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Sept. 15, 2005 - Rush Limbaugh Program
35:19
September 15, 2005, Thursday, Hour #3
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And we're back.
We got broadcast excellence as you've come to know, love and expect.
This is a program that meets and surpasses all audience expectations each day.
We are the EIB Southern Command.
I am Rush Limbaugh, firmly ensconced behind the golden EIB microphone here at the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies, President Bush, with total disregard for the environment and for scarcity of fuel has just taken off from Anders Air Force Base in Air Force One.
Today a giant Boeing 747 400 burning who knows how many thousands of gallons of fuel en route to make a speech that he could just as easily make from the Oval Office.
Bush once again exhibiting a total tone deafness when it comes to the crises facing this country.
Global warming, uh scarce fuel supplies, and uh all the other ancillary aspects of this.
Just trying to give you a heads up on the way this will be reported in various places.
All right, ladies and gentlemen.
Oh, phone number, yes, because we will, of course, be getting to your phone uh phone calls the program unfolds in this hour.
It's 800-282-288-2.
The email address is rush at EIB net.com.
Okay, this is an update on yesterday's I opening story about Congressman William Jefferson, Democrat Louisiana.
As the story from ABC uh yesterday, the ABC News website reported amid the chaos and confusion that engulfed New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina struck, a local Congressman used National Guard troops to check on his property and rescue his personal belongings, even while New Orleans residents were trying to get rescued from rooftops.
On Friday, September 2nd, five days after the hurricane hit the Gulf Coast, Representative William Jefferson, Democrat Louisiana, who represents New Orleans and is a senior member of the powerful Ways and Means Committee, was allowed through the military blockade set up around the city to reach the superdome where thousands of evacuees had been taken.
Military sources told ABC News that Congressman William Jefferson, Democrat, Louisiana, eight-term Democrat Congressman, asked the National Guard that night to take him on a tour of the flooded portions of his congressional district.
A five-ton military truck and a half dozen military police were dispatched to accompany Democrat Congressman William Jefferson, Louisiana, to the front door of his home.
Lieutenant Colonel Pete Schneider of the Louisiana National Guard told ABC News that during the tour, Congressman William Jefferson, Democrat Louisiana, asked that the truck take him to his home on Marengo Street.
Marengo Street is in the affluent uptown neighborhood.
In the Congressional District of William Jefferson, Democrat Louisiana.
According to the Air National Guard uh president, uh the Lieutenant Colonel, this was not part of Jefferson's initial request.
Congressman William Jefferson, Democrat Louisiana, defended the expedition, saying that he set out to see how residents were coping at the Superdome.
And also in his neighborhood.
He insisted that he did not ask the National Guard to transport him.
Well, he spoke of this last night with Paula Zan on CNN.
She had as her guest, Congressman William Jefferson, Democrat, Louisiana.
And she said, So let's try to set the record straight here tonight.
On a day when you had some 10,000 people trapped at the Superdome with no food and no water, living under just horrendous conditions.
You, Congressman William Jefferson, Democrat Louisiana, ended up using a National Guard truck to take you to your home in the affluent section on Marengo Street, where you, Congressman William Jefferson, Democrat Louisiana, retrieved personal belongings.
Why, sir, Congressman William Jefferson, Democrat Louisiana, is that not an abuse of power.
The National Guard troops took me to the Superdome area, took me to the convention center where I visited with constituents, took me uptown to the Walmart area where which had been looted, so I took a tour of that.
I saw people at a convention center and asked them how they were, and he talked to me about the uh the need to get buses out and so on.
I then went uptown to the area where I live and and and to my neighborhood.
Uh every member of Congressman back to see what had happened in their own area, as I did.
The difference was I couldn't travel without guards because there was shooting and and sniping and all that stuff going on in my district.
If I had been Bobby Jindal, I could have gone without any help.
But they all told me I needed to have and must-have National Guard or some sort of escort because they were worried about people being shot.
And that is the only reason they were with me.
Okay, so let's let's retrace the steps here uh that have uh been stated by Congressman William Jefferson, Democrat Louisiana.
The original ABC story says that Congressman William Jefferson, Democrat Louisiana, wanted to go visit his home, but he didn't tell this to the National Guard at first.
He said he wanted to go to the Superdome.
And after that trip began, the National Guard says that Congressman William Jefferson, Democrat Louisiana, then directed them to his home on Morengo Street in the affluent uptown section of town where he lives.
Now, Congressman William Jefferson, Democrat Louisiana, says, Nope.
I went on that tour to Superdome, then they told me I had to have an escort from National Guard because there was shooting and sniping and all that stuff going on in my district.
Then he adds the previously unknown fact that had he been Bobby Gindal, who is uh Congressman from Louisiana Republican, and who also ran for governor but lost to Kathleen Blanco.
If he had been Bobby Gindal, he could have gone without any help from the National Guard.
Uh but the National Guard told him that he needed to have and must have National Guard or some sort of escort because they were worried about people being shot.
And that's the only reason they were with me.
We will soon see the fallacy of this as the sound bites roll on.
But what do you make of this?
What does he mean when he says if he were if he had been Bobby Jindal, he wouldn't have needed an escort?
Does that mean the looters weren't shooting shooting at Republicans?
What does it mean?
Does it does it mean that the snipers weren't shooting at Republic?
Uh oh, oh, so he's also he's saying had he been Bobby Jindal, who is really affluent, I'm just affluent.
But if Bobby Jindal really affluent, I wouldn't have needed any of this.
If Bobby Jindal could probably provide all this himself, is that what he's saying?
We have no clue what Congressman uh William Jefferson, Democrat Louisiana, means by this personal swipe at uh Republican from Louisiana, Bobby Jindal.
So Paul Azan then, uh, trying to follow this, said, Well, what was so critical inside your house that you wanted to retrieve?
I wanted to see the condition of my house as every other congressman who went down there did.
Trouble is, as I've told you, they didn't have to have guards with them, and I did because they worried about being being shot.
But I went to the house to see what whether it was underwater, whether it had been looted, that sort of thing.
There wasn't anything especially important to retrieve from the House.
This is this is uh muddying the waters, a little figure speech, uh uh a little more than I thought would happen, because according to the ABC report yesterday, Congressman William Jefferson, Democrat Louisiana, commandeered the National Guard and the truck for the express purpose of going to his house.
He just didn't tell them that until after they had set out for the Superdome.
He now says, hey, I I just wanted to go to the Superdome, and they said you were getting shot at out there, you got to take a guard with you.
Well, even in his scenario, how do they end up at his house?
He's he's he's on both sides of this street, Morengo Street, uh, if you will.
Now, we also learned from the ABC report yesterday that Congressman William Jefferson, Democrat, uh, Louisiana, when arrived when he arrived at his house, found that the water was only up to the third step.
But Congressman William Jefferson, Democrat Louisiana, asked the National Guard to drive the truck, the five-ton truck, all the way up to the steps so that he wouldn't have to get wet getting out of the truck and going into his uh fashionable home on Morango Street in the affluent uptown section of New Orleans.
This led to the truck, the five-ton truck that had escorted Congressman William Jefferson, Democrat Louisiana, stuck in the mud.
The truck got stuck in the mud, and that meant it couldn't back out, couldn't leave.
That meant that the National Guard and Congressman William Jefferson, Democrat Louisiana, were thus stranded in water up to the third step of his fashionable home on Marengo Street in the uptown section of New Orleans.
At this point, so goes the ABC report, a rescue helicopter was seen, and the National Guard troops began flashing a distress message at it.
The chopper pilot saw it.
He came over.
There were four rescued New Orleans citizens already aboard the chopper.
Now, oh, I left something out.
Congressman William Jefferson, Democrat Louisiana, was in his house for 45 minutes to an hour.
And he came out of his house after this period of time with uh bunch of uh computers, suitcases, and a box that was described to be the size of a of a freezer.
And it was at that point that it was learned that the five-ton truck that had driven Congressman William Jefferson, Democrat Louisiana, to his home was stuck.
And then they signaled a chopper.
The chopper showed up.
And there the story takes a diversion from what we heard about yesterday.
We will continue this tale involving Congressman William Jefferson, Democrat Louisiana, when we come back.
I love this song, Sade and Smooth Operator.
From the uh mid-mid-80s, a little music, yes, that uh fits nicely with the saga of Congressman William Jefferson, Democrat Louisiana.
Now we're we're we're updating this uh this saga from yesterday to today because there seems to be uh some information today that that uh is at variance with the report from yesterday.
Let's go back to yesterday's report.
We're at this point in the story where Congressman William Jefferson, Democrat Louisiana, has been inside his home here for about an hour after never really intending to go there.
Well, he guess he intended to go there.
He just didn't tell the National Guard at first that's where he wanted to go.
But regardless, he's in there, and he comes out of there with three suitcases, a laptop computer, and a box the size of a small freezer, according to National Guard witnesses.
Now, about this time they discovered the five-ton truck that had delivered Congressman William Jefferson, Democrat Louisiana, to his home on Morengo Street in the fashionably affluent uptown section of New Orleans, was stuck.
And a helicopter was then seen, a rescue helicopter flying overhead.
This is the divergence now where the stories go in different directions.
According to the ABC report yesterday, the soldiers signaled to helicopters in the air for aid.
Military sources say a Coast Guard chopper pilot saw the signal and flew to the home of Congressman William Jefferson, Democrat, Louisiana.
The chopper was already carrying four rescued New Orleans residents at the time.
A rescued diver descended from the helicopter.
But Congressman William Jefferson, Democrat Louisiana, decided against going up in the helicopter with the rescue diver.
The pilot sent the diver down again when the diver went back up without Congressman William Jefferson, Democrat Louisiana, the pilot said, go back down there.
But Jefferson twice the second time, again declined to go up to the helicopter.
After spending approximately 45 minutes hovering over the home of Congressman William Jefferson, Democrat Louisiana, the helicopter went on to rescue three additional New Orleans residents before it ran low on fuel and was forced to end its mission.
A National Guard spokesman said 45 minutes can be an eternity to somebody that's drowning, to somebody sitting on a roof, and it needs to be used immediately.
It's primary purpose during an emergency, not hovering over Congressman William Jefferson, Democrat Louisiana's house.
While he decides what he wants to be rescued.
Remember, the truck is stuck.
But he doesn't want to get on the chopper because he can't carry with him.
The three suitcases, a laptop, and the box that looked like a freezer.
All right, that's yesterday's story.
Here is today's version in the Associated Press.
A Coast Guard helicopter, rescuing people, stranded on rooftops, also spotted the group at the home of Congressman William Jefferson, Democrat Louisiana, and they sent a rescue swimmer down to investigate.
Congressman William Jefferson, Democrat Louisiana, said that he and the guardsmen tried to wave the helicopter off, but the pilot apparently didn't see him.
And the swimmer ended up kicking in a door and entering the home of Congressman William Jefferson through a balcony.
You see where these stories have taken different paths now.
Commander Brendan McPherson, a spokesman for the Coast Guard, said the helicopter pilot responded to a distress signal from the National Guardsman outside the home of Congressman William Jefferson, Democrat, Louisiana, before lowering the rescue swimmer.
At the time, water was waist deep around the home of Congressman William Jefferson.
Democrat Louisiana and the guardsmen were standing on the front porch.
It was clear to them that they were being signaled as they had been in many other cases when someone was in distress, McPherson said.
An Air National Guardsman who had hitched a ride on the truck carrying Congressman William Jefferson, Democrat Louisiana, uh from the Superdome was airlifted from the home of Congressman William Jefferson, Democrat Louisiana, by the helicopter.
So an Air National Guardsman who had hitched a ride on the truck, ended up being airlifted, not Congressman William Jefferson, Democrat Louisiana.
McPherson said that Congressman William Jefferson, Democrat Louisiana, declined the Coast Guard offer of help.
Three other people also were rescued from that neighborhood, the neighborhood of Congressman William Jefferson, Democrat Louisiana, before the helicopter returned to Mobile, Alabama.
Lieutenant Colonel Pete Schneider, a Louisiana Guard spokesman, said that Congressman William Jefferson, Democrat Louisiana, was the only official who requested a tour of the city via ground transportation.
He said that Congressman William Jefferson, Democrat Louisiana, wanted to tour his district and was put in a high water vehicle for that purpose.
So a guardsman takes the ride back with the chopper, not the Congressman.
A rescue diver from the chopper burst open a second floor window or door of the home of Congressman William Jefferson.
The only thing this story does not mention at the ABC story does, is that a second truck, a second five-ton truck, was dispatched by the National Guard to the home of Congressman William Jefferson, Democrat Louisiana, to bring him and the uh remaining National Guardsman back to wherever they were because the first truck remained stuck in the mud near the third floor step of the fashionable affluent home on Marengo Street in the uptown section of New Orleans,
where lived Congressman William Jefferson, Democrat Louisiana.
Now we have one more sound bite with this because the story does go on.
Paul Azan said, You mentioned a federal investigation.
Was there anything in your house that you were trying to get out that was critical to this FBI investigation of you?
I would doubt that.
The thing that I wanted to get out was my daughter's laptop computer in my daughter's suitcase that I took away.
The FBI had been in my house, as you know, uh for seven, eight hours.
Whatever was there, they got it.
I'd been living in my house for three weeks after they came.
If there was anything in there, I could have taken it then.
That was no reason to go there to retrieve anything related to an investigation.
This is all in RCC smear.
They're putting out, which is quite a shame, and they're sending out these uh these notices to all the news media asking them to question me about these things.
So this uh this has all been trumped up here by the National Republican Congressional Campaign Committee is what he's saying here.
Uh and that uh but they're not uh I mean I haven't gotten anything from them.
My sources here are ABC and the Associated Press, and of course Congressman William Jefferson, uh Democrat Louisiana himself, uh, as heard last night on CNN's Paul is on now.
Now the investigation uh is uh a sting operation.
He apparently was in cahoots, allegedly in cahoots with the vice president of Nigeria, who has a home in Baltimore, somewhere outside Baltimore, uh to set up some sort of telecommunications business.
And the they raided his house whenever they did, the home of Congressman William Jefferson, Democrat Louisiana, and found a bunch of cash in a freezer.
Uh to which I said yesterday, so what?
Doesn't everybody keep their cash in a freezer?
Put it in the oven.
That's a bad place to put it.
Why else do you think it's called cold cash?
On the cutting edge of societal evolution, it's L. Rushbaugh combining a serious discussion of issues with the irreverent and unpredictable humor, credibility on both sides.
Telephone number is 800-282-2882, and let's go to the phones in Knoxville, Tennessee.
Hi, Billy, I'm glad you called, sir.
Mega anti-embark cohibo dittoes, Rush.
Um I think that Congressman William Jefferson, uh Democrat Louisiana, is going to use the excuse that it's the racist cops' fault that he had to have this National Guard escort, which the white Republican counterpart would not have had to have, because being a black man in that affluent neighborhood carrying boxes out of the house, he would have been shot as a looter.
Well, that's except there is a there's a problem with the timeline.
Because at the time that the National Guard told, according to Congressman William Jefferson, Democrat Louisiana, his version of the story is that he told a guard that he wanted to go to the Superdome and the Convention Center.
The guard says that before they left, he never said a word about going to his house.
It was only after they left that Congressman William Jefferson said that he needed to go to his house.
Yet he also maintains that he couldn't go on this excursion, according to the National Guard, without an escort because there was shooting and sniping going on.
So there's a there's a true divergence here in the two days of stories we have.
The first day of stories is as I just related to you.
The second day story is that Congressman William Jefferson, uh Democrat Louisiana, did say to the guardsman that he wanted to go to his house, and that he needed uh they they say he needed an escort.
Now, if the first version is true, how could anybody in the guard say you need protection if they don't know he's going to his house?
If he hasn't told them he's going to the house, he just wants to go to Superdome.
This is when this is when he goes up, he apparently asked for the escort.
That's the first day's story.
He asked for the escort.
His story is no, no, no, no, no.
No, no, no, no.
I told him I was going to the superdome and I was going there, and then I was going to go to my home, and I said, No, you can't do that because you you you get shot at, you snipers out there, you need us to go with you.
So we don't and then he adds this bit about later that had he been Bobby Gendal, he wouldn't have needed the escort.
And you your guess is as good as ours as to why Congressman William Jefferson, Democrat Louisiana, would say that.
But if the first version of this story is true, the guard had no idea they were going to be going to his house, and they had no idea that he was going to be coming out of the house with a laptop, three suitcases, and a freezer, in which case they had no idea that he would might look like a looter.
So it's this is not easy.
If I know this is this is why you need a highly trained broadcast specialist like me to follow the sequence of events here in the proper sequence, because there's there th these two stories are are quite at variance with one another.
Now I I if you're gonna assume here that they said you need protection because you're gonna look like a looter, that means they didn't say that, but we we do not know what he means with his uh reference to Congressman Gendal.
Yes, Mr. Snerdley, a question.
Well, I I don't I don't know how much uh sniping was going on at affluent neighborhoods uh with water up to the third step of some homes, such as in the case of the home of Congressman William Jefferson, Democrat Louisiana.
The sniping uh uh I had heard was going on um at rescue choppers.
Uh but who knows how much of it there was.
I I don't know that the uh affluent neighborhoods had been penetrated by the snipers and the loot.
I just don't know this.
But uh with all the sniping and looting and shooting going on, it was understandable that somebody didn't want to take a chance.
You just couldn't say, well, they're not sniping and looting and shooting over there in the affluent neighborhood in the Marango Street's clear.
I mean, who would know this?
It's uh folks, we're two days of this story, and we're really uh no closer to the truth.
That's the whole point here.
Uh trying to share with you the uh uh uh different directions this story has taken in just two days.
Stephen Arlington, Texas, welcome to the EIB network.
You are next.
Hello, Rush.
First time caller, proud to be on your show, sir.
Thank you, sir.
Um, I'm taking a look at this 200 billion we're gonna send down there, whatever it takes and all that, gonna rebuild the levy in the street, build it back up, great, okay.
Then the environmentalists come in and say, Nope, can't do it, gotta protect some damn mud duck.
What's the style?
In other words, who's their boss?
Who do they answer to?
Who do we see if they're telling the truth or not?
Uh they really you know it's a good question.
The environmentalists don't really have a boss.
There is no singular environmentalist wacko view other than this.
We must obstruct capitalism as much as possible.
That's what motivates them.
That's what that's what uh guides them.
But this has been one of my big complaints.
Okay, so a bunch of environmentalists complain.
So what?
Why do we have to bow down and listen to what they say?
Why do we have to be lectured to by a bunch of junk scientists and a bunch of left-wing political activists?
Why do we have to be dictated to by them?
I think somebody ought to try to look at them and say, Well, how do we know the mud ducks are there?
Uh well, I don't know who's gonna do it.
It's it's it's it's almost like objecting to the civil rights movement when you object to them.
Because all they want is clean water and clean air and lots of fish and uh animals and uh no pollution and no global warming, and how can we oppose that?
If we oppose that, oh, you want the fish to die, do you?
Oh, you want people to drink stinking water, you want people to breathe dirty, you want people to die.
You want the you want the globe to burn up, right, Limbaugh, huh?
You because you so a lot of just people just don't have the guts to oppose them.
Like a lot of people don't have the guts to oppose the uh uh Reverend Jacks of the world.
I mean, the truth is, shouldn't Jesse Jackson be canned?
Should he be fired?
We've just seen what sixty years of life in New Orleans for poor black people's like, and yet the leader of the movement has been out there trying to rectify all this for his whole life.
At what point do you proclaim some of these people failures and wrong?
Nobody's got the guts to.
Uh me Shorn in Louisville, Kentucky.
Welcome to the EIB network.
Hello.
Hey, what's up, brother, man?
How you doing?
Just fine, never better.
Yeah, it's good.
This is my first time here, man.
I just want to get right at it.
Uh bottom line is, man, I listen to your show so often, and you make some valid points, and some points you just sway off bunch.
But I'm just want to say, just on this one point.
Man, with all the pain and hurt that's going on in our society right now.
Um, I wish you would spend a lot more of your time focused on the positive things that's going on right now in all the things that's happening right now.
We we there's enough negative.
You do you you you talk about all the time.
Everybody, Democrat, Republicans, everybody want to point the fingers and everything.
Right now, man, we need some peace.
You know, we need we need some unity.
We need some we need some people to focus on what's happening here.
Everybody, this storm created Okay, okay.
You know what?
You have I I gotta I you have an excellent point.
This this ball game flat.
I mean, you you but the problem is you're calling the wrong guy.
No, no, no, I'm actually calling the right guy.
You need to call these people that say George Bush hates black people and doesn't care if they die.
You need to call the people that say Bush is steering hurricanes into you need to call people, say Bush blowing up levees so that the hurricane only floods black neighborhoods.
You are talking to one of the most optimistic and cheerful guys in this country.
I talked about how this process of rebuilding New Orleans would be faster than any of the doom and gloomers said, and I've been right.
Can you will you let me talk?
Can I say something?
Well, I mean, you you can you've earned it.
Yeah, go right ahead.
Yes, sir.
Well, here's uh here's one of the biggest things why I am so against the negativity.
First of all, I am an African American.
I am not black.
I accepted the fact that we're where where I'm at, and I love where I'm at.
Every time you say black, any time, me, not just you, I'm I'm totally against anyone that's continuously black and white.
Because when you say that, my friend, you are you are creating division.
That is a major twist.
We are all Americans.
And this incident happened to every American.
Everybody was affected to what took place.
So you know, wait a second.
Wait a sec, hold on a minute.
You're making some good points.
I pointed that out too.
That there were plenty of people in New Orleans that lost everything.
I was the one that tried to point out it was not a racial hurricane and the disaster was not racially motivated or targeted.
So about this.
But wait a second.
Why don't that point, man?
Because you got some man, you got ears, man.
You got listeners, man.
I say that see, what comes out of the heart, out of our mouths, is what's in our heart, okay?
And see, right now you got the gift and the talent of bringing people together.
I say, my friend, I just say I'm gonna give up.
I just I appreciate all this, but I think I think your your premise is a little flawed in all in all candor, me, Shorn, because the the fact of the matter is.
I I ha I I I I don't I don't know where to start with you first.
Let me go back to this black business or versus African American.
I I have to tell you, there's a lot of people are going to be confused here.
When I was growing up, it was Negro.
Then it was they can't say Negro.
Then it then it was Afro.
You can't say Afro America.
They did grow up if it's changed all over the place.
Then it now it now it can't be black.
Because black is divisive.
Uh, you know, I I don't think that's divisive at all.
Any intent certainly isn't to make it divisive.
The divisiveness is coming from people who want to divide the country based on race, not me, and that isn't me.
I have no desire to and never have had.
Now, this business of uh we ought to bring people together and this sort of thing, I'm all for it, man.
I wish people I if you'd have heard me the first two days of this hurricane, you'd be on my side.
Because I was talking about how I am just stressed.
I am more saddened at the aftermath of this and what it's doing to our society than what damaged the hurricane caused New Orleans.
Because there were people who immediately took advantage of this to advance a political agenda that's based on racial division, and it sickens me.
And it's sickened me my entire career here.
And and to be lumped in with those doing it is an unfair, unjust charge.
And I think you should reexamine it if you think you're calling the right guy.
I have to run.
I appreciate it.
We'll be back and continue here in just a moment.
You're listening to Rush Limbaugh on the excellence in podcasting network.
I'd say it, folks, things are really looking up down there in New Orleans.
The mayor's out there saying he he wants to open a city this weekend.
He wants this soon as the EPA gives him to go at it.
He wants to reopen New Orleans.
It isn't gonna be long.
You're gonna be able to go back down to French quarter, get drunk, and throw up all over Bourbon Street just like you always were able to.
And uh th things are gonna get back to normal.
Now I want uh me shorn in Louisville.
Uh I hope I hope you're still there because I've I've done some thinking.
I've got a story, by the way, that that I want to follow up your call with here.
I've been thinking a lot during the breakup of what you said.
You you you said that that uh it is divisive to call African Americans black.
And to be quite honest with you, sir, I I I think if there's any divisiveness going on, it is the insistence on being called African Americans.
You just said we're all Americans, we're all here to yet you want to be delineated as an African American.
Uh I'm from my roots are from uh uh Switzerland and not Switzerland, uh Holland and Germany.
Uh should I be Dutch American?
Uh you know, any time you want to hyphenate what kind of American you are, you are distinguishing yourself.
And uh it it hasn't served any purpose.
It's uh I think its purpose has been to arouse self-esteem, but it is not causing a unity.
But here, try this story.
I've got a story from the Detroit Free Press.
I got it right here in the uh formerly nicotine stained finger.
And uh uh headline of the story, race is still divisive in the mayoral campaign.
About eight in every ten Detroit voters are, says here, African Americans.
The two candidates in the November 8th mayoral election are black.
Yet this fall, more than 30 years after Detroit elected its first black mayor, race remains a polarizing issue in city politics.
In the six weeks since the August primary uh narrowed the field to Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and a former deputy mayor, Freeman Hendricks.
Blogs and pointed emails have attacked Freeman Hendricks, trying to convince Detroit citizens that Freeman Hendricks is not black enough to be their mayor.
Some Kilpatrick supporters portray Hendricks as a pawn of white suburbia.
On blogs and radio shows, they have referred to Hendricks as Helmut, the first name given him by his white Austrian-born mother.
His father was an African American who met his mother during World War II.
In recent weeks, an email circulating in Detroit calls Hendricks a tool of the anti-black empowerment Uncle Tom Dennis Archer administration.
The email is from the Black Slate, the political arm of Detroit's shrine of the Black Madonna Church.
And uh it asked for volunteers to work for Kilpatrick's campaign.
Claims that Detroit's white voters are controlling the vote by backing Hendricks.
In a town that's 80% African-American, the whites still somehow to control the vote.
The same, like 80% of New Orleans is black, and somehow the whites controlled what happened there in the aftermath.
Just amazing to me.
But this is not the only evidence of the example of this.
I mean, uh, this is Shades of Newark, New Jersey.
There was a mayoral race between Sharp James and a guy named Booker.
Uh and uh uh they got into a contest over who was blacker.
And let's not let's not forget this.
I'll I'll never forget this.
New York City.
Remember Tom Duane was running against Bella Abzug's daughter for the city council.
And Duane came out of the clause and said, I'm gay.
So Abzug, one upping that said, I'm a lesbian.
So Dwayne came out and said, Well, I'm HIV positive.
In order to establish who was more gay.
Who was more gay?
Sir, I'm gay.
Well, that wasn't good enough because Abzug said, that doesn't trump me, I'm a lesbian.
Dwayne says, Well, I got one better.
I'm HIV positive.
Now, these are all liberals.
Detroit, Newark, New York, these are all liberals.
And who's doing the dividing here?
And it's this division happens to be among themselves.
Now, the only way Bella Abzug's daughter could have countered that.
You know, Duane says, I'm HIV positive.
What could Abzug do then?
She'd have to come out and say, Well, I've I got full-blown AIDS and I'll die in a year.
Vote for me.
You know, that it's just this business of divisiveness uh occurring on our side.
It probably happens in a lot of places everywhere, but it certainly isn't a one-way street.
Uh with quick timeout, we'll be back and wrap things up here in just a second.
You believe tomorrow is already Friday.
Open line Friday tomorrow.
The uh president tonight at uh 9 o'clock Eastern for about 20 minutes in Jackson Square in uh in New Orleans.
Uh and we'll be uh talking about that tomorrow, I'm sure.
I've had a ball here today, folks, as uh as I do uh most every day.
I'm looking forward to tomorrow.
Hope you are too.
Thanks much for your uh your attention, your listenership, and I'm sure plenty of laughs that I know you've had today, along with all of us here at the EIB Network.
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