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Megan McArdle Goes Clueless

Megan McArdle, Atlantic [1], moans:

I have a dilemma. The other day, I boldly stated that I could not possibly like Rush Limbaugh less. Then he went and described bullying attacks as what happens in “Obama’s America”. As Rod Dreher notes [2]:

Look, I think it’s important to talk about black male violence, or at least as important as it is to talk about any other important social trend. I don’t think we should be squeamish about discussing it in a responsible and fair-minded way, despite what the politically correct say. But good grief, Limbaugh is up to something wicked. He’s plainly trying to rally white conservatives into thinking that now that we have a black president, blacks are rising up to attack white kids! Christ have mercy, what is wrong with these people?

This is possibly the first time I have ever heard the word “wicked” deployed in a public debate, and boy, is it on target. It is perfectly true that if the races had been reversed, Al Sharpton would probably be out there saying this was a symptom of America’s lynching culture, and also perfectly irrelevant. The response to Al Sharpton’s antics is not to emulate them. Race-baiting is not a team sport that anyone should want to join. And I assure Limbaugh, from vivid memory, that horrible bullying also took place in Ronald Reagan’s America, and every other America since at least 1978.

McArdle may indeed have a dilema, but she does not have a clue.   Then  neither do her readers.   So what did Rush Limbaugh say that set off the alarm bells in McArdle’s head?    I don’t know.   McArdle does not say.  I quess were supposed to conclude that setting off Rod Dreher is some kind new crime.

Fortunately, Dan Riehl, Riehl World View [3], does provide what Limbaugh actually said:

RUSH:  Hey, look, folks, the white kid on that bus in Belleville, Illinois, he deserved to be beat up.  You don’t know about this story?  Oh, there’s video of this.  The school bus filled with mostly black students beat up a white student a couple of times with all the black
students
cheering. 
Of course
the white
student on the bus deserved the beating.  He was born a racist.  That’s what
Newsweek magazine told us in its most recent cover.  It’s Obama’s
America
, is it not?
  Obama’s America, white kids getting beat up on school buses now.  You put your kids on a
school bus
, you expect safety but in Obama’s

America

the white
kids now get beat up with the black kids cheering, “Yay, right on, right on, right on, right on,” and, of course, everybody says
the white
kid deserved it,
he was born a racist, he’s white. 
Newsweek magazine
told us this. 
We know that white
students
are destroying civility on buses, white
students
destroying civility in classrooms all over
America
,
white congressmen destroying civility in the House of Representatives

We can redistribute
students
while we redistribute their parents’ wealth.  We can redistribute everything.  Just return
the white

students
to their rightful place, their own bus with bars on the windows and armed guards. 
They’re racists.  They get what they deserve. 
Newsweek magazine
told us this
, post-racial
America
.  I wonder if Obama is going to come to the defense the assailants
the way he did his friend Skip Gates up there at Harvard.  I mean the assailants are presumed innocent due to
the white
racism we all know runs rampant in

America
The Drive-By Media is ginning up all this criticism of Obama.  Again today it’s all based in racism, the criticism of Obama’s health care plan or whatever, it’s all based in racism and so, if he’s going to apologize for
America
, Obama needs to apologize for the right reasons.  White Americans are racists who have created what they call free markets that really just enslave the rest of
America
and her trading partners. It was white Americans that ran off Van Jones.

That is called sarcasism.   Dan adds:

What’s most disturbing to me in all this is that these people are supposed to be like toothpaste: ultra-bright. Assuming they are, they must have some form of blinder on. Whenever a Limbaugh or a Levin says something, their intellects seem to abandon them completely. Either that, or they simply aren’t as bright as they would have us believe.

They can interpret literature, poetry, theology, all manner of prose, but let a Right-side talking head say something and they look like petulant school children utterly confused by the encounter with their first serious book.

I love the “real” bit below from Andy, as if he has a prayer of representing himself as an authority on conservatism in America any more.

I admit that using sarcasism is tempting but dangerous.   It often lost on room temperatures I.Q.’s.

Note Bitsblog non-reader, Bertha Lewis adds that the white students were playing along with the black students by pretending to be attacked.