http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=1BE5120D-1037-4BC6-8607-F54A47CA00B6 Rush: London's ceremony 'socialist'
By: Kevin Robillard
July 30, 2012 04:30 PM EDT
Friday’s Olympic opening ceremony in London was “more socialist” than the Beijing version four years ago, and a tribute to the National Health Service included in the performance was “done on behalf of” President Barack Obama, Rush Limbaugh claimed on Monday.
“Of all the things that you want to honor,” he said on his radio show. “I mean, the people of Great Britain don’t even like the National Health Service! And then it hit me, and then it hit me. It was actually done on behalf of President Kardashian. They did it for Obama. Nobody will convince me otherwise.”
A poll of Britons in June found 58 percent approved of the NHS, the United Kingdom’s universal, publicly run health care program. That number was down from 70 percent the year before.
Limbaugh called film director Danny Boyle, who directed the ceremonies, a “big leftist.” The performance featured actual NHS nurses.
In response to a question from a caller, Limbaugh said the London ceremony was “more socialist” than the performance to open the 2008 games in China “because a free people willingly gave up.”
“Of all the things of historical note in Great Britain, United Kingdom, the things they chose to highlight about themselves in that opening ceremony scared me more, because that’s a free people basically honoring socialism and collectivism,” he said, according to a transcript. “The [Chinese] people had no choice. They are under orders and under guns. In the U.K., a free people decided to do it.”
The conservative host also accused NBC, which broadcast the ceremony, of leaving out a tribute to the victims of the 7/7 attacks in London because the news organization “didn’t want to cover a part of the opening ceremony that would remind people of Islamic terrorists. So that was cut out.”
In a statement about the edit, NBC cited broadcast restraints and the U.S. television audience.
