Rush Limbaugh Barack Obama Parody, NBC's Today Show

YESTERDAY'S NEWS 'TODAY'

Left, Right Bracing For NBC's Limbaugh Hit Piece







Is NBC really serious about airing an exposé on Rush Limbaugh's "Barack The Magic Negro" parody song? Do they realize the controversy is now two months old?

Perhaps the Today show should be renamed Stale, Warmed- Over News From March.

In any case, Limbaugh and many on the right are bracing for what is sure to be a dishonest attack against the talk titan, with out- of- context quotes a certainty. Few are expecting an accurate explanation about the true origin of the phrase: a liberal Los Angeles Times columnist.

With the story scheduled to air on Monday, El Rushbo has taken the unusual step of firing a pre-emptive shot across the mainstream media's bow. And on the left, bloggers are hoping for a juicy hit piece to fuel their anti- Rush agenda.

In a monologue transcribed and posted online, Rush is demanding that NBC get the story right, while fully expecting them to twist it into something damaging:

Do Not Repeat the Lies:
Get Your Facts Straight on "Barack, the 'Magic Negro'"


RUSH: Right as the last hour was ending, I see H.R. feverishly pacing in there on his cell phone, and I know what that means. When H.R. is taking a phone call during the show it means the media is on the warpath, and, lo and behold, guess what we just learned? The wizards at the Today Show plan, on Monday, to do a big exposé on my parody tune "Barack, the 'Magic Negro.'" Now, this first aired on March 21st. This is May 18th. By the time they get around to doing their profile, it will be two months old as a story.

In these two months, I have spent countless minutes on this program explaining the genesis of the parody. I have gone line by line translating and explaining it, demonstrating that everything in it is based on fact and words that were uttered by liberals. In this period of time, Barack Obama has laughed it off and called it dumb. In this period of time, Al Sharpton responded. Just this week we had the audio sound bite where Sharpton was asked about it and said (paraphrased), "Limbaugh has the right to do this. He's attacking individuals. He's not going after gender or race entirely. He's attacking an individual," and so forth. It's all based on Sharpton's admitted jealousy of Obama's being lauded and loved and being called "clean and articulate" by Joe Biden.

Now, I doubt NBC knows any of this. There's a reason that NBC is interested in this today. They're probably tired of going wall-to-wall immigration. Secondly, there is a column that ran today in the Houston Chronicle -- and I own Houston. We just got the latest ratings, and I own Houston. I don't remember this guy's name, but there are so many facts in this piece that are wrong. In fact, in this piece, this guy refers to "the video that Paul Shanklin and I put together" of Barack, the Magic Negro -- and I just want to warn you at NBC like we had to warn these people at Channel 13 in Sacramento.

If you purport to say that any video with this parody song has anything to do with me, you are in for some trouble, because we don't do videos here at the EIB Network. It's a radio show. I do have a website, but we don't produce videos here, other than videos starring me, created by my Dittocam, as I'm sitting here now, hosting this excursion into broadcast excellence. Now, here's what we're going to do. I just gave H.R. the marching orders. I want you to go to Dean, Koko Jr. at the website, and get the most recent broadcast day. Get the transcript of my explaining the genesis of this line by line with the song translation, the sound bites of Al Sharpton, the sound bites of Barack Obama with Paul Smith at WJR. Go get the column by David Ehrenstein. (The Transcripts and Audio of Everything Rush Has Said)

Go get the New York Post piece, and there's a Chicago Tribune column also that we have linked, the Clarence Page piece where he says (paraphrased), "Limbaugh's parody is funny. It's good. It's true. I don't particularly like it, but this is not an Imus situation." We're going to send the Clarence Page piece over to them, but there was a column when this whole thing with Sharpton and Obama, when the jealousy started. Some columnist, again in Chicago, wrote a piece berating Sharpton for being jealous, and we linked to that and the New York Post story which got all this started. Everything in this parody is true and I have spent all this time explaining it -- and NBC, I doubt, has the slightest idea. They're a leading news organization of the world, and of course their call was to invite me to appear on the Today Show, and there is no way. I don't do that, especially under these circumstances.

If they do this, they are going to be in for a rude surprise, because many of their viewers already know the truth of this and will recognize if they do this the wrong way, if they do this the typical Drive-By Media way, and if they do this based on some of the BS that's come out of Media Matters, the George Soros front group for the Democrat Party -- and if they do this based on this worthless column today in Houston that's so embarrassingly inaccurate, that hardly contains anything in it is true, including the reference to the "video" that we put together.

If they do it based on those things, after we send them -- we're going to send them -- encyclopedic documentation, they will have no excuse for not knowing the truth of this, the brilliance of it, the humor of it. They will have no excuse for not knowing. "Well, Limbaugh wouldn't come on..." Well, you know I'm not going to come on. They called and say, "We know he's going to say no, but we're going to invite anyway." We're going to send 'em the stuff. They're news people. They're journalists. They seek to be informed, do they not? We'll find out. It's going to be a lot to read. It may be a challenge, but that's what they have assistant producers for, and producers, and they then brief the anchors, whoever it is that's going to do this. Did they say who's going to do it? We don't know who's going to do it. But they want to do it on Monday. You say, "Why are you mentioning this now?" I want to head this stuff off at the pass, folks. You know, I've had experience with this. Don't sit around and wait to see what they do and then complain. You accuse 'em of getting it wrong in the first place. Accuse them of getting it wrong many times on purpose, before they do it, and sometimes it will change the way they do it.

They don't want to be perceived as purposely getting something wrong. They don't want that. No journalist does. They do care about their lofty credibility and so forth. But this is a no-win for them, and of course it's two months old. We haven't played the song in two weeks. But it's going to be reported on the Today Show as though, "My God! My God! In the post-Imus Era! [Note: Rush did the parody before Imus.] What's Limbaugh doing? Is he purposely trying to get fired? Is he purposely trying to attract attention?" That's what this idiot in Houston wrote today. Yeah, the idiot in Houston talked to David Ehrenstein, who wrote the original "Barack the 'Magic Negro'" piece in the LA Times. We're going to point out the three articles in the LA Times asking: Is Obama black enough? There was one article in the UK Times, too: Is Obama black enough?

While one can certainly understand why Rush would try to head them off at the pass, your Radio Equalizer questions whether this effort will succeed in making the piece more fair. NBC is a partisan news organization, one dedicated to taking down Republicans and conservatives.

If they see a chance to destroy Rush Limbaugh, they're certainly going to take it without regard for journalistic ethics. That's especially true of the Today show, which has even more of a leftist slant than the NBC Nightly News.

One upshot of a particularly twisted piece is that it will give conservatives additional evidence to use in their fight against mainstream media bias.

Yesterday: David A Lunde


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