Washington Post columnist Colby King scoffed Friday at the notion former President Ronald Reagan brought more substance to the White House than does President Barack Obama as King also raised the Iran-Contra scandal as evidence of Reagan's mismanagement of foreign policy.
 
On Inside Washington, a weekly show produced and aired over the weekend by Washington, DC's ABC affiliate, but first broadcast Friday night on the local PBS station, King contended: “This President connects with people.” That prompted fill-in moderator Mark Shields to ask columnist Charles Krauthammer: “Is it Reagan-like in that sense?” Krauthammer cautioned: “Well, except that Reagan, I think, had a lot more substance and he had a lot more ideas-” Cutting Krauthammer off, a chortling King jeered: “More substance than Obama?!”

Krauthammer held firm and then pointed out how Obama's “never managed a candy store, and the way he put together his cabinet shows that he's got a long way to go,” so while “he's very fluid in his speech,” on foreign affairs he's “extremely slow on delivery because he's extremely unsure.” To which King -- the Post's deputy editorial page editor from 2000 to 2007 -- derisively interjected: “He's managed as well as Reagan with Iran-Contra.”

Washington Post columnist Colby King charged Friday night that a look those who attended McCain-Palin rallies -- presumably meaning all-white -- versus those who went to Obama events, plus a “look at the census projections and what do you see? The Nationalist Party of South Africa.”

On Inside Washington, a weekly show produced and aired over the weekend by Washington, DC's ABC affiliate, but first broadcast Friday night on the local PBS station, the Post's deputy editorial page editor from 2000 to 2007 framed the challenge ahead for Republicans:

I think we're looking at something different here, a larger problem. If you just look at the optics, look at the Republican and Democratic conventions, look at the McCain-Palin rallies and Obama rallies, look at the demographics and then look at the census projections and what do you see? The Nationalist Party of South Africa -- not with the ideology, but in the make up -- in the future.

On Friday night’s "Inside Washington," panelists trashed Ross Buettner’s story in the New York Times playing up a close relationship between Fox News boss Roger Ailes and GOP presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani. Newsweek’s Evan Thomas said "I think this was the New York Times thinking that Ailes is Darth Vader, because they made him out to be this monster who’s given all this time to Giuliani, but the story itself and the graphics supporting it didn’t support the story." Others agreed. "There’s nothing in this story," said columnist Charles Krauthammer. Colby King of the Washington Post scornfully added, "This is exactly why newspapers in trouble," and said they acted like a tabloid. Thomas concluded, "It says more about the paranoia of the New York Times than anything else."

Brent Bozell's column on Al-Jazeera English demonstrated a real affinity for the network in the liberal media elite. One CNN story by Frank Sesno noted "The reviews so far are mostly kind. The New York Times says the new network 'points to where East and West actually meet.' USA Today writes, 'in a globalized world, the broader the conversation and greater the competition for credibility, the better.' But the edition of the talk show "Inside Washington" Brent used shows not merely a tolerance, but an outraged hunger for an Arab-propaganda channel. They want it like the old MTV ads with rock stars saying "I want my MTV!" Here's a look at the transcript from the November 19 program:

Gordon Peterson, host: "Al-Jazeera English is on the air, but is not on the air here."

Sue Phillips, Al-Jazeera English (taped): "We adhere to Western broadcast standards. However, we will be very bold in our reporting. We will, of course, be impartial and accurate and objective as we can, but sometimes we will be controversial where it is necessary."

Peterson: "That's Sue Phillips, the London Bureau Chief of Al-Jazeera English, which debuted this week all over the world, but not on American cable systems. Why not, Colby?"

Is George Bush a slave owner? Viewers of this past Friday’s Inside Washington on PBS, may think so. Washington Post Columnist Colby King inferred as much saying:

Colby King: "They were supposed to behave because Masta [sic] was in the house? I mean come on."

The discussion pertained to the politicization of the funeral of Coretta Scott King, and Colby King and Dana Priest, a reporter for the Washington Post, were determined to defend the gratuitous rudeness of some of the speakers who thought it was appropriate to take political shots at President Bush. Their arguments were weak, ranging from politics at the funeral was expected:

On the Washington Post op-ed page today, Colbert King snidely protests the conservative feeling that liberals turned the Coretta Scott King funeral into a bit of whooping political theater. "The fuss over the funeral is probably the silliest snit of all."

King raised several straw men. First, how could you expect a funeral for a political icon like Coretta not to raise issues of racism, poverty, and war? (But we didn't expect it to be free of political themes. We did expect it to be free of whooping ovations of sentences that seemed designed to embarrass the President as he sat there.) Second, he claims this is the way black Baptist funerals are. (But the "mourners" were not worshiping Jesus, saying Amen to their Lord in loud voices. They were whooping at liberal anti-Bush sentiments. If that's a black Baptist funeral, then it IS as much a campaign event as a religious event.) King concludes:

“Bill Bennett is the poster child for racism” and “you cannot say that statement that was made by Bill Bennett is not a racist statement,” Colby King, the Washington Post’s Deputy Editorial Page Editor and columnist, declared on this weekend’s Inside Washington. King contended that “there's no way you can parse his words and get away from what he said. What he said was morally reprehensible. He has said, in effect, that blacks have a predisposition for being criminals.” No, Bennett simply based his proposition on how a higher percentage of blacks than other races commit crimes and, like King, Bennett rejected the idea of systematic abortion as “morally reprehensible.” Nonetheless, King proposed, “Now the question is: How will his party handle him? Will they come to his defense? Or will they take the right position?"

For King’s weekly columns published on Saturdays. For a bio of King, who won the Pulitzer Prize in 2003. Full transcript follows.