Olbermann on Letterman: Tea Parties Are Like 'Homogenized Milk,' But Some 'Valid' Points

Appearing as a guest on Thursday’s Late Show with David Letterman on CBS, MSNBC host Keith Olbermann contnued to indict the racial makeup of Tea Party event partipants as evidence of an "unfortunate undertone" of racism as he compared the movement's members to "homogenized milk." He also asserted that "there’s nobody from any kind of minority group" at the events, in spite of a CBS News/New York Times poll which suggests that five percent of Tea Party activists are minorities.

Olbermann: "I did notice if you look carefully at the videotapes of the events, or you watch the events, it does look like a really large family reunion. Everybody looks exactly the same."

After host Letterman suggested the word "homogenous" to describe the movement, Olbermann continued: 

Homogenized milk would be a sort of an analogy to it. It just looks an awful, if you’re in a crowd of, you know, several thousand people, and they all look exactly like you and there’s nobody from any kind of minority group with you, you’ve got to start wondering why that is. Is it really statistically possible it’s a coincidence?

But, in contrast to his regular take on Tea Partiers which he espouses on his Countdown show, he suggested that these activists are "rightly angry" about some things and that some of their points are "absolutely valid," though he seemed to think some are motivated by "stalemates in Washington," rather than opposition to liberal policies. Olbermann: "But they want some change, and there are some points that they make that are absolutely valid, but I’m wondering if there’s a little bit of undertone to it that’s unfortunate."

Below is a transcript of the relevant portion of the Thursday, February 18, Late Show with David Letterman on CBS:

DAVID LETTERMAN: Let’s talk about, I’m sort of fascinated by the Tea Party. I don’t know what that means. I know that it’s, is it a splinter group of the Republican party? Is it a whole new entity? What exactly is it?

KEITH OLBERMANN: I don’t think they know what it is yet. What I’ve been able to see, however, so far, is it’s a lot of people who are, to some degree, rightly angry about sort of stalemates in Washington and very upset about what they perceive is happening to society. Whether it’s, whether it’s what they think it’s about or it’s about something else, remains to be seen. I did notice if you look carefully at the videotapes of the events, or you watch the events, it does look like a really large family reunion. Everybody looks exactly the same.

LETTERMAN, LAUGHING: I’m not sure what that means, but I’ll take your word for it.

OLBERMANN: Well, there are very few people-

LETTERMAN: Homogenous group?

OLBERMANN: "Homogenous" is a good word. Homogenized milk would be a sort of an analogy to it. It just looks an awful, if you’re in a crowd of, you know, several thousand people, and they all look exactly like you and there’s nobody from any kind of minority group with you, you’ve got to start wondering why that is. Is it really statistically possible it’s a coincidence? And that’s the issue with them. But they want some change, and there are some points that they make that are absolutely valid, but I’m wondering if there’s a little bit of undertone to it that’s unfortunate.