In an effort to work the refs in the upcoming presidential and vice presidential debates, Rush Limbaugh is painting the moderators as "far left-wing liberal Democrats." MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell explained in the latest Rewrite.

Conservative firebrand Rush Limbaugh is giving out advice to the Romney campaign on how to go after President Obama. MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell explains why in the Rewrite.

Rex Features/AP Photo

Tom Hardy as "Bane" in "The Dark Knight Rises"

UPDATED 2:50 PM ET ON WEDNESDAY: Right wing talk show host Rush Limbaugh is now insisting that he wasn't proposing a giant Batman/Bane/Bain conspiracy theory on his show yesterday. POLITICO reports, today he told his listeners:  

“I never said that the villain was created by the comic book character creator to be part of the 2012 campaign,” Limbaugh said, referring to Bane, who was created in 1993. “I never said that at all. And everybody’s out there running around, thinking I got this giant conspiracy.… I didn’t say there was a conspiracy. I said the Democrats were going to use it.”

Original post follows, including a transcript of what Limbaugh said yesterday. You can make the call.

Also, Rachel Maddow has responded to Limbaugh's attempt to spin this over on The Maddow Blog.

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Rush Limbaugh thinks the Obama campaign is working with Batman... no, really. Earlier today on his radio show, Limbaugh pontificated the following:

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?

Let's discuss a few things here. Firstly, Bane is neither fire-breathing nor four-eyed.

You'd also have to believe that in January of 2011 when Warner Bros. announced the villains for writer/director Chris Nolan's third and final Batman film, that was actually the beginning of a plot to try and keep Mitt Romney from making it to the White House. A plot that was somehow hatched nearly five months before Mitt Romney announced he was getting into the 2012 race on June 2, 2011. Or maybe the plot really began back in 1993 when Bane made his debut as the newest Batman foe in Batman: Vengeance of Bain #1.

This sounds like a mystery perfect for the pages of Detective Comics, the 75-year-old record-breaking comic title featuring... you guessed it. Batman.

Rachel Maddow gave us a fantastic take on this story on her show, tonight.

Romney campaign surrogate John Sununu half-apologized Tuesday for suggesting President Obama is un-American.

"Frankly, I made a mistake. I shouldn't have used those words, and I apologize for using those words," Sununu told CNN this afternoon. "I don't apologize for the idea that this president has demonstrated that he does not understand how jobs are created in America."

On a campaign conference call with reporters this morning, the former governor of New Hampshire railed against President Obama. He vented, "I wish this president would learn how to be an American." He quickly tried to walk back the comments on the same phone call. "What I thought I said but what I didn't say is the president has to learn the American formula for creating business," Sununu said, attempting to clarify his remarks.

But on Fox News, Sununu took another swing at Obama: He "has no idea how the American system functions, and we shouldn't be surprised about that, because he spent his early years in Hawaii smoking something, spent the next set of years in Indonesia, and when he came to the U.S. worked as a community organizer — which is a socialized structure — and then got into politics in Chicago."

So he apologized for the un-American line, yet stood by his accusations essentially calling Obama a stoner. If the druggie line is any indication, Sununu seems to have taken Rush Limbaugh's advice

To help fend off the Obama campaign's attacks on Bain, as we pointed out on The Last Word yesterday, Limbaugh recommended Team Romney "say, 'Look, pal, when I was out creating jobs, investing in businesses, and growing this economy, you were a Columbia smoking weed and snorting coke.'"

Today, the conservative talk show host applauded the former governor's efforts and offered up more tips on how to attack.  

Limbaugh reflected, "Sununu, in every one of his TV appearances, takes no prisoners. So I think Sununu has been appointed with the task of going out and performing the duties that I am suggesting need to happen. 'Cause that's it: "[I]n Hawaii smoking something.' He's doing it." He continued, "The only thing he left out was that Obama's been mentored, educated, bent and shaped by a bunch of communists. Marxists."

Screengrab of "Rush Babes for America" as proof this actually exists.

To combat attacks from a feminist group, Rush Limbaugh launched his own Facebook campaign geared toward women.

"Rush Babes for America," a.k.a. The National Organization for Rush Babes, is a cause "dedicated to the millions of conservative women who know what they believe in: family, American Values, and not being told by Faux Feminist Groups how to think," according to the Facebook description.

The hardcore conservative isn’t known for being an advocate for the ladies, per se — quite the opposite. Most recently, he cost his syndicators millions of bucks for calling graduate student Sandra Fluke a "slut" after she testified about birth control insurance coverage on Capitol Hill.

Limbaugh addressed this effort to stop him during his show on Tuesday. "I've been tired for a long time of these faux female groups, which are really nothing but groups of liberals," Limbaugh said. "The National Organization for Women is not a female organization.” He added, "And in reality, they represent a tiny number of highly-agitated activist types. They're basically miserable and unhappy women, for whatever reason."

On his talk show, he defended his use of the word "babe" in the title.

"Rush Babes is not demeaning or insulting of women in any way. It is an acknowledgment, ladies and gentlemen, that a proud conservative woman is innately attractive for their independence, intellect, or commitment to real values and doesn't mind being called a babe."

So far, "Rush Babes for America" has more than 55,000 "likes."

Sandra Fluke, the Georgetown law student Rush Limbaugh verbally attacked on the airwaves, joined The Last Word on Wednesday. She told MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell her policy points on health care coverage for contraception have been lost in the noise of the Limbaugh firestorm.

And she's anxious to get back to more important topics, like discussing “how this regulation will give American women affordable access to a basic health care need that they have" instead of dwelling on Rush Limbaugh's toxicity.

“I was always taught to stand up for others and what I believed in regardless of whether or not it was popular,” said Fluke. She credited her "relentlessly wonky" approach as giving her the ability to move on gracefully and push this issue forward.

MoveOn.org released a new national ad today, calling out Republicans for their recent nosedive into the field of women’s health and reproductive rights.

In the video, women quote GOP big wigs, like presidential candidate Rick Santorum ("A woman impregnated thorough rape should accept that horribly created gift") and temporarily ad-free radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh ("If we're going to pay for your contraceptives, and thus pay for you to have sex, we want you to post the videos online so we can all watch"). It hits these figures on their extreme viewpoints on women.

A MoveOn official told HuffPo the clip "is being released to coincide with GOP primaries in Alabama and Mississippi, two states looking to enact new measures attacking women's basic rights."

The debate over contraceptives has become an unexpected wedge issue in the 1960 2012 presidential campaign, and Democrats and progressives are looking to capitalize on it with female voters.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid spoke out against Rush Limbaugh’s extreme rhetoric today, calling the latest outburst “embarrassing to our country.”

“Even in the Rush Limbaugh world, there’s certain things you can’t say. And what brought his attention to this is lots and lots of sponsors of his program said, no more, you’ve gone too far,” Reid said in an exclusive interview with MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell. “Rush Limbaugh, each day that goes by, is becoming less credible with the American people.”

Rush Limbaugh offered another half-ish apology to Sandra Fluke, the Georgetown law student he called a “slut” and a “prostitute” on his show last week. She spoke before a congressional hearing in support of health insurance policies covering birth control, which riled up the conservative radio show host.

“We cannot have something like this take place, that’s embarrassing to our country.  It’s embarrassing to the Congress to have a woman who had something to say — she was invited to testify and was disinvited by an all-male group of people,” said Reid, a frequent political target of Limbaugh. “You can’t do that to women in America anymore.”

For the record, Fluke didn’t accept Limbaugh’s apologies. Reid also said putting a written apology on a website isn’t enough.

And with sponsors, it seems. At least 12 major advertisers pulled the plug on their sponsorship and two radio stations announced they’ll stop airing his show.

Reid says he doesn’t listen to his program and Limbaugh, a staunch conservative, doesn’t like the Democrat “for whatever reason.”

Reid didn’t go as far to characterize this as part of the so-called “war on women” with the recent uproar over contraception coverage, the failed Blunt amendment and Komen temporarily defunding of Planned Parenthood.

“Women are entitled for contraception, so their contraceptives of their choice. That’s what this was all about,” Reid told O’Donnell. “We should never run into the firestorm that we did, that people calling this fine woman, by all means.”

U.S. Senate

Fresh off a feisty debate with conservative firebrand Ann Coulter (way more on that tonight, don't worry), Lawrence O'Donnell sat down with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid today at the Capital.

The Last Word host asked Reid whether Democrats can retain control of the Senate, and what he really thinks of Rush Limbaugh after the radio show host's "slut" comments. The full interview airs tonight at 10pm ET.

U.S. Senate

Rush Limbaugh's attack on author Toure is in the Rewrite. MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell had details.

J. Scott Applewhite/AP

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan unveiling his 2012 federal budget today in Washington.

Congressman Paul Ryan's unveiling of the GOP’s 2012 budget has garnered reactions from all over. Ryan presented his highly-anticipated proposal today, and his Republican colleagues are giving it top praises. Never before have GOP priorities been so transparent.

The GOP is ascribing to what Robert Greenstein, President of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, described our show last night as "the most radical and extreme plan” he has ever seen.

"Thanks to Paul Ryan in Congress, the American people finally have someone offering real leadership in Washington," the former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty said in a statement. "President Obama has failed to lead and make tough choices his entire time in the White House.”

Speaker Boehner tweeted today, “We’re going to fight for the largest cuts possible — real cuts, not more smoke and mirrors.”

Every reaction to House Budget Committee Chairman Ryan’s budget proposal by anyone thinking of leading the United States will be heavily scrutinized, and their stance could come back to haunt them in the 2012 election. Hopefully, this budget showdown will bring new light to our ongoing debate about economic fairness and clarify politicians' priorities.

What do you think of Rep. Ryan's big budget overhaul? Tell us in the comment section below.

In lieu of Chinese President Hu Jintao’s state visit, conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh took it upon himself to mock the entire population of China during his radio show today. Rush was yammering on about Obama’s joint press conference, and how Hu's speech was not being translated. So Rush thought it best to offer his own version of the Chinese leader’s speech.