Limbaugh: "Obama has disowned his white half ... he's decided he's got to go all in on the black side"

Summary: On his radio show, Rush Limbaugh said of Sen. Barack Obama's handling of the controversy surrounding remarks by Rev. Jeremiah Wright: "It is clear that Senator Obama has disowned his white half, that he's decided he's got to go all in on the black side."
On the March 21 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, while discussing Sen. Barack Obama's handling of the controversy surrounding remarks by his former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright, Rush Limbaugh asserted that, "in dealing with this, [Obama] has thrown his white
grandmother under the bus, and then, yesterday [March 20], drove the bus backwards and ran over her, where he threw her under the bus, by calling her a typical white woman.

" He added: "t is clear -- now, this is the stuff, this is the part that might bother some of you. It is clear that Senator Obama has disowned his white half, that he's decided he's got to go all in on the black side." Limbaugh had earlier said: "[Y]ou know, opening these race wounds like this, taking us back 30, 40 years, making it look like no progress has been made -- what Barack Obama has done -- I'm going to say something here that might offend -- or not offend -- but might maker some uncomfortable. But it is clear to me that there has been a major transformation in Senator Obama."

Limbaugh aired a clip of Obama's March 20 interview with Philadelphia sports radio station WIP 610, during which Obama referred to comments he made about his grandmother in his March 18 speech on race. In the clip that Limbaugh played, Obama stated: "The point I was making was not that my grandmother harbors any racial animosity -- she doesn't. But she is a typical white person, who, if she sees somebody on the street that she doesn't know, you know, there's a reaction that's been bred into our experiences that don't go away and that sometimes come out in the wrong way." Limbaugh responded by asking: " 'Typical white person'? What does this finally reveal about Obama?" He continued: "He is not transcendent on race. Obama is telling us that he is a black American first and an American second."

Limbaugh also addressed the recent murder of University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, student body president Eve Carson, stating, "I have a question: I wonder how white college students at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, are feeling these days. I wonder if they are nervous walking down the street, and they see a couple of black boys dressed in baggy clothes with their hats on backwards swaggering toward them. I wonder how they feel. I wonder if it makes them fear that they're going to be shot in the face for their ATM cards and their PIN numbers. Obama, do you think that there might be reasons here rather than this being inbred?"


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