Talk radio icon Rush Limbaugh warned his listeners Wednesday that while many expected the election of a half-black president would ease racial strife in American, it is worse than ever under Barack Obama.
Limbaugh was reflecting on the newest strategy by Attorney General Eric Holder – to attack laws that allow self-defense, such as the famed “Stand Your Ground” law in Florida that was cited by neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman.
He was acquitted last week of charges of second-degree murder after a jury decided he had been in fear for his life when teen Trayvon Martin was beating his head on a concrete sidewalk. Zimmerman pulled his firearm and shot.
On Wednesday’s show Limbaugh said, “Eric Holder is moving on the stand-your-ground law. I tell you, folks, these people… It is really sad. I think it was the British historian Alistair Cooke (I think it was him) in his Letters to America who said that America would never overcome its ‘black problem.’ It was never going to happen. I’m struck here. We elected the first black president, and that was supposed to fix all of this, wasn’t it, or at least make a huge dent in the race problem in this country?”
He continued, “The theory was that if America, with a vast majority white population and 12 to 14 percent black population, elected a black man president, ‘Why, that would speak volumes about how progressive and advanced America had become. It would go a long way toward healing the wounds that apparently remain from slavery and discrimination and all the other things.’ But seems it’s got worse, to me. It seems that with the election of Barack Obama, racial strife in this country’s worse than it’s ever been since the Civil War. Or as bad, at least.”
He said the conflict hasn’t eased.
“The country’s more divided in more ways than I can remember in my adult lifetime, and I mean that. I’ve thought about that. I’ve gone back in my memory, and I’ve tried to remember when we may have been more divided on so many things, and I don’t remember it. What I do remember is everybody saying – and many people hoping and a lot of people believing – that the election of Barack Obama would end a lot of it, and it hasn’t. It has just made it worse.”
He said, because he knows liberals and how they think, he always expected a level of resentment even if a black candidate was elected president.
“Any time Obama’s criticized, they were going to accuse the criticism of being racist in its orientation. Well, folks, there hasn’t been a president alive who doesn’t get criticized. Presidents are criticized by more people every day than anybody else in society. But the left, the Democrats set it up so that any criticism of Obama had nothing to do with substance. It was all racist. The objective here was at least twofold, if not multifold. One was to silence any criticism by making those who would criticize Obama fearful of doing it, because they didn’t want to be called racist. The second objective was to be able to call people racists, because it does matter,” he said.
He said he’s been warned to avoid race issues, because they are nothing but negative.
“The problem with that is that when you surrender it, you’re surrendering it to who[m]? Who are we letting discuss it and therefore shape opinion about it? In my mind, the answer to that question is: The people who have made a mess of this country and this culture for way too long, and that is leftists. Of all races, creeds, stripes, religions. I don’t care. Leftists.”
He said that ideology “has slowly been eating away at the foundational fabric” of America.
“Now, you would think that President Obama would try to rise above this and do what everybody thought that he was automatically going to do by virtue of being the first African-American – and that’s unite everybody. But he’s not doing that. He’s got this constituency to serve. He’s got the CBC, the Congressional Black [Caucus.] He’s got the NAACP. Holder, the same thing. They’re out there, and they’re dangling a carrot in front of these people.
“‘Don’t worry, Zimmerman’s not off the hook yet.'”
But he said the jury trial is over, the conclusion race had nothing to do with it, and now the left is trying to create a furor because members didn’t get what they want.
- See today’s report on developments in the Zimmerman-Martin case:
- Jimmy Carter: Zimmerman jury right
- Trayvon Martin protest leaders revealed
- Rush: Racism worse under Obama
- ‘Churches’ denouncing Zimmerman exposed
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