Good news to all the conservatives who were worried about free speech on campuses. Obama has spoken! And even better, the left-wing millennial obsessed media website BuzzFeed has picked it up! In an article posted on September 14, BuzzFeed political editor Katherine Miller reported Obama had this to say in Iowa on the issue of bias and censorship on campuses,
It’s not just sometimes folks who are mad that colleges are too liberal that have a problem. Sometimes there are folks on college campuses who are liberal, and maybe even agree with me on a bunch of issues, who sometimes aren’t listening to the other side, and that’s a problem too. I’ve heard some college campuses where they don’t want to have a guest speaker who is too conservative or they don’t want to read a book if it has language that is offensive to African-Americans or somehow sends a demeaning signal towards women.
I gotta tell you, I don’t agree with that either. I don’t agree that you, when you become students at colleges, have to be coddled and protected from different points of view. I think you should be able to — anybody who comes to speak to you and you disagree with, you should have an argument with ‘em. But you shouldn’t silence them by saying, “You can’t come because I’m too sensitive to hear what you have to say.” That’s not the way we learn either.
That’s right. President Barack Obama, the same president who pushed Obamacare through the House and Senate without a single Republican vote and tried his best to keep the Iran Deal out of Congressional debate and oversight, is preaching to his constituents about being willing to have “an argument” with anybody “who comes to speak to you and you disagree with.”
Not only that, but he is speaking out against a culture of being “coddled” and “protected” that has been perpetuated solely by the actions of his own political party.
As NewsBusters has noted many times before, the issue of censorship and liberal bias on American campuses is not new. It’s too bad that BuzzFeed did not take the time to point out the irony of a President, who is not really known for reaching across the aisle, preaching for civility and healthy argument.
Only one major TV network noticed this soundbite, according to a Nexis search of transcripts. That would be Fox, and The Five ran this clip on September 15: “I don't agree that you, when you become students at colleges, have to be coddled and protected from different points of view. You shouldn't silence them by saying, 'You can't come because, you know, my -- I'm too sensitive to hear what you have to say.' That's not -- that's not the way we learn either.”
ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, CNN, and MSNBC all somehow missed out on this quote.
