Democrat strategist James Carville Thursday had strong words for Fareed Zakaria who in an interview recently published at CNN.com defended President Obama's handling of the Gulf Coast oil spill.
"When I read that I wanted to hit him with a football bat," Carville told CNN's John King on the program bearing his name.
For those not getting the joke, Carville was mocking Zakaria's reference to "offensive linebacker" during the interview; only the defense has such a position in football.
Carville continued, "This guy, there's some kind of a breakdown here, because this is a very smart man, and I don't think that he understands exactly what is going on down here."
The outspoken Democrat later quipped, "[I]f that thing was in Long Island Sound, I guarantee you Fareed Zakaria and all his friends would be going nuts out there" (video follows with transcript and commentary, h/t HotAirPundit):
JOHN KING,CNN: And James, I want to ask you, the question of presidential leadership in a moment, I want to talk about the economic impact on the state, but since we're talking about the president, Fareed Zakaria, who writes for "Newsweek". He obviously hosts a program on this network, CNN, he has been harshly critical in a very different way of the administration, suggesting it is overreacting to the BP oil spill and oversensitive to some of the criticism.
Fareed writes this: "What worries me is that we have gotten to the point where we expect the president to somehow magically solve every problem in the world, appear to be doing it and to reflect our anger and emotion. This is a kind of bizarre trivializing of the presidency into some kind of national psychiatrist-in-chief." And Fareed goes on James to say that you know there are some big challenges out there Asia, Europe, Iran and the world and the president perhaps has been distracted by this oil spill.
JAMES CARVILLE: Yes, he talked about an offensive linebacker. And when I read that I wanted to hit him with a football bat, OK? This guy, there's some kind of a breakdown here, because this is a very smart man. And I don't think that he understands exactly what is going on down here. I don't think he understands that an entire culture is at risk, an entire way of life that there is an invasion going here and he is whining about the fact that the president had to cancel a trip to Indonesia to do something about what's going on in Louisiana.
Look, Indonesia's an important country and we've got to deal with it, but last time I checked Louisiana is part here and we want our own shrimp. We don't want to eat Indonesian shrimp. I mean you know and I just think people like that are -- live in a world -- if that thing was in Long Island Sound, I guarantee you Fareed Zakaria and all his friends would be going nuts out there. So my point is, is Fareed, come down here, I will show you the multicultural tapestry that is the coastal people of Louisiana. You talking about somebody -- you're talking about Croatians; you are talking about Filipinos, Vietnamese, French. You are talking about all kinds of different people (INAUDIBLE) people from the Canary Islands. This is a wonderful, beautiful culture down here that is under assault. And the idea that somehow or another we are demanding too much of the president's time (INAUDIBLE) I just think that that -- it is a shame that he doesn't understand what's going on here. He doesn't understand the issues of coastal loss that we have had here that we are losing land (INAUDIBLE) Manhattan and I think a lot of these people just want us to take our oil, take our resources and for us to shut up and we are not shutting up this time.
(CROSSTALK)
MARY MATALIN: John, can I use -- can I use his column for a teaching moment, because he does what is a common mistake. He is conflating the government's inability to plug the damn hole -- it is true. They do not have the resources, but then he conflates and it has -- it's a factual error in there -- says that it is not the government's responsibility. It is federal law, the law -- federal waters it is a federal law, the feds are absolutely -- it is obligated morally and legally to do the containment and the cleanup. Do not conflate those two things and that's what he does --
CARVILLE: And this guy has got a PhD and you got to --
(CROSSTALK)
KING: Quick timeout.
CARVILLE: -- make the distinction as we always do here between the rupture site and what's going on, on the shore.
KING: Quick timeout -- James and Mary are going to stay with us. We will be back in just a minute.
There's an old saying that a Republican is a Democrat that's been mugged.
In Carville's case, it certainly appears that a crisis in his home state has made him lose his love for liberals as well as his ability to shamelessly spin for the Democrat agenda at all costs.
Isn't it nice?
