Rush Limbaugh responded to criticisms that he was mocking Japanese refugees by insisting that he was only mocking a news report about them.
Limbaugh sparked outrage on Tuesday when he laughed about a report by ABC’s Diane Sawyer that noted that refugees in a Japanese shelter were recycling. He then turned to a question from a caller, who said that he found it ironic that such an environmentally conscious country had been struck by such a large natural disaster.
“They’ve given us the Prius. Even now, refugees are recycling their garbage,” Limbaugh responded. Here, he began to laugh, continuing, “and yet, Gaia levels them! Just wipes them out!”
On his Thursday show, Limbaugh said he was only making fun of Sawyer. “I did make fun of Diane Sawyer, but not the Japanese people,” he said, calling Sawyer an “anchorette.”
He also said that his caller’s question was, similarly, not mockery.
“I don’t think that’s making fun of the Japanese people, I think that’s cramming it down the throats of the liberals,” he said.
(Source: HuffingtonPost.com and MediaMatters.org)
