Advertisements

As thousands protest in Sanford, FL, Rush Limbaugh defended the shooting of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman as getting a little, “overzealous.”

Limbaugh said,

Jerry, what I’ve read is that Mr. Zimmerman — who, again, the New York Times refers to as a “white Hispanic” and the rest of the media has now picked that up, ’cause that fits the template. You need white-on-black here to gin this up. I understand. He wants to be a cop. He just loves law enforcement, and he’s a self-appointed Neighborhood Watch commander, and he wanted to protect his neighborhood, and he just got a little overzealous and so forth. But we still don’t know what the real facts of this are, I don’t think. That’s why this is… It’s a month ago that this happened, and yet it’s being portrayed as though it just happened last weekend or something, at least with the attention that’s being focused on it. But it really is troubling that there are people trying to fan the flames of this rather than cool it down. I mean at the highest levels. I mean we know who the people trying to benefit from this are, but at the highest levels of our government, you would think — with a powder keg like this — that people would want to try to douse it, cool it off a little bit. I just don’t see any of that.

Advertisements

Limbaugh’s remarks then turned toward an attack on President Obama and the left for injecting race into the killing of Trayvon Martin.

The idea that Zimmerman’s actions which led to the murder of a 17 year old teenager were nothing more than overzealous is far-fetched at best. It is almost as crazy as a white right wing talk show host who spends his days launching racist attacks against the President of the United States complaining that the left is racist.

It is important to note that the protesters in Sanford, Florida today were not calling for a conviction or any violence against George Zimmerman. All they are seeking is an arrest and a full criminal investigation. With the city of Sanford latching on to Zimmerman’s fairy tale defense of being attacked by Martin in order to avoid a lawsuit, it seems unlikely that an arrest will be forthcoming. (The reason why I believe Zimmerman’s defense is a fairy tale is that the shooter outweighed the victim by almost 100 lbs. Are we really supposed to believe that a grown man was attacked from behind, taken to the ground, and his only defense despite his physical advantages was to shoot the young man?)

Zimmerman appears to be sticking with the stand your ground defense, but it is impossible to know the truth without a thorough criminal investigation. For some reason, Sanford, Florida refuses to investigate. Now that Rush Limbaugh has jumped into the fray, the great trifecta of ignorance and racism is complete.

From Fox News blaming Trayvon Martin’s hoodie and Michele Bachmann telling Martin’s supporters they are imagining things to Rush Limbaugh’s offhanded dismissal of murder as an overzealous action, the right is doing everything they can to try and make this story go away.

But until there is an arrest and a full criminal investigation, there will be lingering doubts about whether or not justice was really done for Trayvon Martin.

Image: Voice of Detroit