it is about race after all: Limbaugh: "[I]n Obama's America, The White Kids Now Get Beat Up With The Black Kids Cheering"

http://mediamatters.org/items/200909150023 By Greg Lewis Rush got things started today with the latest Drudge special, a story of an assault on an Illinois school bus, with Drudge's headline highlighting the potentially racial element of the event: "WHITE STUDENT BEATEN ON SCHOOL BUS; CROWD CHEERS." Rush ran with it, saying, "it's Obama's America, is it not? Obama's America -- white kids getting beat up on school buses now." Rush continued, saying we know it's racist because Newsweek's cover story this week was about studies showing people are born racist. Rush continued to hit on the racist theme: LIMBAUGH: We know that white students are destroying civility on buses, white students destroying civility in classrooms all over America, white congressmen destroying civility in the House of Representatives. [...] I mean, I wonder if Obama's going to come to the defense of the assailants the way he did his friend Skip Gates up there at Harvard. I mean, the assailants are presumed innocent due to the white racism we all know runs rampant in America. I mean, the drive-by media is ginning up all this criticism of Obama again today -- it's all based in racism, the criticism of Obama's health care plan or whatever. It's all based in racism. Rush then decided that if Obama was going to apologize for America all over the world, he might as well apologize for the "right reasons": LIMBAUGH: White Americans are racists who have created what they call free markets that really just enslave the rest of America and her trading partners. I mean, it was white Americans that ran off Van Jones. No, look, let's just follow Eric Holder's advice and not be cowards about all this. Let's have an open conversation, an honest conversation about all of our typical white grandmothers. You had one, I had one. Obama had one. They're racists just like our students are. ACORN -- hey, nothing but racism fueling the pursuit of ACORN. Rush went back to the bus-assault story, and said it can't possibly be a hate crime -- the cops are probably lying because they're "racist pigs" and the white kid "deserved it." Then Rush looked at a couple of polls on Obama's health care plans which Rush argued showed that Obama's speech last week failed. Rush then read a post on ABC's The Note about the bill being "squeezed" by partisanship. Rush was annoyed that ABC wasn't considering the idea that the bill is a "piece of crap" that nobody needs. Then Rush went back to today's theme of straw man accusations of racism by looking at the latest Kanye West controversy. Rush said there is racism going on in the demeaning of Kanye over what he did at the MTV Video Music Awards -- he was standing up for racial unity because his "sister" Beyonce didn't get the award. Rush said that Kanye is entitled to be egotistical and stupid, "just like" Obama. This brought Rush back to his main theme of the monologue, that the media is labeling any criticism of Obama as racist. To make his point, he aired an audio montage of various media figures saying that there is a "small minority" of the tea party protesters who appear to be racist in their opposition to Obama. Rush went on to suggest that Obama should replace Paula Abdul as a judge on American Idol, since "nobody wants" Ellen DeGeneres. With the suggestion from his producer, Rush threw Serena Williams into the mix. Rush said she got "screwed" by a line judge who was a racist. Rush went on to compare audio bites of Kanye on last night's Leno to when he said George Bush doesn't like black people. Rush suggested that Obama was "probably just jealous" of Kanye's communication skills when Obama called him a "jackass." After the break, Rush noted that Oprah's falling television ratings must be due to racism as well. He then read a Politico op-ed by "liberal" Jeremy Lott headlined, "So far, Obama's failing miserably." Rush was particularly gleeful about the headline, and the idea that the "liberal" Lott was calling Obama a failure. Rush said: LIMBAUGH: This is exactly what I had hoped for, but I'm not ready to proclaim him a failure yet. The libs are upset because he is failing. He is failing at fundamentally altering America in their view. This is why I wanted him to fail from the get-go, and I still do. And now the libs are starting to write about how, so far, he's failing miserable because he's not delivering on what they thought he was going to provide. After another break, Rush continued to read from the Lott piece, and then moved on to a storyabout tourists canceling their trips to South Carolina because of Joe Wilson. Rush contrasted this story with an American Thinker post about a Boeing factory in South Carolina voting to get rid of their union. Rush suggested going to South Carolina to "celebrate" this. Rush: "[W]e need segregated buses [...] This is Obama's America" Then Rush took a caller who said the local police investigating the bus assault said today the attack was not racially motivated. Rush responded to these developments put out by the local law enforcement: LIMBAUGH: I think the guy's wrong. I think not only it was racism, it was justifiable racism. I mean, that's the lesson we're being taught here today. Kid shouldn't have been on the bus anyway. We need segregated buses -- it was invading space and stuff. This is Obama's America. Changing subjects, the caller tried to bring up religion. Rush respectfully told the caller he doesn't like talking religion on his show, but went on to say that one of the great problems of the country is that we've lost sight of the religious nature of our founding. Rush said you can't have 1.3 million abortions per year and "not feel guilty about it" and not say we've lost one of our important roots to our founding. Rush came back from another break with an interview ABC World News anchor Charlie Gibson did with a local Chicago radio show, Don Wade and Roma, in which Gibson told the hosts he hadn't heard about the undercover ACORN videos. Rush played the audio of the radio interview and proceeded to taunt Gibson for not knowing about the story. Rush said if it's not in the New York Times, then "these elitist leftists" don't know about it. The second hour of his program began with Rush still on the topic of Gibson's radio interview, with Rush continuing to mock the network news anchor for not knowing about the ACORN story the conservative media has been running wild with for the past week. During his rant, Rush said that Obama "is ACORN," and that you "can't separate the two." Rush read a Hot Air post about the Senate voting to cut off federal funding for ACORN, and then turned to a Big Hollywood post about the "ladies of the ACORN video," which Rush read from at length. After the break, Rush said that Robert Gibbs didn't know about the 9-12 rally the day before it happened, and also claimed the White House press secretary didn't know about the ACORN videos. Then Rush took a caller who said ACORN is just replacing the mob in doing the work the mob is refusing to do. Rush said the caller's analogy was somewhat close, but insisted a more apt description was that ACORN is doing the work Obama is doing, but ACORN "got caught." The next caller brought up Kanye West, and Rush repeated that Kanye was entitled to call people racist, because according to Newsweek, "all white people are racist." Rush went on to say Kanye's actions on Sunday were justifiable when you look at it from his worldview, and then talked about Obama's half brother still living in a hut in Kenya. Rush also said that he wants Joe Wilson to be censured by the House today because then he would become the largest fundraising member of Congress "in history." Rush asks "serious question": "If homosexuality being inborn is what makes it acceptable, why does racism being inborn not make racism acceptable?" Returning from another break, Rush said he had a "serious question" based on the Newsweekcover story "saying racism is inborn.": LIMBAUGH: If homosexuality being inborn is what makes it acceptable, why does racism being inborn not make racism acceptable? I'm sorry -- I mean, this is the way my mind works. But apparently now we don't choose racism, we just are racists. We are born that way. We don't choose it. So shouldn't it be acceptable, excuse -- this is according to the way the left thinks about things. Anyway, Rush went on to read a Boston Globe article reporting on Obama's father's Kenyan hometown, and how the president's distant relatives have been hoping for financial help from Obama but haven't received any. Then, Rush took a caller who said Wilson ought to take advantage of the situation if he's reprimanded, and refer to Harry Reid calling Bush a liar, and Nancy Pelosi calling the CIA liars. Rush said he shouldn't stop there, and read a quote of Rep. Pete Stark calling Bush a liar from the floor of the House. One more break to close out the hour, and Rush said that the Kenyan town as described in theGlobe article sounds like a "green paradise." Rush described his idea for how the town can get funding for their proposed Obama family museum: LIMBAUGH: You know how to get that thing built? Here's what the village elders oughta do. They oughta say to the birthers in this country that they've got Obama's birth certificate and that they will put it display if somebody donates the money to start the building of the family museum. Would that not be -- the birthers! The birthers could build the Obama family museum. All the Kenyans would have to do is say "Hey!" And we'll put -- the first exhibit will be the birth certificate. (Keep in mind -- Rush himself used to be a birther, but has since tried to hide that fact.) Obama finished out the hour with an observation about Obama's speech in Pittsburgh to the AFL-CIO, commenting that Obama was trying to get middle class support for his plans by kowtowing to the unions. Then Rush seemed to walk back his wild crowd estimates of the weekend's 9-12 rally: "So the guesses are out there from 60,000 to one and a half million to two million; bottom line is that there is a buzz out there." Yesterday he happily and uncritically read baseless reporting that 2 million protesters showed up. Limbaugh comments on "Marxist" Obama speech to AFL-CIO: "Find a business in trouble, and you will find a union involved" Rush started off the final hour by reading an article about how East St. Louis will lay off 13 firefighters. Rush said they always lay off first responders first to get people worked up. Rush was also still "struck" by the Globe story about Obama's relatives in Kenya, and pleaded for Obama to just send them $10 thousand to get rid of the stories that he is a cheapskate. Moving on, Rush went to Obama's speech in Pittsburgh today, describing it as Marxism. Rush went on to play several sound bites from the speech, and said Obama is becoming an "insane laughing stock" for his speeches. Rush added that Obama has destroyed the middle class single handedly, and that unemployment was the fault of Obama's policies. After the final sound bite, featuring Obama saying it was "time to deliver" on health care, Rush responded by blasting unions: LIMBAUGH: Keep making speeches like this to your buddies, largely held accountable by the American people for many of the problems that we have here today. Find a business in trouble, and you will find a union involved. After the break, Rush joked some more about Obama's Kenyan family, then took a caller who cited research she argued conflicted with Newsweek's cover story about babies picking up on racism. Rush said the caller was wrong because Newsweek said babies are racists, andNewsweek is part of the state-run media. Rush again asked the same questions from the previous hour comparing supposed inborn racism to the idea that homosexuality is inborn. The next caller up talked about the ACORN tax preparers and argued that it's usually poor people, not rich people, who cheat on their taxes. The caller described her own experience as a tax preparer to support her claim, which Rush was eager to hear. Rush said that everyone thinks it's the rich who are tax cheats, but the ACORN "babes" were helping people on the video cheat on their taxes. After another break, Rush said Obama's multitude of television appearances is "like Castro": LIMBAUGH: There has never been a president like this. This need, this hunger to be on television every minute, to be on the cover of every magazine. This is a lust that is sick. We've never had a pre -- this is like Castro. Castro gives five-minute speeches -- five-hour speeches, Obama is doing the same thing today in three different locations, a total of five hours of speech or what have you to his buddies. Rush ponders: Maybe Obama's "half-white side" is racist Rush predicted that there would be nationwide vomiting on Sunday with Obama appearing on five of the Sunday shows. Then Rush said that while he watched last night's Patriots game, every time Tom Brady said "hut," Rush thought about Obama's half brother in Kenya. Rush completed this thought after the commercial break. Still wondering "why" Obama would refuse to help his half brother and other family members in Kenya, Rush pondered if it might have been racism from Obama's "half white side": LIMBAUGH: Maybe it's racism. No, no, I'm serious. Obama is half-white; maybe his half-white side is to blame here. The family's -- well, lookit, I'm at the bottom of the barrel here trying to come up with logical explanations here. And I'm just going on Newsweek, that we're all born racists, and Obama had a typical white grandmother, in his own words. Maybe the half-white side's winning out here. A dual battle going on inside the cranium there. After complaining about smoking bans and hand sanitizers, Rush took a final caller who said he had called Sen. Bob Casey's (D-PA) office to ask why he voted to fund ACORN. The caller said the staffer explained Casey didn't vote for funding, but voted not to revoke their funding. Rush called Casey an "order of fries short of a Happy Meal," and added that Casey really believes that ACORN is helping poor people. Zachary Aronow and Zachary Pleat contributed to this edition of the Limbaugh Wire. Highlights Outrageous comments LIMBAUGH: Greetings, my friends. It's Obama's America, is it not? Obama's America -- white kids getting beat up on school buses now. I mean, you put your kids on a school bus, you expect safety, but in Obama's America, the white kids now get beat up with the black kids cheering, "Yeah, right on, right on, right on!" And of course, everybody says, "Oh, the white kid deserved it, he was born a racist, he's white." Newsweek magazine told us this. We know that white students are destroying civility on buses, white students destroying civility in classrooms all over America, white congressmen destroying civility in the House of Representatives. And we can redistribute students while we redistribute their parents' wealth. I mean, we can just redistribute everything, just return the white students to their rightful place -- their own bus, with bars on the windows and armed guards. They're racists, they get what they deserve -- Newsweek magazine told us this, post-racial America. I mean, I wonder if Obama's going to come to the defense of the assailants the way he did his friend Skip Gates up there at Harvard. I mean, the assailants are presumed innocent due to the white racism we all know runs rampant in America. I mean, the drive-by media is ginning up all this criticism of Obama again today -- it's all based in racism, the criticism of Obama's health care plan or whatever. It's all based in racism. [...] LIMBAUGH: And so, you know, if he's going to apologize for America, Obama needs to apologize for the right reasons. White Americans are racists who have created what they call free markets that really just enslave the rest of America and her trading partners. I mean, it was white Americans that ran off Van Jones. No, look, let's just follow Eric Holder's advice and not be cowards about all this. Let's have an open conversation, an honest conversation about all of our typical white grandmothers. You had one, I had one. Obama had one. They're racists just like our students are. ACORN -- hey, nothing but racism fueling the pursuit of ACORN. [...] LIMBAUGH: This is exactly what I had hoped for, but I'm not ready to proclaim him a failure yet. The libs are upset because he is failing. He is failing at fundamentally altering America in their view. This is why I wanted him to fail from the get-go, and I still do. And now the libs are starting to write about how, so far, he's failing miserable because he's not delivering on what they thought he was going to provide. [...] LIMBAUGH: I think the guy's wrong. I think not only it was racism, it was justifiable racism. I mean, that's the lesson we're being taught here today. Kid shouldn't have been on the bus anyway. We need segregated buses -- it was invading space and stuff. This is Obama's America. [...] LIMBAUGH: If homosexuality being inborn is what makes it acceptable, why does racism being inborn not make racism acceptable? I'm sorry -- I mean, this is the way my mind works. But apparently now we don't choose racism, we just are racists. We are born that way. We don't choose it. So shouldn't it be acceptable, excuse -- this is according to the way the left thinks about things. [...] LIMBAUGH: This place sounds like a green paradise. They got water being delivered by donkeys, people living in thatched huts; there's no electricity. I mean, man, this place sounds like exactly what they're trying to turn this country into via green policy. The place must be paradise. But I have, I have -- and they're sitting around there, waiting to get -- land values are skyrocketing, waiting on the forthcoming Obama family museum. You know how to get that thing built? Here's what the village elders oughta do. They oughta say to the birthers in this country that they've got Obama's birth certificate and that they will put it display if somebody donates the money to start the building of the family museum. Would that not be -- the birthers! The birthers could build the Obama family museum. All the Kenyans would have to do is say "Hey!" And we'll put -- the first exhibit will be the birth certificate. [...] LIMBAUGH: The crowd estimates -- the arguments still continue to be made over how many people showed up in Washington Saturday. Ever since -- what was it, the Million Man March? For some reason, the Park Service stopped counting after some -- yeah, after the Million Man March, which featured the number 19 from calypso Louis Farrakhan, they stopped estimating. The Park Service says leave it up to the media to guess now. So the guesses are out there from 60,000 to one and a half million up to two million. The bottom line is that there is a buzz out there. [...] LIMBAUGH: Keep making speeches like this to your buddies, largely held accountable by the American people for many of the problems that we have here today. Find a business in trouble, and you will find a union involved. [...] LIMBAUGH: Ladies and gentlemen, Obama is making three speeches today. He has now booked on Letterman and five Sunday shows. He's doing every Sunday show except Fox News Sunday. I kid you not, three speeches today -- and speaking of the speech today, why is this guy having to whip up support like this with his best supporters, who have already been stimulated with stimulus money? Why is he giving this kind of speech now? The tone, the need to talk to a union crowd -- is he down to just the union kook thugs what will cheer him now? Does he think he's losing them too? There's nothing bipartisan about what he's doing. I mean, this is incredible. Now, this is like Castro. I'm not saying this halfheartedly or lackadasically. Five television shows this Sunday, Letterman he's booked on, three speeches today. You know what -- that's a great question. When does he -- you know what I would do? You know what I would do if I were Fox News Sunday? I would get a shrink. I would go get a psychiatrist. I'd have a panel of psychiatrists with the topic being, why does Obama need to be on television every minute of every day? There has never been a president like this. This need, this hunger to be on television every minute, to be on the cover of every magazine. This is a lust that is sick. We've never had a pre -- this is like Castro. Castro gives five-minute speeches -- five hour speeches, Obama is doing the same thing today in three different locations, a total of five hours of speech or what have you to his buddies. [...] LIMBAUGH: Still pondering here, ladies and gentlemen, because it is a big mystery why it is that Obama refuses to help his brother in Kenya living in a hut, and why he doesn't -- the family's been waiting with their hands out for four -- well, five years, since 2004, since he was first elected to the U.S. Senate. And not even a penny, nothing. And we're sitting here trying to think why. And one thing, obviously there's no magic in, you know, helping family members overseas. Maybe it's racism. No, no, I'm serious. Obama is half-white; maybe his half-white side is to blame here. The family's -- well, lookit, I'm at the bottom of the barrel here trying to come up with logical explanations here. And I'm just going on Newsweek, that we're all born racists, and Obama had a typical white grandmother, in his own words. Maybe the half-white side's winning out here. A dual battle going on inside the cranium there.

You can help support our work; become a volunteer media monitor, or donate to Media Matters for America.