Oh, so close. I almost got a member of the right-wing media to address the the Rush Limbaugh 2009 quote about how Americans are being told to “bend over,” “grab the ankles” and hope Obama succeeds because of his “father was black.”

I first issued the challenge on Monday because all last week, as Rush Limbaugh's NFL bid crashed and burned thanks to a football league that wanted nothing to do with his hate speech, Limbaugh and the Dittoheads stomped their feet and claimed Rush had no history of making race-baiting comments. None. Which is like saying Glenn Beck doesn't dabble in conspiracy theories. (Paging OnStar!)

So I challenged the right-wing to address the “grab the ankles” quote and explain exactly what Limbaugh meant by the comment (what mental image he was trying to paint for Dittoheads), and why the rest of us shouldn't consider it to be a race-baiting quote.

Well, up until recently it had been crickets on the right. All hope was lost, until Newsbusters' Tim Graham sauntered up to the plate and looked like he was going to give it a whack.

But alas, Graham's effort was more like a check swing:

Most people would agree that “slavery had its merits” and “hurray, Martin Luther King's assassin” are not in the same universe of racial remarks as “bend over because Obama's father was black.” You can be turned off by the last one, but it doesn't suggest blacks deserved slavery or assassination.

But what does it suggest Tim? What does bend-over-and-grab-your-ankles-because-Obama's-father-was-black mean? Grraham doesn't want to go there and I think I know why.

So after a week of beseeching Dittoheads to address the Limbaugh quote head-on, they've all refused. Yet they continue to cling to the Dittohead fantasy that there's no proof that Limbaugh's a race-baiter.

P.S. The central point of Graham's very angry piece (dude, let the whole NFL thing go) is a hollow attempt to tie Media Matters to the two race-baiting quotes that were attributed to Limbaugh during the NFL debate; quotes Limbaugh insists he never made. (i.e. The “slavery” and “assassin” quotes.) The problem for Graham is nobody at Media Matters ever suggested Limbaugh said those things. (Note to Newsbusters: it pays to have a crack research staff.) Graham wants Media Matters to apologize for quotes that nobody at Media Matters ever cited in original reporting. He wants Media Matters to apologize for quotes some big city sportswriters used in their columns.

Nice try.