PrintJuly 26, 2009
MSNBC Chief: You're might be a racist if...
Police officers weren't the only folks being called racist by Obama supporters last week. If you have ever harbored doubt about why the Obama machine has been unable to provide incontrovertible proof of his U.S. citizenship, then you ... are ... a ... racist.
Sure, it sounds funny enough to be a Jeff Foxworthy punch line, but it was said in utter, condescending sincerity.
In what could be a new low in hypocrisy -- even for the home of Chris "I Felt a Thrill Going Up My Leg" Matthews and that former sportscaster in the evening -- the president of MSNBC, Phil Griffin, called anyone who has concerns about Barack Obama's citizenship, "racist."
This after MSNBC's sister Obama sycophants at NBC treated as legitimate liberal bloggers' more specious questions about John McCain's citizenship status during last year's campaign.
Griffin's comments came after the national media finally paid a little attention -- albeit belatedly, and mostly mockingly -- last week to the ongoing controversy over Barack Obama's eligibility to be President. Once again, new media dragged the dinosaurs into a story they wouldn't otherwise have covered.
After a YouTube video of Delaware Congressman Mike Castle being heckled at a town hall about Obama's citizenship went viral, the AP reported that the question became one of the most popular topics at its Ask AP column.
Lou Dobbs, on both his radio show and on CNN, and MSNBC and its partner in slime, NBC, also spent time on the questions about Obama's citizenship status.
The tone of the two entities affiliated with GE -- which plans to make out like a robber baron from Obama's policies -- was predictable.
"It's racist," said MSNBC president Griffin. "It's racist. Just call it for what it is."
But the response from NBC was far different when leftists leveled similar charges against McCain during last year's campaign.
"McCain and his advisers are doing their best to brush aside questions -- raised in the liberal blogosphere -- about whether he is qualified under the Constitution to be president. But many legal scholars and government lawyers say it's a serious question with no clear answer,"
according to an NBC Nightly News report, as posted on the MSNBC website. The report noted that McCain was born at a U.S. military base in the Panama Canal Zone.
"(M)any legal scholars say the Canal Zone never was sovereign U.S. territory ... is John McCain a natural born citizen? The Constitution does not define the term further, and legal scholars say the notes of the Constitution's drafters shed little light on what they meant. It seems clear only that the founders wanted to make certain that whoever was president would be loyal to the U.S. alone and not to some other country."
One can question many things about McCain or his political views, but it would be stupefying to suggest that McCain, who endured months of torture -- even after being offered his freedom -- for his country, would ever be disloyal to his country. That didn't stop NBC from pursuing the left's agenda, though.
The report left the question of McCain's eligibility to be President unanswered, but the tone of the story treated the matter as a grave legal issue, worthy of consideration and public discussion.
Compare that to Brian Williams' undisguised contempt as he teased a report last Wednesday about 'birthers' who question Obama's citizenship. "Spreading lies about President Obama's birthplace and about his U.S. citizenship. Who's doing it and why?" Williams summarized the report by concluding, "So many conspiracy theories, so little time.'
So, when the citizenship of a genuine American hero, who has been in the public eye for over three decades, is questioned by liberal bloggers, the Obamatons at NBC treat the matter seriously.
Whereas, when similar charges are raised against a relatively unknown product of Chicago's dirty political swamp, who has close ties to convicted felons, domestic terrorists, and an organization repeatedly accused of using taxpayer money to perpetrate widespread voter fraud, who is connected to shady land dealings, and whose long-time 'spiritual advisor' blames America for 9/11 and has called on God to "damn America", those who would even consider questions about the rather unsettled proof of Obama's citizenship are called racists and belittled as conspiracy theorists.
"The Place for Politics"?
More like, The Place for Propaganda.
William Tate is an award-winning journalist and author
