The White House has little to say about a sermon that President Barack Obama heard at Saint John’s Church Lafayette Square on Easter Sunday given by Rev. Luis Leon criticizing conservatives. But the message has not gone unnoticed by opinion leaders on the right.
On his Monday broadcast, conservative talker Rush Limbaugh took a call from a listener who suggested that pastor’s use of the word Republican was “code for white.” Limbaugh reacted to the call by saying that the caller may be right that the president’s appearance inspired the pastor’s comments.
“That’s an interesting take, that the president inspires it, inspires racism. It may well be the case. I’m sure that the person there — the Episcopalian person, Luis Leon — I’m sure he knew that Obama was coming in advance. You know he’d have to for security and all that. So he probably said, ‘All right, I’m going to really rev it up now.’ So Obama’s presence inspires this guy to go all divisive, all racist and start jamming on the Republicans for wanting blacks in the back of the bus and women back of the kitchen, when he can’t name a single person who does.”
“But the president of the United States, you may be right, may have inspired that in this preacher, and then sat there and listened to it — and, by definition, approvingly so, by not getting up and leaving it, and by not criticizing it when he walks out, which does not surprise me,” he continued. “I know that this president’s not interested in unifying people. But a lot of people think he is.”