Rush Limbaugh, featured in a new, Spanish-language Barack Obama ad, says the commercial distorts his past statements and amounts to "race-baiting" by the Democratic nominee.You can read the whole morning update from April where Obama distorted the "shut your mouth" comment at this link.
The commercial, to air in Limbaugh's home state of Florida as well as Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada, features a picture of the conservative talk show host and shows his words on the screen: "Mexicans are stupid and unqualified" and "Shut your mouth or get out." It was first reported by the Washington Post's Ed O'Keefe.
"Obama is now stoking racism in the country," Limbaugh wrote in an email. "Obama is a disgrace - he wants the public to think he is Mr. Nice Guy while his thugs are in Alaska looking for dirt on Palin and he runs race-baiting ads and lies about what he has done and what McCain has done."
As for the quotes, Limbaugh said they were taken out of context.
The first, "stupid and unqualified," is from the NAFTA debate of the mid-90s, he recalled. He didn't specify how it was distorted, but said he and his staff were researching the context.
On "shut your mouth," Limbaugh produced an April 2006 transcript from what he described as a parody of Mexican immigration laws.
The talk show host read a list of stringent rules, adding "shut your mouth and get out," before revealing to listeners that the guidelines were those set by the Mexican government for immigrants.
I've listened to Rush since 1991 and I've never heard him call Mexicans "stupid and unqualified", or anything even remotely close to that. As Harry Reid found out last year, distorting Rush's words or taking him out of context is a dangerous thing to do.
Based on the way Obama has chosen to misuse Rush's words, there's no reason why Rush can't go on the air tomorrow and talk about Obama statement about his "Muslim faith".
UPDATE: Political Punch puts the "stupid and unqualified" comment in proper perspective:
Railing against NAFTA in 1993, Limbaugh said, "If you are unskilled and uneducated, your job is going south. Skilled workers, educated people are going to do fine 'cause those are the kinds of jobs NAFTA is going to create. If we are going to start rewarding no skills and stupid people, I'm serious, let the unskilled jobs that take absolutely no knowledge whatsoever to do -- let stupid and unskilled Mexicans do that work."
Not one of his most eloquent moments, to be sure, but his larger point was that NAFTA would mean that unskilled stupid Mexicans would be doing the jobs of unskilled stupid Americans.
I’m not going to defend how he said it, but to act as if this was just a moment of Limbaugh slurring Mexicans is not accurate. Though again, certainly if people were offended I could understand why.
There's nothing about this ad that's correct. Obama's team lied...period.
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