Rush Limbaugh really is, to borrow a line from Al Franken, a big, fat idiot.
The Republican mouthpiece sees a Democratic conspiracy in Christopher Nolan's final installment of the Batman franchise. And that conspiracy is named "Bane".
Now, I'll admit, I was a bit perplexed when Nolan selected Bane to be one of the bad guys in Dark Knight Rises. He's not one of the Batman's better villains. But he is the character who broke the Batman - so it tells me something of what to expect from the movie.
And at some point, the thought did occur to me that the conspiracy theory-minded Right Wing might see the villain Bane as somehow connected to Republican Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney's former company Bain. But nah, I thought. They aren't that paranoid. They aren't that stupid.
Nope.
Rush Limbaugh has once again become a laughing stock. This time, it's because he alleged on his radio show:
Have you heard this new movie, the Batman movie, what is it, The Dark Knight Lights Up or whatever the name is. That's right, Dark Knight Rises. Lights Up, same thing. Do you know the name of the villain in this movie? Bane. The villain in The Dark Knight Rises is named Bane, B-a-n-e. What is the name of the venture capital firm that Romney ran and around which there's now this make-believe controversy? Bain. The movie has been in the works for a long time. The release date's been known, summer 2012 for a long time. Do you think that it is accidental that the name of the really vicious fire breathing four eyed whatever it is villain in this movie is named Bane?
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So, anyway, this evil villain in the new Batman movie is named Bane. And there's now a discussion out there as to whether or not this is purposeful and whether or not it will influence voters. It's gonna have a lot of people. This movie, the audience is gonna be huge. A lot of people are gonna see the movie, and it's a lot of brain-dead people, entertainment, the pop culture crowd, and they're gonna hear Bane in the movie and they're gonna associate Bain. The thought is that when they start paying attention to the campaign later in the year, and Obama and the Democrats keep talking about Bain, Romney and Bain, that these people will think back to the Batman movie, "Oh, yeah, I know who that is." (laughing) There are some people who think it'll work. Others think you're really underestimating the American people to think that will work.
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You may think it's ridiculous. I'm just telling you this is the kind of stuff the Obama team is lining up.
I'd like to think Christopher Nolan is laughing his ass off, high-fiving friends, and collecting winnings from bets. But in reality, he's just very confused by Limbaugh's comments, saying:
"I'm not sure how to address something that bizarre, to be honest. I really don't have an answer for it, it's a very peculiar comment to make."
Star Morgan Freeman called Limbaugh's claim "...ridiculous. ... Chris wrote a fictional story that didn't have any political thoughts in mind, so it's like art or something you know, it's all in the mind of the beholder."
Bane, the Batman villian, first appeared in Batman: Vengeance of Bane #1 in 1993. He's supersmart and uses a drug called Venom to enhance his strength to superhuman levels. He ended up snapping Batman's spine in the comic book series. But as these things go, it turns out Batman was only mostly paralyzed.
Limbaugh has since tried, somewhat unsuccessfully, to walk back his own dumbassery.
Source1.
Source2.
Source3: The DC Comics Encyclopedia