On his radio show today, GOP Party boss Rush Limbaugh made a lame attempt at a joke by commenting on news that U.S. Representative Donald Payne came under attack in Mogadishu, with the following line: "I don't know why community organizers in Somalia would fire on a fellow community organizer" and adding "For all they know, they could like the guy if they just had a sit-down with him."
So, here is what actually happened. I am glad Rep. Payne escaped unharmed. (I should add that I used to live in a neighboring district in NJ).
Somali insurgents fired mortar shells at a plane carrying New Jersey congressman Donald Payne on Monday, but the plane appeared to depart safely, officials said.
"We understand that his plane was fired on and, as he left, we understand that a mortar landed on his plane, but that they have left safely and that no one was hurt," Kerry McKenney, a Payne spokeswoman, told CNN. "We are hoping that he's safe and on his way back home."
McKenney cited police officers at the airport for her information.
Yet, as with last year's GOP hatefest, in which attacks on community organizers were all the rage, Limbaugh just can't help himself; but in this instance, his hatred takes things even further as he has equated - via a lame "joke" - an elected member of Congress, and a member of the Congressional Black Caucus (and one almost killed for doing his job), with a group of violent third world criminals. As far as I know, Donald Payne was never a community organizer (though it turns out, he was once the head of the World Y.M.C.A. Refugee and Rehabilitation Committee), but I would imagine that in the racist peabrain of a Limbaugh, "community organizer" means "black activist" equals "Congressional Black Caucus," as if they were all the same thing. I suppose next Limbaugh might be proclaiming that all members of the Congressional Black Caucus "look alike" to him.
But, how sick and twisted, and yet, how typical for Limbaugh and his ignorant dittohead audience, is the making of a dismissive joke about a violent attack on an elected official who could easily have been killed? Imagine the flack if someone on the left had joked, on the air, about the possible murder of a Republican official? And how pathetic is draft dodger Limbaugh's anger and jealousy that the U.S. military could conduct a successful military operation under a commander-in-chief whom Limbaugh goes out of his way to ridicule on a daily basis.
Bring back the Fairness Doctrine!