 |
| William Raspberry |
2) Back in 1993, Raspberry wrote a column accusing talk show host Rush Limbaugh of being a bigot similar to racist politicians of the past. Then, after actually listening to Limbaugh's shows, wrote an apology. Limbaugh dubbed that the Raspberry Effect.
3) Colbert I. King of the Post (read below) has picked up from Raspberry's original column.
August 11, 2012
Headline: Broadcasts that breed hatred
King starts off:
"We may never know why Wade Michael Page, an avowed white supremacist, opened fire on Sunday on worshipers at a Sikh temple in the Milwaukee suburbs. After killing six people and wounding three others, he turned the gun on himself. Authorities say he was a lone wolf."
CJL: But King identifies an accomplice: Radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh.
"We may never know why Wade Michael Page pulled the trigger. And it would be wrong and unfair to infer that Limbaugh made him do it. But words like Limbaugh's stir up the darkest feelings."
* * *
May 21, 2011:
Headline: The president,
in black and white
"Short of renouncing his race, buck dancing on the White House lawn and singing the virtues of white supremacy, Obama will never please the likes of Limbaugh, Gingrich et al."
* * *
March 27, 2010:
Headline: Faces we've seen
before; The deeper roots
of Tea Party rage
The angry faces at Tea Party rallies are eerily familiar. They resemble faces of protesters lining the street at the University of Alabama in 1956 as Autherine Lucy, the school's first black student, bravely tried to walk to class.
Tea Party members, as with their forerunners who showed up at the University of Alabama and Central High School, behave as they do because they have been culturally conditioned to believe they are entitled to do whatever they want, and to whomever they want, because they are the "real Americans," while all who don't think or look like them are not.And they are consequential. Without folks like them, there would be be no Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity or Pat Buchanan.
* * *
February
14, 2010 Sunday
TV show: WJLA "INSIDE WASHINGTON
MR. KING: But, you know, this is not quite the classic Republican Party that's being described here. You have Rush Limbaugh who represents, I think, the Taliban wing of the Republican Party who is urging -- urging the party in Washington to say, no. He said, be the party of no. Resist compromise with them. Don't try to work with this administration. You should be the party of no, no, no. And that's what they're listening to.
* * *
June 6, 2009
Headline: Where the
Angriest Words Can Lead
My words may have helped get a man fired.What do Hannity, Limbaugh and the pro-gun lobby expect theirs will do?Words, after all, have consequences.
* * *
So for three years, King has been suggesting in print and broadcast media that Limbaugh's words can cause violence. I suspect that King has an opinion piece on his hard drive, ready to be pubilished, with the name and date of a racist killer who finally says, "I'm a dittohead, Rush Limbaugh's words encouraged me to (fill-in-the-blank)."
There has been no smoking gun, not even from former avowed white supremacists who have written for the Washington Post. In the Outlook section of the Washington Post the same weekend that King's published his latest about Limbaugh, there's an actual piece by a former white supremacist. The former white supremacist did not mention Limbaugh as motivating his actions, although King, who is so good at reading code and between the lines, would probably spot a connection anyway.
* * *
If Rush Limbaugh asked me what to do about this, I would suggest that he have a promotional with his Two If By Tea business. Offer a free case of Raspberry Iced Tea, in honor of William Raspberry, to anyone who happened to get a Letter to the Editor published in the Washington Post criticizing Colbert King's latest anti-Raspberry Effect column.
Casey