Steve's Rushed to Press News of the Day
*An extreme far-centrist foundation!
In Defense of Rush
(and not a very good one)
by Steve Young

Oct. 6, 2003 -- LOS ANGELES (apj.us) -- Okay. Here's the defense.

Rush is a racist and he couldn't help himself. It's what racists do.

Sorry.

That's the best I can do.

I'll leave the rest of the defense to Roy Black.

Why do I seek to knock a guy when he is down?

Not because Limbaugh has knocked so many others when they were down (which he has). Not because I dislike him and his hate-spewing success (though I do). It's because the repulsion level of America has been met tit-for-tat by a blanket exoneration by apologists on the right AND many on the left:

-- that Rush's comments are not racist,
-- that while Limbaugh's ESPN remarks may have been wrong, they were not meant to be racial, and;
-- that he is not a racist.

Oh, yeah?

Did anyone happen to listen to his first radio show back after the outcry? When asked by a caller for specifics to back up his "media wants to see a black quarterback succeed," here were the specifics...

"ESPN has done it."

"Philly guys have done it."

"One guy in Philly who wrote about him this past week wrote a column last year supporting McNabb when he wasn't doing well."

"Numerous telecasts... booth talent in Philly has supported him" [no mention of how this meant it was because he was black].

"It's liberalism that does it."

There you go. He had all the time before his comments to dig up facts to support his remarks. After the national clamor hit the wall Rush knew that people were going to ask for specifics. And this is what he comes up with? Generalities? "One guy...?" No numbers to show that white quarterbacks are treated differently?

Without any real facts to back up his wholesale condemnation of the "media" and their black quarterback advocacy, Limbaugh's commentary stinks of a clear and biased intent to smear the media with one of his signature race-baiting insinuations that are meant raise the ire of his fans: see how we, the poor, put-upon white males, are being unfairly undone by the unfair favorable treatment of blacks.

To say this was not be racist is to ignore the facts. Facts that you'll
never hear Rush reveal.

Do we need any more reason to substantiate Limbaugh's scapegoating fear and hate-based attempts to divide America?

Steve Young is an award-winning television writer, director/writer of "My Dinner With Ovitz"", and author of "Great Failures of the Extremely Successful" (Tallfellow Press -- check out the web site at http://www.greatfailure.com). He writes a regular column for Jewish World Review".