Rush Limbaugh's unceasing racist, duplicitous attacks on President Obama
Some have suggested that in the first debate, President Obama was concerned about, or had been advised against, allowing himself to fall into a trap set by Romney's prevarications and provocations. If Obama had succumbed, right wing propaganda was champing at the bit to depict him as the "angry black man". In fact, the conservative echo chamber was already hitting that theme very hard. Note the shift in tone from Rush Limbaugh before debate to after debate:
Rush Limbaugh on Obama pre-debate:
[Obama is] a very scary guy. I saw a guy really, really angry... I've always known this guy is an angry guy. I've always known this guy has a chip on his shoulder. I've always known this guy's got a problem with this country. And I've always known that there was no truth to this business that he was postracial...
The Romney campaign ought to use this. But they won't. They don't have it in 'em. It just makes 'em nervous. They don't want to go there, anything involving race. They think it's gonna end up backfiring on 'em...
Now it's Obama depicting it. And we got the trumped up black accent like down in Selma... That southern-fried accent that Obama put on before the black ministers, was he raised in the southern part of Hawaii?
Obama's able to turn on that Negro dialect whenever he wants to... But it wasn't just the shuckin' and jivin' that was a bit offensive. He was race-baiting. He was race-baiting and fearmongering.
Miami, they didn't have to pay anything after hurricane -- but New Orleans, they had to pay 'cause they're black. That's race-baiting. That's shouting fire in a crowded theater. That's throwing a match on gasoline, to that audience.
...[Obama] can fearmonger and hatemonger... Michelle (My Belle) went to Reverend Wright and complained a lot about Obama... he was a complete fraud in how he presented himself to the American people.
[Obama resents] people in the suburbs, and people who have left the cities to move to the suburbs to escape the rat trap that is the cities. And in the process of leaving, they have been racist. Because when you leave the city, in Obama's worldview, you're leaving blacks. You're abandoning blacks to their decrepit schools and their bad neighborhoods that, of course, are the product of liberalism. And the suburbs, people go out there to escape all that and live lives that are more productive and have a greater quality and so forth. He resents that... We're sitting here with the worst president ever.
Clearly race-baiting, clearly angry, and I'm telling you: This is who he is to this day. This is who he's gonna become if he's reelected. This is who he is today. He hadn't changed. It's who he's been all his life. It's how he was mentored. It was how he was educated and raised...
Barack Obama is spending hundreds of millions of dollars on commercials trying to convince people he's a man of the middle class, that Barack Obama represents everybody. He represents a hundred percent of the people, that it's Mitt Romney who lives in a small, cloistered world. It's Romney writing off half the country. No, it's Obama who does not come anywhere near representing 100% of the country. We all knew it.
—Rush Limbaugh: 2007 Video Shows the Real Barack Obama: Angry, Race-Baiting, Fear-Mongering Liberal, October 3, 2012
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Rush Limbaugh on Obama post-debate:
He was rambling and he was wandering in search of a thought all night long. He was stringing cliches together. What we learned last night is that Obama, what he has to have in order to convey the appearance of being credible, he needs a well-written speech from somebody other than himself. He needs a teleprompter, and he needs props. And he needs a shield. He needs a protective media.
—Rush Limbaugh: Romney Delivered One of the Best Debate Performances in My Lifetime, October 4, 2012
Obama was befuddled and lost, and there was nothing he could have done last night to change that outcome. Not with Romney showing up as he did. There wasn't a thing Obama coulda done. Not a thing. Obama, in addition, has been shielded from any kind of opposition his whole life. He's been protected. If he got a C at Harvard, somebody gave him an A. If he needed to get into Harvard Law, somebody greased the skids. He's had the way paved for him. He's protected, he's shielded, he has a teleprompter, and his words are written for him. His surroundings are carefully crafted. His appearances are assembled. There are no people of substantive opposition permitted.
As such, Barack Obama has never faced opposition. He's always been able to reject it. He's always been able to pooh-pooh and have media people take care of the mess for him. He's never had to deal with it... It looked pathetic. It looked old and tired and worn out just as Obama did.
—Rush Limbaugh: The Debate Proved It! Conservatism Trounces Liberalism in the Arena of Ideas, October 4, 2012
I considered countering Limbaugh's attacks with clever analysis and refutation. But increasingly — for all except his ardent ditto-head audience — Limbaugh's bigoted arguments fall apart of their own accord. The three comparisons after the fold illustrate that Limbaugh isn't an intelligent political commentator, he is merely a shallow and despicable partisan with a big microphone...
UPDATE: Wed Oct 10, 2012 at 2:18 PM PT:
Obama says he was 'too polite' toward Romney in first debate
"President Barack Obama engaged in some post-debate self-analysis Wednesday morning, saying on a radio show that he thought he was 'too polite' during last week’s debate with Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney."
Obama says he was 'too polite' toward Romney in first debate
This new development appears to support the belief that the president (and/or his advisors) were concerned about the "angry black man" meme.
In the second comparison, Limbaugh continues disparaging President Obama's debate performance. But notice that under different circumstances, Limbaugh blasts Obama for looking down, and for looking up!
Rush Limbaugh on Obama looking down:
On the right screen is Obama looking down and dejected and inattentive...
—Rush Limbaugh: RNC Video Sums Up Debate Brilliantly, October 04, 2012
That was a gut punch, and Obama looked tiny. He looked tiny and willowy, and that's when he looked down, started making notes feverishly or what have you. That was one of my favorite points in the debate...
When somebody looks down, they can't face the truth. It's no more complicated than that. Your kid does it, you do it, you look down, you're avoiding the truth. You're hiding from the truth.
—Rush Limbaugh: Romney Delivered One of the Best Debate Performances in My Lifetime, October 04, 2012
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Rush Limbaugh on Bush looking down, and Obama looking up:
Bush is appropriately bowing his head... Some people have said Obama looks like he's trying to figure out what he's gonna wear on the golf course later. But, no. Obama has this habit of looking up and looking up above everyone and Bush is bowing his head. Obama's eyes are closed looking up. That's quite striking. I think it's quite, quite telling.
—Rush Limbaugh: 9/11: George W. Bush Stands Tall, September 12, 2011
George W. Bush, Barack Obama and spouses at 2011 9/11 ceremony
Continuing the theme of Limbaugh's double standards, check out how Rush routinely does precisely what he decries about the other side:
Rush protests that Bush was called a dictator:
Bush, according to the Drive-Bys, was the biggest disaster of the modern era— a dictator and a purely evil man.
—Rush Limbaugh: Rush's Morning Update: Transformation November 12, 2008, November 11, 2008
How many of you people out there remember George W. Bush being referred to as a dictator? He wants to violate everybody's freedoms. He wants to violate civil rights. He wants to violate human rights. He wants to spy on you with a domestic spy program. He's been called Hitler and so forth.
—Rush Limbaugh: Stalinists in Democrat Party Intimidate ABC, Threaten Broadcast License Over 9/11 Film!, September 8, 2006
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Rush routinely calls Obama a dictator:
The issue here is the dictatorial nature of this regime and Obama's willingness to do anything to advance his agenda.
—Rush Limbaugh: Obama Amnesty Plan: Catch, Release, Vote, June 15, 2012
Obama just, as a dictator would, demands that contraception be free and paid for.
—Rush Limbaugh: We Fear for Our Country, Governor Bush, February 24, 2012
Dictator Obama orders his staff to create jobs without congress... we have a lawless regime here, acting outside the Constitution ... and if we don't have a Republican leadership that's willing to deal with people like this, he's gonna get away with it. There isn't gonna be anybody to stop him.
—Rush Limbaugh: Dictator Obama Orders His Staff to Create Jobs Without Congress, October 11, 2011
[In Obama] we have a command-and-control, dictator, authoritarian-type regime manufacturing, dictating that cars be made that nobody wants.
—Rush Limbaugh: Robert Gibbs Swerves Into Your Beloved Host and Gets Totaled, July 30, 2010
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Bonus — ironic Rush Limbaugh assertion on dictators:
By definition, the small government people will not become dictators.
—Rush Limbaugh: Is the Political Spectrum a Circle?, February 22, 2008
With Rush, it doesn't matter whether you're accused of being a "dictator", or if you're seemingly open to the charge of a "cover-up".
What matters to Rush is whether you're an honorable, upstanding, patriotic conservative, or a
lying, sneaking, terrorist-sympathizing liberal. (Rush doesn't seem to know any other categories...)
Rush on alleged Democratic "cover-ups":
Carney lies, two weeks ago -- Susan Rice lies, two weeks ago Sunday -- and they've been lying every day since. They engage in a cover-up.
—Rush Limbaugh: Nobody Cares About Obama's Libya Lies?, September 28, 2012
CNN is saying the only conclusion is the [Obama] White House tried to cover something up. CNN said that. And, of course, they're right. There was a cover-up.
—Rush Limbaugh: Regime Engaged in Libya Cover-Up Because They Wanted You to Think Al-Qaeda Died with Bin LadenOctober 2, 2012
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Rush on alleged Republican "cover-ups":
He just knew it had to be the case because he knew there was a cover-up because the Bush administration lies. In fact, the Bush administration probably orders the murders! Jack Murtha is like so many damn Democrats today: so eager to immediately believe the worst about the people you are supposed to love and support: the United States military, which is trying to protect everybody against incredible odds here at home.
They're fighting two wars: the enemy over there and the enemy here. For a member of the Congress to come out without any evidence and call them murderers, because he knows there's a cover-up?
I suspect what's going to happen is that Murtha, in order to cover his sizeable rear end is going to come out and say there's another cover-up going on! "I demand a new investigation," or what have you. This kind of thing has been going on for the last four years. Efforts to undermine the people who wear the uniform...
—Rush Limbaugh: Peacenik Shoots Air Force Airman; Where's Murtha's Haditha Apology?, July 11, 2007
[All bold type designates emphasis added.]
Sandra Fluke and Rush Limbaugh
You may have read this overview of the Rush Limbaugh downward spiral in my in earlier diaries. Please understand, Rush Limbaugh has been hit very hard in the aftermath of his Sandra Fluke tirade. If you'd like to play a role in Limbaugh's eventual comedown, please read the section after this one!
Limbaugh's once-legendary "clout" has been weakened, with talk radio expert Holland Cooke observing that "voters are, increasingly, ignoring Rush Limbaugh". Limbaugh's audience numbers have been demonstrated as a mere fraction of the twenty million listeners he once asserted, and still does claim. At least since Limbaugh's advertiser troubles were found to be afflicting music formats as well as talk radio, the entire radio industry has been struggling with advertising rates that industry insiders describe as "seven percent quicksand", with many voices lamenting that advertisers currently have too much ability to drive hard bargains in a weakened industry. Some speakers at a National Association of Broadcasters Panel argued last month that Limbaugh's three day rant has all but killed off talk radio as a viable radio format, and advocated replacing Limbaugh specifically, and talk radio more generally, with an all news format. What began as ten sponsors boycotting Rush soon became 45, then 140, then five hundred. Many of us estimate that Limbaugh has now lost more than a thousand sponsors, large and small.
—Richard Myers, Limbaugh executive calls women's organizations "very frightening" as Rush issues threat
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Rush Limbaugh's talk radio career is in a slow downward spiral in part because of the activism of consumers, volunteers, and activists who seek to hold Rush accountable for his hate speech. One very active group in this cause is Flush Rush on Facebook. Flush Rush and other, similar groups use the StopRush Database to inform advertisers about where their ads are appearing.
Please consider joining. Small donations are also accepted to fund data storage; visit StopRush for more information.
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