Sarah Palin Calls Out Chris Matthews for Accusing Her of Racist Attack on Obama

As NewsBusters reported, MSNBC's Chris Matthews on Wednesday said Sarah Palin's recent "shuck and jive" comments about Barack Obama's ever-changing story on the attack on our consulate in Benghazi, Libya, were a racist "dog whistle."

Palin responded on Facebook Wednesday evening:

For the record, there was nothing remotely racist in my use of the phrase "shuck and jive" – a phrase which many people have used, including Chris Matthews, Andrew Cuomo, and White House Press Secretary Jay Carney to name a few off the top of my head. In fact, Andrew Cuomo also used the phrase in reference to Barack Obama, and the fact that Mr. Cuomo and I used the phrase in relation to President Obama signifies nothing out of the ordinary. I would have used the exact same expression if I had been writing about President Carter, whose foreign policy rivaled Obama’s in its ineptitude, or about the Nixon administration, which was also famously rocked by a cover-up.

As NewsBusters’ Scott Whitlock pointed out, Matthews used this phrase himself while talking to Rachel Maddow on July 7, 2010.

On top of this, in 2008, then-New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said of Obama, "You can't shuck and jive at a press conference."

Adding insult to injury, on September 7, 2011, Jay Carney, a spokesman for Matthews' beloved President, told the press corps, "Sorry. I'm going to shuck and jive! Time to shuck and jive."

To put even a finer point on the hypocrisy on display, Matthews has said "shuck and jive" on the air at least two additional times:

MATTHEWS: So to speak. But the fact is, those propositions aside, the fact is that Gore has always been one of several political figures in this city. He's been one of the senators. I don't think of him as a celebrity guy. I mean, the poor guy, I said this before earlier in the show. Not poor guy, they can all handle it, but it must drive him crazy to sit next to Clinton as these fund-raisers and see Clinton shuck and jive with the people and dance around there on the stage, loving it and loving the crowd, and Gore is very artificial.  - June 2, 2000 Hardball
 
MATTHEWS: Have you seen her operate under pressure where she`s done something that`s really spontaneously smart, like the way the president handle 9/11 on 9/14, when he went down in the rubble and said we`re going to get the people that knocked down these buildings, reacting to the crowd? Can she do that, can she shuck and jive, can she move with the crowd?  - February 27, 2006 Hardball

What's that you were saying about dog whistles, Chris?