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Democrats Panic, Blame Racism

by Rush Limbaugh - Sep 17,2008

RUSH: Ladies and gentlemen, as you know, I tell you, the race business now is starting to really worry the Democrats and Obama. We have two examples, Jack Cafferty on CNN’s all upset. Why is he not ahead anymore? It’s about race, this is still a racist country. Kathleen Sebelius calls Republicans racist. The AP then changed the headline and the context of the story, take Republicans out of it, said some voters, Ed Morrissey tipped me to this last night from his blog, HotAir.com. And then Obama is being praised. This is why we’re in the catbird seat on this. ‘Catbird seat’ is the wrong way to put this. That inspires overconfidence. I don’t want people thinking that. But here, yes, look at the bumbling, fumbling, stumbling Obama campaign. Yesterday they have what handed to them on a silver platter? An economy that appears in all intents and purposes, the perception is that it’s heading south and we’re not going to bail out Lehman Brothers, we are going to bail out AIG, which means you people will be underwriting my insurance policy. How do you feel about that? You know how to fix AIG? You don’t put the government in charge of it, you don’t put the Federal Reserve, get Hank Greenberg back in there. Maurice Hank Greenberg made that institution what it is, and it was Eliot Spitzer that forced him out on false charges of nothing. Get the guy who built the company back in there.

At any rate, Obama has this golden opportunity to really hammer home the theme here that McCain, Bush, whatever, the current establishment, has just bollixed this all up. What does he do? He heads to Hollywood. I know it was long ago scheduled. He heads to Hollywood, he raises $9 million. It’s all over the news. I thought Obama was about the future, not the nineties, and not the Clintons. I mean you go out and you grab Barbra Streisand as your headliner, people’s memories of Barbra Streisand are at the White House when Hillary was away. He’s got all these Hollywood elitists and the pictures of the Hollywood crowd being driven in their Bentleys and their Rolls-Royces and so forth, raising $9 million. This is not good. There is a bit of an implosion going on. Polling data, there’s a polling outfit called FiveThirtyEight, and it’s run by a guy who is pretty much oriented toward the left, and in the Electoral College vote he takes a sample of all the polls that are out there, all the major polls that are out there and then runs an algorithm formula on his computer with certain weighting given to certain things, I don’t understand it. But the point is, he’s worried there because right now Obama is down like 52-47 in the electoral vote in terms of what the winning percentages of the presidential election would be, something along those lines or those numbers, and the race business coming up now and Richard Cohen, the Washington Post yesterday literally imploding against McCain.

Normally I wouldn’t mention Richard Cohen, but you put this in the cumulative stack of the crackup that’s happening, the meltdown with the feminazis and the traditional liberal establishment media, and it ain’t good out there. These people expected to be smoking McCain by 20 points now, and McCain’s either up or tied in several key battleground states as well as nationally. And they know this. Even Obama last night at his little deal in Hollywood. Let me tell you what he said. This is from the New York Times. ‘A lot of people have gotten nervous and concerned. Why is this as close as it is?’ This is what he’s telling the people that gave him nine mill last night. ‘A lot of people have gotten nervous and concerned. Why is this as close as it is and what’s going on? Well, we always knew this was going to be hard. This is a leap for the American people.’ What the hell’s that mean? It means he’s a leap for the American people. Damn right I know what it means. It means I’m not the guy that they see on the dollar bills, and it’s a big leap for them to elect somebody looks like me, with ears like mine. I know it’s a comment about his big ears.

He also said we always knew that this was going to be hard, this is a leap for the American people. What is this ‘we’ and the American people? We, who is ‘we’? His campaign staff? His elitist supporters? We always knew this was going to be hard? This is a leap for them, the American people. So Obama’s got himself up here on a pedestal, ‘you,’ the bitter clingers down there, you dunce racists, you bigots, you slobs. You just don’t understand brilliance in dictators when you see it. And he’s going to be a dictator. It’s coming up right after the break here, Obama’s got this two-minute ad that is an attempt to do an address to the nation. It’s actually a yawner. It will put you to sleep.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: There is a full-fledged panic mode, despite the fact that the daily Gallup tracking poll now has Obama up 47-45 over McCain, forget that. You go state by state it’s not looking good for The Messiah, particularly in these battleground states like Pennsylvania and Ohio and Florida and even Colorado. In Ohio, McCain, the Republicans were not even supposed to be competitive, because of all this so-called Republican corruption that led to their ouster in 2006. However, it’s not playing out, and this has caused, ladies and gentlemen, a lot of soul-searching and the wringing of hands in various sectors of the Democrat Party and the Drive-By Media. And they have concluded one thing: The only reason Obama’s not up 10 is because we are all racist, bigot, pigs, and they are now wringing their hands and lamenting this very fact as they see it. If it weren’t for the fact that Obama is black he’d be smoking everybody, but this country is still a bunch of racist slugs. Kathleen Sebelius publicly considered the possibility that Barack Obama’s race might be a factor yesterday. ‘Have any of you noticed that Barack Obama’s part African-American?’ Sebelius asked, in response to a question about why the election is so close? ‘That may be a factor. All the code language, all that doesn’t show up in the polls, and that may be a factor for some people.’ Code language?

How can it be code if we know the code? We know that black means black. When you see somebody black, you know they’re black. That’s the first thing Democrats, by the way, happen to notice about them. Now, there’s something interesting about this Kathleen Sebelius piece, ladies and gentlemen, that you don’t know. I was sitting at home last night in my fashionable oceanside estate, preparing today’s broadcast for you, when in my e-mail arrived a dispatch from my friend Ed Morrissey at HotAir.com. It turned out that the AP had originally run the Kathleen Sebelius story with the word ‘Republicans’ in the headline. The original story was, ‘Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius Accused Republicans on Tuesday of injecting race into the presidential campaign, arguing that they are using code language to convince Midwesterners that Obama is different from them.’ Because, you see, Midwesterners can’t see that. Midwesterners are not racists, and so you have to use code language to tell Midwesterners that Obama is black. This is what Kathleen Sebelius was saying. She said, ‘Have you noticed that Barack Obama’s part African-American? Republicans are not going to go lightly into the darkness,’ she said.

‘Sebelius was responding to a question from the audience at the Iowa City public library about the tenacity of Democrats and whether they would fight for victory as hard as Republicans. She didn’t elaborate on the comment.’ Well, they don’t usually elaborate because they don’t have any evidence of it. This is nothing more than a smear. It’s been shown thus by the Washington Post, ABC News during the summer. And while Obama whines about McCain’s supposed lies, the purveyor of hope and change has been throwing mud at McCain ever since locking up the nomination. Now, the original story from the AP, which they got rid of very soon, but Ed Morrissey kept it in a cache, ‘Sebelius Says GOP Using Racial Code Language.’ They took that down, but not before Morrissey kept it for us all to see, replaced it with, ‘Sebelius: Obama’s Race May be a Factor.’ In the revised story they took out all of her references to Republicans.

In the original story they quoted her accurately as saying Republicans were using code words to inform Midwesterners that Obama’s black, and they don’t want to go into the darkness. The Republicans are not going to go lightly into the darkness. So here’s Kathleen Sebelius, who apparently was thisclose to becoming the VP nominee, out there saying these crazy things. And then that’s not all. Jack Cafferty, ladies and gentlemen, on CNN: Will race be the factor that keeps Obama from the White House? ‘Race is arguably the biggest issue in this election. It’s one that nobody’s talking about,’ says Jack Cafferty. Really, Jack? You’re the news media arm of the Democrat National Committee. Sebelius is talking about it, Obama’s talking about it, Hillary was talking about it. You’re all talking about it! So here is Cafferty. We have audio of Jack Cafferty last night on CNN’s The Situation Room.

CAFFERTY: Race, arguably the biggest issue in this election, and it’s the one that nobody is talking about much. The differences between Barack Obama and John McCain could not be more well defined. Obama, relatively new on the scene, wants to change a lot of things in Washington. John McCain’s been there a long time. He is Washington, and very much a part of the George Bush legacy. And yet the polls are very close, which doesn’t make a lot of sense unless it’s race.

RUSH: See? Hey, Jack, could it be that the American people are a little smarter than you and Sebelius think? I didn’t hear that Barack approved that message. I did not hear, ‘I’m Barack Obama, and I approved this’ — I did not hear that. But that’s Jack Cafferty, commentator at CNN. They don’t understand it, folks, they just don’t understand it. He’s new, he’s fresh, he’s change, McCain’s old, he’s wrinkly, he’s got white hair, been in Washington all those years. It has to be race. It just has to be race. I love Kathleen Sebelius, Midwesterners, they need code language, code words in order to understand that Barack Obama is black. So there’s panic out there, ladies and gentlemen. And let’s not forget who first brought all of this racial stuff up. It was the left, Los Angeles Times columns, all kinds of places during the Democrat primary.

(playing of ‘Barack the ‘Magic Negro”)

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Charles in Atwater, California. Charles, nice to have you with us. Hello, sir.

CALLER: Yes, sir. Mega dittos, Rush.

RUSH: Thank you.

CALLER: Good to talk to you, man. I’ve really been a fan of yours for a long time.

RUSH: Appreciate that.

CALLER: I’m going to go ahead and get to the point ’cause I know you’re busy. I just wanted to express my discourse with the left-wing media and the Democrats, you know, basically dictating to me and people in my race what’s racism and when we should be offended. It’s sickening. I feel exploited by Democrats, and this from a guy who was raised to be a Democrat. Five years ago I married a wonderful woman who actually let me see the light and change my perspective on life, and now I am a proud conservative. But, you know, the comments by Jack Cafferty and what you said yesterday about — I’m not sure whether it was you or Sean, flashy now being a racist term, you know, where do they pull this stuff out of?

RUSH: That was me. That was me yesterday. TIME Magazine is who said this. TIME Magazine says the word ‘flashy’ is code word for racist when you talk about Obama being flashy.

CALLER: You know, one thing I want to go ahead and relay to not only black people, but minorities. These people are socialists, and if you look through history, socialism leads to communism, communism almost always leads to genocide, so don’t believe that these people are on our side. I strongly believe that they’re out to exploit and use us whenever they need a vote, and then once they get in office, they’re done with us.

RUSH: You’re exactly right.

CALLER: And I have no feelings towards Barack Obama being a great man or anything like that. I don’t think he is. I think he is, like you say, a canned politician. Give me a Clarence Thomas or a Colin Powell any day, if the person is going to be black. But don’t give me an empty suit who —

RUSH: Look, I totally agree with you. I’ll tell you what’s funny about this, and if you allow yourself to be offended by it, you’re going to be offended by it. The race of the candidate Barack Obama has been a self-contained Democrat Party issue throughout their primaries. The race card was constantly played by both Hillary and Bill and Obama. The subject, the issue of race was all raised by liberals. Obama, is he authentic enough, is he down for the struggle, does he have slave blood? These are questions that were genuinely asked. Is he the ‘Magic Negro’? It’s the left in this country that does identity politics. It’s the left in this country that decides somebody’s value to them based on whatever group they’re a member of. As long as they can make ’em victims they’ll love ’em, but people like you, Charles, who refuse to be made a victim because of your race, you’re not of interest to them. In fact, you’re an Uncle Tom, you’re somebody who needs to be discredited as well. The funny thing is they get away with this. It’s not people on our side of the aisle that look at people and first say, ‘Ooh, black guy, black girl.’

You know, the people of the conservative movement, Republican Party, we’re supposedly sexists. Who is it that’s got the woman on the vice presidential ticket this time around? It’s the Republicans, the sexists. The party that supposedly celebrates all these differences and loves women and feminism threw Hillary Clinton under the bus. Speaking of which, there is an important point I want to make. I don’t want to come off here, folks, as all knowing on this, even though you know I am. But I do have some thoughts on the fight ahead. How did Obama beat Hillary? Let’s get down to brass tacks. It happened in Iowa. That’s when this race was over. Everything that happened after that was almost academic. Obama went into Iowa, which is a caucus state, as a community agitator. And what did he do? He beat Hillary Clinton in Iowa by leveraging peer pressure at the caucuses. He couldn’t beat her when actual voting by the electorate took place because that happens in private. But in a caucus, your vote is public, everybody knows how you vote. Obama took the nomination by having his people show up at these caucuses and exert pressure, guilt, other kinds of political pressure on everybody there, the Democrats.

Now, I know this happened. It happened in several states. It happened in Iowa. There are people there who could tell you about this. There were no secret ballots. There’s a lot of public pressure. I bring this up to illustrate that we now know how Obama operates. He clears the field. He exploits white guilt. He withholds his records. He lies about his church. He lies about his friends and his past associations with radicals. Fair play and clarity have nothing to do with any aspect of his life. And the community agitator who clears the field, who will use whatever tactics to defeat Hillary in these last seven weeks, it’s going to get real serious, it could be a bloodbath because the community agitator will be forced to use real techniques. You watch.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: This is Obama yesterday afternoon in Golden, Colorado.

OBAMA: In January, I outlined a plan to help revive our faltering economy, which formed the basis for a bipartisan stimulus package that passed the Congress.

RUSH: He didn’t. This is totally made up. Even Democrats on Capitol Hill who support Obama say this is not true. He wasn’t even there for the vote on the stimulus bill. He did not have anything to do with it. Here’s McCain talking about it last night in Vienna, Ohio.

MCCAIN: Senator Obama is not interested in the politics of hope. He’s interested in his political future, and that’s why he’s hurling insults, making up facts about his record. Today he claimed the congressional stimulus package was his idea. That’s news to those of us in Congress who supported it. Senator Obama didn’t even show up to vote.

RUSH: That’s Senator McCain laying the truth on. This is not the first time he’s made things up like this, things that he did, things that he said, places that he’s been. There’s certainly nothing new about this. This is just standard traditional, by-the-book liberal Democrats. Oh. And, by the way, TIME Magazine, The Blog, and it’s by Michael Grunwald: ‘Obama and the Elephant.’ Now, a couple things preceding this. There’s a Queens professor named Andrew Hacker. He has a piece in the New York Review of Books called, ‘Obama: The Price of Being Black.’ It has some interesting information on affirmative action questions that will be on the ballot in several battleground states, might impact the vote. This Hacker piece, his last paragraph is really interesting: ‘Michael Tomasky has said that to win, Barack Obama ‘will need to build multiracial coalitions.’ What seems more needed, in my view, are two parallel campaigns: a quiet one to assure a maximum black turnout, and a more public one to make the most of the white backing the Obama-Biden ticket already has. His rallies, appearances, and advertisements would benefit from featuring white faces, and they should be accompanied by endorsements from white military veterans, union leaders, police chiefs, and firemen. His black supporters will know what is going on, and not take this as a rebuff,’ if he runs a quiet black campaign to assure maximum black turnout.

Now, race is the elephant in the room, another element to the story here, and this is Michael Tomasky in TIME Magazine. Well, actually it’s Michael Grunwald writing. It’s confusing. Andrew Hacker actually is the one that wrote this, but he’s bouncing off suggestions of two or three other people. The bottom line is that Obama needs to run two parallel campaigns. He needs to go stealthfully to black neighborhoods and states, cities, and so forth, ‘Hey, you know I’m on your side, but I gotta do a couple things here, I gotta make it look like — I can’t have you around, you people are going to hurt me, just know I’m with you, you know I’m one of you, we are one, but I can’t have you with me in my public appearances. I gotta have white people there.’ This is what he’s being advised to do by liberal academics. I know they did it throughout the primaries. We made note of it, very hard to find black faces in the camera shot that had Obama at the microphone or at the podium.