May 2, 2007
Obama Displays Maturity, Laughs Off “Barack the ‘Magic Negro’” Song
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Paul W. Smith, frequent guest host on this program, had on his program Barack Obama — and he had to ask Barack Obama about “Barack the ‘Magic Negro.’” He did. He did! We have the audio coming. He set it up. It’s not on the little bite that we have, but he told Obama the roots of this, the LA Times article by David Ehrenstein, a black man, wrote the piece on the “magic negro” and so forth, and then he said to Obama after setting it up that way. He said, “I have to do this because Rush is on our radio station. We’re going to see him tomorrow. You’ve heard the parody song ‘Barack the “Magic Negro”’”?
OBAMA: (Laughing.) You know, I have not heard it but I’ve heard of it. I confess that I don’t listen to Rush on a daily basis. On the other hand, I’m not one of these people who — who takes myself so seriously that I get offended by — by every — every comment made about me. You know, the — you know, what Rush does is entertainment, and although it’s probably not something that I listen to much, I don’t —
PAUL W. SMITH: But you said not every day, so you do listen a little then, and why wouldn’t you?
OBAMA: I don’t mind. I don’t mind — I don’t mind folks poking fun at me. That’s part of the job.
RUSH: Barack Obama. That’s right, Barack Obama laughed it off. He laughed it off. He said I’m an entertainer, and he doesn’t mind being made fun of, poking fun at him. That’s part of the job. Snerdley’s looking at me with mouth wide open and agape. What do you not believe about this? (interruption) Yeah, look, we don’t need to belabor this. But there’s a reason he’s laughing it off. A, it’s funny. B, the roots of it is the Los Angeles Times. C, there’s nothing to accomplish by doing something other than this. I don’t want to go into it any further, but this is a classy way to deal with it. This is the way he should have dealt with it if anyone asked. It’s the first time he’s, probably, been asked about it, but this is the way for these guys to deal with it. Blow it off. Laugh it off. “No big deal.” Now, he didn’t react that way when Maureen Dowd wrote about his ears. We have that bite, just to show you how he’s maturing in the campaign. He is inexperienced in this foxhole, but let’s go to sound bite number four. This is back in December, December 10th last year in New Hampshire, and he held a press conference and he made a beeline right after the press conference straight to Maureen Dowd, MoDo, of the New York Times, and had this exchange with her.
[]OBAMA (off mic): You talked about my ears, and I just want to put you on notice: I’m very sensitive about — What I told them was, ‘’I was teased relentlessly when I was a kid about my big ears.’”
DOWD (purring): We’re trying to toughen you up.
RUSH: I don’t know, could you hear that very well? What Obama said was, “I was teased relentlessly when I was a kid about my big ears,” and Maureen said, “We’re just trying to toughen you up.” Now, it sounded like Helen Thomas, but it was Maureen Dowd. The voices of those two are distinct. So he’s matured quite a bit. I want to thank Paul W. Smith for sending this along and asking Obama the question.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: One other thing, for some of you Nervous Nellies out there. We’ve been talking about this Barack Obama sound bite with Paul W. Smith, and as I told you, Paul W. Smith told him before he asked the question, what he thinks of the parody “Barack the ‘Magic Negro.’” He gave him the source of it, this LA Times piece. What I think that Barack Obama knows is that the parody, for people who listen to this program in a continuous fashion, do it in a contextual way — and Obama knows this — I have railed against the liberals out there who are trying to say he’s not black enough. The LA Times has run three such pieces, two of them devoted expressly to that topic: Is Obama black enough? The UK Times did one late last week. There have been three of those, and then, of course, you had the “magic negro” story. That parody doesn’t make fun of Obama at all. The parody, all it does is make fun of the left, and that’s what all of these parodies do. That’s what everything that we do on this program does. It has an element of truth in it which makes it funny but it’s also oriented toward making a point.
We’ve always called it “illustrating absurdity by being absurd.” There’s nothing more absurd than a bunch of Democrats out there wringing their hands, liberal media types over whether or not some candidate is black enough, while they’re shouting, “Racist, racist, racist!” at every conservative they know — and it’s not conservatives talking about Barack’s skin color until they do, and then we parody it, and then they call us racists. Well, it doesn’t wash, and Obama knows it.
You have these knee-jerk liberals out there, these Nervous Nellies, that are just waiting for anything to pounce, and they do, and they get it wrong each and every time they do. So there’s nothing of substance here to criticize. You can only be critical of it if you’re panicked or if you are reactionary and don’t know what you’re talking about, which describes much of the left.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Tim in Tucson, you’re next on the EIB Network, sir. Hello.
CALLER: Hello, Rush. Uh, yeah, I was just going to say, about your Barack Obama, the magic dragon piece, I think that’s really dangerous, and the reason why is, uh, —
RUSH: Have you heard it?
CALLER: Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard it.
RUSH: Do you know the roots of it?
CALLER: Yes. Yes. Yes.
RUSH: What are they?
CALLER: Well, it’s basically, due to white guilt.
RUSH: No, no, no. I mean, who was the first to originally use the phrase “Obama the ‘Magic Negro’”?
CALLER: Dave Ehrenstein, a non-white male, a black male.
RUSH: Way to go. Way to go. Way to go. Way to go. And do you know why I have Reverend Sharpton singing it?
CALLER: Uhhhh, no.
RUSH: Well, because after Joe Biden, another Democrat, said after Obama was in the race, it’s great, we finally have a black candidate that’s “clean and articulate” running for president. The New York Post ran a story about Sharpton being a little jealous because he takes a bath every day and he was a presidential candidate and here’s Biden and these other Democrats talking about how clean and articulate Obama is, and the New York Post story said that there might be a little jealousy here. So, there’s a timeline. Everything in that parody is indeed a parody of what liberals and leftists are saying.
CALLER: Okay, well, let me tell you why I think it’s dangerous. All right? You being a white male and being a, you know, collectively the smartest, most powerful people on the planet, you’re very influential, and I’m afraid that that piece, it plays to your — some of our — your racists in your audience that need a measuring stick. So I think it’s really — it’s really dangerous.
RUSH: What’s dangerous is you characterizing members of an audience that you don’t know as “racists,” and you’re doing this, again, from a standpoint of ignorance. I’m glad you called, because I actually am glad to have the opportunity to tell you this. As I have said repeatedly, it breaks my heart to see how minorities in this country are treated by the people who claim to be their champions, because those people who claim to be their champions are the exact opposite. It is not I nor is it this audience who are racists. I didn’t come up with this whole concept of Barack and this “magic negro” thing. It is leftists in this country who are obsessed with skin color and gender and sexual orientation and grouping people into those categories and then seeing them as victims, and when you see them as victims, you don’t see their full potential. You deny it. You see people who are incompetent, and it breaks my heart. We are conservatives. We want the best for everybody. We believe that we’re human beings. I don’t look at Barack Obama and say, “Is he black enough?” Liberals write pieces about Barack Obama and ask, “Is he black enough?” on the basis of does he have roots to the civil rights protests and movement in this country.
It ought to be irrelevant. What kind of racism is that? To disqualify a Democrat presidential candidate who happens to be black because he doesn’t have ties to the civil rights movement! I’m not the one doing it. It’s liberal Democrats that are writing these pieces and making these claims. I’m not the one that said, “Hey, we’ve got an articulate black guy on our side now!” Joe Biden, a Democrat, said this. I am not holding Obama up as an object of abuse. They are. They are disrespecting Obama and who he is as a human being by judging him strictly and solely on his genetic makeup and his skin color and to a certain extent, whether or not he has direct ties to protests in Selma, Alabama, and wherever in the 1950s and sixties, Brown vs. Board of Education. My audience doesn’t look at him that way. If my audience has a choice of voting for Barack Obama for president, if he ends up being the nominee, people in this audience, Tim, are going to make up their minds on the basis that they agree with his policies.
The people in this audience are interested in the future of the country for themselves and their kids, and we care about ideas here. I am a conservative. I think liberals are wrong and I think they pose a threat to the things I believe in. I like to parody them and make fun of it by illustrating absurdity by being absurd. This is what I do. It’s what I’ve done for 18 and a half years. There would never have been a “Barack the ‘Magic Negro’” had Sharpton not gotten all bent out of shape over Biden’s comment and had all these columns not been written in the newspapers about is Barack black enough. I’m not making fun of Obama. I’m making fun — and he knows this, by the way. I’m making fun of the people who are disrespecting him as a human being, and that ain’t me! We in the conservative movement, sir, we want prosperity, excellence, achievement for as many people who desire it. Liberals in this country look at people and don’t see that that’s possible in many cases, and so they say, “They’re victims! We need government programs here, government programs there,” and they have no confidence in people to succeed.
We want a great country. That means as much achievement and as much accomplishment and as solid a moral code as we can have. Not that everybody’s going to follow it, but we need the line. We need the guardrails. It’s all about kids. It’s all about the future, kids and grandkids, and that’s what we want. This is why Obama, when given the chance to rail back at me didn’t. He laughed it off, said eh, Rush is an entertainer. He’s gotta be able to take being poked fun at here. The problem is, he wasn’t the one being poked fun of. Al Sharpton is. David Ehrenstein is, and all the other authors of these pieces that ask: Is Barack Obama black enough? There are no racists in this audience, or not as a rule. There are racists everywhere. But I’ll tell you what, this audience is not comprised of racists. It’s not comprised of people who hate. The largest audience in radio talk show history could not maintain itself for this many years if it were based on hate, if it were based on lies, if it were based on untruths. The people in this audience are among the most informed, surveys have indicated. The people of this audience are among the most educated — and you people on the left who refuse to accept this are never going to understand what you’re truly dealing with in a competitive sense when you try to take this show out.
Your attacks are feeble. They’re not based in any kind of truth, and to call here and to say that I am giving aid and comfort to the racists in this audience, is as insulting as anything you could say to me. Because it means that you think this audience is a bunch of mind-numbed robots who don’t have anything but hatred, racism, or some other ism in their heart. When in fact, when I listen to Democrats today and Democrat supporters, I hear so much rage and hatred that I don’t believe it. I’ve been listening to it for three years. I hear so much racism. I hear so much sexism. The next story in the stack. I have two stories here on why women hate Hillary, by a woman. I have a story about this female candidate for the president of France, Ségolène Royal. Women hate her. It’s women writing this stuff. I’m going to talk about it. People like you, Tim, are going to sit there and tell me that I’m abusing Mrs. Clinton. I’m taking your buddies in your media, and I’m regurgitating what they say. One of these stories is in The Times, another one is in the Washington Post. You know, better to examine your own house for racism, sexism, bigotry and all these things, before you start throwing these accusations around, because you have no clue what you’re talking about.
END TRANSCRIPT
Left Obsessed with Obama’s Blackness…
(Los Angeles Times: Obama the ‘Magic Negro’ - David Ehrenstein)
(UK Times: The great black and white hope? - Tom Baldwin)
(Chicago Tribune: Report: Obama’s kin owned slaves)
(UKDM: A drunk and a bigot - what the US Presidental
hopeful HASN’T said about his father...)
(LA Times: Redefining ‘black’ - Louis Chude-Sokei)
(LA Times: Occidental recalls ‘Barry’ Obama)
(LA Times: Is Obama the new ‘black’?)
(NewsBusters: LATimes: Obama Not ‘Black Enough’?)
(GMA Speculates on Obama & Race)
(TIME: Is Obama Black Enough?)
(NYDN: Obama: Growing up black, but African, too. He does not share our heritage)
(LA Times: Some wonder: Is Obama black enough?)
(KNS: Is Obama ‘black enough’ if his roots don’t include slavery?)
(Salon: Colorblind. Barack Obama would be the great black hope in the next presidential race — if he were actually black - Debra J. Dickerson)
Read the Background Material...
InTheseTimes: Why Women Hate Hillary
WP: You’ve Come a Long Way, Maybe
IHT: Is Ségolène Royal stooping to win votes in France?
Obama’s White Forbearers Owned Slaves
Pandering on Parade with Clintons in Selma
March 2, 2007
[] http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_030207/content/01125106.member.html
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Lots to do on the busy broadcast today. We find out that census records and genealogical records indicate there’s a history of slavery in Obama’s family, on his mother’s side. It’s in the Chicago Tribune. Forebears, relatives of Obama’s mother had slaves, and it’s in the Chicago Tribune. “Many people know that Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama’s father was from Kenya and his mother from Kansas. But an intriguing sliver of his family history has received almost no attention until now: It appears that forebears of his white mother owned slaves, according to genealogical research and census records. The records, which had never been addressed publicly by the Illinois senator or his relatives, were first noted in an ancestry report compiled by William Addams Reitwiesner, who works at the Library of Congress and practices genealogy in his spare time.” That would mean it’s his hobby, for those of you in Rio Linda.
“The report, on Reitwiesner’s Web site, carries a disclaimer that it is a ‘first draft’ —one likely to be examined more closely if Obama is nominated.” Not only that, we also have found out that, “Reitwiesner’s research identifies two other presidential candidates, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and former Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.), as descendants of slave owners. Three of McCain’s great-great-grandfathers in Mississippi owned slaves, including one who owned 52 in 1860. Two ancestors of Edwards owned one slave each in Georgia in 1860,” and now we know that Al Sharpton’s relatives were owned by relatives of Strom Thurmond’s family out there. So I guess we could say that since the forebears of Obama’s mother had slaves, could we not say that if Obama wins the Democratic nomination and then wins the presidency, he will own Al Sharpton?
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: The real question is, when we end up having to pay reparations for slavery, where’s the money for Obama’s family going to go — to him? There’s a big march in Selma, Alabama, coming up. As you know, as I have mentioned to you, Hillary is losing (in polling data, at least) significant portions of the black vote to Barack Obama. So it turns out now that Bill Clinton has rushed in to save Hillary with black voters. “Bill Clinton will join Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton at a commemoration of the 1965 civil rights march in Selma, Ala., on Sunday, bringing his star power and popularity among African Americans to a weekend of events that had been shaping up as a showcase for the candidacy of Sen. Barack Obama. It will be the former president’s first major public appearance with his wife since she launched her campaign. … Late yesterday, after organizers initially said that the former president would not attend, the Clinton campaign announced that he would be making the trip after all. … Artur Davis (D-Ala.), who has endorsed Obama and whose district includes Selma, said, ‘I think the Clinton camp is sending a signal they will aggressively contest Barack Obama for the African-American vote.’”
Well, whoa, whoa, whoa! What do you mean contest Obama for the African-American vote? It used to be hers. What is this contest business? “How the joint Clinton trip came about was a subject of some debate: The senator’s advisers dismissed the suggestion that the former president was rushing in at the last minute to help his wife’s standing among black voters. But they admitted that the decision was made yesterday, more than a week after Hillary Clinton made her plans to go to Selma.” So it will be pandering on parade. Representatives of a party that has done more to destroy the black family and break up whatever economic opportunities minorities in this country have had, are going to go pander to these people as though they are their savior and their last hope — which is a crock. Now it looks like Hillary needs Bill to save the day down there because Barack, despite the slave ownership in his mother’s history, is looking strong. I guess he’s getting blacker out there because we had a bunch of stories last week that he’s not black enough. Obviously something has changed out there because he’s being perceived as being blacker by enough African-American voters.
END TRANSCRIPT
Read the Background Material...
(Chicago Tribune: Report: Obama’s kin owned slaves)
(WP: At Site of ‘65 March, an ‘08 Collision)
Left Obsessed with Obama’s Blackness…
(UKDM: A drunk and a bigot - what the US Presidental
hopeful HASN’T said about his father...)
(LA Times: Redefining ‘black’ - Louis Chude-Sokei)
(LA Times: Occidental recalls ‘Barry’ Obama)
(LA Times: Is Obama the new ‘black’?)
(NewsBusters: LATimes: Obama Not ‘Black Enough’?)
(GMA Speculates on Obama & Race)
(TIME: Is Obama Black Enough?)
(NYDN: Obama: Growing up black, but African, too. He does not share our heritage)
(LA Times: Some wonder: Is Obama black enough?)
(KNS: Is Obama ‘black enough’ if his roots don’t include slavery?)
(Salon: Colorblind. Barack Obama would be the great black hope in the next presidential race — if he were actually black - Debra J. Dickerson)
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