The racist truth about Beck and Limbaugh

By Joe Conason
Louisville Courier-Journal

With admirable calm, President Obama has sought to deflect the supercharged politics of race by expressing his optimism about American attitudes and ignoring the most extreme statements by his critics. For his own sake, as well as the nation's, he is wise to give a pass to the likes of Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh. That is not, however, what they deserve.

The behavior of those media provocateurs over the past few months is almost beyond parody. They call the President a racist, even though there is no evidence of prejudice on his part and much evidence to the contrary. They demand that nobody should ever point out racial prejudice, but spend hours on the airwaves making false claims of bias against whites. And they whine constantly about being called racists, even though the President has never made that accusation against them.

“You can't get your agenda,” protested Beck the other day, speaking of the President, “so you unleash the hounds and point the fingers, and everybody is a racist.” That was around the same time Obama's spokesman said quite emphatically that the President does not believe his opponents are motivated by racism.

But since Beck and Limbaugh seem to be obsessed with this touchy subject, let's examine their record. It turns out that both established their keen racial sensitivity on air long ago.

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