CNN's Roland Martin Has an Answer for Most Tea Partiers, Lefties Who Dog Obama: You're All Stupid (Corrected)

May 1st, 2010 7:37 PM

CNN political analyst/Obama publicist Roland Martin granted an interview to Time Out Chicago, and his dominant theme was America is full of stupid people:  

Roland Martin thinks you’re stupid. Well, not you, specifically, just a lot of you in general. “We got some pretty dumb people,” says the Chicago-based CNN contributor, relaxing in the network’s offices at Tribune Tower between appearances discussing “broken government.” “I mean, I know we’re not supposed to call Americans dumb…but sometimes you gotta go ahead and say it.”

Voters who barely show up at the polls, tea partyers who don’t know the federal stimulus bill included tax cuts, Obama supporters who haven’t done anything since the election but whine about how little the President has accomplished—they all burn him up.

He has some choice words for major media players, too: “They all go to the same parties, they all talk to each other…so what happens is they now decide that ‘Oh no, this is what’s important.’”

It's easy to think of America has dumb when a man is convinced he is one of the smartest people in the land.

Martin began popping up in Stella Foster’s Sun-Times gossip column, linked with friends of now-President Barack Obama such as John Rogers of Ariel Investments and Valerie Jarrett. They’re the “black political elite, and he has become very much a part of that,” Feder says. “That’s also a part of what he’s selling—that access, an entrée, which is important…. Clearly, the Obama phenomenon could not have been better timed to help the Roland Martin phenomenon.”
That phenomenon includes artin’s 2010 book, The First: President Barack Obama’s Road to the White House as Originally Reported by Roland S. Martin (Third World Press, $19.95), whose cover features a Shepard Fairey–style treatment of both Martin’s and Obama’s profiles. Martin’s name is printed about twice as big as the President’s.
Despite that, Martin claims that his easy access to the Obama inner circle isn't going to his head. He is somehow the black Bugs Bunny in a cowboy hat:

CORRECTION: Roland Martin complained on Twitter that my original headline including the words "Blacks Who Dog Obama Are Stupid" is not supported by the Time Out Chicago interview. I must agree, and apologize for using a headline that did not match the text.

I can only explain the oversight by noting that other reporting on black opinion leaders has suggested Martin has not been friendly with blacks who are more critical of Obama, such as PBS host Tavis Smiley.

Martin also complained that he did not say all Tea Partiers were stupid, only those who didn't think they received a tax cut through the "stimulus," which he suggested are two-thirds of Tea Partiers. I added a "most" to the headline, even though one can assume Martin doesn't find any of the Tea Partiers persuasive.