Limbaugh claims Dems' interest in Darfur is securing black "voting bloc"

From Media Matters:

On his nationally syndicated radio show, Rush Limbaugh claimed that Democrats "want to get us out of Iraq, but they can't wait to get us into Darfur." He continued: "There are two reasons. What color is the skin of the people in Darfur? It's black. And who do the Democrats really need to keep voting for them? If they lose a significant percentage of this voting bloc, they're in trouble." A caller responded, "The black population," to which Limbaugh said, "Right."

He then goes on to lambaste the fact that "liberals" wanted to bring down the white government of South Africa and that they backed "Mandela, who was bankrolled by Communists".

"So you go into Darfur and you go into South Africa, you get rid of the white government there. You put sanctions on them. You stand behind Nelson Mandela -- who was bankrolled by communists for a time, had the support of certain communist leaders. You go to Ethiopia. You do the same thing."

Limbaugh added: "Clinton sent the U.S. military off to Bosnia. No U.S. national interest at stake. The liberals will use the military as a 'meals on wheels' program. They'll send them out to help with tsunami victims. But you put the military -- you put the military in a position of defending U.S. national interest, and that's when Democrats and the liberals oppose it."

Incredibly, whilst defending the invasion of Iraq, he goes on to state that, "Darfur is not attacking us, Darfur has not said they want to attack us."

The notion that any US or UN intervention into Darfur would take the form of "an attack" is simply taken as a given, but is quite breathtaking that he points out that Darfur is not attacking the US whilst defending the invasion of Iraq, another country that did not attack the United States and whose invasion Limbaugh utterly backs.

Now the fact that the Darfur Peace and Accountability Act was a bipartisan bill, which passed unanimously, is almost an irrelevance amongst the amount of dangerous crap that this man is spewing.

He really appears to think that Liberals were wrong to support Nelson Mandela. He actually appears to be saying that it was wrong to oppose the white government of Apartheid South Africa. I mean these are arguments which any rational person would imagine were long ago settled, and yet Rush Limbaugh still appears to be on the wrong side of them. Not only that, but these are not even views that he is handing out to very close friends in the privacy of his own home, this nutcase is on national radio spewing this crap.

Nor is this nonsense limited merely to Limbaugh. It is well known that Dick Cheney infamously voted against Mandela being released from prison, a vote that I have always assumed that he must regret and probably be embarrassed by. After all, next to Gandhi you have just registered a vote against one of the most important and influential figures of the 20th Century.

Is Cheney embarrassed? Not for a millisecond:

Yet Republican vice presidential candidate Cheney still defends his vote, saying on ABC's ``This Week'' that ``the ANC was then viewed as a terrorist organization. . I don't have any problems at all with the vote I cast 20 years ago.''

So Limbaugh is actually being no more extreme here than the Vice President of the United States. They actually lament the fall of Apartheid South Africa and the glorification of the "terrorist" Mandela.

They actually think the only reason that Liberals might want to intervene in Darfur is because it might help with the black vote at home. The notion that there might be a moral reason for intervention is swept aside as the US should only ever intervene when US "national interests" are at stake. Morality is to be replaced by crass selfishness.

The caller explains - and Limbaugh agrees - as to what those "national interests" consist of:

CALLER: Right. Terrorists have attacked us and our oil supply comes from, you know, Iraq and Iran and the Middle East, and yet that's not worth defending.

LIMBAUGH: Right. That's exactly right. You've got it. You've got it. Now you just have to believe your own instincts from here on out.

We actually owe Limbaugh a debt of gratitude. Few people are as open about the selfishness of the Republican philosophy as he is. But here, he lays it bare. Only intervene when it suits your "national interests", which usually means oil. Any other intervention, including Bosnia and Tsunami victims, is simply a Liberal ploy to shore up the black vote.

And, as I have said, he wasn't whispering this quietly, knowing that his words were shameful; he was on national radio proudly stating his views.

Click title for full report.