As NewsBusters reported, MSNBC's Chris Matthews last Thursday actually asked his guests if voters and pundits are going to be reluctant to dump Barack Obama this November because he's the first black president.
Media analyst Bernie Goldberg took issue with this on Fox News's The O'Reilly Factor Monday saying, "It's because he's a liberal, and like many liberals, he's obsessed with race" (video follows with transcript and commentary):
BILL O'REILLY, HOST: It seems every few weeks we get another dose of racial politics at the presidential level.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRIS MATTHEWS, MSNBC ANCHOR: Barack Obama is the first African- American president. OK. Is there going to be a reluctance on the part of the voters and the political community that talks politics as we get into November about dumping the first African president -- African-American president? Is that going to be something that just ratchets to "Wait a minute here. This guy is going to knock out the first guy who ever got aboard?"
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O'REILLY: Joining us now from Miami, the purveyor of BernardGoldberg.com, Mr. Goldberg.
All right. So I don't know. I just -- I thought Barack Obama ran a very worthy campaign in 2008. He didn't get into the racial stuff at all, wanted to stay away from it. McCain respected that. And it's like, you know, Michael Corleone: "Just when I thought I was out, they drag me back in." Why? Why are they doing it?
BERNARD GOLDBERG, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Right. So you want to know why...
O'REILLY: Yes.
Goldberg: ... and the answer really, Bill, is pretty simple. It's because he's a liberal, and like many liberals, he's obsessed with race.
Ann Coulter was right when she said the two groups in America that are obsessed with race, that see everything through a racial filter, are skinheads and liberals. I mean, it's true.
Now let me give you a little background on Chris Matthews and why I say that he's obsessed with race.
In 2010 after Barack Obama delivered the State of the Union message, Chris Matthews went on the air and said -- this is a verbatim quote -- "I forgot he was black tonight for an hour." He forgot Barack Obama was black.
About the Tea Party he said -- and again, a verbatim quote -- "They're all White. All of them. Every single one of them is White." Never mind that that's factually incorrect. What if it were true? There's no crime about being White.
Goldberg was referring to previous NewsBusters reports "Chris Matthews: I Forgot Obama Was Black Tonight" and "Matthews: Every 'Teabagger' is White, 'What's That About?'" But I digress:
GOLDBERG: Then, when Barack Obama ran for president in 2008, Chris Matthews said, quote, "This gets very ethnic, but the fact that Barack Obama is good at basketball doesn't surprise anybody." Thank God, Bill, you didn't say that.
Now, here's the point: actually the question he raised -- "Will there be reluctance to toss Barack Obama out because he's black?" -- it's not a bad question. And you and I could have that discussion.
But when someone who is obsessed with race, like Chris Matthews apparently is, when he brings that question up, I'm wondering if he's really saying that Barack Obama should not be tossed out precisely because he's the first black president. I don't know if he means that, but I would have to wonder if he means that.
O'REILLY: I wouldn't have the discussion with you about the question of whether Barack Obama should lose his job because of race, because it's a speculative question and nobody can know.
We know that there are certain people who vote for Barack Obama because he's black, and there are certain Americans who vote against him because he's black. I think those numbers are small, but we know they're there. And otherwise, it really doesn't matter.
And you made an interesting point. If I had said about the basketball -- when I asked Barack Obama in the Super Bowl interview, I said, "Are you a football guy? Do you follow football?" I was immediately branded a racist by Media Matters, because I was saying -- I was asking him whether he followed football or not. How am I supposed to know? That was a racist question.
But it's so -- I don't know why, why this conversation has to center around a man's color at all, ever. I don't think it should. He should be elected or defeated based on his record. That's it!
Liberals, many of them, not all of them, but many of them are obsessed with race. They see everything through a filter of race. So in 2008 there were articles that said, if Barack Obama loses, there is only one reason: racism in America. Now there's a suggestion if he's not reelected, it could be -- right -- because of racism in America.
This was precisely my point Thursday:
In 2008, America's media fell in love with the idea of the first black president and as such decided to completely ignore any vetting process of candidate Obama that would have given voters a sense as to whether the junior senator with the completely undistinguished legislative record was up to the task.
Now, four years later, the same folks might just possibly push the idea that despite his shortcomings and failures in his first term, Obama should be reelected because it would be somehow wrong for the first black president to get dumped.
Martin Luther King Jr. once dreamed of an America where his kids "will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."
Does that mean absolutely nothing to liberal media members anymore?
As Goldberg observed, it means nothing to the race-obsessed Matthews.
