Racism

For months, NewsBusters has been warning readers that America's media are going to do everything in their power to label all contenders to Barack Obama racist.

On Monday's "The Ed Show," the host edited Rick Perry - in mid-sentence, mind you! - to falsely accuse the Texas governor of making a racist remark about America's first black president (video follows with partial transcript and commentary):

It's going to be a long, hot campaign . . . Yesterday, Politico reported that the Obama strategy is to "destroy" or "kill" his perceived chief 2012 rival, Mitt Romney.  The Obamaoids are no doubt counting on close collaboration with their friends in the MSM.

Today we were treated to the kind of shameless smear that the left surely has in store.  On his MSNBC show this evening, Chris Matthews flatly stated that Rush Limbaugh . . . wants to end the integration of the public schools and armed forces. View video after the jump.

As NewsBusters reported Friday, conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh caught MSNBC's Rachel Maddow in a bald-faced lie about him.

Later that evening, Maddow apologized for her error but blamed it on- wait for it! - the conservative website World Net Daily and then accused Limbaugh of racism (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Update: Our good friend Brian Maloney at Radio Equalizer was ahead of the curve with a post on July 14 about signals that Sharpton was joining MSNBC.

When MSNBC shuffled Ed Schultz up to the 10 p.m. slot they placed left-wing blogger and radio host Cenk Uygur (pronounced jenk you-gur) in the 6 p.m. Eastern time slot that Ed vacated as an interim host.

But Uygur has been curiously absent from his dinnertime perch since early July, with the Rev. Al Sharpton filling in but not explaining why Uygur was out. Yesterday MSNBC announced that Uygur had officially left the network and today the New York Times is reporting that Sharpton's hiring as a full-time host is "imminent."

The past is prologue, so a look back at Sharpton's wacky pronouncements to date should be instructive. We at NewsBusters have a full archive on Al Sharpton that you can find here, but I thought we'd highlight a few items that stand out.

James Taranto at The Wall Street Journal just demolished a scare piece by Newsweek reporter Eve Conant (posted on July 4) with the overwrought headline "White Supremacist Stampede: A startling number of white-power candidates are seeking public office."

If we're being warned of dangerous new wave of white racist extremists, it naturally is another product of the leftist Southern Poverty Law Center, which warns daily of a radical-racist-right takeover of America. Taranto asked: How startling is this wave of white-power candidates from sea to shining sea?

In the warped mind of MSNBC's Chris Matthews, efforts to regulate the practice of abortion are morally equivalent to literacy tests in the South that were aimed at preventing African-Americans from voting.

The "Hardball" host made that puzzling and arguably insulting comparison on the June 30 program in a segment titled "What's the Matter with Kansas?"

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As NewsBusters previously reported, Jon Stewart earlier this month did a segment on "The Daily Show" wherein he impersonated Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain using an Amos and Andy voice.

While campaigning in Iowa Wednesday, Cain said of this incident, "He wants to mock me because I happen to be a black conservative" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

As NewsBusters previously reported, Jon Stewart earlier this month did a segment on "The Daily Show" wherein he impersonated Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain using an Amos and Andy voice.

On Tuesday's "Imus in the Morning," Fox News's Juan Williams said that if Sean Hannity had done that, "He'd be out there barking with the dogs after they threw him out" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Promoting his new book, 'Katrina's Secrets,' on Monday's NBC Today, former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin stood by his assertion that racism played a role in the Bush administration's response to the storm: "I'm not telling you that President Bush was a racist or what have you. But I think race and class and politics played in just about every aspect of this disaster."

Co-host Matt Lauer claimed that Nagin was "very honest and open" in the book, at least in his ability to "blame President Bush, FEMA Director Michael Brown and others for slow federal response." After quoting Nagin's suggestion in the book that race was a factor, Lauer referred to the accusation as a "Kanye West moment" and wondered: "What proof do you have that it contributed to the slow response?"

As NewsBusters has been reporting since Monday's Republican presidential debate, MSNBC's Chris Matthews is suddenly a big fan of Congresswoman Michele Bachmann's (R-Minn.).

On Saturday's "Fox News Watch," syndicated columnist Cal Thomas said, "Chris Matthews praises her, which is sort of like getting a civil rights affirmation from David Duke" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

HBO's Bill Maher on Friday took a racist swipe at Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain.

During the New Rules segment of "Real Time," the host said pretending that he was speaking to Newt Gingrich, "Let me put your unpopularity in context for you - you're a Republican and you're polling behind a black guy" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

The New York Times’s lead editorial on Monday suggested Republicans had a "Jim Crow" mentality toward voting rights: "They Want to Make Voting Harder? – Early voting has surged among blacks and other Democrats, so Republicans try to restrict it." Good to see the Times has all the answers.

MSNBC.com on Monday accused economist Dr. Walter Williams of making racist statements during his interview with Fox News's John Stossel last week.

The charge was associated with an "Ed Show" segment in which the host disgracefully cherry-picked one of Williams' comments about welfare and slavery (video follows with transcript and commentary):

As NewsBusters has been reporting for weeks, one of the goals of the Obama-loving media is to depict every possible Republican presidential candidate as racist.

On Monday's "MSNBC Live," substitute host Al Sharpton implied that newly announced candidate Rick Santorum was making a racist comment when he said at Saturday's Faith and Freedom Conference, "America was a great country before 1965" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

In his newest CNN.com op-ed titled "Don't Doom GOP's Chance to Win in 2012," David Frum clearly outlines the Republican Party's best chance for victory – if they don't come off as "Medicare-annihilating racist maniacs." He then goes about making the case that Republicans are doing just that.

"It is Tea Party conservatism itself that is Obama's last, best hope for a second term," Frum boldly concludes in a stinging indictment of the Tea Party.

He claims that the Republicans' refusal to raise the debt ceiling unless President Obama agrees to the Ryan budget plan is akin to the "militant wing" of the party mounting a coup and dragging the GOP to defeat in 2012.
 

After radical Princeton professor Cornel West savagely attacked President Obama as a Wall Street mascot and puppet, it would hardly be surprising that PBS talk-show host Tavis Smiley would provide him a forum on Wednesday night to repeat his analysis – after all, Smiley and West host a public-radio show together. But it’s still amazing that he doesn’t see his insults as very insulting:

SMILEY: Did he have to be called a Black mascot and a Black puppet? There are those who suggested that you were petty, for a man who talks as much about love as you do, that you were petty for using terminology like "mascot" and "puppet."

WEST: Well, one, I am the kind of Christian, I love mascots. I love puppets, too.

While President Obama has been hit by black leftists for failing to help unemployed African-Americans, CNN anchor Carol Costello offered an impassioned defense of the president Friday morning, framing most every question to cast Obama in the best light possible. The reason Costello was defending Obama? Princeton's Dr. Cornel West recently slammed Obama for his failure to reach out to the African-American community, calling him a "white man with black skin" and "a black mascot of Wall Street oligarchs and black puppet of corporate plutocrats." 

Hosting the liberal Columbia University professor Mark Lamont Hill, a self-proclaimed "leading hip-hop generation intellectual," Costello repeatedly sought to generate pity for the president. "Aren't we expecting a little too much of him?" Costello pouted during the 10 a.m. EDT hour.

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As we get closer to Election Day, it's becoming clear that media members aren't going to tolerate any criticism about President Obama whether it comes from the Right or the Left.

On Wednesday, Washington Post editorial writer Jonathan Capehart skewered left-wing black activist Cornel West for having the nerve to speak ill of the current White House resident:

As NewsBusters previously reported, conservative talk radio host Mark Levin on Monday accused NBC News of racism and promoting racial division in this country.

On Wednesday, Levin ratcheted the discussion up a bit telling Fox News's Neil Cavuto, "David Gregory should not get off the hook for his race baiting" (video follows with transcript and absolutely no need for additional commentary):

New York Times political reporter Matt Bai still hasn’t forgotten the "overtly racist" Willie Horton ad and sees "a racial element" in just about every attack against President Obama, no matter what the issue. His latest "Political Times" column, "Race and Republican Attacks on Obama," posted online Tuesday, pivoted from Newt Gingrich’s latest press drubbing to the matter of racism and the G.O.P.

Newt Gingrich did his level best to appear level in his "Meet the Press" interview Sunday, maintaining a mostly subdued, thoughtful tone except for one telling moment -- when David Gregory, the host, asked him if his labeling of President Obama as the "food stamp president" might have racist connotations. "Oh, come on," the former House speaker huffed. "That’s bizarre." All he meant, Mr. Gingrich went on to explain, was that Mr. Obama’s policies would turn all of America into Detroit, which probably didn’t endear him to Eminem.

Bai turned virtually every attack hurled at Obama into a racially tinged assault.

Is there a racial element to some of the attacks on President Obama? It’s pretty hard to argue there isn’t, when a conservative writer like Dinesh D’Souza argues that Mr. Obama sees the world like an African nationalist (a theory Mr. Gingrich praised again in his interview Sunday), or when Donald J. Trump asserts that Mr. Obama isn’t smart enough to have gotten into Harvard or to have written his own books.

As NewsBusters has been reporting, so-called "news" organizations have been routinely calling leading Republican figures racists for having the nerve to criticize the policies of President Obama.

On Monday, conservative talk radio host Mark Levin specifically called out NBC News not only for its on-air talent being "blindingly white," but also for "promoting racial division in this country" (embedded audio follows with transcript and commentary):

NBC's David Gregory started a Newt Gingrich is racist trend Sunday that liberal media members across the fruited plain quickly embraced.

After the "Meet the Press" host accused the former House Speaker of racism for having the nerve to call Barack Obama "The most successful food stamp president in American history," Salon's Joan Walsh out in San Francisco jumped on the bandwagon as did Chicago film critic Roger Ebert:

As NewsBusters has been reporting for several months, Obama-loving media are doing their darnedest to depict every potential Republican presidential candidate as a racist.

Doing his part, NBC's David Gregory on Sunday's "Meet the Press" accused Newt Gingrich of racism for having called Barack Obama "The most successful food stamp president in American history" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Last Friday, Bill Maher called Republicans paranoid, greedy racists.

On the most recent installment of HBO's "Real Time," the host said, "Republicans say they love [Herman Cain] so they're not racist - right" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Last year, MSNBC and other so-called "news" outlets mercilessly attacked Kentucky Senatorial candidate Rand Paul for giving an honest libertarian answer to Rachel Maddow concerning the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

On Friday's "Hardball," Chris Matthews tried the same tactic on Paul's father Ron, but the elder Texas Congressman was ready for the question and ended up making the host look rather silly for asking it (video follows with transcript and commentary):

MSNBC's Chris Matthews is clearly not going to tolerate anyone on his program saying Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich isn't racist.

Politico's Jeanne Cummings had the nerve to do exactly that on Thursday's "Hardball," and for her sins Matthews relentlessly browbeat her until she finally gave up (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Rachel Maddow on Monday again demonstrated how absolutely pathetic a journalist she is.

Without anything in the court records to support her assertion - in fact, the transcript of the proceedings thoroughly refutes it - Maddow claimed on the MSNBC program bearing her name that an African-American man was tossed off a Louisiana jury in a 2009 murder trial because he protested the presence of a Confederate flag in front of the courthouse (video follows with transcript and extensive commentary):

The Al Sharpton radio show always gets even stranger when radical Syracuse professor Boyce Watkins is a guest. (Last year, he suggested Limbaugh listeners and Fox watchers easily become violent.) On Monday, Professor Watkins told Sharpton that Herman Cain should run for president like Colin Powell, and never mind that Powell actually endorsed Obama in 2008. If he's like a Tea Partier, then Cain's a racist:

What I will say though is that I hope he does not make this into a black man’s circus, by basically building votes within the right wing by constantly attacking the President in unfair ways. It’s one thing to say that the President’s policies are inadequate or incorrect, but it’s another thing to start acting like a Tea Partier or one of the birthers in terms of building a campaign on a basis of nonsense.

So, I will respect Herman Cain a lot more if he approaches this election the way say Colin Powell would approach the election. Colin Powell is a Republican and he wouldn’t agree with President Obama on a lot of issues, but he would advocate from a position of love and respect for his constituency, as opposed to simply trying to bash away at another black man and to gain points by being a racist with a black face.