The Rush Limbaugh LIVE Radio Show Thread - Friday, January 22, 2010 (Act Like a Lady Day)

AND NOW . . . amidst billowing clouds of fragrant, aromatic first- and second-hand premium cigar smoke. . . it is time for . . . that harmless, lovable little fuzz ball, the highly-trained broadcast specialist, having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have, from behind the golden EIB microphone, firmly ensconced in the prestigious Attila-the-Hun chair at the Limbaugh Institute of Advanced Conservative Studies, serving humanity simply by showing up, and he’s not retiring until every American agrees with him, do NOT doubt him, with shrieks of joy at the mere mention of his name (that’s Rush, for those in Rio Linda),the Mandarin of Talk Radio, with talent on loan from G-d, at the cutting-edge of societal evolution, with half his brain tied behind his back — just to make it fair, the all-knowing, all-caring, all-sensing, all-feeling, all-concerned Maha-Rushie! America’s anchorman, truth detector, and doctor of democracy. A Real Man, a living legend, a way of life. Commander in Chief of U.S. Operation Chaos. Chief Waga-Waga El Rushbo of the El Conservo Tribe. Chief of the Patriotism Police. Leader of the Conservative Movement. A Weapon of Mass Instruction. El Rushbo (a little Spanish lingo, there). He is the man who is running America (you know it and I know it). He knows the Democrats like every square inch of his glorious naked body. He is ready to do what he was born to do—that’s host. Get ready to what you were born to do—that’s listen (and post your comments on the Rush Limbaugh LIVE Radio Thread).

Click link to access hot links within the commentary below:

http://volokh.com/
Foxman vs. Limbaugh
David Bernstein • January 22, 2010 10:39 am

Rush Limbaugh made comments on his radio show (scroll down) suggesting that Pres. Obama may be subtly appealing to anti-Semitism through his attack on “bankers” and “Wall Street,” and that Jewish voters, in return, may be abandoning Obama.

Abe Foxman and the ADL then issued a press release:

Limbaugh told his listeners: “To some people, banker is a code word for Jewish; and guess who Obama is assaulting? He’s assaulting bankers. He’s assaulting money people. And a lot of those people on Wall Street are Jewish. So I wonder if there’s – if there’s starting to be some buyer’s remorse there.”

Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director, issued the following statement:

Rush Limbaugh reached a new low with his borderline anti-Semitic comments about Jews as bankers, their supposed influence on Wall Street, and how they vote.

Limbaugh’s references to Jews and money in a discussion of Massachusetts politics were offensive and inappropriate. While the age-old stereotype about Jews and money has a long and sordid history, it also remains one of the main pillars of anti-Semitism and is widely accepted by many Americans. His notion that Jews vote based on their religion, rather than on their interests as Americans, plays into the hands of anti-Semitic conspiracy theorists.

When he comes to understand why his words were so offensive and unacceptable, Limbaugh should apologize.

Now compare the bolded “quotation” from Limbaugh’s show with what he actually said:

Look, folks, there are a lot of people who when you say “banker,” people think “Jewish.” People who have prejudice is the best way to put it. They have a little prejudice about them. So for some people, “banker” is code word for “Jewish,” and guess who Obama’s assaulting? He’s assaulting bankers. He’s assaulting money people, and a lot of those people on Wall Street are Jewish. So I wonder if there’s starting to be some buyer’s remorse there.

Note that that the ADL press release intentionally cut off the italicized material above in which Limbaugh made it clear that prejudiced people associated “bankers” with Jews.

I find Limbaugh’s comments, even with the full context, to be foolish: I don’t think there is any evidence–and Limbaugh provides none–that Jews even perceive Obama to be appealing to anti-Semitism, nor that Jews in particular are, as Limbaugh suggests, abandoning Obama at a rate greater than other voters. Charitably, Limbaugh’s remarks were a lame attempt to find a topical reason to plug Norman Podhoretz’s book, Why are Jews Liberals?

But the fact that Limbaugh made a foolish comment unsupported by any evidence hardly makes his comment “borderline anti-Semitic.” How, exactly, is attacking the other side for allegedly appealing to people’s anti-Jewish prejudices anti-Semitic?

I’d like to give the ADL and Foxman the benefit of the doubt here, but the fact that their press release cuts off the relevant two lines about prejudice argues strongly against it. [I also don’t see anything in Limbaugh’s remarks that would support Foxman’s claim that his is propounding the “notion that Jews vote based on their religion, rather than on their interests as Americans,” beyond the obvious (and I assume unconstroversial) point that Jews are less likely to vote for someone that they perceive as exploiting prejudices against them.]

Fact is, while leftist types go on and on about the “right-wing” ADL, the core donor base of the ADL is Jewish liberals, and Foxman and company need to go after a conservative or two every once in a while, sometimes with the flimsiest of reasons, to keep their donors happy.

Unfortunately, and perhaps not surprisingly, the same left-wing bloggers (e.g.) who like to call Foxman out when they think he’s being too harsh on critics of Israel are perfectly willing to back him up on this one. How many of them actually bothered to take the approximately 45 seconds I needed to look up the full transcript of Limbaugh’s remarks (none seem to quote the “prejudiced” lines), I don’t know, but the line between reckless slander and intentional slander isn’t that fine.

Comments: http://volokh.com/2010/01/22/foxman-vs-limbaugh/#comments

Podhoretz, meanwhile, responds here:

It’s Not Rush Limbaugh Who Should Apologize
Norman Podhoretz - 01.22.2010 - 8:40 AM
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/podhoretz/222056

In my new book, Why Are Jews Liberals?, I argue that it no longer makes any sense for so many of my fellow Jews to go on aligning themselves with the forces of the Left. I also try to show that our interests and our ideals, both as Americans and as Jews, have come in recent decades to be better served by the forces of the Right. In the course of describing and agreeing with the book the other day, Rush Limbaugh cited a few of the numerous reasons for the widespread puzzlement over the persistence of liberalism within the American Jewish community. And while discussing those reasons, he pointed to the undeniable fact that for “a lot of people” prejudiced people, as he called them twice the words “banker” and “Wall Street” are code words for “Jewish.” Was it possible, he wondered, that Obama’s attacks on bankers and Wall Street were triggering a certain amount of buyer’s remorse within the American Jewish community, which gave him 78 percent of its vote?

Finally, taking off from my observation that many Jewish liberals like to call themselves independents, he wondered whether a fair number of the self-described independents who deserted Obama and voted for Scott Brown might actually have been Jewish liberals. If so, he concluded, Brown’s “victory could be even more indicative of an even bigger change in the political temper of the country than has so far been recognized.”

For this, Rush Limbaugh has been subjected to a vile attack by Abraham Foxman, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League. Of course, Mr. Foxman has a long history of seeing an anti-Semite under every conservative bed while blinding himself to the blatant fact that anti-Semitism has largely been banished from the Right in the past 40 years, and that it has found a hospitable new home on the Left, especially where Israel is concerned. This makes Foxman a perfect embodiment of the phenomenon I analyze in Why Are Jews Liberals? Now Foxman has the chutzpah to denounce Rush Limbaugh as an anti-Semite and to demand an apology from him to boot. Well, if an apology is owed here, it is the national director of the Anti-Defamation League who should apologize for the defamatory accusation of anti-Semitism that he himself has hurled against so loyal a friend of Israel as Rush Limbaugh.

bttt

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