I’m pretty sure that if you tell his call screeners that you are a liberal blogger they will put you at the top of the queue. I’ll really love to hear that… his show phone number is 800-282-2882 if you’re interested…if you get trough, tell him that you would like an interview for your blog…

Obama was calling attention to a truth – he doesn’t – and he knows that people are scared of things that are different. Racism’s one of those things everyone knows is there but nobody really talks about. Yeah, some people may have been and still may be uneasy with Obama’s race, even thought it’s not PC to talk about it. That’s why he’s being called a Muslim by so many on the right who are violently opposed to both him and his policies – when used in a derogatory manner, it’s the new n-word, one more way of denigrating him and making him Other. He’s not like Us, and if he’s not Us, he must be Them. The Republican base is generally older and white, and was alive during the days of de facto if not de jure segregation, and if they weren’t their parents were; some of the old ugly attitudes may have been passed on. Remember George Allen and the “Macaca” incident?

If I were a WH correspondent and I had a better grasp of WWII history, sure, I’d try to point it out…just depends on if I’d be called on, of course.

The difference is, he wasn’t talking about his race or backgroud out of pride. He was using it to attack his opponents. From the ABC story I linked to:

‘Sen. Barack Obama’s chief strategist conceded that the Democratic presidential candidate was referring to his race when he said Republicans were trying to scare voters by suggesting Obama “doesn’t look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills.”‘

He didn’t offer any evidence to back his claims that “Republicans were trying to scare voters”, he just said it, blatantly playing the race card. Nice position to have, I admit. I can shout “racism” to distract attention from honest policy differences and it works!

I mean, you still are not addressing the fact that Obama was just plain wrong about Winston Churchill and torture, which was Limbaugh original point. I would just love to see, if you were interviewing Obama as a White House correspondent and you know that he was wrong about this particular topic… would you not mention the fact that Obama’s grandfather was tortured by the British government while Churchill was prime minister because that would point out the widely known fact that his father was Kenyan?

That’s just something that bothers me, because I don’t understand it at its core, why where someone’s parents came from is important at all in this global society. Hey, you know, if Obama doesn’t care and if he makes references to his own race, that’s his prerogative because he’s talking about himself, good for him, but it’s something that confuses me when I read about other people making a big deal about it. “Oh, his father’s from Kenya, he must not be a real American!” For a nation of immigrants…that is just rich.

“Would there be something about Hitler supposedly having Obama’s Belgian grandfather tortured in Rush’s show if his father had been Belgian?”

I don’t know; let’s do the whole exercise. Let’s say that instead of president Barack Obama it is president “Albert Rompuy”, the son of a Belgian immigrant whose grandfather was tortured by Hitler in WWII. Let’s have “president Rompuy” stated in a national press conference that Hitler didn’t torture. You think no one will point out that not only did he torture, but also people under his command tortured his grandfather?

It is indeed a sad day in America when you cannot say anything about the president that even marginally references his background. Except Obama, of course….

Ulises: Thing is, that wasn’t my point – the point is that his ancestry is still an issue, when in this melting pot, it shouldn’t be. Would there be something about Hitler supposedly having Obama’s Belgian grandfather tortured in Rush’s show if his father had been Belgian? Again, I don’t believe that’s so. If that is indeed what Limbaugh said and what Obama said, then the point Limbaugh was making may be valid. I had an issue with the machinery he chose to make his point, nothing more.

As I mentioned, I do listen to “El Rushbo” (the podcast, not the radio show). Regarding Limbaugh comments about the president side of the family you are leaving out the context of his remark. Limbaugh was calling on Obama for, during his press conference evoking the name of Winston Churchill in saying the British Empire didn’t torture (npr.com says that they did torture.

The context you left out of Limbaugh remarks is that Winston Churchill was prime minister during the time the British government is alleged to have tortured Obama’s grandfather…

you know lolspeak…

hahahhahahaha

Alex…Im totally with you on this religion stuff…

fellow Agnostic here…

who are we to decide what is or what isn’t…

I don’t know from that…Im just a hooman….