Fox: We’ve ‘Gone Six Years With Almost No Criticism Of The President.’

November 22, 2013 | Filed under: Fox News,Racial Issues | Posted by: Miranda Burbank

 

The brain trust known as Fox & Friends had a scintillating conversation on the topic of racism on Thursday when they complained that calling people’s response to President Obama “racist,” is unfair. they also claimed that while we’ve been free to criticize all previous presidents, because of accusations of racism, Obama’s gone almost without criticism.
The topic was prompted by a claim Oprah made with the BBC, saying that, “There is a level of disrespect for the office that occurs. And that occurs in some cases and maybe even in many cases because he’s African American. There’s no question about that, and it’s the kind of thing that nobody ever says but everybody is thinking it.”
That, of course, resulted in the usual chorus of the newest conservative mantra, which is, to point out racism is the most racist thing of all.

“Do you see racism when Harry Reid called President Bush a loser? Is that respect for the office?” co-host Brian Kilmeade asked. “Bill Clinton was impeached for his actions in the office? Is that racist?”
“I don’t know that Barack Obama could have been elected president if he was living in a racist nation,” co-host Steve Doocy opined. “Are there racists out there? Absolutely. Is it a majority of people? No. A majority of the people, according to the polls, simply don’t like his policies.”
“And certainly throwing around racist accusations, calling someone a racist certainly for disagreeing when they are indeed not, would undermine racism when it does occur,” Hasselbeck chimed in.
“That’s right,” Doocy agreed.
“There’s so much rude stuff toward 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. in my lifetime,” Kilmeade said. “Reagan was dumb, remember. George Bush was incompetent and illegitimate. Bill Clinton, we know where he ended up with the Monica Lewinski stuff. Where was the racism there? This, to me, is a situation where you’ve gone six years with almost no criticism of the president.”
“But this is someone as powerful as Oprah instilling fear in those that may come to critique policy under a cloak of racism when it may not be there,” Hasselbeck declared. “So again, it undermines racism when it does occur.”
Transcript and video thanks to Raw Story. Emphasis added.

Okay, I’ll throw Fox & Friends a bone here. Some of the criticism of Obama is clearly not racist, but to say that anyone has held back on criticism for fear of being called racist is, well, ridiculous. In fact, Media Matters gave us this list by Fox News alone. Of course, there’s the rise of the New Confederacy. There’s the new popularity of the ‘n’ word. There’s the birtherism. There’s the unprecedented lack of decorum around the office of the Presidency. There are images like these.
Yes, Bill Clinton was treated like dog doo by the GOP and yes, those of us on the left thought George W. Bush was incompetent, wildly dangerous and that he wasn’t actually elected, but neither of them faced the level of obstructionism that Obama faces. No one questioned their nation of birth.