RUSH: This is Andrea Mitchell, NBC News, Washington, on her show this afternoon, she interviewed Representative Elijah Cummings, Democrat, Maryland, member of the Congressional Black Caucus and this is part of the exchange.
MITCHELL: Rush Limbaugh was recently, just within the hour, reacting on his radio show to Jimmy Carter’s comments to Brian Williams, and this is what Rush had to say.
RUSH ARCHIVE: I disagree with Carter for the same reasons I disagree with Obama, but somehow when I disagree with Carter I’m not a racist. When I disagree with Obama I am, they say.
MITCHELL: Congressman, does he have a point?
CUMMINGS: I don’t know. My parents left South Carolina many, many years ago, back in the 1940s because they wanted a better life for themselves in Baltimore. Racism has been with me all my life, I think will continue to be. Was it racist here? I don’t know. Maureen Dowd says it was, certainly Jimmy Carter. But I think we have to move on.
RUSH: Maureen Dowd? You know, I thought she’d be hanging around on that limb by herself. You lie, boy. Instead the whole DC amen chorus picked it up, and they got even stupider with it than she did. Now, I’m kind of stunned with everything I said about Jimmy Carter being the national hemorrhoid and stuff, that they pulled that quote. Next up is Bill Cosby. Andrea Mitchell, NBC News, Washington, talking to Bill Cosby, she says, ‘Rush Limbaugh and others just yesterday, again today –‘ talking about race, ‘– said it’s Obama’s America, is it not? Obama’s America, white kids getting beat up on school buses now. This is because of one instance where kids were arguing, white and black, over who sits where. Does the culture right now with this kind of talk radio and talk television, does this add to the volume, the velocity and the racial anger that we at least hear expressed?’
COSBY: It doesn’t surprise me what Rush Limbaugh says. I said from the very day that people were hammering me because I was talking about our black children, some of them coming out of the schools yelling and cursing and their behavior, et cetera, et cetera. At an NAACP meeting at Howard University they were also concerned that people the likes of a Rush Limbaugh were going to find out these terrible things. Well, these people say this — they say it anyway. And then I said, ‘What difference does it make? They’ve always thought about us in this manner anyway.’
RUSH: Now, this is kind of convoluted because I have praised Cosby. Cosby has taken all kinds of hits because he has chided certain black parents for not doing a good job. So we cite him on this and he’s taken a lot of hits. I mean the NAACP took some hits at him and so forth. Bill Cosby and I have more agreement on these things than he would probably know. But anyway, that’s out there. Then they continued, and Cosby said this.
COSBY: Their foremothers and forefathers thought this, and these people, if they’re not racists, then their behavior was that similar to the D.W. Griffiths movie. If that’s not it, then they must be working for the insurance company or for the drug companies.
RUSH: Well, now we’re getting into incoherence, and out of respect for Mr. Cosby I will cease playing any more. Now it’s just descending into nonsensical stuff. I don’t even know what he’s talking about.