The universal condemnation of the windbag's grievously timed exploitation of the death of the New York Yankees baseball team owner George Steinbrenner, has evidently found its way through and struck a nerve.
The classless hatemonger has respondedto the inquiries of an actual journalist, Michael Calderone of Yahoo! News, as to why he would say such a thing just hours after Steinbrenner's death from an unanticipated heart attack.
To refresh you, here's what Limbaugh said yesterday:
George Steinbrenner has passed away at age 80. That cracker made a lot of African-American millionaires. He -- George Steinbrenner, the classic capitalist, everybody around him became wealthy. Like most successful capitalists, he made the people around him wealthy, and a lot of African-American millionaires along the way, and at the same time he fired a bunch of white guys as managers, left and right.
If you'll permit me to expand upon tonight's script for the Worst Persons segment, let me take nearly all of Limbaugh's email to Calderone about America blanching at his timing, and I'll respond, or translate, as necessary.
"The only thing I can remember the media and the left ever saying about Steinbrenner is that he was an evil, temperamental dictator who made illegal campaign contributions to Richard Nixon and consorted with hoodlums."
Your memory loss should not be mistaken for a record of actual events. I have praised and criticized (and often both, in the same piece) this man since my days as a college broadcaster in the '70s, and did so professionally from 1979 through my last year of full-time sportscasting, 2000. More over, Steinbrenner made no secret that he was a viewer of mine, at ESPN, and MSNBC
"Here's how bad things are for the left: The best they have is to pretend they are offended by my clever compliments about a fellow successful capitalist---- who has been portrayed negatively by the left until now--- and are insanely obsessed with the sale of my NY condo--- sold at a profit when home sales are supposed to be a sign of a recovering economy."
A) Nobody's pretending.
B) You turned a man's death into a race-baiting joke.
C) The only person insanely obsessed with you, is you.
"This is my stock in trade:"
Oooh! What's he gonna write next? This could be some confession right here! His "stock in trade?" Slander? Libel? Racism? Sexism? Viagra? Degradation of the human spirit?
"This is my stock in trade: Illustrating the absurd by being absurd. Two weeks ago, a DOJ whistleblower revealed that the Obama/Holder Department of Justice ordered line attorneys to drop a 2008 voter intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party in Philadelphia. The line attorney, J. Christian Adams, said the case was a slam dunk. And we knew it was: there was video evidence."
J. Christian Adams is not a "whistleblower." He's a veteran right wing political activist. And the suit was downgraded from criminal to civil on January 7th, 2009, by the Department of Justice under President George W. Bush.
"In the past two weeks, the President of the NBPP, Malik Zulu Shabazz, has been in the media attacking white crackers. One of the NBPP members from the Philly incident, King Samir Shabazz, appeared at a rally and suggested that blacks would only be free when all the crackers were dead and further said that killing cracker babies was called for. No one in what is called the mainstream media has condemned or even reported any of this, though it has been all over Fox News and talk radio and many internet blogs."
This is probably because the "New Black Panther Party" apparently consists of three guys. America is at greater risk from the "New Christy Minstrels."
And if we're supposed to report on every impotent idiot who says hateful racist things, all news broadcasts every where would be entirely about Rush Limbaugh.
"So...George Steinbrenner dies and I, being absurd to illustrate absurdity, make my comments, pointing out that this cracker created many African American MILLIONAIRES (and fired a bunch of white managers) to establish HIS CRED!!!"
A quick bit of research suggests that, before 1995, when the average baseball salary crossed a million dollars and made them allmillionaires, Steinbrenner "created" millionaires out of 28 of his players, only seven of whom were African-Americans.
The idea that he signed his players based on color or ethnic group is absurd (I heard Steinbrenner accused of everything else under the sun, but never of racism) but just for the record, the 1:3 ratio breaks out as follows, more or less in chronological order:
Reggie Jackson, Willie Randolph, Dave Winfield, Bob Watson, Rickey Henderson, Jesse Barfield, Danny Tartabull.
Catfish Hunter, Thurman Munson, Graig Nettles, Bobby Murcer, Lou Piniella, Ron Guidry, Don Gullett, Rich Gossage, Luis Tiant, Tommy John, Dave Collins, Don Mattingly, Dave Righetti, Steve Kemp, Rick Rhoden, Steve Sax, David Cone, Paul O'Neill, and Jack McDowell (McDowell is open to debate).
"To top it off, and to provoke liberals even more, I said that Steinbrenner was such a great capitalist he even knew when to die. This year, a year in which there is ZERO estate tax. So his family will not have to sell the New York Yankees to pay what will be a 55% tax starting in January."
Well the timing of this remark is just as callous, and just as sleazy, and it ignores the fact that there was an estate tax last year of 45 percent.
"Simple to understand and even appreciate IF...IF....IF....one listens to my show. Media Matters for America does listen but they purposely distort the things I say and the reporters who then quote MM, and do not ever listen to my show, print the erroneous take."
But only the gullible and the diseased listen to your show. And what you call the "erroneous take," sane people call "the diagnosis."