Gingrich Slaps Down Charge From NBC's Curry That He's 'Playing the Race Card'

Using the same predictable liberal smear of shouting racism at any conservative who criticizes President Obama, on Thursday's NBC Today, co-host Ann Curry ranted: "...you've been increasingly stepping up your characterization of President Obama as a 'food stamp president,' interestingly, in the lead-up now to South Carolina....Are you intentionally playing the race card to win votes?" [Audio available here and view video below]

Gingrich dismissed the assertion and rightfully condemned those hurling the outrageous accusation: "You know, modern liberals are just, I think frankly, totally off the deep end....their only answer is to yell racism and hide."

Curry quoted a left-wing New York Times editorial in a feeble attempt to add credibility to her argument: "In South Carolina, where a Confederate flag still waves on the front lawn of the state capital, largely because of the efforts of the state GOP, it remains good primary politics to stir up racial animosity and then link it to President Obama."

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Gingrich ripped the paper for putting up a racial smokescreen to conceal Democratic policy failures:

...when conservatives care about the poor, and conservatives offer ideas to help the poor, and conservatives suggest that the poor would rather have a paycheck than a food stamp, the very liberals who have failed them, at places like The New York Times, promptly scream racism, because they have no defense for the failure of liberal institutions which have trapped poor children in bad schools, trapped them in bad neighborhoods, trapped them in crime-ridden situations. Liberal solutions have failed.

Curry falsely claimed that Gingrich had began criticizing Obama over food stamps in the lead-up to the South Carolina primary. Gingrich directed her to her own network for evidence to the contrary: "I was asked about it on Meet the Press in May of last year. I have consistently all year long....said Barack Obama is the best food stamp president....his policies have put more Americans on food stamps than any president in history."

Back then, host David Gregory used the same line of attack as Curry: "First of all, you gave a speech in Georgia with language a lot of people think could be coded racially-tinged language, calling the president, the first black president, a food stamp president."

Read the complete transcript of the January 19 interview.