US Congressman Neil Abercrombie Suggests Condoleezza Rice "Gets a Pass" Because She's Black

Why can a liberal US Congressman get away with saying something that had previously cost a conservative talk show host his job as a television commentator?

In late September 2003, while working as a football commentator for ESPN, conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh raised the question as to whether it was possible that Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb was overrated because the media wanted to see a black quarterback succeed.

Limbaugh resigned from his ESPN position three days later under circumstances described by CNN as being, “amid a storm of controversy over his racially charged comments.”

In today’s Honolulu Star-Bulletin Hawaii Congressman Neil Abercrombie (D-HI) is quoted as describing U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as being

the most overrated, underperforming individual in executive authority that I have ever seen.”

“She constantly gets a pass. Who knows if the whole question of race and gender come into it, but . . .

What’s the difference between these two comments? The difference is that Limbaugh’s comment created a “storm of controversy over his racially charged comments” and he was force to resign as an ESPN football commentator.

Abercrombie, on the other hand, “gets a pass.”

I wonder why?