Soccer Dad

Raspberry vs. rush - a postscript

With the recent controversy about Rush Limbaugh trying to become a part-owner of the St. Louis Rams, it's easy to forget that the charge he is a racist is nothing new.

Back in 1993, Washington Post columnist, William Raspberry called Rush many things including "bigot." Jeff Jacoby recalls:

In 1993, Washington Post columnist William Raspberry wrote a piece blasting Limbaugh for his "demagoguery ... his gay bashing, his racial putdowns." Like the Mississippi segregationists of his youth, Raspberry said, Limbaugh "is so good at ... tossing the raw meat of bigotry to people.... Limbaugh is a bigot."

But then Raspberry did something unheard of - he actually listened to Rush.

Eleven days later, Raspberry wrote a second column retracting the first.

"Rush, I'm sorry," he began. He confessed, to his great credit, that the earlier piece had been written in ignorance. "My opinions about [Limbaugh] had come largely from other people -- mostly friends who think Rush is a four-letter word. They are certain he is a bigot. Is he?"

Raspberry -- who by this point had listened to several hours of Limbaugh's shows and perused one of his books -- went on to answer his own question. Limbaugh might be "smart-alecky" and love "to rattle liberal cages," he might be "unrelenting in his assault on ... political correctness." But he was no more a bigot or hatemonger than Art Buchwald.

Raspberry was honest. Unfortunately in order to sink Rush Limbaugh's bid to become a part owner of the Rams, his opponents made up quotes to "prove" that he was unworthy.