Yesterday, he “defended” Obama critics like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh against Jimmy Carter’s assertion that their criticism was fueled by racism.  Here’s Colbert responding to Beck and Limbaugh’s claims that health care reform would amount to reparations for black people:

Those guys aren’t racist.  They’re just saying a program that helps the poor is actually a secret plot by African-Americans to steal white people’s money.  A racist would say it’s a secret plot to steal white people’s women.

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When you see it like that, you realize how insane it is that the White House gave people like Beck and Limbaugh cover by insisting that their criticism was not fueled by racism.  Like, what exactly do they have to say to qualify?  Saying that Obama wants to steal white people’s money and give it to black people isn’t enough?  Calling Obama a “racist” who has “a deep-seated hatred for white people” isn’t enough?

This brings to mind a post Andrew Sullivan made yesterday, an e-mail sent to him by a reader of his blog about what the right-wing hysteria about SOCIALISM! and COMMUNISM! actually means and why they never complained about it under Bush or Clinton.  It’s worth printing in its entirety:

Of course they are screaming ’socialism’. They’ve been doing that since the 50s at least. They’re not talking about economic redistribution of wealth – they never have been. They’ve been talking about redistribution of privilege this whole time. They called MLK a communist because he wanted blacks to have the same rights as whites, and to them that was a redistribution of the privilege that whites had ‘earned’.

In their view, white, Christian, heterosexuals have earned something that gays, non-Christians, and non-heteros have failed to work hard enough at. It’s been a class war from the outset, just not one based around income or net worth – mostly because the whites in the south were economically pretty bad off and blacks in the north were catching up to them.

This picture shows they were pushing the same buttons half a century ago that they are today. Anti-christ, communism – it’s all the same as it is today and is well known code. It’s why the protesters will decry socialism today but wouldn’t have under Bush – it’s all tied to race and other social objectives and has nothing really to do with taxation, deficits, and big government. You probably missed it when you came to the US, but this is pretty old game – particularly to guys like Carter that grew up around it.

Related posts:

1. Glenn Beck: Obama is a “racist” with “deep-seated hatred” for whites
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