give us a break…

Posted on Saturday 16 January 2010

While it goes without saying that Rush Limbaugh’s comments about Haiti were hitting a low even for him, his defense of those remarks may be a close rival. Yesterday he suggested that Obama’s listing the Red Cross web address on whitehouse.gov was an attempt to divert the money and pad his own mailing list for campaign donations.
CALLER:  Mega Rush Baby dittos.  My question is, why did Obama in the sound bite you played earlier, when he’s talking about if you wanted to donate some money, you can go to WhiteHouse.gov –
RUSH:  Yeah.
CALLER: — to direct you how to do so.  If I want to donate money to the Red Cross, why do I need to go to the WhiteHouse.gov page and –
RUSH:  Exactly.  Would you trust that the money is going to go to Haiti?
CALLER:  No.
RUSH:  Would you trust that your name is going to end up on a mailing list for the Obama people to start asking you for campaign donations for him and other causes.
CALLER:  Absolutely.
RUSH:  Absolutely right.
CALLER:  That’s the point.
RUSH:  Besides, we’ve already donated to Haiti.  It’s called the US income tax.
The last comment is laced with contempt at many levels – towards Haitians, towards Obama, towards our government – giving away the taxpayer’s money to do-nothings. Now he’s denying what he said, and making a counter-accusation:
RUSH: I’m gonna respond to this absolute BS that I said don’t donate.  But, you know, I do not make this program about me.  I try very hard not to make this program about me.  So if I have time to deal with that, I will.  I’m confident everybody in this audience knows what I said and what I didn’t say.  Even the Washington Post says without the context, "What Limbaugh said is horrible." All I said was, if you paid your income taxes, that’s how you donate to government for aid, and sure enough, here comes Obama announcing $100 million from the government for aid to Haiti, fine and dandy.  But, you paid for it, it’s your taxes.  All I said was if you’re going to donate do it outside the government, pure and simple.  I was attacked, folks, because I am the leading voice of mainstream conservative views, not for any other reason.  And this outrage is totally feigned, just as Tony Blankley said, all this outrage at me is totally faked up.  They know exactly what I said, and they know for a fact that I would never tell people not to donate to any charitable cause like this, so it is what it is.

RUSH:  Exactly.  Would you trust that the money is going to go to Haiti?
CALLER:  No.
RUSH:  Would you trust that your name is going to end up on a mailing list for the Obama people to start asking you for campaign donations for him and other causes.
CALLER: Absolutely.
RUSH:  Absolutely right.

If you go to http://www.whitehouse.gov and click on the Red Cross link, you see this pop-up for a few seconds before you are transferred to the Red Cross site:
So what Rush said is wrong in fact as well as spirit – but we knew that…

"I was attacked, folks, because I am the leading voice of mainstream conservative views, not for any other reason."

I wonder which of these are mainstream conservative views?
  • Obama diverts donations to his own use through whitehouse.gov.
  • Obama takes the names of visitors to whitehouse.gov and adds them to his list for future campaign fundraising.
  • Obama shouldn’t have pledged $100,000,000 to the Haitians.
  • Rush Limbaugh is the leading voice of mainstream conservative views.
  • Had someone other than Rush Limbaugh said those things, it wouldn’t have bothered us.
Very though provoking things to consider, Rush. We’ll get back to you on that…

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