It's true!  Limbaugh has proclaimed himself to be "a scientist."  In a recent show, Limbaugh pontificated on the fact that he was right, because oil-eating microbes have been discovered in the Gulf.

A few things about this story:

1.    Rush's Actual Opinion is Meaningless

Rush just looks at what everyone is saying, and chooses to say the opposite.  He insists on being contrarian, on being the Devil's Advocate.  That's just code for "jackass."  But just like a stopped clock, sometimes the contrarian opinion turns out to be correct.

In this case, Rush insisted all along that the massive oil spill in the Gulf was "no big deal."  That the ocean would "eat this stuff alive."  At the time, he had only the vaguest notion of what this meant.  Later, he was able to find some feeble facts to support this hypothesis.  No real shocker there.

2.    Rush Doesn't Hate Scientists - He Hates Science Reporting

Rush has absolutely no understanding of even the most basic scientific concepts.  For example, he seems not to understand that if you dilute something, it's still in the solution.  If I stir a spoonful of salt into a glass of water, the salt is dissolved… but it's still there!

He is constantly holding up news articles (like the one he mocks in this incident) and conflates them with what scientists have said. Now here's the thing: science reporting in this country is absolutely appalling.  But that is not the same as, you know, SCIENCE.

If Rush knew the first thing about anything, he would know that oil-eating microbes have been known to science for a very long time.  They have been documented at oil spills and at oil refineries since the middle of last century.  A population explosion of these microbes in the Gulf?  NOT A SURPRISE.

Unless you are the science reporter for the Associated Press, of course.

When Rush Limbaugh says "And even without a scientific education, without even scientific examination, just my own instincts called this long before these experts finally got into it" what he really means is "reporters."  The experts have known about these bacteria for decades.  BECAUSE THEY ARE EXPERTS.  That's how that works.

3.    You Can Tell, Because He Credits God

That's right.  Spill all you want: God will clean it up, just like your mama did when you were a little kid.  

(She was around to clean up your spills because it was the 1950s, a golden era in Rush's mind, and also it wasn't socially acceptable for women to work outside the home.  Rush frequently mythologizes the 1950s and 1960s, needless to say because he's white and male.  Those weren't great years for people who weren't white or male.)

So why bother?  Why worry?  Hakuna matata, dude!  God will sort it out, because he loves us and cherishes us, and doesn't care if we foul His creation with our sloppy work.  God's awesome that way.  I don't know why we even bother with safety protocols!  God will fix it!  Lucky for us, Rush Limbaugh has a direct line to God's Plan, so he can tell us what's what.

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