I know, I know. Conservatives with brains just hate that Rush is considered conservative. Most of the conservatives I know no longer listen to him, and consider him a problem. But he is still very much associated with the base, and adored by the Tea Party types. And when you listen to him say that Obama will use Haiti to boost credibility with "light-skinned and dark-skinned black community in this country" and accusing Obama of speaking out earlier on this issue than he did the underwear bomber--well, you realize the level of hatred on the far right.
This is a nice bookend to the Harry Reid comment thread, actually. WIV pointed out the power of words and also the constant mantra of hiding behind "political correctness." I have always hated that phrase, I guess, because I have distrusted it. It was not "politically incorrect" for Trent Lott to lament the end of segregation. It was racist. What Reid did was, actually, politically incorrect, in that he pointed to the issue of skin color and speech patterns, and used a 1950s word for black people. This, I might add, from a conversation in that book that details how Reid was encouraging Obama to run for office and even to go against the vaunted Clinton machine. Bad choice of words, but the underlying meaning was not overtly racist.
And here we have Limbaugh and exactly what is wrong with the base of the Republican party. As TNC and others have noted, those in the far right don't hate racism, they hate it when they perceive that there is racism against whites (even when it isn't there). But they have no problem with racism against blacks. No problem suggesting to the white racists in the base that Obama is responding to this immense catastrophe simply because there are blacks in trouble, and black votes to woo. No problem expressing a complete lack of compassion for the thousands and thousands dead.
Unbelievable. And yet, I will wait to see if any elected Republicans will excoriate Rush in public and denounce his racism. I bet not.
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