On the March 19 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, host Rush Limbaugh highlighted a March 19 Los Angeles Times op-ed that described Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) as"running for an equally important unelected office, in the province of the popular imagination -- the"Magic Negro" -- a term used by critics of pop culture to describe certain benevolent African-American characters.

Limbaugh stated:"The term 'Magic Negro' has been thrown into the political presidential race in the mix for 2008. And the term 'Magic Negro,' as applied to Barack Obama has been done by an L.A. Times columnist, David Ehrenstein."

Limbaugh later asserted:"I'm going to keep referring to him as that because I want to make a bet that by the end of this week I will own that term," adding,"If I refer to Obama the rest of the day as the 'Magic Negro,' there will be a number of people in the drive-by media and on left-wing blogs who will credit me for coming up with it and ignore the L.A. Times did it, simply because they can't be critical of the L.A. Times, but they can, obviously, be critical of talk radio."