Guess I won't be calling Mika Brzezinski a "newsreader" again anytime soon. The "Morning Joe" panelist went to Iowa over the weekend and scored an in-depth interview with Michelle Obama that elicited a highly-controversial suggestion from the candidate's wife. According to Mrs. Obama, her husband isn't polling better among African-Americans because in the back of their minds, many blacks think "others" are better.

View video here.

"Morning Joe" played a clip of the conversation during today's opening segment.

MIKA BRZEZINSKI: The polls are showing your husband is trailing Hillary by 46% to 37% in the African-American community. What's going on here?

MICHELLE OBAMA: First of all, I think that that's not going to hold. I'm completely confident: black America will wake up, and get [it]. But what we're dealing with in the black community is just the natural fear of possibility. You know, when I look at my life, the stuff that we're seeing in these polls has played out my whole life. You know, always been told by somebody that I'm not ready, that I can't do something, my scores weren't high enough. You know, there's always that doubt in the back of the minds of people of color. People who've been oppressed and haven't been given real opportunities. That you never really believe. That you believe that somehow, someone is better than you. You know, deep down inside, you doubt whether you can do it, because that's all you've been told, is "no, wait." That's all you hear, and you hear it from people who love you. Not because they don't care about you, but bcause they're afraid. They're afraid that something might happen.

BRZEZINSKI: It's interesting that you say that, excuse me. Because a stewardess yesterday, a 52-year old African-American, and I asked her if she was interested in Barack Obama, if she would vote for him. And she said, like this, she said: "I don't think so, because he probably can't win, because he's black."

OBAMA: That's right. That's the psyschology that's going on in our heads, in our souls, and I understand it. I know where it comes from, and I think that it's one of the horrible legacies of racism and discrimination and oppression.

Back in the studio, panelist Willie Geist offered a more benign possible explanation of the phenomenon.

WILLIE GEIST: She says black America is going to wake up. On the other hand, there is the chance that black America just likes Hillary Clinton better and they're voting for her. Black people aren't obligated to vote for Barack Obama.

Very true.

I'll leave it to others to analyze the entirety of Michelle Obama's statement. But I wonder: what would the reaction would be if a white Republican suggested that African-Americans didn't support black candidates because they doubted that blacks could do it and deep down they believed that someone else "was better"?

See discussion at:

AllahPundit at Hot Air: "A whole new layer of loathsome leftist racial politics being formed here: atop the bedrock assumption that no one who’s authentically black would ever vote Republican is placed a new assumption that no one who’s freed himself from white America’s tyranny of low expectations would vote for a white Democrat over a black one. by The Man."

M.K. Ham at Town Hall: "It gives [blacks] very little credit to suggest that the decision [not to support Obama] is based solely on a psychic lack of faith in their own race created by The Man."

Riehl World View: Recalls the way Hillary exploited MLK Day to remind blacks of life on the plantation.

Don Surber: "Funny, I don’t seem to recall Mrs. Obama campaigning for Michael Steele. I don’t recall her saying blacks must vote for Kenneth Blackwell because he’s black. I don’t recall her calling for support of Justice Clarence Thomas."

—Mark Finkelstein is a NewsBusters contributing editor and host of Right Angle. Contact him at mark@gunhill.net.