3) Understand that when you commission a song called "Barack the Magic Negro" for your radio show, the average black person is going to take offense. And that if you pretend to be surprised when they do take offense, no one will believe you.

4) If you (or any other famous conservative) gets a gig doing commentary for a professional football league, probably best not to use the forum to air your pet theories about how the media coddles black quarterbacks because it is made up of guilty whites who want them to succeed.

5) Another thing you probably shouldn't say is, "Look, let me put it to you this way: the NFL all too often looks like a game between the Bloods and the Crips without any weapons. There, I said it." Admittedly, you didn't say this on an NFL telecast, but it's actually offensive in any setting.

6) Any gains you may make in the black community may be jeopardized if you once again muse, "Have you ever noticed how all composite pictures of wanted criminals resemble Jesse Jackson?"

7) As you try to understand Obama's presidency on your show, it may be a good idea to avoid reading pieces with titles like "Obama, The African Colonial" aloud, then concluding that Obama is "more African in his roots than he is American" and is "behaving like an African colonial despot."

8) Given your track-record of quotes like the ones previously discussed, it's probably best to avoid jokes such as, "Barack Obama has picked up another endorsement: Halfrican-American actress Halle Berry."

9) When a black politician makes an earnest attempt to grapple with race in America, it's perfectly fine to disagree with substantive points that he makes, but certain kinds of demagogic reactions might be unwise.

For example:

"Typical white person"? What does this reveal finally about Obama? He is not transcendent on race. Obama is telling us he is a black American first and an American second. Typical white -- his grandmother, who raised him, is a typical white woman? And that these kinds of inordinate fears are bred? I have a question: I wonder how white college students at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, are feeling these days. I wonder if they are nervous walking down the street, and they see a couple of black boys dressed in baggy clothes with their hats on backwards swaggering toward them. I wonder how they feel. I wonder if it makes them fear that they're going to be shot in the face for their ATM cards and their PIN numbers. Obama, do you think there might be reasons here rather than this being inbred?



10) If you have a track record like that, and then insist that it's liberals who are obsessed with race, people will not believe you.

If I might address conservatives generally now: I don't want to argue about whether Rush Limbaugh is a racist. Let's presume for the sake of argument that he isn't. It remains the case that he said everything I've listed above. And that's just what I could pull together and verify in 20 minutes. Imagine how many sound-bytes Democratic opposition researchers would come up with if the GOP ever started making inroads in the black community but still associated with Limbaugh.