Sparring in Spanish

In an opinion article in the Sept. 19 Wall Street Journal, he calls the ad's sound bites "a deception." He says the "stupid" quote comes from "a 1993 humorous monologue poking fun at the arguments against the North American Free Trade Agreement."

The actual words, according Limbaugh, are these:

Limbaugh, 1993: If you are unskilled and uneducated, your job is going south. Skilled workers, educated people are going to do fine 'cause those are the kinds of jobs Nafta is going to create. If we are going to start rewarding no skills and stupid people, I'm serious, let the unskilled jobs that take absolutely no knowledge whatsoever to do -- let stupid and unskilled Mexicans do that work.

We'll leave it to readers to judge how humorous that might or might not be. But those words do fall short of calling all Mexicans "stupid and unskilled" as the ad says. Limbaugh says his point "which is obvious, was that the people who were criticizing Nafta [sic] were demeaning workers, particularly low-skilled workers."

Limbaugh defends the "shut up" quote in a similar way, saying he was satirizing Mexican immigration laws. We've checked the transcript on this one, and Limbaugh has a point. Here's the key part of what he actually said on his April 6, 2006 show. After proposing a long list of odious-sounding "Limbaugh laws" on immigration, he concluded:

Limbaugh, April 6, 3006: You're a foreigner. You shut your mouth or you get out, and if you come here illegally, you go straight to jail and we're going to hunt you down 'til we find you.

I can imagine many of you think that the Limbaugh Laws are pretty harsh. I imagine today some of you probably are going, "Yeah! Yeah!" Well, let me tell you this, folks. Every one of the laws I just mentioned are actual laws of Mexico, today. I just read you Mexican immigration law.

We're not experts on Mexican law, so we can't say whether or not Limbaugh correctly described those provisions. But we know satire when we see it. The Obama-Biden ad misleads by suggesting that Limbaugh was hectoring Spanish-speakers to "shut up or get out" of the U.S.

McCain Ad: "Whose Side Are They On?" (Translation)
Announcer: Obama and his Congressional allies say they are on the side of immigrants, but are they? The press reports that their efforts were poison pills that made immigration reform fail. The result: No guest worker program. No path to citizenship. No secure borders. No reform. Is that being on our side? Obama and his Congressional allies ready to block immigration reform, but not ready to lead.

McCain: I'm John McCain and I approve this message.

Poison Pen
The McCain campaign also released a misleading ad to Spanish-speaking voters. This one stretches the truth by accusing Obama of throwing a wrench into the recent immigration bill.