By Solange Uwimana
Considering it was “Open Line Friday,” Rush Limbaugh sure didn't let a lot of callers onto the program today. After warning his audience that he wouldn't accept any “kooks” today -- those, he specified, “who think I give the Republican Party a pass,” Rush didn't take his first caller until the end of the first hour. The caller railed against a new AP/Univision poll, which he said he had been a part of, showing that a majority of Americans thinks Latinos are the people most discriminated against; no surprise that Rush agreed with him, attacking the poll's questions and methodology. Rush later took another caller named Ralph in the second hour, who criticized Rush for berating Mexican President Felipe Calderón's comments on the new immigration law in Arizona. Ralph went on to say that Calderón has every right to weigh in on the law considering he represents the interests of the people for whom part of the law was enacted and added that he believes the law “is racist.”
At this point, Rush had had enough. Derisively referring to the caller as “Ralphie,” he went on to claim that both Calderón and President Obama were “lying” about the law and its intentions, and he couldn't understand why Obama had given Calderón a platform to bash the United States. Rush would later say that Obama used the body of Calderón to flip us off, that his address to Congress amounted to “a life-sized bird that we were flipped.” But Ralph continued, asking how the law could be enforced without the use of racial profiling. Rush proceeded to read the following passage -- “A law enforcement official or agency of this state or a county, city, town or other political subdivision of this state may not consider race, color or national origin” -- then asked, “Can you tell me where the racism is in that?” But as we've shown time and again, modification of the law's language did not eliminate the consideration of race as a factor. And Rush should know because by reading only the first part of that passage, he omitted the law's exception, mainly that the law says race, color, national origin cannot be considered by police “except to the extent permitted by the United States or Arizona Constitution.” Ralph tried to argue with Rush, but Rush repeatedly cut him off and finally asked his producer, “Snerdley, how in the world did you think that this guy was not a kook?”
Rush also spent the majority of today's show mocking the Democrats for their recent victory in Pennsylvania's 12th district, where Mark Critz won the special election over Tim Burns. Rush didn't know what the Democrats were so happy about, considering the district is 2-to-1 Democrat and Critz is a social conservative who ran on the fact that he opposed health care and cap and trade. But Rush surmised that Critz “was lying through his teeth” during the campaign and it won't be long before he goes along with everything on the Obama agenda. Rush added: “If this guy were genuine, we'd have to have a new term for these kinds of people: a 'Red Dog' Democrat.” He ended by saying that Critz “ran to the right of Tim Burns. He out-conservatived the conservative candidate and asked, ”Where is it written that the only way we can take back the House is winning in 2-to-1 Democrat districts where the Democrat candidate sounds like me?"
Here are some highlights from today's show:
Limbaugh: “The Arizona law is the equivalent of the blue dress. And Obama's not backing down”
Limbaugh continues to falsely claim economic stimulus didn't work