When the Chicago Sun-Times Defends Rush Limbaugh
June 16th, 2008 at 12:18am Mark Noonan
Then you know the Democrat has told a pretty brazen lie:
Is Obama smearing Rush?
News item: Barack Obama campaign starts new Web site to fight smears from political opponents at www.fightthesmears.com.
The first smear mentioned:
“LIE: Rush Limbaugh says a tape exists of Michelle Obama using the word ‘whitey’ from the pulpit of Trinity United.”
Well. No. This is what Limbaugh said:
“The rumor is — and we don’t like dealing with rumors here — but the rumor is that Michelle Obama from the pulpit of this church used the term ‘whitey.’ Some are saying be very careful with this because she might have said ‘why’d he,’ why did he, the contraction ‘why’d he’ instead of ‘whitey.’ ”
He added: “I can’t find anybody who’s seen it.”
So while Limbaugh was happy to wallow in the rumor, he was careful not to claim the tape exists.
More on this when someone gets around to creating www.clarifyfightthesmears.com.
I have to figure that Team Obama is going to be pretty ticked off at this - for 20 years now the left’s primary means of slamming Rush has been to misquote and/or take him out of context. Usually, whenever someone on the left makes an accusation like this against Rush, the MSM gleefully joins in…but someone at the Sun-Times (no doubt now at risk of being transferred to the obituaries page) caught the lie (well, “catch” is too strong a word when you’re speaking of figuring out that a Democrat has lied…usually it involves no more effort than noticing that their lips are moving) and then actually did the right thing and pointed it out.
I get lots of rumors in my in-box, too - probably not as many as Rush as I’m just a little blogger, but in the attempt to smear an opponent, no stone - or little blog - is left unturned in the attempt to get the smear out there. So, someone started this rumor of Michelle Obama and “whitey” - is it true? Who the heck knows? But given that the Obama’s sat for 20 years in the pews of a racist, anti-American church, protestations from the Obama’s about accusations of “whitey” ring rather hollow…the Obama’s should have thought about this thing oh, the second or third time Wright went off on a racist rant…little late to clean that muck off themselves in time for November, 2008.
Entry Filed under: Campaign 2008, Democrats, Media, Racial Issues, Talk Radio
45 Comments
1. The Silver Vixen | June 16th, 2008 at 12:54 am
The article is slightly misleading. It suggests that Limbaugh did not say that there was a tape. In fact he did. From his own website:
(Emphasis mine)
So twice he says that there IS a tape. Obama’s website never accused him of saying he had it or had seen it, so it’s misleading to suggest otherwise. But he DID say that he had heard there was a tape.
The article suggests that it is a lie, a smear, to say that Russ Limbaugh says there is a tape. In fact, according to his own transcript, his information is that there is a tape, and that the Republicans have it. So that isn’t a smear.
2. Mark Noonan | June 16th, 2008 at 1:06 am
Silver,
Uh, nice try…no, scratch that; I’m not going to be that generous with you…that isn’t even a nice try. That is rather pathetic.
Rush says, repeatedly, that it is a rumor; to assert that Rush said there is a tape when he clearly stated that there is a rumor a tape exists is a smear.
3. Sockeye | June 16th, 2008 at 1:09 am
Yeesh Noonan,
How do you sleep at night?
Honestly, you will stoop to new lows won’t you…
disgusting.
4. bongoman | June 16th, 2008 at 1:13 am
That’s what Rush does. Feeds the rumor mill. You’re pointing too fine a point on the issue.
5. bongoman | June 16th, 2008 at 1:14 am
pointing = putting
6. The Silver Vixen | June 16th, 2008 at 1:18 am
I’m thinking it likely Rush has on this occasion got his information from the fox news interview with Roger Stone. Wherever that rumour originated, however, if such a tape does NOT exist, THAT is the smear, not whichever voice in the Republican echo chamber bounced the rumour around.
Perhaps it’s unwise of them to accuse Rush specifically, when it’s an echo-chamber item - but he did say he’d heard it, same as Roger Stone had said he’d heard about it. Saying that he’d said that is not a smear, even if it would have been wiser to go after Roger Stone for “breaking the story”.
7. Dennis | June 16th, 2008 at 1:18 am
I suppose it’s not worth mentioning, Mark, that this particular accusation against Michelle Obama has appeared right here on your blog many times - in fact this is where I first heard it.
As far as I’m aware nobody here has been rebuked by you, let alone deleted for making this accusation. For you to aid and abet the spreading of this slander and then get on a high horse about this is like a dirty chimney calling the cleaning brush black.
8. cam | June 16th, 2008 at 1:24 am
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. Regardless of what Rush said, he was intentionally being unclear knowing that a large number of people would get the wrong message. If it is a rumor, why would he report it since he had no proof. Sounds like bearing false witness. Repeating rumors has a similar effect as stating the facts. Only a close dicesction can decern the difference.
9. Mark Noonan | June 16th, 2008 at 2:00 am
Dennis,
And I had never heard it until Obama’s people denied it - a slander, however, would be someone asserting absolutely something which wasn’t true. Should Rush have mentioned it? That is a prudential judgement on his own part and only God can judge what was going on in Rush’s heart when he decided to repeat what he had heard.
In the end, I would have thought the story patently absurd prior to the revelations about the Obamas’ long standing membership in a racist, anti-American church. Lie down with dogs, come up with fleas…
10. Mark Noonan | June 16th, 2008 at 2:02 am
sockeye,
At least as well as the Chicago Sun-Times reporters…
11. Mark Noonan | June 16th, 2008 at 2:03 am
Silver,
Obama’s people called Rush a liar. Rush didn’t lie. Ergo, it is Obama’s people who lied, and thus engaged in a smear. A smear requires a lie.
12. What? | June 16th, 2008 at 2:03 am
Got to love Limbaugh!
“The rumor is — and we don’t like dealing with rumors here — but the rumor is that Michelle Obama from the pulpit of this church used the term ‘whitey.’ ”
If he does not like dealing in rumors why is he spreading them?
This is the shining star of the “alternative new media.” He, FOX News and the rest of the cable news channels are dragging the nation’s press down to tabloid journalism standards.
13. Mark Noonan | June 16th, 2008 at 2:04 am
Silver,
And, just to explain it to you fully - had Obama’s people put it up as “Mistake” or some such, that would have been ok….it was when they dishonestly accused Rush of lying where they went wrong…the lesson here is that you on the left simply must stop imputing evil motives to us on the right.
14. Mark Noonan | June 16th, 2008 at 2:06 am
what,
Over the years, I’ve rarely hear rumor broadcast by Rush…but, come on!, this has been an ongoing story (ie, that the Obamas’ have been involved in a racist church) for some time now…its not like Rush just put this out there into the blue and hoped that it would stick…
15. The Silver Vixen | June 16th, 2008 at 2:11 am
@Mark: And you on the right need to stop trying to make mountains out of molehills. Had you actually been and clicked on the link on Obamas site, you would have seen that it says:
So where’s the smear? Limbaugh said he’d heard a rumour. Obama’s site says Limbaugh said he’d heard a rumour. They also say the rumour that he’d reported isn’t true, it’s a smear.
Rather than look at that, though, “you on the right” to use your own phrase back at you, would rather concentrate on reading something into a wording of a sentence that doesn’t exist.
The lesson is that ‘you on the right’ need to stop pretending that those on the left are saying things they’re not actually saying.
16. bongoman | June 16th, 2008 at 2:32 am
Meanwhile, Obama gets on with it on Father’s Day.
17. Republican Killer | June 16th, 2008 at 2:39 am
Amen SilverFox, but that would require the right to be honest and caring about the facts and the truth, which Mark No-nothing and the rest of the Blogs For Bush kool-aid drinkers are terribly lacking. These clowns are spinless cowards!
18. What? | June 16th, 2008 at 3:37 am
Mark writes,
“this has been an ongoing story (ie, that the Obamas’ have been involved in a racist church) for some time now…”
That is not the story Rush is spreading. He is spreading the link the right has been searching for.
Obama’s defense against the Wright scandal is he does not agree with some of Wright’s more controversial views on race relations. If the right has a tape showing his wife espousing those views, his defense becomes less credible.
Regardless, Limbaugh is spreading a rumor while at the same time claiming he does not want to do so. It is hypocritical. If he claims not to want to spread rumors, don’t mention them on air. He won’t because he knows the story is red meat to his audience.
And FOR PETE SAKE, MARK, stopping being such an apologist for the rightwing media. It is okay to criticize these guys even if you agree with them most of the time. If you are the original thinker you claim to be, you will stop making excuses for these people and hold them as accountable as you hold the “liberal media.” This country needs fewer partisan cheerleaders and more shrewd media consumers.
It is guys like Limbaugh who participate in creating the “Age of Lies” you lament about on this site. Call them out on it.
19. SEW | June 16th, 2008 at 4:01 am
“The lesson is that ‘you on the right’ need to stop pretending that those on the left are saying things they’re not actually saying.”
Bob Beckel, Democrat parrot, started the rumor on June 3. You on the left need to stop smearing those on the right for what you started.
20. Bill Eischeidt | June 16th, 2008 at 6:18 am
Any of you clowns recall when Rush came back from the Dominican Republic with that bottle of blue pills and rumors flew that he had been having sex with underage women in Santo Domingo?
Well this is just like that it’s a smear.
Limbaugh was planting a seed by saying well I have no proof but this is what I hear. It’s the same kind of crap that angers you wingnuts when progressives catch you choir boys with your hands in the cookie jar. The difference is the right is willing to lie and then back away saying Oh no no we didn’t mean that and the left generally is not unless they are making up stories about the Iraq War. Who needs to LIE about that to make it seem SNAFU?
There is some part of fact Michelle Obama may have spoken at Trinity but if they had proof they would have used it before Super Tuesday. I’ll stand on my job as a city desk editior that even if such a film came out and she shouted “whitey” it wouldn’t move the polls against Obama more than two points across white men 25 to 55 and over all maybe .25% in the national poll we conduct [25,625 likely voters weighted electorally. National Current Poll = Obama 51.44% McCain 45.29% Barr 2.27% Paul 1% by voice write in. MoE+/- 0.6667]
21. Cavalor Epthith, Esquire, D.S.V.J. | June 16th, 2008 at 6:27 am
15. The Silver Vixen | June 16th, 2008 at 2:11 am
She’s got you there Noonan.
22. Pain | June 16th, 2008 at 6:38 am
19. SEW | June 16th, 2008 at 4:01 am
Not Bob Beckel but your Right Wing brother in arms Larry Johnson of Little Green Footballs infamy started the rumor and is credited with the HOAX.
The Corner at NRO’s own Jim Geraghty outs Johnson as the vile culprit of this lunatic plot.
Once again Noonan you pick the wrong stroy to run with screaing down the tubes of the Internets with your virtual hair on fire.
23. Pain | June 16th, 2008 at 8:53 am
22. Pain | June 16th, 2008 at 6:38 am
We had Our “johnsons” mixed up the perpetrator of the “Whitey Tape Hoax” was the blogger Larry Johnson at No Quarter USA not Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs.
24. kmg | June 16th, 2008 at 8:59 am
Mark,
“Lie down with dogs, come up with fleas…”
An appropriate saying since you allow The Racist (Jeremiah) to spew his bile on a regular basis.
“…what you are trying to do is say that because I don’t censor Jeremiah’s views, that I must in some sense be in agreement with them.”
If you allow his racism, then it must be assumed you support it. A lack of vulgarity in expressing his views does not excuse The Racist for espousing them or you for facilitating them. After all, you can’t say you didn’t know or couldn’t do anything about it, since it is your blog. If he said those things in front of your mixed-race family member, would you just say, “Well, I don’t agree with you that my family is inferior because their blood isn’t pure, but at least you weren’t vulgar about it?” In effect that is what you are doing now.
25. Kahn | June 16th, 2008 at 9:14 am
Rush clearly states it was a rumor and you liberals are clearly dishonest and are actually smearing him.
26. Greenskeeper | June 16th, 2008 at 9:16 am
“So while Limbaugh was happy to wallow in the rumor, he was careful not to claim the tape exists.”
Classic - Swift-boating. Repugs and cons would prefer not to run their campaigns on the issues; endless involvement in the Iraq civil war, Bin Laden still making tapes, dollar, unemployment, housing, gas prices, in the toilet.
27. Some Assembly Required | June 16th, 2008 at 9:25 am
You cons are hilarious. It’s like your standing in a burning room that the rest of us left after smelling smoke. We are now standing on the street yelling for you to get out before it’s too late. You look at us from inside and blame us for starting the fire. Remarkable. When your grandchildren look at you in 10 - 20 years and ask what you did when America elected it’s first black president will you say I threw everything I could at him because I thought my party was greater then this country?
28. neocon | June 16th, 2008 at 9:33 am
I can only determine that the level of vitriol and hysteria on the left, in their efforts to defend this empty suit, can only mean that they know what a flawed candidate they have.
You’ll notice that the liberal posters here outnumber conservatives 5 to 1. Why? Conservatives for the most part, don’t care. Unless and until the tape actually surfaces, this issue is completely irrelevant. However, our resident lemmings are throwing themselves on the sword to defend their messiah at all costs, probably because they may realize that there is a slight chance that the tape does exist.
I am still amused though at how one person can so dramatically affect the lives of our young liberals. Do you always look to others to help resolve your problems? Which I assume are many, and mostly mental.
29. neocon | June 16th, 2008 at 9:38 am
SAR,
Thank you for confirming my suspicion that it is all about skin color to the left.
“….and ask what you did when America elected it’s first black president…” - SAR
Not that we elected the first President to institute National Health Care. Not the first President that spoke unconditionally with our foes. Not the first President born to a Muslim father.
Nope. THE FIRST BLACK PRESIDENT.
I guess that’s all that matters, right SAR?
Thanks again for the confirmation
Have a nice day
peace, neocon
30. SEW | June 16th, 2008 at 9:41 am
“We had Our “johnsons” mixed up the perpetrator of the “Whitey Tape Hoax” was the blogger Larry Johnson at No Quarter USA not Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs.” Pain
So you were smearing cons, the wrong Johnson! Just as Mark stated. When in fact one of your own, again as Mark stated. Yet in your objectivity you smear the wrong Johnson but can’t find it in your heart to actually smear the correct culprit or agree with Mark after you have yourself smeared conservatives when you are the offender!
Here’s more from YOUR guy.
http://sweetness-light.com/archive/larry-johnson-no-wonder-roves-mom-killed-herself
31. Some Assembly Required | June 16th, 2008 at 9:50 am
29. neocon | June 16th, 2008 at 9:38 am
Read into it what you will. Your house of cards is falling and instead of getting out your trying to pass blame. Why? Because in order to leave the house you must first acknowledge that it is you that has neglected it so bad to bring you to this point. Will you be like Jeremiah and move to Canada when Obama is president?
P.S. Jeremiah, Gay marriage is legal in Canada. Oh, and Marijuana is de-decriminalized. Or, well it has been. It’s kind of a back and forth. In any event, if your caught smoking it, the most anyone will do is tell you to put it out. Are you sure you could handle that?
32. neocon | June 16th, 2008 at 9:57 am
SAR,
Marijuana is decrminalized, and gay marriage is allowed in many of our FREE states too. That’s the neat thing about federalism. But if you like national referendums, then so be it. Must go along with the masses, right? Wouldn’t want to be different. Must act and think as one.
And how am I trying to pass blame????
I merely pointed out your racism.
Have a nice day
peace, neocon
33. SEW | June 16th, 2008 at 10:03 am
“You look at us from inside and blame us for starting the fire”
SAR, can you say Larry Johnson and Bob Beckel? Look at all the libs here smearing conservatives, when in fact the libs are guilty, but blame conservatives! Just as Mark stated. You guys buy and use snakeoil, you can’t sell it to us. Keep drinking the cool aid.
34. Some Assembly Required | June 16th, 2008 at 10:04 am
“Marijuana is decrminalized, and gay marriage is allowed in many of our FREE states too.”
So any state that opposes gay marriage and penalizes marijuana use is not a FREE state? See how that works….
35. neocon | June 16th, 2008 at 10:10 am
SAR,
The states are free to do as they will. Oppose or endorse.
That’s how it works SAR. I think you learned something today.
Have a nice day
peace, neocon
36. Pain | June 16th, 2008 at 10:13 am
29. neocon | June 16th, 2008 at 9:38 am
Well, yes considering he is the best man for the job.
37. Pain | June 16th, 2008 at 10:16 am
33. SEW | June 16th, 2008 at 10:03 am
Larry Johnson is a registered Republican in his home state of Missouri. While not a Bushbot he is still a conservative voter, Johnson just does not go along with every thing that comes out of the Bush administration pipeline.
38. SEW | June 16th, 2008 at 10:17 am
Pain, SAR, thanks so much for your successful efforts to define useful idiot for me.
39. Kahn | June 16th, 2008 at 10:20 am
Greenskeeper, you have some proof where this rumor actually originated?
Or is smear and innuendo enough for YOU?
40. SEW | June 16th, 2008 at 10:25 am
“Larry Johnson is a registered Republican in his home state of Missouri. While not a Bushbot he is still a conservative voter” Pain
Smear, smear, smear, blame conservatives.
http://callipygos.nyfsblogs.com/2007/12/24/larry-c-johnson-am-i-a-hillary-cheerleader/
41. Some Assembly Required | June 16th, 2008 at 10:29 am
SEW, Please re-read this post
15. The Silver Vixen | June 16th, 2008 at 2:11 am
After which, read what followed. You have been proven wrong, so now you just throw insults and tell us we say things which we clearly don’t. What you fail to recognize is that Bush/Cheney and the current administration look at you as the Useful idiot. Useful in getting them into power but an idiot because you actually believed they were going to make you any safer. Useful in making them and their friends piles of money and an idiot for not holding them accountable for lying to you. I really don’t know whether to laugh at you or pity you.
42. SEW | June 16th, 2008 at 10:32 am
Pain, again thanks for expertly defining useful idiot, and smearing conservatives when in fact you are smearing! You state Johnson is a conservative voter, yet he himself states Biden, Edwards and Clinton. So are those conservatives and should we believe what he states or your regurgitation of Dem talking point smears of conservatives?
Expert definition of useful idiot. Thanks.
43. SEW | June 16th, 2008 at 10:53 am
“SEW, Please re-read this post
15. The Silver Vixen | June 16th, 2008 at 2:11 am”
Thanks SAR for asking me to re-read. I now will include Silver with you and Pain for your expert definition of useful idiot.
And you can re-read this link to Pain’s definition of a conservative voter.
http://blogsforvictory.com/2008/06/16/when-the-chicago-sun-times-defends-rush-limbaugh/#comments
44. SEW | June 16th, 2008 at 10:57 am
http://callipygos.nyfsblogs.com/2007/12/24/larry-c-johnson-am-i-a-hillary-cheerleader/
45. FmrMarine | June 16th, 2008 at 6:37 pm
esquire and pain
This is some of the garbage posted on their rage-hatefilled homosexual Anti Christian porno web site…I love the threats….
(Ed. Note: Nauseating article deleted; we appreciate the sense in which it was posted, but; yuck!)
BRING IT on FREDDY…….BRING IT on!