Rush vs. Batman: Limbaugh sees liberal conspiracy in movie villain named Bane


Put this one in Rush Limbaugh’s greatest hits collection. Now he’s seeing liberal conspiracies in the new “Batman” movie, “The Dark Knight Rises.”

On his show this week, El Rushbo pointed out that the villain in the new flick, which opens Friday is called “Bane.” As in it sounds like “Bain”…as in “Bain Capital,” the sweet spot for the past many months of attacks from Obama supporters — and Romney’s fellow Republicans in the primary. Did we all forget that the pro-Gingrich super PAC paid to air a 27-minute documentary slamming Romney’s Bain tenure?

But to Rush, it is only a liberal conspiracy. Said Rush:

“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?”

Stick with Rush here, because he’s about to leap the Logic Gap:

“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.”

We don’t doubt for a second that once this latest “Batman” becomes a megahit, Democratic operatives will be making Bane/Bain references with such regularity that you’ll want to hurl. We’ll bet the price of a 3-D movie ticket on that.

That said, there are (at least) two problems with Rush’s liberal conspiracy theory/way to kill three hours every morning:
1. The Bane character was created in 1992…about a year before Mitt Romney was even thinking of starting his unsuccessful Senate campaign in Massachusetts. He — Bane, not Romney — debuted in 1993.
2. The Bane character was created by a CONSERVATIVE, Chuck Dixon.

“Graham and I are both staunch conservatives, so from our angle there is no liberal agenda,” Dixon said, name-checking his partner Graham Nolan.

“It’s ridiculous. Obviously Bane was not created as an attack on Mitt Romney. We never heard of Romney twenty years ago,” Dixon told the nationally syndicated “Schnitt Show” Tuesday.

Besides, Dixon said the comparison between Bane and Romney doesn’t work. “My understanding is that Bane is more of an Occupy Wall Street type. Romney is more like Bruce Wayne.”

The big winner here: Dixon, who hears the cash register ring anytime Bane is used. “He’s been my own Bane Capital!