Al Sharpton Radio Show: Fox, Rush 'Setting Off a Lot of Crazy People' Who Could Kill

Rush Limbaugh's "war of words" with Bill Clinton over Clinton's bad rerun of blaming the Oklahoma City bombing on conservative talk shows caused a discussion of the ignorant racists who watch Fox News Channel on the Al Sharpton radio show. On Monday, the anniversary of the horrific act of domestic terrorism,  Reverend Al asked for the counsel of his friend Dr. Boyce Watkins, a left-wing professor at Syracuse University, who claimed he grew tired of making appearances on Fox because of "lunatics who watch Fox News" send him death threats and N-words after each appearance from people at "the Lotto Mart." He insisted Sharpton must receive hundreds of them when he's on Fox.

Then they worried about the nuts who won't e-mail or tweet, "they'll tweet you with a pistol." [There's audio on the Dr. Boyce blog, at minute 32.]

SHARPTON: There was some back and forward over the weekend between former President Clinton and Rush Limbaugh, where Limbaugh tried to accuse Clinton of inciting violence by saying people ought to be careful with their language in terms of the tea partiers. I don’t how Limbaugh got that conclusion out of that, but he did. What do you say in the wake of what we are hearing and seeing out of some elements on this anniversary of Oklahoma City,  what would be your counsel to the American people?

WATKINS: Well, my counsel to the American people is to remember that history can repeat itself. One of the most stunning things about 2008 and that really hostile climate that developed during that summer, where literally people were watching every inch of the election, you know, and the primaries, et cetera. Ah you know there was this high risk of violence at this time. It’s interesting how that was eerily similar to exactly 40 years later [sic] in 1968 where there was very real violence in our country. [I'd assume this refers to the shooting of Martin Luther King.] And so there’s nothing saying that our political leaders are guaranteed to be safe. Just because it is 2010 and not 1969, that doesn’t mean that someone can’t get hurt or assassinated. So we really have to watch this environment that we are operating in.

I think that Limbaugh’s accusation that somehow Clinton is somehow inciting violence with his words that simply Limbaugh projecting what he knows other people are already accusing him of doing, which is really being the spark that is setting off a lot of crazy people across America. I’m sure that every time you go on Fox News, Rev, you probably get at least a hundred death threats from lunatics that watch Fox News who are being motivated by the words --

SHARPTON: And that’s just the lunatics. If you count the folk with good sense that just hate folks, there would be more, but go ahead.

WATKINS: Oh absolutely! Yeah, I mean I just got tired of doing Fox, 'cause I just said man every time I go on there I’ll get up to you know, eight, nine hundred e-mails from people at Lotto Mart you know, using the N-word and threatening to kill you, and the thing about it is you don’t have to worry so much about the people who make the threats, I mean, some of those people are violent most of them are not. The ones who worry me the most are the one who don’t threaten at all, they just act --

SHARPTON: That’s right. They’re not going to send you a tweet on e-mail that’s the ones you got to worry about.

WATKINS: No, they’re not going to tweet you. They’re going to tweet you with a pistol.