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Who’s apologizing to who now?

Jill

This headline leaves me confused: “R.N.C. Chairman Apologizes to Limbaugh in Flap Over His Role.”

Here are some choice quotes from Rush Limbaugh. Just one example:

I mean, let’s face it, we didn’t have slavery in this country for over 100 years because it was a bad thing. Quite the opposite: slavery built the South. I’m not saying we should bring it back; I’m just saying it had its merits. For one thing, the streets were safer after dark.

Limbaugh is a celebrated right-wing leader, whose appearance at CPAC was met with huge applause, and who got himself a giant article in the New York Times Magazine. The other day, RNC chair Michael Steele said this about Rush:

“Rush Limbaugh is an entertainer,” he said. “Rush Limbaugh, the whole thing is entertainment. Yes, it’s incendiary, yes, it’s ugly.”

Rush is an entertainer; he’s a radio talk show host for pete’s sake. While I have no love lost for Michael Steele, he’s not the one who was offensive here. But:

“My intent was not to go after Rush – I have enormous respect for Rush Limbaugh,” Mr. Steele told The Politico. “I was maybe a little bit inarticulate. There was no attempt on my part to diminish his voice or his leadership.”

Rush Limbaugh is the guy who said James Earl Ray (Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassin) deserves a posthumous medal of honor. He’s the guy who told an African-American caller to “Take that bone out of your nose and call me back.” He’s the guy who said, “Look, let me put it to you this way: the NFL all too often looks like a game between the Bloods and the Crips without any weapons. There, I said it.”

No “enormous respect” there. And it’s Rush who should be apologizing.

21 thoughts on Who’s apologizing to who now?

  1. Why are conservative politicians tripping over themselves to stroke Limbaugh’s ego and please him? What the hell kind of hold does he have over them?

  2. Michael Steele is the biggest sell-out ever. The lengths he will go to in order to appeal to the people that hate him are revolting.

  3. This is why most black people didn’t give a rats azz about Steele’s appointment as RNC chair, he doesn’t represent much to be proud of on the political front at this juncture.

  4. “This is America!” as people over here keep reminding me. Rush is Rich, therefore people pander to him. This whole hoo-ha will make him richer; the fact that he’s rich and racist doesn’t matter so much to the quivering RNC, who can’t organise kids to sell cookies for them at the moment.

    “This is America!” and money talks louder than (racist) words.

  5. Limbaugh is an appalling figure. From a Democratic standpoint, he’s a useful one — his appeal is limited almost exclusively to white males, a group whose influence is diminishing with each passing electoral cycle. The more the left can associate him with the Republican party, the less chance the GOP has of appealing to new voters. The implication from this episode is that Limbaugh is the Boss Tweed or Mark Hanna of the GOP, with all the elected officials (including Steele) just so many McKinleys — called upon to kiss the papal ring whenever they dare transgress against El Rushbo and his Talent On Loan From God(tm).

    But time brought Joe McCarthy down, and it brought Father Coughlin down, and it will bring down Rush. In the meantime, the left has little to fear from him — he keeps the GOP small, he keeps it angry, he keeps it white, he keeps it male.

  6. I like the Robert Gibbs angle – let’s get more Republicans to go on record as to whether they support or condemn Limbaugh’s words. Hell, it’s what FOX News has been doing to Democrats for years.

    There’s not a Republican alive whose stature is more powerful than Rush’s ego. Let him go after the others the way he did Michael Steele.

  7. “I like the Robert Gibbs angle – let’s get more Republicans to go on record as to whether they support or condemn Limbaugh’s words.”

    I’m not certain we’d want to live in a Nation in which citizens or even public office holders are required by their government to swear an Oath of Supremacy to the President and his agenda or denounce this or that person’s political statements in opposition to the President. That is rather creepy, I think – and like Thomas Cromwell discovered, not much protection when the worm turns.

  8. Featherstone: No one’s talking about the government requiring anyone to swear oaths or denounce anyone. What Gibbs via Dreamweasel proposes, if I’m not mistaken, is simply asking questions about whether they agree with this or that outrageous statement. A perfectly legitimate political tactic.

  9. Diffidently,I ask if you can show some documentation of Mr Limbaugh’s comment regarding James Earl Ray and MLK?It’s such a disgusting comment,I can’t believe it’s not more widely known.This is not to say I know everything-or even everything of import.But it’s surprising to read such a comment.
    It seems to me there are two opposing issues here.One the one hand,if mr Limbaugh said something like this,he should be shunned.On the other hand,if he didn’t,the fact you can believe and repeat something like this means your credibility regarding people with whom you have ideological differences is nil.You may recall the destruction of careers when people printed the fake story of the plastic turkey that GWB supposedly presented.

  10. “Featherstone: No one’s talking about the government requiring anyone to swear oaths or denounce anyone.”

    Sure it is – Gibbs, speaking for the President and therefore the government, is encouraging the press to put the false dichotomy to Republican office holders because Limbaugh dissents from the President’s policy. Then, when or if they do not denounce Limbaugh, the press has been instructed to write about how awful Jim Bunning or somesuch is, and imputing anything Limbaugh has ever said to that individual.

    What you don’t seem to have a quarrel with at all is the White House Press Secretary giving political tactical assignments to the press.

  11. Wasn’t it Limbaugh who also “decided” to resign from the ESPN Sunday Countdown after making some pretty heinous and racially charged comments about Philadelphia Eagle’s quarterback Donovan McNabb? Like that he was only on the team b/c America wanted to see a black quarterback do well and that it was some kind of social conscience thing on behalf of the NFL?

    Why he still gets jobs speaks only to the fact that we are not, in fact, living in a post racial world.

  12. Rush ? Can’t we just stuff this bloated turkey with some dynamite and blow him up already ?

  13. “. Quite the opposite: slavery built the South. I’m not saying we should bring it back; I’m just saying it had its merits. For one thing, the streets were safer after dark.”

    I don’t know about that – after all, depending on the whim of the slaveowner, one might be whipped, raped, killed . . . – oh, that’s not what he means, is it?

    Really, though, there’s something here (assuming this is an actual & correctly attributed quote – I tend to be wary of such things without a clear citation) not unlike the Rawlsian ‘veil of ignorance’ – the speaker is simply unable to imagine that if they existed in the past they might have been a slave; instead, they can’t help but view it from an assumed point of privilege.

  14. You know, Featherstone, I took a moment to review that link I posted yesterday. Even squinting to read the fine print, I could not find the part where Robert Gibbs required elected officals to declare an Oath of Supremacy to the President. Nor could I find the part where he “instructed” the press to write about how awful the Republicans who agreed with Limabugh were.

    Funny how you find the need to create a strawman argument in an attempt to defend Limbaugh. Let’s just get it out in the open how many people agree with his words.

  15. “White House press secretary Robert Gibbs . . . challenged reporters on Monday to ask Republicans if they agree with Limbaugh’s desire.”

  17. Silly Dreamweasel, you’re just missing the (invisible) part where Gibbs said that reporters who failed to obey (and Republicans who refused to answer) would be thrown in jail for refusing to take an oath of fealty to the President!

  19. Jill,
    I’m going to ask again for your source of the comment on MLK and James Earl Ray.Please provide it.If you don’t have a legitimate quote,with draw it and apologize . Manufacturing quotes is something that will destroy you.If this wasn’t said-and you’ve given no proof it was-you’re entering terrible legal liability.Even public figures have the right to damages if something is maliciously manufactured.Strange as it may seem,this is to help you.

  21. rush is getting way too much press and blog energy (i say this even though i succumbed myself a couple days ago). i’ve come to the conclusion that he’s hyping it for all it’s worth to counter failing ratings and the inevitable consequence of such (i.e., cancellation), and the gop should grow a backbone and stop groveling to the fringe element… that “base” didn’t win the last election, and it won’t going forward, at least for the time being.

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