Mika Bemoans Blue-Collar Whites Who 'Can't Hear' Obama's Message

March 19th, 2008 2:03 PM

There's a new entry next to Mika Brzezinski's name in the annals of MSM elitism. The Morning Joe panelist today lamented blue-collar whites who "can't hear" the message Barack Obama propounded. Poor benighted souls. Joe Scarborough called Mika on it.

Brzezinski's comment came in response to Scarborough's exposition of why he didn't think Obama's speech would work with many blue-collar whites.

View video here.

JOE SCARBOROUGH: He did this long, long, long list, again, all to explain away Reverend Wright's dislike of America. And as he got to the end of that list, all I was thinking, Mika, was, I was thinking two things, I was thinking, true, all of this, true. I can't understand that experience, but true, but I also thought this, and I hope that people will listen with an open heart when I say this next thing, all right? Because this is not how I feel. I associate myself with all comments Barack Obama made yesterday, but it's easy for me to, okay? But it's not so easy, again, for the blue-collar guy working in Youngstown, Ohio, whose father couldn't afford to send him college, so he went straight to the assembly line, and this is his life. He went straight to the assembly line.

BRZEZINSKI: Okay.

SCARBOROUGH: I'm just telling you this voter who swings elections every four years, this voter, this is a guy that voted for Nixon, he voted for Jimmy Carter, he voted for Ronald Reagan twice, he voted for Bill Clinton twice, he voted for George W. Bush twice. This guy does not want to hear an African-American who went to Harvard law school, whose wife went to Princeton, he does not want to hear about 350 years of black resentment from this guy. I'm not that guy. I understand. I want to hear that from Barack Obama, but please we have to understand, and if I can say this, this is why the media elite misses so much in elections. They just go, oh, they're racists. No, these people are not racist.

BRZEZINSKI: They have their own experience.

SCARBOROUGH: They have resentment and they have their own experience, just like Reverend Wright has his own experience, and these are the people who may have been offended by what they heard yesterday from Barack Obama.

BRZEZINSKI: OK, but did you hear what Governor Huckabee [who said he would cut Rev. Wright slack] just said? He, even he --

SCARBOROUGH: Nobody's listening to Governor Huckabee regarding Barack Obama in the Democratic primary

BRZEZINSKI: But my point is, he has an open mind to those who have been discriminated against for years and years and years and that perhaps they have an experience that's worth recognizing.

SCARBOROUGH: That's Governor Huckabee's experience.

BRZEZINSKI: Nobody is more uniquely qualified to talk about the human experience black, white, from both sides than Barack Obama.

SCARBOROUGH: I agree with you.

BRZEZINSKI: And he went out there on a limb, and you're right. There may be people, like the ones who you described --

SCARBOROUGH: Not racist, not racists.

BRZEZINSKI: I'm not saying racist.

SCARBOROUGH: People that have resentments.

BRZEZINSKI: Who can't hear it. But you cannot deny --

SCARBOROUGH: No, no, no, no. Wait a second. Wait a second. Hold on. When you say they can't hear it, you make it sound like they're walking around with scales on their eyes or something like that.

BRZEZINSKI [deep sigh]: No-o-o-o.

SCARBOROUGH: It's not that they can't hear it, they can hear it, but what they're saying is, why am I listening to this Harvard lawyer and his Princeton wife talk about how horrible their life is when I'm working here two jobs?