Video: NBC reporter admits it’s “hard to stay objective” when covering Obama
posted at 4:05 pm on January 8, 2008 by Bryan
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Brian Williams is quoting NBC reporter Lee Cowan here, Cowan being the designated beat reporter covering Obama. Expect it to become part of the Billary campaign’s rhetoric asap.
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”ROCK STAR”
Texyank on January 8, 2008 at 9:06 PM
Wow. What a bunch of whiny commenters.
Frozen Tex on January 8, 2008 at 9:13 PM
*cough, cough* Follow the link, it’s embedded in the word. uh, that’s why it’s a different color. Loosen up, have a laugh.
Alden Pyle on January 8, 2008 at 9:22 PM
Um, yeah… I know it’s a link; not my first time here. I was referring to the humorless commenters under the video clip.
Frozen Tex on January 8, 2008 at 9:50 PM
Aaaaaaah, gotcha, the way it was worded……oh never mind, that was a damn funny MadTV bit.
Alden Pyle on January 8, 2008 at 9:58 PM
Brian Williams explains it all right here.
Well, then never mind…
d1carter on January 8, 2008 at 10:00 PM
I respect your research and your attention to detail. I just don’t think the man is racist.
I know that if a white guy subscribed to a church with equally ridiculous tenets, he would be lambasted. But your average white guy has not grown up with a challenged self-identity. I believe that many prominent African-Americans suffer from a skewed self-perception.
In much the same way you can magnetize a metal. Many people believe you can acquire “blackness.” In much the same way that I hear whites accusing other whites of “acting black,” Barack is acting black (IMHO).
That is not to say that I think he needs to authenticate himself in any way. Rather, he believes he must do so. His urbanized vocal inflections, his church, his community activism are all gateways to his self-perceived blackness.
None of this is based on a desire to offend whites. His mother is white. He works with whites. Harvard and Cambridge are very white. Believe me, he likes white people. He likes Americans, just like most of us.
But he has some issues.
Damn I know that sounds like some uber BS. But so does Post-Partum Depression.
If Obama is racist, it is against himself.
***
The only reason I think I have any right to make such a suggestion is because many African-Americans have seem some form of this dynamic manifest itself in their own lives.
I hear people talk about Americans losing their sense of identity in one generation to Islam. What about 5,6 or 10 generations of it?
African-Americans have fought for hundreds of years to maintain their American identity. It’s not always so easy.
I know that opens me up for this thread’s dunce cap.
The Race Card on January 8, 2008 at 10:12 PM
He supports affirmative action which awards jobs and/or entrance into schools BASED ON RACE. Affirmative action is racism by it’s own definition.
He is either a spoiled privileged rich kid trying to get some street cred or he really believes all that marxist crap.
Alden Pyle on January 8, 2008 at 10:24 PM
Words are wasted on you.
Dunce cap is yours dude. Don’t forget your strap.
The Race Card on January 8, 2008 at 10:34 PM
Uh huh…Like most on the loony left you don’t let facts get in the way of what you want to believe.
As for your suggesting that
Obama’s book is primarily about his rejection of his supportive white maternal extended family in favor of his unknown black paternal extended family.
At age 33, he wrote in “Dreams from My Father, that ” he found solace in nursing a pervasive sense of grievance and animosity against his mother’s race.
Although Obama was raised by his mother, he identified more closely with the race of his father, who left the family when Obama was 2.
“I ceased to advertise my mother’s race at the age of 12 or 13, when I began to suspect that by doing so I was ingratiating myself to whites,” he wrote.
Obama spent various portions of his youth living with his white maternal grandfather and Indonesian stepfather, Obama vowed that he would “never emulate white men and brown men whose fates didn’t speak to my own. It was into my father’s image, the black man, son of Africa, that I’d packed all the attributes I sought in myself, the attributes of Martin and Malcolm, DuBois and Mandela.”
During college, Obama disapproved of what he called other “half-breeds” who gravitated toward whites instead of blacks. And yet after college, he once fell in love with a white woman, only to push her away when he concluded he would have to assimilate into her world, not the other way around. He later married a black woman.
http://www.freedomsenemies.com/_more/obama.htm
Alden Pyle on January 8, 2008 at 10:41 PM
I’m sorry Race Card, but one of the major reasons African-Americans have had to fight for their American identity is because they put African in front of American. Same goes for Mexican-Americans and every other hyphen Americans! An American should be American first and foremost. The P.C. crap has done a disservice to every American in this country reguardless of the origin of their ancestors. Back to the video……Man, gag me with a spoon! That was a major display of fawning! And, what was that crack about white America? Another example of how divisive libs are. They can’t help being bigots Iguess.
Proudvet on January 8, 2008 at 10:45 PM
You mean Skippy was trying to be objective.
How the hell far left would he be if his idea of objectivity weren’t somewhat tempered with some abbreviated form of professionalism.
Speakup on January 8, 2008 at 11:10 PM
I’m not on the left. You make the mistake of assuming that because I don’t regurgitate some tired mantra, that I’m not a conservative.
Everything you said is well-stated. We just interpret those facts differently. However, your breaking the Hitler rule heaps considerable doubt onto what you say for the rest of the night though.
When Barack Obama was born, he was still called “negro, black, afro-american” or otherwise. African-American has only gained popularity in the past 2 decades. Until then we were whatever the establishment decided to call us.
Here’s the deal. I’m very happy and consider it a blessing to have grown up American. But I will tell you that NONE of the racism I have ever experienced had anything to do with what I choose to call myself. My mom didn’t lose friends to terroristic violence because of self-imposed labels.
Like it or not, some people still have a lot of hang-ups. We don’t give everybody who was abused as a child a pass if they grow up to become abusers. But we certainly accept that some of them will absolutely grow up to be abusive. I think Barack struggled with his identity during his most formative years. Feeling abandoned by Dad didn’t help, I’m sure.
Here’s an exercise: Imagine that the current trend of racial double standards and hyper-political-correctness continues for several generations. How screwed up will your grandkids’ grandkids be?
I’ve always been a lone wolf on issues of race. That’s because I don’t mince words with anybody, race notwithstanding. I’ll tell you the same thing regardless of your race. Most people don’t have the luxury or sack to be so open.
The impact of hyphenated labels is an overstated canard. Have you ever heard anybody complain about Antonin Scalia being referred to as Italian-American? How about every Irish guy I’ve ever known, calling themselves “Irish?” It’s more grating coming from blacks…admit it.
Furthermore, my point here is that conservatives will take the hit if we try to paint Obama as a racist. He’s not. You may believe so; I disagree.
The Race Card on January 8, 2008 at 11:51 PM
Take a reread, I didn’t assume you were a kooky lefty, I compared you to them…it’s a simile.
There is no Hitler rule; he is but one in a long line of murderous, narcissist, sociopathic, schizophrenic ,self-centered, a-holes with grandiose, if not skewed, visions of “Ruling the World!” thus creating a utopian paradise for those subscribing to their twisted vision. Sounds like Hillary to me.
Your objection that she has killed anyone is up for debate if you talk to Vince Foster’s family.
True she hasn’t herded any specific group she dislikes into concentration camps… yet, but neither had Hitler BEFORE he got in power. She shouldn’t get her chance.
She favors disarming the general public in order to stifle resistance to her socialist dream of those who work supporting those who leach.
Further, like most fascists, she’ll strangle dissent through gagging opposition; she’ll do this in baby steps, the first of which is requiring tax payer sponsored leftist propaganda radio proportionate to self sustaining free thinking radio.
Alden Pyle on January 9, 2008 at 8:11 AM
THE RELUCTANT MESIAH
Ernest on January 9, 2008 at 10:04 AM
Jesus is back and nobody told me? :O
kylun on January 9, 2008 at 12:44 PM
Race Card….I understand what you’re saying but I think it’s an excuse. I am an American of Polish (among others) decent, do you know how many jokes I’ve had to put up with? Every one of them are about how stupid Polocks are. (Polock is a derogatory term by the way) So I do have an idea about how it can impact the way you feel about yourself. When the Irish came here they were treated like dogs, mongrel dogs. Same with the Italians. I believe people tell their ancestory is because they are proud of their grandparents, parents, etc. of overcoming the roadblocks that are put in the way of every ethnic group to ever come here. I don’t find anything grating about being proud of where your ancestors came from. I think too that Obama is a closet biggot. He hangs with that crowd so he gets painted with that brush. That’s just the way it works. Every lib politition is a closet biggot not just Obama and I believe the Clintons are the grand poobas of that club.
Proudvet on January 9, 2008 at 1:05 PM
To argue a hierarchy of discrimination really is futile. Every minority group has endured some level of marginalization.
But, skin color is undeniable. I’m not going to explain how different slavery and Jim Crow were than the ethnic discrimination experienced by most European immigrants. By and large, those people married and blended into society within a generation.
My point about the hyphenated-American still stands. The label “African-American” is much more respectable than Afro-American or negro. I never heard white people complain about those words. They were ok for hundreds of years, along with “nigger.”
And the only time the the word so-called n-word has been a problem with society-at-large is when it became popular with young black men.
On a side note:
I’ve heard more latinos and whites using the word “nigga” in my life than you can imagine.
The Race Card on January 9, 2008 at 1:52 PM
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