BET Founder: 'Liberal Media' Want Obama to Win

The continuing left-wing furor over George Stephanopoulos's perfectly valid question about Barack Obama's associations with a known terrorist reminded me of something I wanted to blog earlier in the week before it erupted: an admission of a leftward bias on the part of the media from BET founder Bob Johnson.

Interviewed by the Charlotte Observer Tuesday, Johnson said that the "liberal media" want Obama to win, partly out of racial pandering but also because he is more liberal than Hillary Clinton (whom Johnson supports).

"They sort of dislike Hillary for her vote on the war. They don't want to see Bill and Hillary in power again," Johnson is quoted as saying. "So Obama comes in and runs a smart campaign. But that's not the Second Coming, in my opinion, of John F. Kennedy, FDR or the world's greatest leaders."

Johnson also said that former Democratic vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro was correct in stating that Obama would not have gotten as far in the race if he were not partially black:

"What I believe Geraldine Ferraro meant is that if you take a freshman senator from Illinois called 'Jerry Smith' and he says I'm going to run for president, would he start off with 90 percent of the black vote?" Johnson said. "And the answer is, probably not... ."

"Geraldine Ferraro said it right. The problem is, Geraldine Ferraro is white. This campaign has such a hair-trigger on anything racial ... it is almost impossible for anybody to say anything."

A very interesting interview all around. I think he's wrong about the 90 percent remark since initially, it was Clinton who had the majority of black support. It wasn't until more non-black voters started supporting Obama that the black vote flipped toward him.

Minus that quibble, though, Johnson's comments are pretty good. It's not often you see a media elite like him admit the national press is dramatically tilted toward the liberal side of things.

Photo credit: BET.com.