On Fox News Sunday, Brit Hume Says Holder and Obama Have It Easy Because They’re Black

Brit Hume Fox News Sundayedited

 

During this week’s broadcast of Fox News Sunday, host Chris Wallace brought up Attorney General Eric Holder’s remarks before the National Action Network on Wednesday. During the event, Holder implicated that race was a factor in the treatment he has received from Republicans in Washington. Wallace wanted to have a discussion about how big a factor race is in Washington, especially when it comes to how President Obama and Holder are treated.

Of course, since it is Fox News, the panel that Wallace had on for this discussion was quite diverse. That is if diverse means all white. Yes, just as we’ve seen these past few days, Fox News loves to discuss race and the impact of racism, but only if they can do so with an all-white panel. The first person that Wallace discussed this topic with was Fox News senior political analyst Brit Hume.

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Transcript from the show:

WALLACE: Attorney General Eric Holder complaining about treatment of him and also the president after another testy exchange with House Republicans on Capitol Hill. And we’re back now with the panel. Well, Attorney General Holder said the Obama administration has faced, his words, “unprecedented, ugly opposition” and speaking to Al Sharpton’s National Action Network, he clearly implied it’s because of race. Brit, does he have a point?

HUME: I don’t think so. And I think, you know, first of all, it’s false that no attorney general and no president have been subjected to this kind of treatment. After all, Bill Clinton was impeached. Think about that for a moment. John Mitchell went to jail. I mean the list is long of attorneys general and other officials who have been subjected to some very rough treatment on Capitol Hill and elsewhere. And this strikes me as kind of crybaby stuff from Holder. My sense of that this is that both Eric Holder and Barack Obama have benefited politically enormously from the fact that they are African-American and the first to hold the jobs that they hold. And this, I don’t know if he’s specifically meant race or not. I suspect perhaps he did. But to those two men, race has been both a shield and a sword that they have used effectively to defend themselves and to attack others. And I think it is depressing at this stage in our national life after all we’ve been through on this issue and given the overwhelming consensus on the issue of civil rights that this kind of stuff is still going on.

 

There you go. According to Hume, Obama and Holder have obviously benefited from being black and holding their respective offices. On top of that, they both attack anyone that criticizes them by yelling ‘racism’ at every opportunity. Hume also used the latest conservative talking point that racism no longer exists, when he said that we’ve already dealt with civil rights so it is just sad that we are still talking about race.

Wallace decided to follow up with another old white conservative male when he threw a question to George Will. Will pretty much gave the same level of answer that Hume did earlier.

WALLACE: We asked you for questions from the panel, for the panel, rather. And we got this on Twitter from Michael Dagan. “Why is it that if you oppose their position and you’re white, you’re branded a racist? Both Attorney General Holder and POTUS, president of the United States race bait?” George, is that what’s going on here?

WILL: Sure. Look, liberalism has a kind of Tourette’s syndrome these days. It’s just constantly saying the word “racism” and “racist.” It’s an old saying in the law. If you have a law on your side, argue the law, if you have the facts on your side, argue the facts. If you have neither, pound the table. This is pounding the table. There is a kind of intellectual poverty now. Liberalism hasn’t had a new idea since the 1960s except ObamaCare and the country doesn’t like it. Foreign policy is a shambles from Russia to Iran to Syria to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And recovery is unprecedentedly bad. So what do you do? You say anyone who criticizes us is a racist. It’s become a joke among young people. You go to a campus where this kind of political correctness reins, and some young person will say looks like it’s going to rain. The person listening says, you’re a racist. I mean it’s so inappropriate. The constant implication of this that it is, I think, becoming a national mirth.

 

You just to love how a 66 year-old white guy (Wallace) asked both a 70 year-old white guy (Hume) and a 72 year-old white guy (Will) if there is any basis behind whether or not the President or Attorney General have had to deal with racism since coming to Washington. These three men, all proudly conservative, not only don’t think racism is at play here, they feel that Holder and Obama cry racism to protect themselves at every opportunity. They all spoke dismissively about race being any kind of factor and actually seemed to imply that Holder and Obama might be racist themselves.

The thing is, if you are going to have any discussion about racism and race relations in this country, it is probably best to diversify your panel a bit. At least have someone on that can provide a bit more insight and life experience. Besides Will and Hume, the other panel members on Sunday were journalist Bob Woodward, a 71 year-old white male and Julie Pace, the AP’s White House correspondent, who also happens to be white. The fact that that you had four elderly white men, along with a relatively younger white woman, discussing race in this country says all you need to know about the disconnect that Fox News has with anyone other than their targeted audience: angry old white people.


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