Last updated on August 10th, 2014 at 05:06 pm
In an interview with Sky News Australia, a network that he also owns, Fox News boss Rupert Murdoch agreed with Glenn Beck that President Barack Obama is a racist. Murdoch said, “But he did make a very racist comment, about, you know, blacks and whites and so on, and which he said in his campaign he would be completely above.”
Here is the video:
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When asked about Beck calling Obama a racist, and his comparisons of Obama to Stalin, Murdoch said, “No, no, no, not Stalin, I don’t think. I don’t know who that — not one of our people. On the racist thing, that caused a [unintelligible]. But he did make a very racist comment, about, you know, blacks and whites and so on, and which he said in his campaign he would be completely above. And, you know, that was something which perhaps shouldn’t have been said about the president, but if you actually assess what he was talking about, he was right.”
Eric Boehlert over at Media Matters posted a blog asking what Obama’s racist comment was. Here are the remarks from Obama’s press conference that led to Beck calling him a racist, “Now, I don’t know, not having been there and not seeing all the facts, what role race played in that, but I think it’s fair to say, number one, any of us would be pretty angry; number two, that the Cambridge Police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home; and number three, what I think we know separate and apart from this incident is that there is a long history in this country of African Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately. That’s just a fact.”
Obama said that it was stupid for the police to arrest a man who had proven that he was in his own home, and he talked about racial profiling. This is what Murdoch and Beck is alleging is Obama’s racism. No one should be surprised that Murdoch would defend and agree with Beck. His media holdings have a long history or race baiting, so Beck is Murdoch’s kind of guy.
What is really going on here is that Beck and Murdoch are using a tactic that the GOP tried during the 2008 campaign. They are trying to turn Obama strength, diversity, into a weakness, racism. They are playing to a small percentage of whites who won’t accept a black president. While this tactic may appeal to the small minded, race based politics will only hurt the Republican Party.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
