The Word: Rush Limbaugh thinks Batman is out to get him

Rush Limbaugh is like a cat on a diet — it’s best to ignore his constant whining and pawing until it’s truly impossible to read the paper in peace. Unfortunately, today is one of those days, so you’ll have to excuse us as we tune in to his thoughts on “The Dark Knight Rises.”

On his Tuesday radio show, Limbaugh laid out an impressive conspiracy theory, even for him: The villain of the latest Batman flick is named Bane, which he believes is a reference to Bain, the venture capital firm presumptive Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney worked for. Take it away, Rush:

“Do you think that it is accidental that the name of the really vicious fire-breathing, four-eyed whatever in this movie is named Bane?” he asked. “A lot of people are going to see the movie — and it’s a lot of brain-dead people, entertainment, the pop-culture crowd — and they’re going to hear Bane in the movie and they’re going to 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.'”

Rush, we’re going to excuse the brain-dead comment in the hope that it’s a zombie reference — we mindless pop-culture people like our zombies. But we also have to point out that the character of Bane first surfaced in the 1993 comic and also appeared in the 1997 film “Batman & Robin.”

Now, as for Heath Ledger‘s spectacularly, award-winningly deranged Joker? We can’t promise there wasn’t a little GOP inspiration there.

Keep this to yourself, Andrew Garfield

In other superhero news, “Spider-Man” star Andrew Garfield admits he’s developed a particularly destructive way to handle the stress of acting.

“When I’m working on something very intense — like [‘The Amazing Spider-Man’] was very intense to work on, believe it or not, and I’m doing a play at the moment which is very, very intense — whenever I’m not on stage I want to watch reality television,” he tells Total Film. “I want to watch, like, ‘The Voice’ or ‘The Bachelor.’ Don’t be surprised by that — it’s the greatest show on TV.”

Come together, right now

Roseanne Barr stopped by the “Late Show” Tuesday night to talk medical marijuana with David Letterman.

“One thing I want to say: Obama is trying to take our medical marijuana away over there in California, and he’s going to send in federal troops to get our medical marijuana,” says the comedian, who credits marijuana with helping her to control her infamous temper. “I’ll tell you this Obama: You get my joint when you pry it out of my cold, dead fingers!”

Now, finally, this is something that all of us — from Rush Limbaugh to Spider-Man — can probably agree on: Mr. President, we must keep Roseanne Barr sedated by any means necessary.