Taking his cue from a Washington Times editorial, syndicated radio commentator Rush Limbaugh attacked The Dark Knight Rises, asking rhetorically, "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?"

 

Business Insider quotes Limbaugh making the connection between a movie with a villain named Bane and the Democrats’ attempt to identify Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney with the company he founded, Bain Capital, "So this evil villain in the new Batman movie is named Bane.  And there’s discussion out there as to whether or not this was purposeful and whether or not it will influence people.  The audience is going to be huge.  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 it with 'Bain.'"

 

Limbaugh continued, "The thought is that when they’re going to start paying attention to the campaign later in the year, and Obama and the Democrats will keep talking about 'Bain,' not 'Bain Capital,' but ‘Romney and Bain,' so these people will start thinking back to the Batman movie, 'Oh yeah, I know who that is.'"

The Bane character was publicly known to be the villain in The Dark Knight Rises in January of 2011 (see "Hathaway is Catwoman"), around 16 months before Romney clinched the Republican nomination.