Racism

As NewsBusters reported Saturday, Politico has officially cut ties with White House correspondent Joe Williams for saying presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney is more comfortable around "white folks."

Throwing caution to the wind, Salon editor at large Joan Walsh on Thursday doubled-down on these caustic comments writing, "It’s almost certainly a fact that Mitt Romney is more comfortable around white people":

Let's call a spade a spade: the arrogance, hypocrisy and racism of Salon's Joan Walsh knows no bounds.

On PBS's Tavis Smiley Show Monday, this so-called "editor at large" had the nerve to depict some Republicans as "a white, older base that doesn’t quite understand the way healthcare works" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Politico announced Saturday that recently suspended Romney-trashing White House correspondent Joe Williams is leaving the organization.

The following statement was released moments ago:

Recent job cuts at Alabama newspapers have been steep. The Birmingham Business Journal, which (ahem) apparently is not among the participants, reports that "Three of Alabama’s largest daily newspapers, including the Birmingham News, will lay off about 400 employees as they cut back their printing schedules and increase their focus on digital." The other affected publications include the Huntsville Times and the Mobile Press Register. The job cuts are on the order of 50%-60%.

Across the Alabama border in Florida at the Pensacola News Journal, cartoonist Andy Marlette did not handle the layoff news well, as will be seen after the jump.

Two separate Fox News anchors on Wednesday took NBC and MSNBC to task for liberal media bias and outright deception. Bill O'Reilly slammed the egregious actions of Andrea Mitchell and her selective editing of Republican Mitt Romney.

O'Reilly played MSNBC's version of Romney mentioning the fast food outlet Wawa and the one that conforms to reality. The host mocked the liberal cable outlet for "doctoring" the tape. Video of both can be found below:

As NewsBusters previously reported, Oscar-winning actor Morgan Freeman said Tuesday, "We’re going to be in a lot of trouble if we don't reelect [Barack Obama] because people on the other side of the fence scare me."

In the second part of his Tavis Smiley Show interview aired Wednesday on PBS Freeman said, "Women, Hispanics, blacks, there is a large attempt, a great attempt, at disenfranchisement" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Any old liberal journalist can charge Daily Caller reporter Neil Munro for being a racist for rudely interrupting President Obama during a press conference. It takes a hard-core lefty to delve deeper to diagnose the Irish-born journalist as a bigot for, well, questioning Obama's policy vis-a-vis how it harms the job prospects of American citizens.

During a segment on the June 19 edition of his eponymous program, Bashir assented to the spurious charge by The Root contributor Edward Wyckoff Williams that Munro – an Irish-born naturalized American citizen -- was motivated by a "white supremist [sic] ideology" as evidenced by his belief that President Obama’s quasi-amnesty policy helps illegal immigrants at the cost of job opportunity to American citizens:

During a panel discussion on Tuesday's NBC Today about President Obama being interrupted by a reporter during a Friday speech on immigration, even liberal pundit Donny Deutsch didn't buy veteran newsman Sam Donaldson claiming the incident was racially motivated: "Sam Donaldson in response said he thought that some of this was racially driven....I didn't see that..."

Fellow panelist and Today co-host Kathie Lee Gifford said of Donaldson's remark: "Yeah, I wish he hadn't said that."

NewsBusters reported Saturday that ABC's former White House correspondent Sam Donaldson said a lot of conservatives oppose Barack Obama simply because he's black.

On Fox News's O'Reilly Factor Monday, political commentator Bernie Goldberg thoroughly debunked Donaldson's claim with an inconvenient truth liberal media members dishonestly ignore: people on the Right "would love" a conservative black president. "They'd love him" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

On Sunday's Melissa Harris-Perry show on MSNBC, as host Harris-Perry led a discussion of what the presidential candidates will need to do to appeal to white voters, panel member and CNBC contributor Keith Boykin asserted that Republicans have "carefully caricatured" the Democratic Party as the "party of black people," and suggested that Americans have been duped into believing that most federal tax dollars are spent to benefit black Americans. Boykin:

As NewsBusters previously reported, former White House correspondent Sam Donaldson said Saturday, "Many on the political right believe this president [Barack Obama] ought not to be there – they oppose him not for his policies and political view but for who he is, an African American!”

On CNN Newsroom Sunday, Don Lemon agreed with Donaldson's indefensible observation (video follows with transcript and commentary):

As NewsBusters reported Saturday, former ABC White House correspondent Sam Donaldson told the Huffington Post, "Many on the political right believe this president [Barack Obama] ought not to be there – they oppose him not for his polices [sic] and political view but for who he is, an African American! These people and perhaps even certain news organizations (certainly the right wing talkers like Limbaugh) encourage disrespect for this president."

Limbaugh responded to this nonsense by email moments ago:

The mainstream media's response to Barack Obama being interrupted by a Daily Caller reporter during a Rose Garden press conference Friday is getting more preposterous with each passing second.

ABC's former White House correspondent Sam Donaldson told the Huffington Post Saturday, "Many on the political right believe this president ought not to be there – they oppose him not for his polices [sic] and political view but for who he is, an African American!"  

A Politico reporter has suggested that racism was behind Neil Munro's questioning of President Obama at the White House yesterday.  Saying "it's very, very difficult to place race outside of this context," the Politico's Joe Williams claimed racially-motivated direspect of PBO is part of a pattern among conservatives, citing Rep. Joe Wilson, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer, and the Tea Party.

Williams made his remarks in the course of responding to a question from Michael Eric Dyson, subbing for Ed Schultz on MSNBC last night.  View the video after the jump.

Barack Obama won the 2008 election in an electoral vote landslide, but racism darn near cost him the election - and if he loses this year, it will be because of racism, so says a doctoral candidate at Harvard University.

Google search data proves it, says Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, who is a candidate for a Ph.D. in economics, and wrote a post for the New York Times' “Campaign Stops” blog entitled “How Racist Are We? Ask Google.” Unfortunately, the study is a classic case of confusing correlation with causation.

Fox News's Brit Hume on Monday said leaders of Congress "might want to think twice" about voting in favor of contempt charges against Eric Holder, "the first African-American Attorney General."

Appearing on The O'Reilly Factor, Hume added, "Everybody will be saying, ‘He wouldn’t do this, they wouldn’t do this to him if he were white.’ You know that’s coming."

Appearing as a panel member this weekend on the syndicated Chris Matthews Show, Nia-Malika Henderson of the Washington Post predicted that Fox News and the "far right" may drive independents and women to vote for President Obama, as she suggested that they may "hint at" racial issues or birtherism and cause "blowback" that would benefit the President.

She also theorized that mothers may vote to re-elect Obama because they "take some pride" in having their children "growing up in this country with an African-American President."

After Washington Post columnist Kathleen Parker theorized that people who are racist against the President are a group he cannot win over and are therefore irrelevant to the campaign, Henderson responded:

Once again last night, President Obama faced an embarrassing showing in Democratic Party primaries, winning only 58.3 percent of the votes of Arkansas Democrats and 57.9 percent of Kentucky ones. Once again, in covering the story, the Washington Post buried the news placing the development on page A6. The last time the president faced such an embarrassingly low showing, the Post put its coverage of federal inmate Keith Judd's stunning 40 percent showing in West Virginia's Democratic primary on page A4.

This time around, Post editors gave readers a misleading subheadline that invoked an all-too-predictable liberal bogeyman: "His struggles in Appalachia, parts of South could be attributed to racism, some say." Yet in the article itself, two Southern Democrats told the Post that while a small minority of white Democrats may be motivated by antipathy to Obama's racial heritage, the vast bulk of the anti-Obama vote is predicated on their distaste for his liberal policies.

In her May 22 "Singles File" -- described as "A weekly playlist for the listener with a one-track mind" -- Washington Post music critic Allison Stewart suggested readers might want to download the new single "Reagan" by rap artist Killer Mike.

"The Obama years haven't been fruitful ones for sociopolitically minded rappers, at least until now," Stewart gushed, noting that the Atlanta musician "dusts off some late '80s ghosts on this unblinking and brutal track from his newest [album] 'R.A.P. Music.'" But when you check out the lyrics of the track, and read his May 21 interview with HipHopDX.com, what really becomes clear is Killer Mike's "unblinking" apology for the late terror-sponsoring Libyan dictator Muammar Qadhafi.

Political reporter Michael Shear uses a half-baked Times "expose" to accuse the GOP of using racial attacks by bringing up the legitimate issue of the anti-white, anti-American, paranoid ravings of Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama's pastor for decades in Chicago, in Saturday's "Race and Religion Rear Their Heads."

Perhaps the uglier side of politics is always close to the surface.

President Obama and his Republican rival, Mitt Romney, have said for months that the 2012 election will be about the economy. But on Thursday, it became -- at least for a brief moment -- about the always touchy issues of race and religion.

It's becoming clearer and clearer that no matter what evidence comes out concerning the Trayvon Martin shooting in Sanford, Florida, America's media will support him.

On HBO's Real Time Friday, host Bill Maher actually said, "I just want to say if I had a son he would not look like Trayvon Martin, but I hope he would act like him" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

In the midst of fill-in host Craig Melvin hyping accusations that black lawmakers were "being unfairly targeted for ethics investigations" by the Republican-led House Ethics Committee during Firday's News Nation on MSNBC, the channel's graphics department mistakenly displayed an image on screen of the Reverend Jesse Jackson senior, instead of his son, Illinois Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]

Melvin touted Democratic Congressman Emmanuel Cleaver "now calling for members...of the House ethics panel to temporarily step aside." He continued: "The Congressman writing a letter saying in part, quote, 'I write to express my deep and abiding concern with the protracted length, abnormal number, motive, and fairness of pending matters.'"

Since that awful Sunday in Sanford, Florida, back in February, the media have shown time and time again they don't understand how the American justice system works.

Take ABC legal analyst Dan Abrams who on Thursday's Nightline said, "So even if Zimmerman was on his back, even if he was losing a fight, he still has a lot of explaining to do and is going to have to prove that Trayvon Martin was the initial aggressor" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Thursday's New York Times off-lead by Jeff Zeleny and Jim Rutenberg was intended to cause heartburn for the Mitt Romney camp: "G.O.P. ‘Super PAC’ Weighing A Hard-Line Attack on Obama."

The ad strategy, which was aborted after the Times ran with it on Thursday's front page, would have emphasized Obama's controversial Chicago pastor, the racially inflammatory Jeremiah Wright. But the Times as usual described Rev. Wright's anti-white jeremiads in bland terms, burying Wright's 9-11 quote that the attack was “America’s chickens are coming home to roost," and left out his notorious "God damn America!" rant completely. That distanced approach matches the paper's reluctant Wright coverage during the 2008 campaign.