). They want the pain, and they want it blamed on Tea Party Republicans."