Out of context

Rush Limbaugh: Mars remarks were taken out of context

By Eliza Collins

Rush Limbaugh took a swipe Tuesday at POLITICO and others who had reported on his recent comments about the discovery of water on Mars — saying that his remarks about how NASA's findings would be used to "advance a leftist agenda" were being misinterpreted.

“POLITICO has a story: 'Rush Limbaugh Pans Evidence of Water on Mars as Part of Leftist Agenda,' and they take it out of context, too, which is typical,” he said on his show Tuesday. “I don't think this guy, Eliza Collins... I doubt that he went to my website to find out what I really said. Just looked at these 'watchdog' websites and took it from there.”

On Monday, POLITICO wrote about a lengthy segment of the conservative radio host’s show in which he predicted that the Mars discovery would be used to promote liberal views about climate change.

“Don't know how long it's going to take, but this news that there is flowing water on Mars is somehow going to find its way into a technique to advance the leftist agenda,” Limbaugh said.

The original story on POLITICO cited a transcript and video of Limbaugh from the left-leaning website Media Matters, a long-time critic of the radio host that has called on advertisers to boycott his program. A transcript posted on Limbaugh's own website, however, matches Media Matters' version word for word.

“This Mars thing is just totally all over the place out there, and every one of these people talking about it, from local TV news, say, in Dallas, or The Politico, are getting it totally out of context from our old buddies at Media Matters for America, which wouldn't know the truth if it knocked them unconscious,” Limbaugh said Wednesday.

It's not clear, however, how exactly Limbaugh felt he was being misinterpreted. A spokesman for the radio host declined to elaborate.

On Wednesday, Limbaugh repeated his doubts about the scientific validity of the Mars finding, and also suggested that the timing of NASA's announcement was an attempt to capitalize on the publicity surrounding "The Martian," a new movie starring Matt Damon.

"What do you bet in this movie that fierce storm is related to climate change? I haven't seen the movie," Limbaugh said. "But here's the thing. I don't think so much NASA was -- well, they might be timing the release of the news to support the movie. Actually, it's probably true. But more than that, NASA wants to go to Mars, and Obama's turned NASA over to Muslim outreach, in case you've forgotten. NASA wants the money to go to Mars. It makes total sense in the world that they would time, NASA, the release of, "Look what we found! We found flowing water on Mars, oh, my God, there could be life, oh, my God, we gotta go, we gotta go, we gotta go."

"There is an agenda attached to it and they've got to try to discredit anyone — in this case, me — who is attempting to attach whatever they're doing with Mars and the news they're reporting to the Democrat leftist agenda, which of course is climate change," Limbaugh said.