Make no mistake about it; talk radio host Rush Limbaugh is one race baiting son of a gun. He was at it again this past week, accusing first lady Michelle Obama of being “uppity.” But this wasn’t Limbaugh’s first foray into the race-baiting arena.
It was several years ago that Limbaugh went on a football talk show and called then-Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb “overrated.”
That was a fair assessment: McNabb was overrated. But Limbaugh felt compelled to drag race into the issue.
National Football League honchos wanted very much for a black quarterback to succeed, Limbaugh opined, and that’s why the sports media treated the overrated McNabb with such kid gloves.
When the ensuing criticism hit — with pundits calling Limbaugh on his race baiting — the talk show host went into full-blown victim mode, claiming he was being picked on.
Limbaugh has already started getting the backlash for his “uppity” comment about the first lady. Does Limbaugh race bait because he’s a bona fide racist?
Or does he race bait because he knows liberals have no moral grounds to criticize him on when it comes to race baiting?
I suspect it’s the latter. Where were all the people who are outraged about Limbaugh’s “uppity” comment a few short months ago, when New Black Panther Party leader Malik Zulu Shabazz was talking not about the first lady, but about her husband?
Shabazz called one Barack Hussein Obama, president of the United States — the first black president of the United States — a “nigger.”
Now, pray, tell me, which is worse: Limbaugh calling Michelle Obama “uppity”? Or Shabazz calling Barack Obama a “nigger”?
And where do we find all those blog posts, columns and comments condemning Shabazz for his comments? You sure as heck aren’t going to find them in the same places that are grilling Limbaugh like he’s a Fourth of July steak at a cookout.
People on the left, you see, can make despicable, insulting and downright nasty comments about those on the right, especially black conservatives. (Or, in Obama’s case, even black liberals who’ve offended those on the left in some way.)
When people on the right make comments nowhere near as offensive, it’s well, because, they’re racist. Move to the head of the class if you’ve detected the double standard.
Some liberals and others on the left feel it’s perfectly OK to hurl invective at conservatives, especially black ones. So Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas can be depicted on the cover of a national magazine wearing a handkerchief on his head, and it’s considered just fine.
Thomas can be depicted on another cover of the same magazine as a lawn jockey, and that’s just oh-so-funny.
Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice can be called a “skeeza” before a crowd of blacks at a Baltimore college, and they laugh, scream, hoot, stomp and cheer.
It was Amiri Baraka, a black poet, playwright and essayist from New Jersey, who called Rice the name, which is another way of saying, “whore.”
Baraka can call former Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele “a real public coon” and no one — at least on the left — utters so much as a syllable of protest.
That’s because when lefties say these things, they figure they’re being their witty, oh-so-clever selves. They figure the entire country is playing by liberal rules.
I’ve got bad news for them: Liberal rules no longer apply. Here are the new rules:
If you can’t take it, don’t dish it out. You don’t like Limbaugh calling Michelle Obama “uppity”? Then you might want to apply your outrage across the board.
Anybody on the left out there willing to condemn Shabazz for calling the president of the United States a “nigger”? I won’t hold my breath while I wait for it.
Examiner Columnist Gregory Kane is a Pulitzer nominated news and opinion journalist who has covered people and politics from Baltimore to the Sudan.
