"I mean, let's face it, we didn't have slavery in this country for over 100 years because it was a bad thing. Quite the opposite: Slavery built the South. I'm not saying we should bring it back. I'm just saying it had its merits. For one thing, the streets were safer after dark." -- Attributed to Rush Limbaugh
AN INVESTMENT group trying to purchase the St. Louis Rams nixed Rush Limbaugh's participation in the deal yesterday because the talk show host's reputation for inciting controversy was proving "a complication and a distraction to our intentions," according to one member of the group.
That the famously conservative and outspoken Limbaugh thrives on controversy is beyond dispute, but on the flip side his high-profile NFL bid seems to have served as an excuse for a smear campaign based on various provocative statements attributed to Limbaugh, at least a few of which are demonstrably bogus.
One such quote that has crept into the mainstream news cycle, cited on CNN, MSNBC, and in several daily newspapers, goes as follows:
"I mean, let's face it, we didn't have slavery in this country for over 100 years because it was a bad thing. Quite the opposite: Slavery built the South. I'm not saying we should bring it back. I'm just saying it had its merits. For one thing, the streets were safer after dark."
Limbaugh says he never said it.
"There's a quote out there that I first saw it in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch last week that I somehow, some time ago, defended slavery and started cracking jokes about it. And, you know, you say a lot of things in the course of 15 hours a week, over the course of 21 years. We've gone back, we have looked at everything we have. There is not even an inkling that any words in this quote are accurate."
And the evidence backs him up. When Post-Dispatch columnist Bryan Burwell repeated the quote on October 7, he didn't cite a source. An editorial update posted one week later did: 101 People Who Are Really Screwing America (New York: Avalon, 2006), a book by left-wing author Jack Huberman.
The quote does, in fact, appear on page 232 of Huberman's book, as does another alleged Limbaugh utterance that is becoming almost as notorious as the first one:
"You know who deserves a posthumous Medal of Honor? James Earl Ray [the confessed assassin of Martin Luther King]. We miss you, James. Godspeed."
Unfortunately, Huberman doesn't say where he found these quotes.
And here's where it gets really interesting.
The earliest attributions anyone has been able to find cropped up in a series of anonymous edits to the Rush Limbaugh Wikiquote page in July 2005 -- about a year before Huberman's book came out.
Thanks to Wikiquote's "History" feature, every edit ever made can be isolated and tracked. The slavery quote, for example, first appears at 5:53 a.m. on July 20, 2005.
It was followed a few minutes later by this addition:
"Was there any excrement, any shamelessness in any form, above all in cultural life, in which at least one African-American would not have been involved? As soon as one even carefully cut into such an abscess, one found, like maggots in a decaying body, often blinded by the sudden light, an African-American."
Which was followed at 6:01 a.m. by this now-familiar quote:
"You know who deserves a posthumous Medal of Honor? James Earl Ray. We miss you, James. Godspeed."
The middle quote, the one likening African Americans to maggots, deserves special attention because 1) it doesn't sound remotely Limbaughian, and 2) one doesn't have to look far to verify that the tortured prose was actually written in 1925 by Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf, Vol. 1, p. 61), originally in reference to Jews, not African Americans.
What does that say about the credibility of the other two quotes?
In any case, all three entries were repeatedly challenged, removed, and reposted over the next few months, and finally deleted for good on October 13, 2005 with the notation, "Removed fake quotes, including paraphrased Hitler quote."
A year later, two of them turned up in Jack Huberman's book.
Three years after that, the same two quotes reappeared on the Rush Limbaugh Wikiquote page, now labeled "sourced." Can you guess who the "source" was? That's right: Jack Huberman, in 101 People Who Are Really Screwing America.
If, as appears to be the case, Huberman originally came across the statements on Wikiquote (or some secondary source citing Wikiquote), the history of their sourcing is perfectly circular and Huberman isn't a credible source himself.
If not, it behooves Mr. Huberman to reveal where he did find those quotes, and why anyone should accept them as authentic.
10/16/09 Update:
Yesterday, Huffington Post challenged Jack Huberman to substantiate the quotes, which had appeared in a July 2006 blog posting on the site. He could not, and the quotes have been deleted from the article.
Also, CNN's Rick Sanchez has apologized for airing the slavery quote, which he says the network was "unable to independently confirm."
Acknowledgments:
A tip of the hat to the following blogs, whose research was instrumental in tracking all this down: Smash Mouth Politics, Protein Wisdom, 24Ahead.com.
Further reading:
• Rush Limbaugh Dropped from Bid for St. Louis Rams
• Rush Limbaugh: A Response to Hateful Slander
• Media Smears Rush Limbaugh; Considers Wikiquote to Be a Reliable Source
• Jack Huberman: Rush Limbaugh is STILL Screwing Up America
Comments
Hey, thanks for giving a hat tip to my blog, Smash Mouth Politics. Since your wonderful article, I have found that HuffingtonPost has since taken down the quote in an article that Jack Huberman wrote in HuffingtonPost. (I’m assuming that was the quote that they took down; since the quote is no longer there I can’t know for sure.)
Here’s a link to the HuffPo article:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jack-huberman/rush-limbaugh-is-still-sc_b_24724.html
HuffPo wrote a disclaimer in front of his article saying that since a quote was disputed, as was their policy they gave Huberman 24 hours to substantiate the quote, and he was unable to do so! I think this might fit right in with the last paragraph of your excellant article.
not even Rush could make the Rams more embarassing right now – they are 0-5 and averaging a paltry 6.9 points per game. there’s no need to make up quotes to shame Mr. Limbaugh; he’s done quite enough on how own. I know he’s an “entertainer” but no matter where you are on the political spectrum, even one airing of “Barack the Magic Negro” should have been distasteful.
Centrist… if Barack the Magic Negro is distasteful, blame a BLACK editorial writer for the LA TIMES.
he’s the one who coined the term calling Obama a Magic Negro for pulling whites to his side, in one of his LA Times editorial collumns.
The song “Barack The Magic Negro” Was a play on Something Sharpton said (Thus why it was sung by Sharpton) and what appeared in the LA Times (Thus the line “The LA Times, they called him that)
Again, another left leaner (Doubt you’re a centrist) who attacks Rush without all the facts. Didn’t this article teach you nothing Centrist?
It seems to me that all the negative vibes this blowhard (Rush Hudson Limbaugh A.KA. Jeff Christie) has been spewing over these many years has come back to blow back on his face (A classic “Blow Back”). He always tries to give off the airs that he can have anything he wants but as we all witness those with more money and more influence tossed him aside like sack of potatoes and the ultimate insult was that it was done in public (money don’t buy you everything butterball).
Now of course he blames everyone else (Michael J. Fox, Perez Hilton, Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, Obama, Oprah Winfrey, Sonia Sotomayor, Hillary Clinton, Olympia Snowe, ESPN, NFL, the media, basically people of color, the handicapped, women and gays) when of course all you have to do is listen to his show and plainly hear his daily prejudices filled sermons. So NFL, I salute you decision, job well done. And to the whaling cry baby perched on his self made pedestal, quit your whining it was your own fault. Don’t we all feel better?
Doesn’t anyone want the news agencies to report only the TRUTH no matter who says it (or doesn’t say it in this case)?? At least the truth to the best of knowledge at the time. Do I have to do all my own research on every news item to hear the REAL story?? When’s this gonna end??
http://mediamatters.org/research/200910130049
Rush Limbaugh: Transcript of radio broadcast from Oct. 14, 2008
By Keith Vance
TRANSCRIPT OF RUSH LIMBAUGH ON HIS RADIO SHOW FROM OCT. 14, 2008
Editor’s note: This is a verbatim transcript of Limbaugh explaining how ACORN, Barack Obama, Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright are all involved in a radical leftwing conspiracy to teach black kids to hate America.
From the time of my birth 57 years ago to today, this country has grown and expanded, prosperity has opened its doors for more and more people around the world, not just people born in this country.
We know the stories of asians immigrating and running rings around people born in this country academically in California. We know all about the immigration, legal and illegal, to get into the country. We know that the standard of living has risen. We know that technological advancement is going along at light speed.
And yet, during this period of time, whether it be the last 57 years, or the last 20 years, it seems that the majority of the black population has remained angry, frustrated and behind – they’ve been left behind. They’re acting like they’ve been left behind, and of course we’ve heard that this is because of racism, natural systemic institutional racism in America. We’re unfair. That this country is just horrible and rotten.
Do you ever ask yourself how it is that people not even born here can come here and in a few short years begin prospering in school, they’re own business, and yet people who are born in this country somehow have been raised to hate it – to still think they’re back in the days of slavery.
I actually think, after studying all this ACORN stuff, and reading what Stanley Kurtz has written about this, I actually believe that what has taken place here, in addition to liberal Democrat legislation – such as the great society and the war on poverty, which a lot of people would now acknowledge really busted up the black family by the government taking the place of a husband and father – he’s free to roam around and bear no responsibility. The mother remained the mother, she got the financial assistance from this legislation from the federal government. The federal government became the father. The father didn’t have to hang around in order for the kids to be OK – depending on how you define OK.
And as you study more and more of this ACORN stuff you find that it has been part of an entire movement that has been going for two maybe three decades right under our noses. We thought that it was just liberal welfare policies and all that that kept blacks from progressing while other minorities grew and prospered but no. It is these wackos from Bill Ayers to Jeremiah Wright to other anti-american afro-centric black liberation theologists, working with ACORN, and Barack Obama is smack dab in the middle of it. They have been training young black kids to hate hate hate this country. And they trained their parents before that to hate hate hate this country. It was a movement. It was a Bill Ayers anti-capitalist anti-american educational movement. ACORN is how it was implemented right under our noses.
They’re doing far more folks than just cheating when it comes to elections and registration. They’re in deep in this mortgage crisis. ACORN and Obama, and Barney Frank and Chris Dodd, the Democrat Party have their fingerprints the sub-prime mortgage crisis. The whole concept of affordable housing was people who can’t afford a mortgage are going to get one, because America is unfair.
It has been a movement. It has been a religion. And Obama and Jeremiah Wright and William Ayers were all up to their big ears in it.
I really don’t think Mr. Limbaugh was drummed out of the bid because of these fake quotes; I’m thinking it was his ignorance of the game, revealed by his comments about Donovan McNabb on Monday Night Football. That’s what football players and aficionados look at, not quote pages on Wikipedia. But this was a really good article! Thanks.
You’re wrong about the slavery quote. I was listening to the El Rushmo show the day he made the racist quote. Rush is very toxic for our country. He should be taken off the radio.
B.A. Hater; Yes everyone has to figure out what is true and what isn’t that is the game going on now. The press as we believe it should act by checking these things out before putting them on TV or in the paper doesn’t do their job anymore an hasn’t for sometime.
I can’t imagine why this is a surprise to anyone; as for Rush the real speaker for the Republican party who demands apologies from those Republicans that go against what he says or he beats them up verbally on his radio station until they do, If you are a independent thinker in the Republican party your out, it’s follow the line at any cost to the USA. He is the Republican leader their is no one that carries as much weight in that party then he does. The Republicans should nominate him in 2012 the base would be so happy, and the Democrats also.
I went to the site of Smash Mouth Politics, is for people who want a radical site. I will stick with Snopes, Urban Legends and Media Matters. between these three I can come up with most of the truth that is running wild through the Media
RYM, you lie like a dog. Funny, NOBODY said a word about it when it happened. He is listened to by millions, many who don’t like him, but it just slid under the radar for five years without anybody saying a word about it.
Karma, if you think Media Matters isn’t a radical lefty website then I truly feel sorry for you.
I live in the area where Rush grew up and can attest to some of my neighbors holding views similar to those quoted. Rush, however was not raised that way and as much as I disagree with him, must defend him when he protests that he’s not a racist.
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He intentionally says things provocatively, because that’s his bread and butter.
He is a blowhard, a gasbag, blatherer, know-it-all, blusterer, ranter, raver and blatherskite, but not a racist.
There, I feel better having said something nice about him [after all, that's what liberals do
The streets might have been safe, but the slave men wives weren’t safe from their slave master in the dark, hypocrite!
Rosie, did you miss the entire point of the article? He never said the streets were safe. It didn’t happen.
Although the worst of the comments came from Paul–yeah, screw the fact that our allies are falsely accusing the man of despicable statements, he deserves it because I don’t like him!
Unfortunately, that’s the way liberals think. That’s why we need them out of our government.
The author was clearly a fool for using wikipedia as his source. It was so unncessary because there is an abundance of equally reprehensible statements that have been properly verified. I’m all for debunking fake quotes, but for goodness sake Mr Emory, don’t imply that Limbaugh is the victim in this. Most of what has been attributed to him, he has actually said.
My new book coming out, “Jack Huberman is a Big Fat Liar”.
THANK YOU, “Ronald Reagan”. I completely agree with what you said. It’s hard to misinterpret this when you just compare it to the constitution.. I really wish people would just pay more attention to concrete history instead of thinking every modern problem is the very first of it’s kind.