Following up on his comments during the campaign, Rush Limbaugh is invoking ugly cultural stereotypes that infantilize black men in his comments about President Obama, who Limbaugh has repeatedly described as a “boy” and as a “man-child”:
Limbaugh calls
Obama “this little boy, this little man-child president.” While
discussing what he characterized as Obama’s “attacks” on Fox News and “ambush”
of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Limbaugh said: “People are finally standing up
to this little boy, this little man-child president, whose primary — I think his primary job,
if you will, in life has been leisure.” [Premiere Radio Networks’ The
Rush Limbaugh Show, 10/27/09]Limbaugh on
college “thesis” he said Obama wrote: “[T]his little boy in college”
had “disdain” for Constitution. During discussion of a report about
a “college thesis” Obama had purportedly written, which later was revealed to have been fake, Limbaugh
claimed: “And this
little boy in college, writing about [the Constitution] with utter disdain, and
he still shares those same feelings.”
[The Rush Limbaugh
Show, 10/23/09]Limbaugh says that with
digitized health records, “little man-child” Obama would be able to “blackmail you” and “deny you
treatment.” Warning that the digitization of medical records
would let the government “blackmail” patients and deny them treatment, Limbaugh
asserted, “Every day, this little man-child reaches out and grabs something
else.” [The Rush Limbaugh Show,
6/18/09]On Beck, Limbaugh calls Obama a “full-fledged
man-child narcissist.” Appearing on Fox News’ Glenn Beck, Limbaugh stated of Obama: “The
man’s a pure, full-fledged man-child narcissist who has to make everything about
him. And while he’s talking about protecting us and defending us and so forth,
the Federal Reserve yesterday
came out and said the economic forecast for the rest of the year is
even worse.” [Glenn Beck, 5/21/09]Limbaugh: “[T]he little boy president went out there and
did something absolutely ignorant and stupid.” Referring to Senate
Democrats’ plan to block funding for the closure of the Guantánamo Bay detention center until a decision was made
about where to put the detainees, Limbaugh stated: “I tell ya, this is cover for
Obama, ’cause the little boy president went out there and did something
absolutely ignorant and stupid, and he’s got to be covered for it now.”
[The Rush Limbaugh Show, 5/20/09]Discussing Obama,
Limbaugh suggests Dems, media believe “you can’t criticize the little black
man-child.” On his radio show, Limbaugh
asserted of attacks by Sen. John McCain against then-Sen. Barack Obama: “[S]ee,
there are Democrats — the drive-bys” — a term Limbaugh uses to denote the
national media — “are just so upset with these so-called ‘ferocious attacks.’
These have been benign. Even the Britney Spears/Paris Hilton ad was funny. It was benign.” He
later added: “It’s — you know, it’s just — it’s just we can’t hit the girl. I
don’t care how far feminism’s saying, you can’t hit the girl, and you can’t —
you can’t criticize the little black man-child. You just can’t do it, ’cause
it’s just not right.
It’s not fair. He’s such a victim.” [The
Rush Limbaugh Show, 8/20/08]
These statements are part of a long history of racially inflammatory remarks by Limbaugh, who nonetheless is embraced by many conservative elites and treated respectfully by numerous prominent media figures.