Back in March, Rush Limbaugh began airing a new parody song called Barak, The Magic Negro to the tune of Puff The Magic Dragon. The song is absolutely hilarious, not because of what it says about Barak Obama, but the way it skewers Al Sharpton, who has ridiculed Obama as "not black enough."
It took a while, but eventually the dunderheads at Media Matters noticed Rush's parody and got the vapors. You'd think all their pearl-clutching would be taken up with Glenn Beck, as much as they hate him, but no, they still have time for El Rushbo.
The problem is, like so many white liberals, they look for racism in all the wrong places. How do I know this is true? Well, even Clarence Page agrees with me.
Citing the large number of wackos in the world, a lot of people on the Web and on talk radio, particularly listeners to Sharpton's radio show, think Limbaugh should meet the same fate as Imus. I don't.
I may not be in sync with Limbaugh's politics, but the two cases are quite different. As satire, Limbaugh's song passes three critical tests that Imus' offhand comment flunked: (1) it's funny, (2) it took at least half of a brain to think up and (3) it contains a nugget of truth.
The song in question actually mocks Sharpton more than Obama. The flamboyant New York preacher and talk-radio host comes off as a resentful old-school polarizer who doesn't like to be upstaged by an upstart. Obama is portrayed as a rising star who would refuse to let the few things that divide us Americans along lines of race and class get in the way of the many things that we have in common...
Limbaugh's target is a wildly popular presidential candidate, which is precisely the sort of political expression that the 1st Amendment was written to protect. I may not agree with Limbaugh's politics, but he has a right to express them.
Besides, if the potentates of political correctness come after conservative commentators like Limbaugh today, they'll come after liberal commentators tomorrow.
I've always enjoyed Clarence Page's writing a lot, even when I disagree with him. But I do agree with him on this point: Barak, The Magic Negro isn't about Barak Obama. It's about the race hustlers like Al Sharpton who are threatened by a black politician who isn't beholden to him. But don't expect Media Matters to notice that any time soon. They're too busy trying to find another quote to exploit and faint over.
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