Posted on 10/26/2009 12:37:12 PM PDT by nickcarraway
And still no apology.
Even when conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh runs with a fabricated story, he doesn't apologize for the error.
Limbaugh, who seizes on every opportunity to blast Obama, ended up with egg on his face when he read an Internet satire piece that claimed President Obama dissed the Constitution in his college thesis at Columbia University.
A transcript of his Friday broadcast remains Sunday at the top of Limbaugh's web page under the headline, "Obama's Disdain for Constitution: We Know He Thinks It, Don't We? When we discover a hoax, we correct it immediately."
But apologize? You betcha there's none.
Limbaugh sounded off Friday on a supposed report that Time magazine reporter Joe Klein had unearthed Obama's college thesis, titled "Aristocracy Reborn," in which he sounded off on the nation's Founding Fathers and the Constitution and the distribution of wealth.
The only problem - the report was pure fiction.
The original post with the fabricated details about Obama's college thesis was written as a satire on a humor blog. An obscure blogger, Michael Leeden, mistakenly picked it BYup, reporting the satirical post as fact, and then Limbaugh ran with it on his national radio show Friday.
Leeden has since apologized.
Limbaugh? Not so much.
In fact, he says, why the President never said what the hoax claimed, "we know he thinks it."
"So here is who we have as our president of the United States: an anti-constitutionalist man who finds it an obstacle and is finding ways around it on purpose, unconstitutionally," Limbaugh said on his show.
"Much of what he's doing is unconstitutional, and I'm waiting for the lawsuits to be filed by some of these people at some point," Limbaugh added. "How is that hope and change working out for ya, folks?"
Later in the same program, when Limbaugh learned the report was a hoax, he corrected the record, alerting listeners that the quotes from the thesis had been fabricated. But he insisted the fabricated thesis was still in line with what the president thinks.
"So I shout from the mountaintops: 'It was satire!'" Limbaugh said on the program. "But we know he (Obama) thinks it. Good comedy, to be comedy, must contain an element of truth, and we know how he feels about distribution of wealth."
Limbaugh said he has license to go with the fabrication because other members of the media have done this to him. "So, I can say, "I don't care if these quotes are made up," he said. "I know Obama thinks it.
"You know why I know Obama thinks it? Because I've heard him say it."
The fabricated thesis pokes fun at the president's position on economic freedom.
"The so-called Founders did not allow for economic freedom," the satire on Obama's thesis says.
"While political freedom is supposedly a cornerstone of the document, the distribution of wealth is not even mentioned. While many believed that the new Constitution gave them liberty, it instead fitted them with the shackles of hypocrisy."
In a post Friday, Time's Joe Klein says the report is false.
"A report is circulating among the wingnuts that I had a peek at Barack Obama's senior thesis. It is completely false," he wrote. "I've never seen Obama's thesis. I have no idea where this report comes from--but I can assure you that it's complete nonsense."
Actually, I was listening that day, and Rush started with the “I know he thinks it” stuff after referencing Dan Rather’s “well I know the story is true, even though the evidence was false”. He’s just throwing back at the libs what the libs are throwing at him. I love it.
Worth repeating.
He is the man who never was.
Exactly. Planned from the start, IMO.
The real-life thesis which nobody has seen is probably scarier than any satire someone could come up with.
BTTT
I think this crap was cooked up for no other hope than that Rush might read it. And I think it’s because the left knew they got burned on all that WikiFootballGate stuff and they wanted to counter it.
They did a good job, I have to say. I also did believe it.
Easy solution - release the documents.
Amazing, nearly 10 months into this fellow's administration, and his past is still shrouded in a haze, and his Birth Certificate, passport information, College records, etc, are all under lock and key...
And nary a peep from our vaunted watchdog media.
We know that this was satire to begin with but why is this reporter focused on Rush. It seems to me the real story is what is in Obama’s actual transcript and why he has chosen not to release it. We would have answers to these questions but for the simple fact that the MSM is terrified of knowing the answers.
I was just going to post the same thing. He acknowledged it wasn’t real. As you stated, he warned up front that it might not be. There’s no need to apologize.
The poor left in this nation, they can’t grasp the simplest of concepts. Rush didn’t do anything wrong but must apologize within days. Dan Rather does something he acknowledges was wrong and has yet to apologize years later.
Rush gets unfairly slimed, and Rather is unfairly given a pass.
The left knows what it is doing. It’s brain dead, but it is pushing an agenda, the destruction of Limbaugh.
If this were happening from our side, we would criticize it. The left just jumps in and bathes in it.
I don’t see any references to the Obama thesis on Rush’s page today.
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/today.guest.html
but the media doesn’t write about Rush to take him to task for any abuses or to correct any mistakes. They write to slur him to an audience that never listens to him to ensure that they never DO give him any audience time.
And what’s there to apologize for? As this inane article points out, he DID correct the record — the same day that the error occurred!
He didn’t fall for this. He said it was not checked.
As soon as I heard “Columbia University thesis” I became suspicious since I’ve never seen any credible evidence that Zer0 ever matriculated there. And I’m sure Rush was skeptical for the same reason.
When he started reading from it and the prose sounded like it came from a literate, albeit radical, person I became even more skeptical. What I’ve seen of Hussein’s writing (his, not some ghostwriter’s) is so stilted and clumsy that it is scarcely readable.
Y’all need to Freep the poll. 71% are saying Rush LIED, which honest people know he did not lie.
odumbo refused to release his records and also fails to apologize
RUSH: In the first hour of this program, I cited a statement that Michael Ledeen found on the blog Jumping in Pools reporting on Obama’s college thesis written when he was at Columbia. The paper was called “Aristocracy Reborn,” and in the first ten pages Obama wrote the following: “[T]he Constitution allows for many things but what it does not allow is the most revealing. The so-called Founders did not allow for economic freedom. While political freedom is supposedly a cornerstone of the document, the distribution of wealth is not even mentioned. While many believe the new Constitution gave them liberty, it instead fitted them with the shackles of hypocrisy.” Now, I got a note from a researcher who has been scouring the Internet, and the note says this:
“Rush Limbaugh: Mini-warning on these quotes.” Because the paper that Obama wrote, “Aristocracy Reborn,” the first ten pages were all that reporter Joe Klein was permitted to see; and it says here that Klein did write about it for TIME Magazine. A researcher has been scouring the Internet and can’t find any sources for the quote. “The blog that Ledeen cites doesn’t have supporting info,” supposedly. The source post that was from August, says it’s going to be in an upcoming report from Joe Klein, but the researcher can’t find anything that has come out since, and nothing in Klein’s blog. There have been no matches found on the Internet for any of the info or quotes other than the source posting. So I now say that the blog from which this came has no sourcing data other than Joe Klein upcoming report and Joe Klein hasn’t written his upcoming report.
So we have to hold out the possibility that this is not accurate. However, I have had this happen to me recently. I have had quotes attributed to me that were made up, and when it was pointed out to the media that the quotes were made up, they said, “It doesn’t matter! We know Limbaugh thinks it anyway.” Sort of like Dan Rather said, “I don’t care if these documents are forged. I know that Bush did what he did at the National Guard. I don’t care if the documents are forged.” I don’t care if the Limbaugh quotes are made up. So, I can say, “I don’t care if these quotes are made up. I know Obama thinks it. You know why I know Obama thinks it? Because I’ve heard him say it.” Not about the Constitution, but about the Supreme Court. Again, 2001, FM radio station interview in Chicago when he was a state senator in Illinois.
OBAMA 2001: If you look at the victories and failures of the civil rights movement and its litigation strategy in the court, I think where it succeeded was to vest formal rights in previously dispossessed peoples so that, uh, I would now have the right to vote, I would now be able to sit at a lunch counter and — and order and as long as I could pay for it I’d be okay. But the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth and sort of more basic issues of political and economic justice in this society.
RUSH: Now, he’s talking about the Warren Court “never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth.” So we’ve got a supposed piece from his college thesis at Columbia where he complains that the Constitution didn’t talk about the distribution of wealth. So we know that it’s on his mind. So even if he didn’t say it, I know he thinks it. That’s how it works now in the media. And I do know he thinks it because I just heard what I heard, and so did you. Let’s see.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: I’m also told that the blog containing the passage on Obama’s thesis is a satire blog. So it’s one of these sites like ScrappleFace or The Onion or some such thing. So I shout from the mountaintops: “It was satire!” But we know he thinks it. Good comedy, to be comedy, must contain an element of truth, and we know how he feels about distribution of wealth. He’s mad at the courts for not going far enough on it. So we stand by the fabricated quote because we know Obama thinks it anyway. That’s how it works in the media today.
END TRANSCRIPT
c’mon, he did it deliberately to tweak the media...it’s brilliant!
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