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Over the weekend Wanda Sykes made a tasteless joke about Rush Limbaugh at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. Watch it:

If you are unable to watch the videos, the link can be found here and here. Her joke was:

Maybe Rush Limbaugh was the 20th hijacker, but he was so strung out on Oxycontin he missed his flight.

She also made an off-color joke in reference to Rush Limbaugh claiming he wants the president to fail, saying she “hopes Limbaugh’s kidneys fail.”

Of course her stand-up routine was offensive. Ms. Sykes is a comedienne, not a politician. She’s also not a journalist. The folks responsible for organizing the event knew what they were getting themselves into when they booked her act. Now everyone is up-in-arms over what Ms. Sykes said, in the ongoing discussion of what is considered offensive subject matter. If it was known full-well that Ms. Sykes might present some off-color jokes as part of her routine, why call her out afterward?

Here is what Pat Buchanan said:

In a memo to President Nixon, Buchanan suggested that “integration of blacks and whites — but even more so, poor and well-to-do — is less likely to result in accommodation than it is in perpetual friction, as the incapable are placed consciously by government side by side with the capable.” (Washington Post, 1/5/92)

In a column sympathetic to ex-Klansman David Duke, Buchanan chided the Republican Party for overreacting to Duke and his Nazi “costume”: “Take a hard look at Duke’s portfolio of winning issues and expropriate those not in conflict with GOP principles, [such as] reverse discrimination against white folks.” (syndicated column, 2/25/89)

Trying to justify apartheid in South Africa, he denounced the notion that “white rule of a black majority is inherently wrong. Where did we get that idea? The Founding Fathers did not believe this.” (syndicated column, 2/7/90) He referred admiringly to the apartheid regime as the “Boer Republic”: “Why are Americans collaborating in a U.N. conspiracy to ruin her with sanctions?” (syndicated column, 9/17/89)