Last updated on August 10th, 2014 at 05:13 pm
On his radio show today, Rush Limbaugh declared that Sonia Sotomayor’s wise Latina comment was worse than George Allen’s macaca comment. Limbaugh said, Sotomayor’s comments are much worse than macaca, and they are frequent, and they are long held.” The only problem with Rush’s comparison is that wise Latina isn’t a racial slur.
Here is the audio courtesy of Media Matters:
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Limbaugh said, “So Russ Feingold, a couple of words that Sonia Sotomayor said taken out of context. You mean like macaca? George Allen saying macaca, we heard about that for weeks and months as the Washington Post and the Democrats sought to destroy Allen. He had been a governor, a congressman, and senator. Sotomayor’s comments are much worse than macaca, and they are frequent, and they are long held. You see how this race thing works folks. If you are a liberal nothing can be held against you.”
The difference between Allen and Sotomayor is that Allen was using a racial slur to describe S.R. Sidarth, who was volunteering for his opponent’s campaign. Here is the video:
Feingold was correct. As has been proven again and again, Limbaugh is taking the wise Latina comment completely out of context. Plus, the term wise Latina is not a racial slur, unlike referring to a non-white campaign volunteer as a macaca. Even by Limbaugh’s standards this comparison is a real stretch.
If it is ok for liberals to be racist, then how would Limbaugh explain the fact that Bill Clinton caught holy hell for trying to introduce race into the South Carolina Democratic primary last year. Republicans love to claim that liberals are racist, but they have scant few modern examples outside of Jesse Jackson’s Heimeytown remark in 1984. Limbaugh is trying to create a scandal where none exists in a futile last ditch attempt to rally the GOP base against Sotomayor, who will certainly be confirmed, and the only question is how many votes over 60 will she get?
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
