Rush Limbaugh apes ‘ching chong’ Hu Jintao

American right-wing shock jock Rush Limbaugh is in trouble again – this time for outraging the Chinese community by mocking the speech of Hu Jintao on his talk radio show.
 
The presenter was complaining about how Fox News had not provided an on-screen translation when the Chinese president was speaking during TV coverage of his visit to Washington. He then launched into a 16-second long impression of Hu, which consisted almost entirely of the words ching, chong and cha, with a smattering of yelps and squeals.
 
His extraordinary performance began when he told his audience: "Normally they translate every couple of words, but Hu Jintao was just going ching chong, ching chong chong, cha..."
 
When he had finished he explained: "That's the closest I can get."
 
Condemnation did not take long to arrive. California State Senator Leland Yee of San Francisco, a liberal city that Limbaugh is unlikely to have much affection for, immediately called on the shock jock to apologise for his "pointless and ugly offence".
 
Yee, who chairs a committee on Asian Pacific Islander Affairs, described Limbaugh's efforts at mimicry as a "classless act [that] is an insult to over 3,000 years of cultural history, and is a slap in the face to the millions of Chinese Americans who have struggled in this country and to a people who constitute one-quarter of the world’s population".
 
Limbaugh has made a career out of offending as many people as he possibly can – but 1.35 billion people in one day could be a record. ·