Rush Limbaugh -- Not Helping

Since Barack Obama became a serious candidate for president, we've been subjected to constant screams of racism from the left. Any time there is opposition to the president, anytime he comes under criticism, any time he is caricatured or made fun of in any way, any time he is treated with disrespect, his supporters have whined about racism. It's just an automatic reflex. It doesn't matter how ridiculous or illogical the charge of racism may be, it will be made if Obama is attacked. In my opinion, no one has done more lately to raise racial tension and poison the atmosphere than Obama supporters and the left in general.

But now here comes Rush Limbaugh acting just like the race-obsessed left. As everyone probably knows by now, there was an incident yesterday where three black high school kids beat up a white kid on a school bus. It's not even clear if race was the main motivating force behind the attack. But Limbaugh seized on the incident to blame President Obama, as if he had anything to do with it. Rush has concocted a crazy theory that goes something like this: All the false accusations about racism from the left, combined with Obama's actions regarding race have created a climate in which white people are seen as the enemy of all that is good in America, and therefore black kids feel justified in beating up white kids. Think I'm exaggerating? Let's go to the transcript.

It's Obama's America, is it not? Obama's America, white kids getting beat up on school buses now. You put your kids on a school bus, you expect safety but in Obama's America the white kids now get beat up with the black kids cheering, "Yay, right on, right on, right on, right on," and, of course, everybody says the white kid deserved it, he was born a racist, he's white.  [AND]...  today it's all based in racism, the criticism of Obama's health care plan or whatever, it's all based in racism and so, if he's going to apologize for America, Obama needs to apologize for the right reasons. White Americans are racists who have created what they call free markets that really just enslave the rest of America and her trading partners. It was white Americans that ran off Van Jones.

This is one of the stupidest and craziest Limbaugh rants ever. He's created a grand conspiracy theory about how white America is under attack because of Obama. He sounds like a mirror image of someone like Reverend Wright. That's right, President Obama is now responsible for a white kid getting beat up by black kids on a school bus. And the sheer illogic of Limbaugh's conspiracy theory actually feeds the left's race obsession. Now they can point to Limbaugh and say, "look, he's so upset by having a black person in the Whitehouse that he thinks the president is responsible for kids beating each other up." However, just because Limbaugh did something idiotic doesn't mean left-wingers shouldn't be called for their hypocritical outrage. 

Here's one example from Obsidian Wings, normally one of the more rational left-wing sites.

This incident is not a run-of-the-mill "Limbaugh said something ridiculous today" story. This is a big deal. Limbaugh was unambiguously racist

If that's the criteria for racism, there are a huge number of racists on the left -- since they do exactly the same thing on a regular basis. Starting well before the election we had people on the left parsing every campaign commercial and trying to concoct charges of racism. Many of the cries of racism were and are every bit as ludicrous as Limbaugh's conspiracy theory.

there's nothing ambiguous about this. It's straight-up George Wallace-style race-baiting. It's an intentional attempt to stir racial prejudices.

But left-wing attempts to smear critics of Obama as racist are just fine.  Yesterday imbecile Congressman Hank Wilson (D of course) said,

people will be putting on "white hoods and white uniforms again and riding through the countryside" if emerging racist attitudes, which he says were subtly supported by Wilson, are not rebuked. He said Wilson must be disciplined as an example.

That's every bit as crazy and inflammatory as anything Limbaugh said. But you don't see the guy at Obsidian Wings hyperventilating about it, do you? Of course not. It's not even mentioned on his site. Race-baiting and stirring up racial prejudices are just fine when done on the left.

But the fact that the left in general is comprised of shameless hypocrites doesn't excuse Limbaugh's idiocy. Everyone on the right should condemn his attempt at conspiracy theory building.  There are all sorts of legitimate attacks to be made on Obama. Blaming the president for school children beating each other up, regardless of their races, is not only stupid, it's downright crazy. Far from helping, Rush Limbaugh is just assisting the left in painting conservatives as deranged, racist lunatics. Thanks a lot Rush.