{"id":13390,"date":"2013-01-28T17:47:12","date_gmt":"2013-01-28T17:47:12","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2013-01-28T17:47:12","modified_gmt":"2013-01-28T17:47:12","slug":"smiley_and_west_rush_is_right","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2013\/01\/28\/smiley_and_west_rush_is_right\/","title":{"rendered":"Smiley and West: Rush Is Right"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Listen<\/a><\/p>\n

RUSH: You know, we\u2019ve talked on this program before about Tavis Smiley of PBS and Cornel West, noted academic. He\u2019s been at Harvard; he\u2019s been at Princeton. These guys, ladies and gentlemen, have — and I kind of like this. I kind of admire these guys in the sense they\u2019ve had a national poverty tour. They\u2019ve been doing this for I don\u2019t know how long. They\u2019ve been traveling the country trying to call attention, raise consciousness about poverty in America and about how bad it is.<\/p>\n

This is another thing that doesn\u2019t get a whole lot of coverage in the country. News reports don\u2019t talk about poverty in America. You would never know there is any, except that Cornel West and Tavis Smiley have had this traveling… It\u2019s not a road show, but they\u2019re doing appearances. They\u2019re just stopping in various cities to try to call attention to it. It\u2019s another one of these things that, if you\u2019re paying attention to what\u2019s in the media, you wouldn\u2019t know.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I mean, we know there\u2019s a bad economy and we know that unemployment\u2019s up, but poverty is at an all-time high. Smiley and Cornel West are out trying to call attention to it. You gotta give \u2019em credit for that. At least they\u2019re trying to do something about it. Well, my name came up on Tavis Smiley\u2019s show on public radio, The Smiley & West Show. It came up on yesterday\u2019s show, because I referenced John Lewis and Selma in relation to gun control. This is what they had to say about it…<\/p>\n

SMILEY: Slavery and, uh, civil rights have been, uh, injected now in this gun control debate with our friend Rush Limbaugh suggesting the other day, and I quote, “If John Lewis had had a gun, would he have been beaten upside the head on that bridge?” It\u2019s just fascinating to see all the arguments that are now being waged.<\/p>\n

WEST: My hunch is one reason why California has such severe laws is because of my brothers and sisters in the Black Panther Party, who did follow the law and did buy guns, all of a sudden generated a deep concern about a ban on assault weapons. So, I mean, Rush, in his own reaction way —<\/p>\n

SMILEY: (chuckling) But I think there is something there, though. Let\u2019s be honest about it. If every black person or every brown person in America had a gun?<\/p>\n

WEST: Oh, there would be a ban on guns quick!<\/p>\n

SMILEY: (laughing)<\/p>\n

WEST: Believe me you!<\/p>\n