Steve Benen has a very different opinion from my own. So what if some racist statements were falsely attributed to Rush? He’s said plenty of real racist things, too. Steve provides this list, via TAPPED,
Limbaugh’s record of racist commentary…includes not only a habit of comparing black athletes to gang members but a general hostility toward black people. Limbaugh only recently suggested that having a black president encouraged black children to beat up white children — he’s also compared President Obama’s agenda to ‘slavery reparations,’ used epithets to reference his biracial background, and compared Democrats responding to the concerns of black voters to rape.”
I recommend clicking through to all the links, since they provide the full flavor of Limbaugh’s remarks.
My conclusion? Limbaugh clearly enjoys his own over-the-top, politically incorrect humor. Not “edgy”, “politically incorrect” humor like what you see on the Daily Show or Colbert Report, but things that are actually incorrect, because they will actually offend a lot of people.
Yet nothing on the TAPPED list comes close to the vicious remarks falsely attributed to Limbaugh by CNN, ThinkProgress and the Huff Po. Unless you’re a white supremacist, you won’t say that James Earl Ray deserves a Medal of Honor for killing Martin Luther King.
It seems there’s plenty to criticize about Rush, so critics won’t be giving much up if they stop calling him a racist.