The amiable Gene Robinson is a regular MSNBC guest, but apparently not a regular MSNBC viewer—at least not of Keith Olbermann's show. Otherwise he would have never claimed, as he did tonight, that no one accused Geraldine Ferraro of being a racist back in March when she said that, for current political purposes, Obama was lucky to be black. For it was none other than Olbermann who accused Ferraro of precisely that.
On this evening's Race for the White House, David Gregory invited Robinson to comment on a Ferraro op-ed in today's Boston Globe in which the former Dem VP candidate wrote that she had been "accused of being racist for a statement I made" back in March.
EUGENE ROBINSON: On the race issue, I wish Geraldine Ferraro would give it a rest. I don't think people were saying she was racist when she made her earlier remarks. What people were saying was she was talking nonsense.
View video here.
But as I reported at the time, Olbermann: Ferraro Statement 'Clearly Racist: Are We in South Africa?', this is what Olbermann said on his show of March 11, criticizing Hillary for not denouncing Ferraro, choosing rather to send out a campaign aide to defend the former Veep candidate.
KEITH OLBERMANN: So the senator wants a clearly racist, clearly equal-opportunity-is-not-a-good-thing, that's-the-only-reason-he's-here kind of statement interjected into the campaign?
Added Olbermann for good measure, a bit later, in condemning Clinton's failure to condemn Ferraro: "Does it not have disaster written all over it, or are we living in South Africa?"
View video of Olbermann's remarks here.
So in Olbermann's view, not merely was Geraldine racist, she was the moral equivalent of a propagator of apartheid. I hesitate to inflict this on Robinson, but Gene, meet Keith.
