Limbaugh claimed Ahmadinejad letter to Bush contained "liberal Hollywood Jewish people talking point"
On the May 10 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio program, Rush Limbaugh claimed that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's letter to President Bush contained "Democratic talking points," and "even some liberal Hollywood Jewish people talking point."
From the May 10 broadcast of Premiere Radio Networks' The Rush Limbaugh Show:
LIMBAUGH: So even Mahmoud knows how to push our buttons. [In Middle Eastern accent] "You need to feel guilty about your existence and what you've done in the past, and we need to talk about that, and you need to atone."
" 'It's not an issue of whether we respond,' said the White House spokesman Scott McClellan" -- Scott McClellan? When is Tony Snow taking over, over there? Monday. They're doing double duty. OK. " 'It's not an issue of whether we respond, it's an issue of whether the regime will respond to the demands of the international community.' The letter covers a list of grievances that have made Bush deeply unpopular among Muslims: The Iraq war, the U.S. support for Israel, and the treatment of prisoners in Guantánamo Bay."
Once again, it's the Democratic talking points, other than Israel, and even there -- yeah, it's [anti-war activist] Cindy Sheehan talking -- it is, you're right. It's Cindy. It's even some liberal Hollywood Jewish people talking point. Oh, I'll tell you, the Shelby Steele thing explains a lot. I've run into so many liberal Jews around the country that are pro-Palestinian. And I've never understood it, and they've kind of given me indications, "Well, it's just not fair; they're just a minority, and the U.N. [United Nations] gave these people a country, and they pushed these other people out."
It's all -- it's wrapped up in Shelby Steele. It's white supremacy; it's white guilt. And it even is relevant in the Israeli-Palestinian issue when you have -- how do you explain The New York Times constantly editorializing against Israel?
In the letter to Bush, Ahmadinejad wrote:
Mr. President, I am sure you know how -- and at what cost -- Israel was established: many thousands were killed in the process; millions of indigenous people were made refugees; hundreds of thousands of hectares of farmland, olive plantations, towns and villages were destroyed. This tragedy is not exclusive to the time of establishment; unfortunately, it has been ongoing for 60 years now.
Ahmadinejad's 18-page letter, which touched on the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and the unlawful detainment of prisoners, also expressed skepticism about whether the Holocaust occurred:
One of my students told me that during WWII, which more than tens of millions of people perished in, news about the war was quickly disseminated by the warring parties. Each touted their victories and the most recent battlefront defeat of the other party. After the war they claimed that six million Jews had been killed. Six million people that were surely related to at least two million families. Again let us assume that these events are true. Does that logically translate into the establishment of the state of Israel in the Middle East or support for such a state? How can this phenomenon be rationalized or explained?
Ahmadinejad has previously advocated "wiping Israel off the map," has referred to Israel as a "rotten, dried tree," and has dismissed the Holocaust as a "myth."
Shelby Steele, to whom Limbaugh referred, is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and the author of White Guilt: How Blacks and Whites Together Destroyed the Promise of the Civil Rights Era (HarperCollins, May 2006). Steele also published an op-ed on May 2 in The Wall Street Journal in which he argued that "America has increasingly practiced a policy of minimalism and restraint in war" because of "white guilt." According to Steele's op-ed, white people are "stigmatized with moral crimes," and "lack moral authority and so act guiltily whether they feel guilt or not."
Tell the virulently anti-Israel president of Iran that he sounds like a Jew. I think your insurance premiums just went up.
send Rush over there, as a FOX war correspondent, to get all the details first hand. Walk the talk and let's see if he really has brass balls .
We don't need war correspondents in Iran - yet!
send Rush over there, as a FOX news analyst, to get all the details first hand. Walk the talk and let's see if he really has brass balls .
He is getting worse and worse. Here he bashes liberal jews and democrats by comparinf them to the anti-semitic Iran leader.
He pulls a couple of people and statements out of his ass: "I've run into so many liberal Jews around the country that are pro-Palestinian. And I've never understood it, and they've kind of given me indications, "Well, it's just not fair; they're just a minority, and the U.N. [United Nations] gave these people a country, and they pushed these other people out." and then he continues to refer to Steele who Rush probably misrepresents as his bias in thinking is unlimited.
[link to www.hoover.org]
I wonder if he's on AIPAC's payroll? He doesn't understand why the liberal Jews can't just rally behind the nutcase reactionaries and be politically homogenous, huh?
Rush will be sending out a team of conservatives to pin red stars on the liberal Jews so everyone knows which Jews are wrong.
Rush...the man who WANTS there to be some bloodshed every where in the world...
Whether Ahmedinejad said this is actually a contested point... Juan Cole has argued that Farsi contains no such idiom, and that the better translation is the "occupation of Jerusalem needs to be erased from history"... which conveys a quite different meaning.
Just to be clear, Ahmedinejad has said all manner of appalling things, but it is not clear, despite the conventional insistence to the contrary, that he has in fact called for the destruction of Israel. It is a warmongers' talking point, and it shouldn't be repeated without caveats.
Other small point for anyone that might defend Rush... read this piece from the same letter:
"Liberalism and western-style democracy have not been able to help realise the ideals of humanity. Today, these two concepts have failed."
See that - Ahmedinejad believes liberalism has failed. So remind me, whose talking points were being channelled?
Whether Ahmedinejad said this is actually a contested point
I agree completely. With our language differences, he might very well have said "Isreal, as a state, should not exist," which is a common, if unpopular, sentiment worldwide.
...and it's name is Shelby Steele.
Rush has been riding a massive high ever since Shelby wrote his "White Guilt" op-ed in the Wall Street Journal a few days ago - the idea of a black man providing license for "taking the gloves off" against Iraqis is pushing his euphoria beyond what he can normally bear, and that's saying a lot. Rush can handle stuff that would have killed the entire lineup at the Kentucky Derby. Except for that one episode where the drugs fried his hearing. That was bad.
Wow another grinnin slave paraded out in front of the war machine to justify Armageddon. They should put his face on Limbaugh's lawn jockey.
How is Rush an authority on any of this?
he is not, but what he is saying falls under 'opinion' and 'free speech' even though it is merely concentrated to bashing liberals and liberal icons. His opinion does not go further that easy namecalling like the bullies in high school did against 'nerds' and anything else going beyond the understanding of the bully.
What is the opposite of having no concept of GUILT? An illusion of perfection? Of having never made a mistake, as an individual or as a nation? Of having no soul, no conscience?
So, "Conservatives" tell us GUILT is no reason to have a policy position. How about JUSTICE? How about compensation? Our entire Civil Justice system is founded on making good on harm done, to make the damaged party "whole" again. Should we just label attempts at Justice as "GUILT" and do away with it?
It's good Shelby Steele has provided Rush with a "literary" backup for his arrogant, soulless mindset and world view. "Conservatives" like Rush are into never saying you're sorry, never feeling regret, operating in one's own best interest and to hell with everyone else.
Such greed, egotism, selfishness, and total lack of compassion is the anathema of the Christian religion. It's GOOD when "conservatives" like Rush feel free to express their belief that no wrong has ever been done by them or their nation, and if there HAS ever, then nothing should be done about it, and there is no reason to "feel bad" about it.
This shows us the empty, pitiful excuses for human beings the "conservatives" really are. As if we didn't already know from their heartless, self-centered, arrogant and often cruel actions over the years.
Great post. I agree whole-heartedly. If you ask me, this is the 'terror' we face as a nation... Sadly, I believe this level of selfishness has almost become accepted...even expected. It is a sickening mutation of our culture and something we will have to address (and soon).
The attitude of "no guilt" is the success model that is most prevalent in a society that worships the materialistic gain that money provides. And don't worry, if you pray in the air at church once a week, everything else that you do is okay. Conservatives do rail against "liberal courts" who, as Tex noted, are often trying to make whole something that is wronged. To blithely sometimes dismiss it as political correctness is to expose a lack of compassion and justice.
having guilt it tantamount to being guilty and the guilty shall be punished!
and pat robertson in the same room together? it would explain a lot ...
Large enough to house both those egos at the same time
has anyone ever seen rush and pat robertson in the same room together? And steele is the black alter-ego.
I guess it had to happen sooner or later. The Right Wing is going off the cliff. Limbaugh, the ultimate angry White Man thinks the Iranian President is a Liberal Jew. Steele, a Black expert on race relations, thinks America needs to take up the "White Man's Burden."
Is it just me or is the whole world going psychotic? I served in the Army and National Guard in three wars. I am not ready to single handedly save the world--with or without guilt.
John Harvey, depressed middle-aged White guy.