Rush Limbaugh: Haiti Relief Effort Is “An Excuse For The United Nations To Pay Itself”
Armed with only one mass communications outlet, Rush Limbaugh has to put in that extra mile to keep up with radio-TV-book triple threats like Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity. After a brief period of peace from his program, he dove straight back into what he does best by turning a valid criticism of the United Nations into an all-out attack on “the Haiti relief effort”– all of it.
Limbaugh was discussing the millions of dollars the United Nations has been pouring into Haiti in order to fuel the relief effort– and the people in charge of it. As he explained, “the United Nations has quietly upped this year’s peacekeeping budget for earthquake-shattered Haiti to $732.4 million– 2/3 of that amount going for the salary, perks, and upkeep of its own personnel.” He then goes on to list where that 2/3 goes to within those denominations, including the dubious “mandatory rest and relaxation allowances” category. Regardless of opinion over the UN in general, Limbaugh has the right to ask why 2/3 of that money is going into such categories, and why the percentage of funds allocated towards the people actually affected by the earthquake is so low. Holding the UN accountable is never a bad thing. But then he loses himself in his own rage and declares that “the Haiti relief effort is nothing more than an excuse for the United Nations to pay itself,” and, bingo!, here’s today’s soundbite.
Had Limbaugh been actually attempting to make a serious point on the funding of Haitian relief efforts on the part of the UN, he would have included further context in that statement. There is a strong argument to be made that the United Nations is self-serving and completely useless at best, corrupt and destructive at its worse. But he did not specify the subdivision of the UN dealing with Haitian disaster relief or even mention the UN at all in the beginning of his sentence. It was clear what his objective was: to outrage the left into arguing that Limbaugh believes every single person trying to help the devastated nation recover is out to stuff the pockets of UN fat cats. He’ll probably get his wish.
Here’s the clip from his radio show this morning:
