{"id":35858,"date":"2010-07-12T01:01:01","date_gmt":"2011-05-19T00:50:10","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2011-05-19T00:50:10","modified_gmt":"2011-05-19T00:50:10","slug":"setting_record_straight_on_obama_and_race_for_howard_kurtz_of_cnn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2010\/07\/12\/setting_record_straight_on_obama_and_race_for_howard_kurtz_of_cnn\/","title":{"rendered":"Setting Record Straight on Obama and Race for Howard Kurtz of CNN"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

RUSH: Now, remember last week, ladies and gentlemen, I took grief — and I take grief all the time. In fact, I love grief. Grief is part and parcel of my professional life. And last week I made a comment out there that — in fact, Mike, 11 and 12 and 13, yeah, let\u2019s do this right because we\u2019re gonna set this up. I\u2019m gonna remind people of some things. I\u2019m gonna set this up with the audio because Howard Kurtz, who is better than this, Howard Kurtz either was lazy Sunday and let a typical CNN producer put together a segment, or else Howard Kurtz has changed and has become a genuine activist looking to get it wrong for the purposes of advancing a narrative and template, which is that conservatives like me are a bunch of racists. This was on CNN\u2019s Reliable Sources yesterday morning.<\/p>\n

KURTZ: Now, Rush Limbaugh also loves to stir controversy, by design. And this week, he talked about the president and made a bit of news. Let\u2019s take a listen.<\/p>\n

RUSH ARCHIVE: That\u2019s exactly the same thing you could say about Obama. He wouldn\u2019t have been voted president if he weren\u2019t black. Somebody asked me over the weekend why does somebody earn a lot of money, have a lot of money? I said because he\u2019s black. If Obama weren\u2019t black, he\u2019d be a tour guide in Honolulu or he\u2019d be teaching Saul Alinsky constitutional law or lecturing on it in Chicago.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Now, those of you who were listening last week who heard that know full well that that\u2019s the second half of something I said. You hear how this started. ‘That\u2019s exactly the same thing you could say about Obama.\u2019 Who am I talking about there? As you\u2019ll hear in a moment I was talking about Cynthia Tucker as she was making racist comments about Michael Steele. Let\u2019s keep going with the audio. Howard Kurtz then talks to political columnist Roger Simon about me and my remark about Obama.<\/p>\n

KURTZ: And of course here we are talking about Rush, but did you find those comments to be more than just the usual Limbaugh rhetoric? <\/p>\n

SIMON: Meaning did I find them to be racist and repugnant? Yeah, I found them to be racist and repugnant.<\/p>\n

RUSH: And then Howard Kurtz finally says, ‘Roger, let\u2019s keep going. Why do you think they were racist?\u2019<\/p>\n

KURTZ: Why racist? Can a case be made just on part of this that if Obama was a white freshman senator he wouldn\u2019t have beaten Hillary for the nomination? <\/p>\n

SIMON: I think anyone who beat Hillary for the nomination had something going for him besides race. Let\u2019s be fair, his race was not going for him. We only said that after he won. He had to win in states where there was almost no black population. If he had lost in Iowa, the first Democratic contest, he would have been through. There are no black people in Iowa. He convinced white people that he really was an agent of change.<\/p>\n

RUSH: This is not altogether true, Mr. Simon. We\u2019re now learning from Gigi Gaston, who is a Democrat activist — this was on Fox News Sunday yesterday morning — she started out putting a documentary together to prove there wasn\u2019t any voter fraud in the Democrat primaries of 2008 and she found out there was all kinds of Democrat voter fraud on the part of the Obama campaign, and specifically, Mr. Simon, in Iowa. Ms. Gaston documents that the Obama people locked the Hillary people out of the cauci locations. They simply locked the doors. Everybody was, ‘How the hell did Obama pull off this Iowa caucus thing?\u2019 Because that\u2019s the launch and Mr. Simon here mentions it, and Ms. Gaston, who says she can\u2019t get coverage of her documentary anywhere but on, of all places, Fox News. She recounts all kinds of voter fraud on the part of the Obama campaign aimed at Mrs. Clinton. And Iowa was one of those places. <\/p>\n

So Kurtz says, ‘Why racist? Can\u2019t a case be made just on part of this that if Obama was a white freshman senator, he wouldn\u2019t have beaten Hillary for the nomination?\u2019 Now, what spawned all of this? This is where I\u2019m actually kind of surprised at Howard Kurtz because whenever the media has joined these out of context, erroneous, made-up narratives on how I\u2019m a racist, Kurtz has never done that. Now all of a sudden he airs a piece, but what did he leave out? Let\u2019s go back, cut 11 here that I played, it starts with me saying, ‘That\u2019s exactly the same thing you could say about Obama.\u2019 So obviously I\u2019m responding to something, but Kurtz either knew it and ignored it or didn\u2019t know it and got befuddled by one of the CNN producers. Here is the entire sound bite from last Tuesday, and you will hear that a full 65% of this sound bite was not aired by Howard Kurtz.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Cynthia Tucker, ABC\u2019s This Week Sunday roundtable, they discussed Michael Steele. And, by the way, this woman is the editorial director of the Atlanta Urinal and Constipation, and she has been for a long, long time. Cynthia, you once called Michael Steele an affirmative action hire gone bad. What is your take — by the way, she can say this because she\u2019s African-American. Here\u2019s what she said.<\/p>\n

TUCKER: Michael Steele is a self-aggrandizing, gaffe-prone incompetent who would have been fired a long time ago were he not black. Of course the irony is that he never would have been voted in as chairman of the Republican Party were he not black.<\/p>\n

RUSH ARCHIVE: Same with Obama.<\/p>\n

TUCKER: It is very ironic —<\/p>\n

RUSH ARCHIVE: Stop the tape just a second. That\u2019s exactly the same thing you could say about Obama. He wouldn\u2019t have been voted president if he weren\u2019t black. Somebody asked me over the weekend why does somebody earn a lot money, have a lot money, I said because she\u2019s black. It was Oprah. No, it can\u2019t be. Yes, it is. There\u2019s a lot of guilt out there, let\u2019s show we\u2019re not racists, we\u2019ll make this person wealthy and big and famous and so forth.<\/p>\n

RUSH: So a full 65% of that sound bite didn\u2019t air on CNN. And you know they had it because they had to edit it. Same with Obama. Same with Obama. You heard Cynthia Tucker, Michael Steele wouldn\u2019t be where he is if he weren\u2019t black. So I simply said, ‘Yeah, you could say the same thing about Obama.\u2019 But they at CNN present this as though I originated the thought. But here is the piece de resistance. March 11th of 2008, a big scoop from the Los Angeles area Daily Breeze. Geraldine Ferraro — and you\u2019ll remember this — ‘Obama\u2019s lucky he\u2019s black.\u2019 Geraldine Ferraro said, ‘If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position,\u2019 meaning, to get the Democrat nomination. ‘And if Obama was a woman of any color he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is.\u2019 That\u2019s Geraldine Ferraro. And they took her to task. She\u2019s on Fox, of course. And she defended it, she defended again in the Daily Breeze: Ferraro defends controversial comments on Barack Obama, March 11th of 2008, the writer of the story, Gene Maddaus. <\/p>\n

‘Any time anybody does anything that in any way pulls this campaign down and says let\u2019s address reality and the problems we\u2019re facing in this world, you\u2019re accused of being racist, so you have to shut up. Racism works in two different directions. I really think they\u2019re attacking me because I\u2019m white. How\u2019s that?\u2019 And then she said, ‘In all honesty, do you think that if he were a white male, there would be a reason for the black community to get excited for a historic first? Am I pointing out something that doesn\u2019t exist?\u2019 said Geraldine Ferraro. ‘Obama campaign manager David Axelrod called Ferraro\u2019s comments part of an ‘insidious pattern\u2019 of remarks from Clinton supporters that have drawn attention to Obama\u2019s race. ‘When you wink and nod at offensive statements, you\u2019re really sending a signal to your supporters that anything goes.” And Ferraro said, ‘Sexism is a bigger problem. It\u2019s OK to be sexist in some people\u2019s minds. It\u2019s not OK to be racist.\u2019<\/p>\n

So once again, Mr. Kurtz and all the rest of you in the Drive-By Media, what you had from me was reacting to comments made by others. Cynthia Tucker is no longer with the Atlanta Urinal and Constipation. I guess she\u2019s a consultant at ABC or whatever, paid to show up and pundit, opine. ‘Michael Steele, he wouldn\u2019t be chairman of the Republican Party if he weren\u2019t black.\u2019 I said, ‘Hey, you could say the same thing about Obama.\u2019 And Bill Clinton a few months ago, said, (imitating Clinton) ‘You know what? If these were normal, sane times, Obama would be bringing us coffee.\u2019 Bill Clinton said this. I forget if it was during the campaign or if it was afterwards, probably during the campaign. (imitating Clinton) ‘Oh, yeah, Obama, he\u2019d be bringing us coffee.\u2019 And yet Mr. Kurtz fails to find Ferraro\u2019s comments, fails to air Cynthia Tucker\u2019s comments which were part of the sound bite on me he did air. <\/p>\n

So once again a virtual smear, veritable smear done on purpose. The thing that surprises me is that Howard Kurtz has never done anything like this before, not to me, anyway. I don\u2019t know about other peoples he\u2019s covered. But I wanted to set the record straight. I am by no means the first person to say if Obama weren\u2019t black he wouldn\u2019t be president. Geraldine Ferraro said it first and then Bill Clinton echoed it, and then Cynthia Tucker said Michael Steele wouldn\u2019t be chairman of the Republican Party if he weren\u2019t black. So once again your host, El Rushbo, simply commenting on the news, commenting on the comments that others have made. <\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: By the way, just for you to be able to hear it in her own words, March 7th, 2008, Torrance, California, newspaper the Daily Breeze, Democrat Geraldine Ferraro.<\/p>\n

FERRARO: If Barack Obama were a white man, would we be talking about this as a potential real problem for — for Hillary? If he were a woman of any color, would he be in this position that he\u2019s in? Absolutely not.<\/p>\n

RUSH: That\u2019s two years ago, 2008. And she was raked over the coals for saying this. And she came back and defended herself. ‘What\u2019s wrong with what I said? There\u2019s nothing racist about it. I happen to think it\u2019s true,\u2019 she said. She may have a point. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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