Thursday morning, Barack Obama decided to face the hard hitting, hyper critical, no-spin firing squad that is The View.
Why would he walk into such a lion’s den of probing, insightful, questions without even Robert Gibbs to protect him? Well, as he put it, it’s because he “was trying to find a show that Michelle actually watched.”
I’m sure the First Lady is thrilled to have been thrown under the “good taste” bus.
Whoopi cracked jokes, Joy Behar fawned and salivated like a 12 year old at a Justin Beiber concert, and then it was time for the president to put his foot in his mouth.
He chose to do it via his new favorite topic: race.
African-Americans, he said, “are sort of a mongrel people.”
Seriously. He really said that.
Someone should ask him if he was purposely quoting eugenics guru and racist, Margaret Sanger. After all, the Planned Parenthood founder basically created her organization as an extension of her belief that the world needed to deal with what she called its “mongrel peoples.” Her ultimate goal was to reward those minority members who chose to be sterilized, license parents, and limit the size of black families, all in an attempt to “create a race of thoroughbreds.”
Perhaps Obama realized he’d veered into Biden gaffe territory, since he tried to undo his statement by offering a clarification. “I mean, we’re all kinds of mixed up,” he said. “That’s actually true of white people as well, but we just know more about it.”
Apparently, regardless of race, we’re all just one big jolly bunch of “mongrels.” Super. The ladies of the view nodded and lapped it all up, but I was left wondering. What if Newt Gingrich had gone out there and referred to blacks as mongrels? What if Limbaugh, Hannity, or Beck had said this?
It is impossible to overstate the media outrage that would have resulted if any prominent conservative had dared to utter these words. Instantly, Joy Behar would have begun vomiting pea soup until her head spun around, Linda Blair style. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson would have found themselves caught up in a whirlwind of constant appearances designed to spotlight the allegedly inherent racism of the right. The evil right-winger would have been pilloried by NBC, ABC, CBS, MSNBC, CNN, the ACLU, the NAACP, La Raza, and every minority rights organization on the planet. Their careers would have ended instantly.
I’m not after anything so harsh. This Scotch/Irish white “mongrel” would just like to have a Guinness and whiskey summit, so his president would have a chance to admit that he “acted stupidly” and offer an apology.
…oh, and since he seems to be having some problems with racial issues lately, maybe he should attend some sensitivity training.
Just a suggestion.
Robert Laurie is a Michigan-based conservative columnist and freelance writer. He also runs a daily political commentary blog at RobertLaurie.net.