Rush Limbaugh: Obama Plagiarized Me In UN Speech (AUDIO)

Rush Limbaugh accused President Obama of plagiarizing him during his speech at the United Nations on Wednesday.

Obama's speech drew attention mostly for his insistence that the Palestinian delegation drop its attempt to be recognized by the UN as a fully independent state. Limbaugh, though, focused on what he seemed to think was Obama's overuse of some of his favorite aphorisms.

Apparently, Limbaugh wrote a 1988 column that contained his "35 Undeniable Truths of Life." (The full list is a very vintage document.) One of them, he said, was uttered "verbatim" by Obama at the U.N.: "peace does not mean the absence of war." (Technically, Obama said that "peace is more than just the absence of war.")

"I feel like I have been plagiarized," Limbaugh said. "...No, no! Of course he didn't credit me." He also accused Obama of cribbing from his 14th "undeniable truth," "to free peoples, peace means the absence of threats and the presence of justice."

Limbaugh said it was "almost like somebody in the regime read this and liked portions of it and lifted it for his speech."

Listen (via RightVid):

UPDATE:
A lot of readers pointed out that Limbaugh was far from the first (or last) to ponder the relationship between peace and war. Accordingly, we set out to find some people besides the radio host who have said things very similar to him.

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Comments

[bogo1203]

08:07 PM on 09/27/2011

Tell me about it. In 1995, on my live radio broadcast from Lebanon, NH, I once uttered the phrase "Yes, we can" when my producer asked if we could eat the jelly doughnuts that the morning guy left behind. I've been ripped about THAT one since '08.

[Southrnbelle]

07:51 PM on 09/27/2011

Why can't this guy just d.y.e. and put us all out of our misery?!?!?!?!?!?!!?!

[PerriCite]

11:09 PM on 09/27/2011

Hardly a scholar. The word is d.i.e not d.y.e. Do you know the difference?

[cptfunkadunk]

05:45 PM on 09/25/2011

Over 20 years ago, I uttered a Maxim that was completely obvious to a Freshman Poli-sci or History major. Now OBAMA comes along and says the same thing! The same! Obvious! Thing! I am a victim!!! I have been victimized by the Kenyan!!! How on earth will I ever be able to remove all the sand from my massive mangina?!?! How?!?!?

[wardropper]

08:51 AM on 09/25/2011

How can you plagiarize someone who says nothing...?

[PerriCite]

11:07 PM on 09/27/2011

What did you say?

[Mary Sue Mc Cormick]

03:51 PM on 09/24/2011

To golfnpaz...who believes that I must be as dumb as Obama....Thank you for the compliment! I know that YOU do not believe that the President is intelligent, but most of the world does.
I wish to give you a compliment also...I think that you are as intelligent as GW Bush! Did your daddy pay for your grades, too?

[PerriCite]

11:06 PM on 09/27/2011

Affirmative action comes in many forms.

[MadeinUSAJOBS]

03:13 PM on 09/24/2011

Poor little limbaugh, billy-boy and other right wingers must have figured President Obama was getting too much air time. Distactions will not work 60% of we the people know you are brainwashing the uneducated to make them think they are rich and do not want entitlements such as food stamps, verterans benefits, tricare, medicare, social security.

As more and more manufacturing jobs are destroyed by the republicans they will see they/their familes will need entitlements to survive but they are out there marching with the tea partyers saying CUT CUT my entitlements and the Radical republicans get on the house floor and say the People said Cut spending. I hope the bus trips, big parties with sarah palin Beck, Limbaugh, Hannity keeps you and your familys belly fed, healthy and housed.The rest of the American people are tired of paying for you red states when your republican senators and representative are bad mouthing government spending.

Have you heard them say cut the wars, the building of schools, roads etc inn Iraq and Afgan.or raise the taxes to pay for all that republican credit card debt that they borrowed from China.

No they yell too much spending, cut the entitlements they are not for the rich. but do not pay our credit card bills by raising the taxes on the rich, close loopholes, have tariffs, tax political activities, tax wall street, banksters, speculators, hedge fund managers tranactions etc.

[golfnpaz]

03:10 PM on 09/24/2011

I wish Obama would copy someone's good leadership ability. The dud just doesn't get it. He thinks just because he is Prez that he is a leader. He needs to head back to school!

[Mausinn]

07:11 PM on 09/27/2011

" He needs to head back to school!"

Your right, what will he ever be able to do with just a degree from Columbia University and a Harvard Law degree. He should have gone to Southeast Missouri State University and dropped out after two semesters like Rush did. Then he would be a success.

[PerriCite]

11:00 PM on 09/27/2011

Truth be told, Mr Obama's academic documentation is just as scarce as his birth certificate, long or short form. Look it up.

[Political Piggy]

03:06 PM on 09/24/2011

Sorry Mr. Limbaugh, but perhaps it takes a plagiarist to know a plagiarist. Observe just a few who beat you to it...in order:

"Peace is not an absence of war, it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice. Spinoza "Theological-Political Treatise" (1670)

"Peace is not merely the absence of war. It is also a state of mind. Lasting peace can come only to peaceful people." Jawaharlal Nehru (1889-1964)


“The absence of war is not peace.” President Harry Truman, Speech on Independence Day 1947

"True peace is not merely the absence of tension: it is the presence of justice." Martin Luther Kin, Jr. 1955 March on Montgomery

[Mary Sue Mc Cormick]

03:03 PM on 09/24/2011

Get a life, Ruskie! Why in the world would a man as brilliant as the President want to rip off a no-talent radio jock????

[golfnpaz]

03:29 PM on 09/24/2011

No way.... YOU DIDN'T SAY BRILLIANT DID YOU? WOW.... YOU MUST BE AS DUMB AS OBAMA!

[PerriCite]

10:58 PM on 09/27/2011

She was referring to the brilliance of a refrigerator bulb.

[Venice]

02:58 PM on 09/24/2011

Mr. Limbaugh makes a ridiculous claim. Peace is not just the absence of war is a common thought. I heard it in the 1960s. Pope John Paul II said it (while he was alive), as well as many others.

A Google search of the president's phrase returns about 45,000 results (used many times). Rush's way of saying it comes up more than 70,000 times.

Let Mr. Limbaugh know that Do Unto Others As You Would Have Them Do Unto You has also been used previously, in case he is thinking of putting that in his next book.

[chancho24]

02:45 PM on 09/24/2011

Now Rush IS the true narcissist.

[pearlx2]

02:32 PM on 09/24/2011

Rush Limbaugh is so sadly desperate for attention and love. His money cannot buy him the latter.

[PerriCite]

10:56 PM on 09/27/2011

In fact, money can buy both. Isn't that why most Democrats voted for Mr Obama?

[oldguru]

09:22 PM on 09/28/2011

Your moniker "parasite" is very appropriate. Like all righties, you have nothing to add to a conversation, you just take up space being useless.

[madisgp]

02:26 PM on 09/24/2011

But hasn't Rush been plagiarizing a room full of monkeys with typewriters every single show? Isn't that were he gets most of his material? Oh, but I'm sure he made them sign a wavier of some kind.

[golfnpaz]

03:11 PM on 09/24/2011

No.... Rush doesn't hang with Democrats!

[madisgp]

04:53 PM on 09/24/2011

Oooooo. Is that your version of the famous "I'm rubber and you're glue. Everything bounces off me and sticks on you." Brilliant. And about par for the course for a Rushbag Teapublican dunce.

[thankgodimanatheist8]

02:24 PM on 09/24/2011

According to ThinkExist.com"

http://thinkexist.com/quotation/the_absence_of_war_is_not_peace/147032.html

Harry S Truman said, “The absence of war is not peace.”

It does not give the date but given that Truman died in 1972 he must have used the term before RL.

Moreover:
Peace is not an absence of war, it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice. - Baruch Spinoza, in Theological-Political Treatise (1670).
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Peace

[Mister Serene]

02:33 PM on 09/24/2011

Rush ripped off President Truman! What was he thinking?

[FredSays]

02:23 PM on 09/24/2011

Dear Rush,

Your point is well taken and can be explained by the Infinite Monkey Theorem which states that a monkey hitting keys at random on a typewriter keyboard for an infinite amount of time will almost surely type a given text, such as the complete works of William Shakespeare. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_monkey_theorem

No one would compare you to a monkey. That would insult all primates. But, your incessant spewing of word salad eventually has the potential to construct, without intention your part, some combination of words that actually make sense. It's purely accidental, just like the infinite typing of a monkey. When that occurs, your alternate universe intersects, however briefly, with reality and leaves you startled and bewildered momentarily. Then comes the hallucination that someone rational shared an idea that only you were capable of vocalizing.

Believing that someone would plagiarize you is the height of delusion.

[PerriCite]

10:52 PM on 09/27/2011

Given this President's lack of a serious academic record, plagiarism is very likely.

[FredSays]

11:59 PM on 09/27/2011

I assume you're kidding or else just saying something stupid to get a reaction.

By the way, are you comparing Obama's academic record as a graduate of two of America's finest academic institutions (Columbia and Harvard) and head of Harvard's Law Review to Limbaugh's zero record of any academic institution or academic achievement? If so, you're being quite silly and revealing you own exquisite ignorance.

The funny thing is, Limbaugh's plagiarism claim is as preposterous as you comical statement. If anything, Limbaugh's "plagiarized comment" was by no means original, except in his own mind. To wit: "Peace is not an absence of war(, it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice)." Baruch Spinoza (1632 - 1677). And that sentence, while sagacious, is not so clever as to have not been used in essence by other speakers.

The long and short of it is, Limbaugh is merely a legend in his own mind. What a stupid, stupid man ... and his dittoheads are to be pitied for their purposeful lack of critical inquiry and thinking.

Thank goodness you're not one of them.