RUSH: El Rushbo fighting fatigue, ladies and gentlemen. I was here at the EIB broadcast complex very late last night for a massive, massive recording session — a big, surprise recording session. It was a short night, made shorter by my little cat who wanted to play. Yet here I am, engaged as a total professional, as always. Back to the phones — or to the phones, since we haven’t been yet — and this is John in Alcoa, Tennessee. Welcome, sir. Great to have you on Open Line Friday. Hi.
CALLER: Thank you, Mr. Limbaugh, thanks for taking my call. I appreciate everything you do.
RUSH: Thank you, sir. I appreciate that.
CALLER: I hope this is more controversial maybe, but my question to you is: Do you think it’s feasible for us to think that if ISIS had possibly beheaded a journalist with a different racial ethnic background from James Foley, that possibly we would have seen more ire or Congress at the podium or maybe they would pay more (unintelligible) in response?
RUSH: Now, this, to me, ladies and gentlemen, is a fascinating question. Can I draw a comparison here? John, I’m gonna answer your question. I appreciate it. But I want to extrapolate or expand on this for a minute. Here we have the first African-American president in the history of the country — and John’s not the only guy that I have heard this from, and not just about this incident.
But whenever there is a racial incident, there are a lot of people in this country, many of whom voted for Obama thinking his election would end all of this, and who are asking the very question that John asked. His question in this case is: Okay, what if ISIS kills a black journalist? Do you think Obama would then get mad?
Would Obama get madder? Would Obama look or sound angrier in a press conference? Would he play less golf? Meaning: If a black journalist were killed by these guys, would there be a little bit more concern or solidarity? I’ve been not really surprised, but I’ve noted that in any number of issues over the years, a lot of people have reaction like that, because Obama has engendered it, what with his reaction to Trayvon Martin — “could have been my son” — you name it.
Now, stop and think during the Rodney King beating. The president at the time was George H. W. Bush. He was not just white, he was a WASP. He’s the worst of the whites. I mean, he was really white. He was from New England white, Maine. The guy’s speedboat? I mean, he did all the stuff that these out-of-touch white guys do: Play golf, speedboat, all this stuff.
He was really white, and he was the bad kind of white. He’s a WASP white, a White Anglo-Saxon Protestant. But what did he do? The first thing George H. W. Bush did before the smoke had cleared in South Central, is he sent the Justice Department out there and demanded a civil rights investigation to see if Rodney King’s civil rights had been violated.
George H. W. Bush, and every other president when there has been an incident that is racial — every white president — has made it abundantly clear that he is going to pay special attention to any racial component that might have been present, and if there was, it was going to be dealt with all the way up to the Department of Justice.
Now, if things were the same, people wouldn’t be asking this about Obama. My point is that if there were a racial incident… We’ll take… I don’t know. Take Ferguson, Missouri. There is hardly any concern from the president, from the United States government, which is supposed to be the top level of impartiality. The DOJ. There is not one hint of concern for the cop in this case.
Now, some of you might say, “Well, Rush, it’s totally understandable. I mean, the country has a history of slavery! It has a history of racism. I mean, come on! It makes total sense.” Yeah, I know. My only point here is I don’t know, John, what Obama would do. I have no idea if ISIS happens to kill a black journalist if it’ll make Obama angrier.
I’m just more interested that you asked the question.
The fact that that’s even on your mind is what’s fascinating to me. That’s not how people are supposed to react to their president. The president’s supposed to be colorblind, impartial, and guys like George H. W. Bush, they bent over backward to make sure everybody knew there was not gonna be any racial preferences for white people in his term, and what do they do?
Republican presidents go out of their way to nominate African-Americans to cabinet posts and black women and Hispanics, and what do they get for it? Nothing. The left sets out to destroy every one of ’em. Want some names? Clarence Thomas, Miguel Estrada, Condoleezza Rice. White president Bill Clinton, same thing. Although he didn’t have nearly as many women or people of color in his administration as one would think, given how he talked about it.
But George W. Bush, George H. W. Bush? Why, they bent over backwards to show they were not in any way racially preferentially oriented toward white people. That was how they sought to demonstrate their colorblindness. But it doesn’t seem there is any similar either requirement or pressure or even desire on Obama’s part to do the same. It’s quite the opposite. That’s why I’m fascinated by his question. It’s not a good question.
I mean, it’s not a question that you want citizens asking.
It’s just uncomfortable.
I don’t know what the answer is — and that’s not good, either.