Posted on 05/22/2007 1:45:44 AM PDT by Baladas
CHICAGO -- When former talk radio host Don Imus recently made racist remarks about the Rutgers women's basketball team on his radio show, he lost his job.
Now, some are wondering if radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh has also gone too far, NBC5 reported on Monday.
Weeks before Imus controversy, Limbaugh began airing a song about Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, who is running for the Democratic nomination for president. The song, a parody of the folk song "Puff The Magic Dragon," contains the line, "Barack, The Magic Negro." Some have begun to wonder if Limbaugh has been getting a free pass.
"It's insulting," said Michael Harrison, publishers of Talkers Magazine. "It's in bad taste, but it's legitimate political satire."
The voice on the song is a white political satirist imitating civil rights activist Rev. Al Sharpton.
"This is basically the radio equivalent of a black face minstrel show," said Paul Waldman of Media Matters for America. "You know, going back to 'Amos and Andy' and all of those kinds of racist shows."
Media watchdogs said there was no hue and cry to stop Limbaugh because he speaks to a niche audience who either expects this or was willing to let him slide, and that his target in this case is a public figure, not a college women's basketball team.
Obama said he doesn't listen to Limbaugh, but said being targeted is part of being a politician. In his broadcasts, Limbaugh suggest that the song is a parody based on a newspaper column about Obama written by journalist David Ehrenstein.
"The 'magic negro,'" was chiefly a term used when talking about films, in which you'd have black characters who would suddenly come out of nowhere and come to the rescue of white characters," Ehrenstein said. "I was just simply trying to get a conversation going. How it's gone is another question."
Waldman said Limbaugh has no excuse.
Not to defend Rush on this but frankly, as far as I’ve seen so far, Obama’s main talent and qualification is the color of his skin.
But that’s typical Democrat. It’s all about politics, all about image. Form before substance.
There is a poll with the article..
I voted..
Didn’t even notice. Now 53% “no”, Rush’s comments were not worse than Imus’, 45% say “yes”, 2% “don’t know”.
A push poll based in Chicago.
This is old!
Old news is no news.
They’re trying so hard to gin up outrage over this and they just can’t get it going. It must just drive them bonkers. Rush’s parody works because it’s true an it’s funnier than hell.
“Some say”.........uh huh. So what?
“Some” say that the Left should park the old Racecar D into the garage and leave it there.
I went to bed about 1:30, two o'clock, so I didn't get up to see what the Today Show did today, but I knew what they were going to do before they did it because I predicted it to you on Friday. I just want you to know what happened. We sent them reams of data. H.R. spoke to the producer three times Friday afternoon. They interviewed Michael Medved about it to get a voice agreeing with my side. They didn't use him at all. They just used this hack from the George Soros funded front group for the Democrat Party, Media Matters for America.It's pathetic. They're posting the lowest ratings they've posted in years, they're just barely ahead of Good Morning America -- they've got a smaller audience than we do. They had to try to get this wrong. There's no other way this could happen. They don't even understand the point of the parody, "Barack, 'the Magic Negro'." It's a piece on Al Sharpton. It's not even a hit piece on Obama, and everything in it was originated by libs. ... they just don't want to get it right. ... It's just a smear. This happens every day to me. ...
The more I think about it, I think they did this in a perfunctory way. I think they want me to start railing against them because the Today show's numbers are in the tank, folks. ... these are some of the worst ratings in over a decade for the Today show. Snerdley's point was, "You know, they saw that little dust-up that you had with the CBS affiliate out there in Sacramento, and they saw how many website hits that little station got and all the publicity it got. I think they're just trying to get you to give them a bump, because there's no news value in this thing, ... It's a two and a half month old story and nobody is talking about it other than these Democrat front group websites."
Of course the perpetually offended never bother to listen to the lyrics!
“...The L.A. Times they call him this,
because he’s black but not authentically...”
Said by an Al Sharpton impersonator! Sharpton is the real subject of this parody.
BINGO!
Thanks for nailing that one home, but you left out one thing... he is also half Muslim.
Hope that I might be so lucky today.
They still don’t get the song or it’s origin. And they report “News”.
Ever since the XVth Amendment (or was if Brown v. Board of Education?) it has been unconstitutional to hurt the feelings of the Colored. This demostrates the need for "fairness". OK, so let someone on NPR insult W. Problem is, who'd ever know?
Some say, some say not.
No, he doesn't SUGGEST it, he SAYS it.
Boy, he sure does have the number of liberals, does he not?
There really is nothing “Magic” about Obama.
He is simply a mulatto who used his white grandparents money and threw them off and became black. Nothing new in that either, Haile Berry threw her mother off on national TV.
He definitely has them figured out, which is not only the key to his success, but the reason they hate and fear him so much. According to Rush, those who think of liberals as stupid completely miss the mark. They are after the destruction of our way of life, and nothing points this out more clearly than George Soros' anti-American agenda and his network of like organizations.
Therefore, "stupid" doesn't exactly work for the so-called liberal progressives, but "traitorous" does.
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