In their two-hour-long documentary, The Legacy of Barack Obama, Wednesday, CNN allowed former Obama adviser Fareed Zakaria to set his sights on Congressional Republicans as he claimed their opposition was fueled by a deep-seated racism. “That fierce, unrelenting opposition, would haunt the next eight years and what began as whispers is now discussed openly,” he pontificated as ominous music played, “Did race play a role in the brick wall of Republican resistance to Barack Obama?”
The first segment of the program was titled “America In Black And White,” in which Zakaria detailed the President’s upbringing and his struggles with race. It gave way to a joyous scene at Obama’s 2008 acceptance speech, but things turned dark quick according to Zakaria. “It seemed like a fairy tale beginning but at precisely the moment the first couple began swaying on the dance floor, the central crisis of the Obama presidency was already taking shape,” he said as the festive sound track turned.
“Within half a mile of where Obama and Michelle are dancing and celebrating their great victory, his Republican opponents are wining and dining and plotting his defeat,” claimed The New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza. Zakaria built off of Lizza, proclaiming, “15 of the most powerful Republicans in Washington made a pact that night,” as if they were a coven of witches.
Zakaria leaned on his fellow former Obama administration lackeys to back up his assertions, and paint Republicans as raging racists:
DAVID AXELROD: It's indisputable that there was a ferocity to the opposition and a lack of respect to him that was a function of race.
VAN JONES: I can't name one thing that this congress supported this president on in eight years. You have to have an extraordinary explanation for this level of obstruction.
“David Axelrod says, at least one powerful Republican was personally disrespectful to Obama,” Zakaria stated, with no evidence that such an interaction occurred. The only contradiction he allowed to his assertions of racism was Michael Steele arguing, “Am I a racist because I disagree with [Obama’s policies]?”
Obama discussed the issue of racism towards his presidency in an interview with Zakaria. “I think there is a reason why attitudes about my presidency among whites in northern states are very different from whites in southern states,” the President told the CNN host. During his narration, Zakaria described those “white southerners” as “on the fringes.”
As the biased documentary went on, it covered the controversy in Cambridge, Massachusetts where a Harvard professor was arrested trying to enter his home. The event is infamous because Obama said the officers “acted stupidly.” The real dread that Zakaria had for the incident stemmed from its timing, “it was also at the height of his health care fight. Rage over ObamaCare was turning to race.”
The documentary then went on to the Black Lives Matter movement and away from the overt claims of Republican Racism. In describing where the opposition stemmed from, there was no mention of the open hostility Congressional Democrats put on display during the last two years of George W. Bush, when they held the majority in the House.
And there was no mention of how radical progressives are calling for such opposition against a President Donald Trump. His only fear was that Trump would dismantle Obama’s legacy.
Transcript below:
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CNN
The Legacy of Barack Obama
December 7, 2016
9:03:55 PM Eastern[Segment title: America In Black And White]
FAREED ZAKARIA: Race in America is in the eye of the beholder. We call Barack Obama our first African-American president, because of the color of his skin. But in truth, he is, of course, biracial, born of an African father and a white mother from Kansas.
…
MICHAEL ERIC DYSON: The fact that his mother was white from Kansas. His daddy was an African from Kenya. He brings together the unimaginable paradoxical opposites in society and in one body unites them.
…
9:09:08 PM Eastern
ZAKARIA: It seemed like a fairy tale beginning but at precisely the moment the first couple began swaying on the dance floor, the central crisis of the Obama presidency was already taking shape.
RYAN LIZZA: Within half a mile of where Obama and Michelle are dancing and celebrating their great victory, his Republican opponents are wining and dining and plotting his defeat.
ZAKARIA: 15 of the most powerful Republicans in Washington made a pact that night.
LIZZA: Out of that meeting, they decide that the only way to win back power is to oppose Obama at every level.
ZAKARIA: That fierce, unrelenting opposition, would haunt the next eight years and what began as whispers is now discussed openly. Did race play a role in the brick wall of Republican resistance to Barack Obama?
DAVID AXELROD: It's indisputable that there was a ferocity to the opposition and a lack of respect to him that was a function of race.
VAN JONES: I can't name one thing that this congress supported this president on in eight years. You have to have an extraordinary explanation for this level of obstruction.
ZAKARIA: David Axelrod says, at least one powerful Republican was personally disrespectful to Obama.
AXELROD: He said to him, we don't really think you should be here but the American people thought otherwise. So we're going to have to work with you.
ZAKARIA: Republicans have strongly rejected charges that race played a role in their opposition.
MICHAEL STEELE [from 2009]: I, like a lot of Americans, am concerned and disagree with the president's policies and approaches from the stimulus spending to this health care strategy. Am I a racist because I disagree with that? I don't think so.
OBAMA: There are people who dislike me because they think I'm a liberal.
ZAKARIA: The president doesn't see racism in mainstream opposition to him but he does see it on the fringes.
OBAMA: I think there is a reason why attitudes about my presidency among whites in northern states are very different from whites in southern states. So are there folks who whose primary concern about me has been that I seem foreign, the other? Are those who champion the birther movement, feeding off of bias, absolutely.
…
ZAKARIA: The timing of the Gates arrest is important. It was the first time Obama had addressed a racial controversy as president. But it was also at the height of his health care fight. Rage over Obamacare was turning to race.
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTER: Afro-Leninism coming to you on a silver platter, Barack Hussein Obama.
ZAKARIA: All of it led to several years in which the president avoided the topic of race.
