The media hyped Hurricane Irene, radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh said Monday, in coverage that seemed at times like a booster effort for the Obama administration.
“Politics is part of everything. The weather's been politicized; the climate's been politicized; hurricane track forecasts have been politicized,” Limbaugh said Monday, describing how he was in Hawaii when he feared the storm was headed straight for his house in Florida. "Now, you know how they lie and distort, but I'll tell you the hysterical reporting on this hurricane has exposed the media to many people who might not have really noticed it before.
Both Obama and the media were hoping for a disaster to revive his presidency and help prove climate change theory, Limbaugh said.
“I was over in Hawaii, and they said, 'Okay, Hurricane Irene,' and start the first tracks, and I looked at it because if it's gonna target my house I gotta leave Hawaii early and come home and get the family out. So I'm looking at it and, lo and behold, on the first day or two of the track, dead hit Palm Beach. I said, 'Okay, we're out of the woods. Ain't gonna happen.' I know damn well it is not gonna happen. They're gonna move that track, they're gonna be moving it east. I am looking at hurricane models and they've got the track on the far left side of the model guidance, they've gotta have this track over land, over populated areas to get people to pay attention to it. After Hurricane Katrina, everybody is just on politically correct alert, fearful."
Limbaugh especially chuckled at the prospect of former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, who presided over the city during the Katrina disaster, being used as a color commentator for a disaster that never materialized.
“Television networks went out and actually got Ray Nagin as a preparedness expert to advise other communities in the path of Hurricane Irene what to do to get ready. What's he gonna tell 'em? ‘Leave your school buses parked so that they get flooded?,’” Limbaugh said.
“The New York Times is trying to say that this violent hurricane is indeed indicative of global warming. It was a tropical storm when it left New York,” Limbaugh added. “I have friends in Connecticut. They were bull's-eye in the path and they're out there waiting for the winds and they're waiting for the winds and there weren't any winds and they finally went out and they staged some pictures of barely holding on to lampposts and so forth.
“There wasn't any wind. It was a rainstorm and there was a lot of flooding and there were deaths associated with it, but the hype, folks, I'll tell you what this was. It was a lesson, if you pay any attention to this, the hype, the desire for chaos, I mean literally, the media desire for chaos was a great learning tool, this was a great illustration of how all of the rest of the media in news, in sports, has templates and narratives and exaggerates beyond reality, creating fear so as to create interest. Anderson Cooper, I think we got sound bites somewhere, I got so many sound bites, no way I can keep track of what's where here, but there's a sound bite we have of Anderson Cooper in a light rain being told by Jacqui Jeras, the weather babe at CNN, that he is in the worst of the hurricane and he's like, ‘Really? I mean it's barely raining here.’ ‘Yeah, well, Anderson, you're in the worst of it there,’ and he can't believe it.
"Folks, it was a national embarrassment, the hype over this hurricane."