Chris Hayes: How Dare Romney Run Ads on Welfare That Don't Include Black People
Of course, MSNBC's answer to Katie Couric would be downright indignant had Romney run ads on welfare that included black people.
Here is Chris Hayes venting to socialist soulmate Rachel Maddow about what he considers the veiled racism of Romney's ads slamming President Obama for gutting work requirements in the 1996 welfare reform law (video after page break) --
HAYES: It is very difficult when you look at the history of attacks on redistribution, the attacks on redistribution particularly around welfare have had a very loaded racial subtext forever. You will note in the Romney ads, there is not a single African-American that appears in them. Very interestingly ...
MADDOW: Except for the back of one guy's head ...
HAYES: Back of one guy, but everyone else it's this multi-racial look at the American worker or the people who are on welfare (makes annoying air quote gesture with fingers), none of them are black. They (Romney campaign) understand what the history of the racial subtext is, but they also understand how that appeal and that charge that that person is taking your tax dollars and giving it someone else, how it resonates in the Obama era in which you do not have to state the race of who that recipient is.
The nerve of that Romney, running a Willie Horton ad ... without Willie Horton!
This goes beyond dog-whistle racism -- it's more like radio-wave racism, discernible only to liberal antennae. Granted, Chris Hayes sees racism in cloud patterns, but still.
