RUSH: Fairfax, Virginia. Hi, Jeff, you’re up.
CALLER: Hey, Rush. I’m gonna agree with you that, uh, Barack Obama’s been a coward on race. He hadn’t said anything meaningful about race in forever. Even his ‘race speech’ didn’t say anything about how black people are treated in this country. What I’m gonna disagree with you on is your characterization of the right as not being racist or Tea Parties as not being racist, and I don’t make that allegation lightly. You’re the leader of the Tea — Tea Party movement. I’ve been to a number of rallies, I’m a Democratic activist myself, and I listen to your show a lot. I’ve heard ‘Barack the ‘Magic Negro,” as if that’s somehow funny or okay. I’ve heard you do skits about ‘spades and hos.’ I’ve heard you go after Donovan McNabb, your interstitials about Ron Artest where you say nothing about the rapist Roethlisberger or Mark Chmura (1993-1999) or the white rapist football players. Uh, if you didn’t talk so much about Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson they’d be footnotes in history by now. Nobody would know who they are.
RUSH: Now, now, wait a minute. This has gotten more and more unbelievable as your litany has gone on and on. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton would be footnotes in history were it not for me? I’m not the ‘leader of the Tea Party.’
CALLER: I haven’t seen Jesse Jackson on television in years.
RUSH: Oh, they’re on television all the time! They are favored media figures. These guys have the stamp of approval of the Drive-By Media, and I am not the leader of the Tea Party. I have never been to a Tea Party rally. I’ve never organized one. I don’t know when the next one is.
CALLER: Well, there is a contest between you and — you and Glenn Beck. I mean, uh, I’ve been to a number of them, and they love you both. I — I don’t know who they love more. (snickers) And I — I mean I —
RUSH: Well, I don’t know what —
CALLER: — take that as an insult if I were you because I think you’re much better than Glenn Beck is, but, uhh — the truth is, you are a leader, whether you like it or not, your actions have made you a leader. What you do every day. You’re one of the most talented personalities in America.
RUSH: Well, that’s true.
CALLER: I’m sure you agree with that, but you’ve made yourself the leader, not only amongst Tea Partiers but amongst the, uh, Republican Party. How many Republican politicians have called into your show to apologize to you when you’ve, uh, taken offense at some of the things I’ve said?
RUSH: Maybe two.
CALLER: Maybe two? (snickers) I know Phil Gingrey, uh, Darrell Issa off the top of my head. What two were you thinking of?
RUSH: Those two. There haven’t been any others.
CALLER: Oh, that — that — I —
RUSH: You know, you are attacking me for —
CALLER: I’m not! I’m praising you for —
RUSH: You are attacking me for doing what Eric Holder said we don’t have the guts to do. I have the courage to talk about race. I also have the courage to make fun of liberals who happen to be black who are just as funny, just as guilty of hypocrisy as anybody else is, but somehow because they’re black, they seem to be off-limits or untouchable.
CALLER: I hate to break this to you, Rush, but hate is cowar-dice. (sic) That’s not courage.
RUSH: Well, there’s no ‘hate’ here. Give me an example.
CALLER: There absolutely is. When you —
RUSH: Give me an example. You know, you guys define ‘hate’ as anything you disagree with.
CALLER: Why is it okay to say — to — to — to characterize, uh, Michelle Obama or insinuate that she’s a ho? Why is that okay in America today?
RUSH: Uhhhh, when did I do that? When did I insinuate that?
CALLER: Is that funny?
RUSH: When did I say she’s a ho?
CALLER: When Hillary Clinton said something about Barack Obama has not done the spadework, you went through a five-minute, uh, monologue about Barack Obama being great with a spade and when he’s done with that he turns to his hoe.
RUSH: That was a play off of what had happened to Imus!
CALLER: And that’s funny, right?
RUSH: Well, no. We’re trying to call attention to it. It’s called ‘satire;’ it’s called ‘parody;’ and, by the way, I have parodied Bill Clinton and I have parodied Mrs. Clinton and I have parodied John Kerry and I have parodied Joe Bite Me and a number of other people. If they’re liberals, they’re targets. It doesn’t matter if they’re from Mars to me. It’s just I have the courage not to leave the African-Americans out of it.
CALLER: And the only way you can make them a target is to use old, old racial epithets?
RUSH: They —
CALLER: You can’t find a more creative way of doing your satire, Rush?
RUSH: They —
CALLER: That’s what I mean. That’s hate.
RUSH: They make… There is no hate here! They make themselves the targets by saying and doing what they do!
CALLER: How did Michelle Obama make herself a ho? How did Michelle Obama make herself a ho?
RUSH: I don’t even remember that.
CALLER: How could she make herself a target?
RUSH: Did you really think I was calling Michelle Obama a whore? Do you really think that’s what you were doing?
CALLER: No, I think you were calling her a ‘ho.’ ‘Ho’ is the word you used —
RUSH: Wait a minute.
CALLER: — it was specifically chosen, and why would you use that word if your not…?
RUSH: Wait a minute. If in your world if ‘ho’ doesn’t equal ‘whore,’ then why are you offended?
CALLER: Because ‘ho,’ uhhh, equals the African-American community’s representation of the word ‘whore.’
RUSH: No. Whore is defined a certain way, of course, and ‘ho’ means ‘whore.’ Do you really think I think Michelle’s a whore?
CALLER: No, I (garbled) was racially offensive and that’s why you used it.
RUSH: I think she’s a hypocrite. I think she ought to stay out of what I eat. It’s none of her business what I eat. What?
CALLER: I think you thought you could get away with it. I think you think you can get away with whatever you want on the radio. You can use… It’s what you said: This was in the aftermath of Imus thing. Imus had just been suspended; you were looking to rub black America’s nose in the fact that —
RUSH: No, no.
CALLER: — you can say whatever racist damn thing you want and get away with it.
RUSH: I’m not trying to ‘get away’ with anything. You’ve got the… For as smart as you sound, you have a total misunderstanding of what this program’s all about. I just treat black politicians the same as I treat liberal white politicians. That’s the difference, and nobody else does. Everybody’s cowed.
CALLER: When am I gonna hear you talk —
Rush: Everybody’s afraid to.
CALLER: When am I gonna hear you say something about Ben Roethlisberger and Mark Chmura, the white racist athletes.
RUSH: I have made jokes about Roethlisberger! What’s the second name you mentioned?
CALLER: Uhhh, Mark Chmura, the old tight end from the, uh, Packers and, uh, Jets (sic) I think. Statutory rape.
RUSH: We have made jokes and comments about all of these guys.
CALLER: I try to listen every day but I guess I — I — I just haven’t heard that, so — I — I can leave that alone. But you’ve spent a lot of time on the Black Panther scandal. You spent no time on the racist purging of voters with African-American names in Florida in the year 2000. That… Th…that had a lot more impact on voting than any Black Panther at that (garbled).
RUSH: I don’t happen to believe that that happened. I don’t believe… If there’s any purging that went on in Florida, it was of absentee military voters that the Democrats did. You know, I am equal time. You have to look at something. Everybody says that I need to be ‘balanced.’ Wrong. I am the equal time, and I’m a small little chunk of equal time. Look at all the stuff that I’ve been labeled. You just did it yourself. I’m ‘filled with hate,’ I’m a ‘racist,’ I’m this or that — and you can get away with saying it because I’m a powerful white guy, and I’m not supposed to be subject to being embarrassed by it or offended by it because that’s part of the territory. I’m supposed to take it. But somehow Moochelle Obama is immune or Al Sharpton is immune or the Reverend Jackson is immune or Ron Artest is immune. I didn’t start a fight with the fans in the stands in Indiana like Ron Artest did. I didn’t set a rap music company with a bunch of hos like he did so he did it so we have a little fun with it.
CALLER: So your equal time is to balance non-racism with a healthy dose of racism.
RUSH: No. My equal time is to satire and parody EVERYTHING in the news no matter who is making it. Your problem is that you think being black means you’re disadvantaged, uncared for, indefensible, pathetic minority that can’t defend or take care of themselves and so they’re off-limits. And any time somebody dares… How come you haven’t mentioned Major Owens? We’ve had more fun with that guy than anybody I can remember. He said the sharks are still swimming the route, the slave route!
CALLER: (silence) I — I’m sorry. I don’t know who Major Owens is but I do about your first inclination… I mean, the housing crisis, your first inclination is to attack ACORN and the Community Reinvestment act as if AIG —
RUSH: Why?
CALLER: — and all the big Wall Street bankers had nothing to do with that.
RUSH: Yeah, because they happened to be the biggest problem. ACORN and the Community Redevelopment Act happened —
CALLER: Nobody says that except you, Rush.
RUSH: — to be the reason that the subprime mortgage crisis happened. I am not gonna be silenced!
CALLER: Nobody says that except you.
RUSH: I am not gonna let the facts of the story go ignored or be ignored because the activist behind the mess happened to be leftists, be they Martian leftists or black leftists or take your pick, female leftists or what have you. I think you need to be ashamed of yourself. You are a smart guy, and you know that what you’re saying about me isn’t true. You’re just trying to score some points, get yourself all heralded on the blogosphere billboards out there with your skewed innuendo and your lies and distortions about me. You really need to examine yourself and be ashamed of who you are.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: I am sitting here doing a slow burn over this patronization, this patronizing of black people in this country as if they were helpless and wandering aimlessly through life, and they can’t handle anything whatsoever. It’s an INSULT to have a call like that come in and portray them that way, and this is what I’ve always thought about leftists and blacks. They actually look down on black people. They look at black people and see a bunch of incompetents. They see people who are defenseless, helpless, can’t help themselves. They just denigrate them in their own minds, and it’s offensive to me. I find it utterly irritating, this patronizing attitude they have toward that segment of our population.
The American left looks at the black population as just… (sigh) What’s the best way to describe this? It’s the reason they keep them on their own liberal plantation. They look at them as being totally incapable of doing anything. If anybody discriminates against them, it’s the American left. If it’s anybody that looks down at the black population of this country, it’s the American left. The guy admitted he’s a ‘Democrat activist,’ so he’s paid to utter those words. But, you know, what really bugs these guys is that I spend time exposing the liberal agenda, and that they have not been able to intimidate me with this charge of ‘racism’ into shutting up about it.
That’s what bugs ’em, and I will not be silenced. I’ve told you, I don’t care what people look like: If they are liberals, they’re gonna be lampooned on this program. They’re gonna be laughed at, they’re gonna be criticized, they’re gonna be called out, they’re gonna be properly explained. I don’t care if they’ve got three heads, I don’t care if they don’t have half a brain, it doesn’t matter to me who or what they are. If they are liberals, they are in my (sorry, CNN!) crosshairs. Now, he mentioned…
How long has it been? He mentioned ‘Barack the ‘Magic Negro.” For those of you new to the program. Let me explain this. I love doing it. I was sitting here during the campaign of 2008. It was early on in that year. It was in the spring. I was minding my own business. (It might have been 2007). I was minding my own business, harming no one, which is what I do. I don’t make fun of people’s skin color. I do not lampoon or make fun of that at all. I’m sitting here, and I’m reading all over the place a lot of dissatisfaction with Obama in certain sectors of the black population, the black media.
I’m hearing certain black people say, ‘He’s not authentic! He doesn’t have slave blood.’ Not my words, theirs! That he’s not ‘down for the struggle,’ meaning the civil rights struggle. Not my words, theirs. I heard one African-American say he wanted to cut the gonads out of Barack Obama. Who was that? It was…oh, yeah! It was the Reverend Jackson, and he did a little physical demonstration how he would do it, ’cause it was on TV! I saw that, and I think it was the Reverend Jackson who did indeed call our young president the N-word. He did! So I’m hearing all this. He’s ‘unauthentic,’ he doesn’t have ‘slave blood,’ he’s ‘not down for the struggle.’
He ‘doesn’t really know what the black circumstance in this country is all about,’ and then one day, one day there’s this column in the Los Angeles Time called ‘Obama the ‘Magic Negro.” I said, ‘Whoa!’ It was written by a black columnist named Dave Ehrenstein, and it’s all about how Obama is simply the ‘Magic Negro.’ I had never heard the term before. I said, ‘What’s ‘Magic Negro’?’ Well, I read further and found that the ‘Magic Negro’ is a Negro who says and does and acts the right way allowing white people to comfortably society with him, promote him, or even vote for him.
I remembered, ‘Oh, yeah, like Joe Biden said, ‘Oh, finally we have a clean and articulate African-American,” which ticked off Al Sharpton. He takes showers; people conditioned him when he speaks. Well, Sharpton was not happy with Obama’s candidacy at first. We parodied that. So this ‘Magic Negro’ was all about how Obama’s a phony. He allows white racists to get rid of their guilt by associating with them. He’s not ‘authentic.’ He just sounds and does things ‘white enough’ to let white voters vote for him to get rid of their guilt. It was not a column praising Obama. So we worked up a parody…
(Snerdley interruption) It was because didn’t have ‘slave blood,’ did not have slave blood, is exactly right. He wasn’t ‘down for the struggle.’ So we got together with ‘white comedian’ Paul Shanklin; we put together some lyrics here to Puff the Magic Dragon by Peter, Paul, and Mary, and the rest is history. And after it aired two times, you’d think I wrote the column! You’d think I created the term ‘Magic Negro.’ You’d think I was responsible! We’re sitting here minding our own business watching and listening to these idiot doofuses on the left do what they do, and we’re making fun of it (quite cleverly, I might add) and that’s what ticks ’em off.
So we’re gonna play ‘Barack the ‘Magic Negro” for those of you who haven’t heard it, after now heard it set up. But first, in honor of that last call, remember the Justice Brothers — the Reverend Sharpton, the Reverend Jackson — who, it has now been said would be mere, what, memories? (interruption) ‘Footnotes in history’ if it hadn’t been for me keeping them alive, which means this guy, this Democrat activist, secretly wishes they’d shut up. (laughing) The dirty little secret is that last caller was telling us he wishes Jackson and Sharpton would shut up, but I keep them alive. But remember the Justice Brothers offered their services in Wisconsin.
(playing of Justice Brothers spoof)
RUSH: And here’s the Reverend Sharpton through the bullhorn and the megaphone, ‘Barack the ‘Magic Negro.”
(Playing of ‘Barack the ‘Magic Negro”)
RUSH: The Reverend Al Sharpton, ladies and gentlemen, ‘Barack the ‘Magic Negro.” You heard there that in our parody the Reverend Sharpton couldn’t even stay with the lyric line. He got so ticked off during the recording session that he started ad-libbing, and the chorus kept getting louder and louder and louder trying to drown him out; didn’t work. Now, one more example before I go to the break. I remember I was channel surfing around. I’ve not mentioned this before, I don’t believe. I was channel surfing around sometime last month during Black History Month. I was trying to watch SportsCenter.
I think it was before the Super Bowl, so I’m channel surfing around SportsCenter on ESPN. And instead there’s some live black history celebration event going on at some college campus somewhere. And on the stage as a guest is Spike Lee — who, by the way, invented the term ‘Magic Negro,’ from what I’m told. Yeah. ‘African-American filmmaker Spike Lee popularized the term, deriding the archetype of the ‘super-duper magical Negro’ in 2001 while discussing films with students at Washington State University and at Yale University.’ Anyway, they had Marion Jones up there on the panel. They had John Calipari, the coach of basketball at University of Kentucky; and they had Bob Ley, as one of the moderators; and Robin Roberts.
It was Black History Month, and they were discussing what happened to LeBron James as he left the Cleveland Cavaliers and took his talents to South Beach to play for the Miami Heat (which doesn’t play in South Beach, but that’s another minor detail). Anyway, I actually heard Spike Lee compare LeBron James to a fleeing slave. Getting out of Cleveland was fleeing indentured slavitude (or something that he said) to go to the Miami Heat. And I’m listening to this, and how am I supposed to process this? We’re talking about somebody makes, what, $20 million a year salary and who knows what he makes from Nike.
He’s a multimillionaire, face plastered all over TV and billboards nationwide, a hero to kids, a basketball hero, and somehow Spike Lee sees slavery in this transaction! All I can do is laugh at this. But I can honestly tell you I don’t see, intellectually, the connection here to LeBron James and slavery. I just don’t. I’m sorry, I don’t see it. It was hilarious. And you shoulda seen everybody on the panel stroking their chins and nodding in agreement, ‘Oh, yeah, Spike! Well, you’re really on to something here,’ when they were really thinking, ‘Oh, my God did he just say that and we’ve got 45 minutes of this show to go?’
But they’re all stroking their chins and they’re nodding and not one of them had the guts to say, ‘What in the world are you talking about? The guy is a multigazillionaire! Slavery, Spike? What are you talking about?’ and it ended up, he was upset at the owner of the Cavaliers for the way they had treated LeBron, forcing LeBron out, some such thing. It was just amazing, and I’m watching this and thinking, ‘We’re not gonna make progress. Well, not only are we not gonna make progress, we’re moving backwards in all this.’ When you take the episode of LeBron James changing teams and compare this, during Black History Month, to slavery? Let me just tell all of you leftists (chuckling) the problem is not here. The problem is with you and the way you look at the world and the way you want other people to look at the world. That’s just inexcusable.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: A. J. in Houston, it’s great to have you on the program, sir. Hello.
CALLER: Mega big time dittos, Rush Limbaugh.
RUSH: How are you, A. J.?
CALLER: Oh, big time, having ’em. I’m going to try to be calm and cool at the same time. You know, I don’t want to get too excited here. Hey, I want to let that guy know that just got finished talking to you, what he’s insinuating the way black folks say ‘whore’ and ‘ho,’ and that? I mean, he’s calling you racist, but what is that? So what he saying, black folks can’t talk? What is the ideology of that statement that he made?
RUSH: That’s the point. If anybody looks down at black people and has a condescending view of them, it’s liberals.
CALLER: I noticed that, Rush, and black folks need to wake up and understand these leftists in the Democrat Party think they dumb, stupid. We got a lot of black entrepreneur people, and these people on the left keep the black folks heads in the sand like Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, our president — and, you know, Rush, right quick: As a black man and everything blacks went through, everything we went through, and they finally get a black man up there, and he run the country like this? I don’t think this is what the black folks wanted to see. We want to see promise. We want to see a man that really cared about the country and could make us move and be energy-dependent on our hands, the work, start businesses. Open it up! Come on, Rush.
RUSH: That’s an interesting point out there, A. J. That really is. I’ve heard — not any time recently, but I’ve heard — some people say, ‘Oh, no, this is not helping the prospect of the next black president.’ Black people themselves have been saying that simply because the incompetence — being totally judicious here, the incompetence — of Obama. Anyway, A. J., it’s always a pleasure to have you on the EIB Network.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Here’s Greg, Sacramento, great to have you on the program, Greg, hello.
CALLER: Hello, Rush. I’m a little tired like you are of being accused of being a racist because we opposed Obama’s agenda.
RUSH: Yep.
CALLER: And so I’ve developed a real simple response to that, and it is: I actually like the black half of him. He’s funny, he’s well spoken, and we kind of like that. It’s the white, socialist, European Marx half that I cannot stand.
RUSH: Now, that is very clever. Have you actually used that in public, say at a restaurant with your friends out in Sacramento?
CALLER: Carefully, yes.
RUSH: (laughing) ‘Carefully, yes.’
CALLER: (chuckling)
RUSH: So you ‘like the black half. It’s the white, socialist, European Marxist half’ that you don’t really dig?
CALLER: Yeah. That’s the agenda side that’s really ruining our country. You know, the other half is what we like about the man.
RUSH: Yeah? Interesting. Well, I have to applaud you. Very creative.
CALLER: Thank you.
RUSH: Very creative. It’s still racist, of course, in the eyes of the left, but very, very creative nevertheless.
CALLER: Of course.
RUSH: Yeah, because, see, you’re in their view, you’re still — what would be the word? — subordinating him to powerful white people.
CALLER: Correct.
RUSH: Over in Europe. All right, Greg, thanks for the call.