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by Mark Silva
Seems we have an unharmonic convergence today.
First FOX's Glenn Beck calling President Barack Obama "a racist.''
Now Michelle Malkin, a conservative commentator and blogger who has written a book about Obama and his "crook'' cronies, appearing on NBC News' Today show calling the president a "racial opportunist'' who planted that comment about the Cambridge police arrest of the black Harvard professor.
"I think he's a racial opportunist,'' Malkin told Today's Matt Lauer today. "He shouldn't shoot his mouth off.''
"He took that moment, used a healthcare conference that was a debacle basically, and took this story, which is really just a local parochial law enforcement story to try to ensure some moment of his racial authenticity,'' Malkin said of the president's comment about the arrest of Harvard's Henry Louis Gates Jr.in his own home earlier this month. "It backfired, because he was wrong.''
"It plays into this idea that this man who has hyped himself as something different and new,'' she said, insisting that the question and answer about the Gates arrest was a set-up (The Chicago Sun-Times' Lynn Sweet, who asked the question at the news conference, won't be too pleased to hear that.)
"Everything this president does is Kabuki theater,'' Malkin told Lauer. But "I think he over-estimated the power of his authenticity.''





Comments
Say what?? Speaking of opportunistic......
Posted by: sandbox | July 29, 2009 10:53 AM
The press is on. Fox News leading the charge to recklessly tear apart America pandering to the lilly white bigots in their base. Fox News has gone too far this time and until the level headed Americans voice their rejection to this, it will continue till fighting in the streets breaks out which is Fox's goal. First the Moonbat birthers, now the bigots attack.
Posted by: bill r. | July 29, 2009 11:00 AM
"...Michelle Malkin, a conservative commentator and blogger who has written a book about Obama and his "crook'' cronies..."
So why is a supposedly reputable news outlet paying any attention to what this kook has to say? Same goes with Beck. They are not even close to the mainstream, folks...
http://www.political-buzz.com/
Posted by: matt | July 29, 2009 11:06 AM
And to think there are people like this walking around among us.
Posted by: Kenneth Janowski | July 29, 2009 11:13 AM
Michelle Malkin, who defends the internment of Japanese-Americans during WW2 and who believes that we should consider interring muslim americans, is calling someone else racist? That's rich.
Posted by: Malkin is a bigot | July 29, 2009 11:25 AM
Of course he's an opportunist. Look who he has putting words on his teleprompter. Never lose an opportunity to "slam whitey" even if it means using unrelated situations to make your "teaching moment." The only person that needs teaching moments is the fool in the white house. Changing your mind all the time and back pedaling on what you've said is not the sign of intelligence, its the sign of inexperience, knee jerk decision making and a shallow understanding of complicated issues. The affirmative action figure is turning out to be quite the bumbling dork.
Posted by: Hans | July 29, 2009 11:33 AM
The Obama drones posting on this board are hilarious. Obama is never asked a tough question by any media person other than those on Fox News.
The health care debate should be front and center but a reporter throws Obama a racial bone to play with and he takes it and runs his mouth. Hey LIbs, get a clue, Obama is Jimmy Carter 2.0 and he will lose big time when running for a second term.
Posted by: David Trip | July 29, 2009 11:50 AM
The Obama drones posting on this board are hilarious. Obama is never asked a tough question by any media person other than those on Fox News.
The health care debate should be front and center but a reporter throws Obama a racial bone to play with and he takes it and runs his mouth. Hey LIbs, get a clue, Obama is Jimmy Carter 2.0 and he will lose big time when running for a second term.
Posted by: David Trip | July 29, 2009 11:56 AM
What a good laugh. Both from Hans--who lifted a European name to pass himself off as legitimate--and Michelle Malkin, the self-hating minority who believes in conspiracy theories and thinks the imprisonment of Japanese-Americans was great. Perhaps if her teeth weren't so large, there might be room in her head for a brain.
Posted by: Diane | July 29, 2009 12:06 PM
So, Michelle:
Just trying to grasp your complex Kabuki metaphor. Maybe it's too subtle, too indirect, too, dare I say, Asian, for me. When you say that everything Obama does is "Kabuki theater," um...you mean he wears elaborate makeup and costuming? He speaks in an intensely stylized rhythmic sing-song? There's musical accompaniment? Maybe you really meant Noh theatre? Or Bunraku? Balinese shadow puppetry? I'm really just struggling with the analogy.
Oh, and the phrase, "to try to ensure some moment of his racial authenticity.'' Can't quite navigate that one. Was it perhaps translated by a computer program from some other language? Just wondering. (If so, you should definitely not use the same program for your books and blog. It gets in the way of your otherwise beautifully articulated message.)
Posted by: mark | July 29, 2009 12:12 PM
The affirmative action figure is turning out to be quite the bumbling dork.
Posted by: Hans | July 29, 2009 11:33 AM
Hans el and Gretel Van Susteren ??????? Poor whitey..........such discrimination against you. Backtracking???? Hell...I wish we could have done that with Iraq! Cowboy!
Posted by: bill r. | July 29, 2009 12:17 PM
Hey Diane, nice rebuttal, get that from the lib handbook? BTW, Germans were interred during WWII as well. Does that make me a self hating german-american minority. I so much want to get into the victimized pity party so I can make up my own teaching moments. Speaking of conspiracy theories, Gates and his idiot buddy in the white house see them in every police stop. Never let an irrelevant situation get in the way of slamming whitey.
Posted by: Hans | July 29, 2009 12:26 PM
It's one thing for the loons at Fox "News" to spew this crap. That's expected, and most normal people can ignore it. But when NBC gives even a second of airtime to crackpots like Malkin it gives a degree of credibliity to her dangerous and incendiary views. She and her ilk should crawl back under their rocks.
Posted by: gibster | July 29, 2009 12:27 PM
The health care debate should be front and center but a reporter throws Obama a racial bone to play with and he takes it and runs his mouth.
And what a bone......Yes indeed....coming from one who probably has a downloaded file of "The Magic Negro" on his computer, how can that compare to those evil words "acting Stupidly"? Got news for ya....they did act stupidly...they could have walked away when they knew he lived there. It was ego on both parts. Gates acted stupidly also......so Obama wasn't wrong, just half right. Most sane Americans that aren't driven by a political motive to reach wrong conclusions feel that way. What you have here is the rabid foaming at the mouth until they find Americans understand. Then their tune will change.
Posted by: bill r. | July 29, 2009 12:42 PM
Madame Ming the Merciless strikes again.
Posted by: Milton Friedman | July 29, 2009 12:50 PM
If Matt Lauer was interviewing a Bush Basher, he would have enocouraged every assertion. His distain towards Asian Conservatives makes him Racist? Right, Left Thinkers.
Posted by: Alaska Joe | July 29, 2009 1:02 PM
All take notice: the three people who screwed this whole Cambridge caper up are men - duh, guys. Too much testosterone - typical - leave it to testosterone to create a national debacle over what could have been a local incident. The only sane, rational player in the Cambridge folly is the 9-11 caller - and she's not having a beer at the WH. She's the only one who did the right thing and exercised the use of a large head. ... as for Glenn Beck and his right white wingnut ego , this man is scary. Consider that in strict accordance with his religious beliefs women are not allowed to earn an income, women don't have rights, and women don't have equality. The white right is fighting back with the message, "if you don't think and act like a fascist white right zealot, you're history." The white right is angry as I've ever seen them ... angry they're not in power and not anywhere close. Frustrated and lashing out - look no further than the Senate hearings on Judge Sotomayor if you want to see bigotry at the Nth degree. Too much testosterone - again and again.
Posted by: Dogleg | July 29, 2009 1:17 PM
His distain towards Asian Conservatives makes him Racist? Right, Left Thinkers.
Posted by: Alaska Joe | July 29, 2009 1:02 PM
Funny......I remember no "journalists" call ing Bush a racist. Please post your proof.
Posted by: bill r. | July 29, 2009 1:24 PM
Hell...I wish we could have done that with Iraq! Cowboy!
Posted by: bill r. | July 29, 2009 12:17 PM
You could have but the stupid cowboy somehow managed to fool all those smart dems into voting to keep funding the war. Even the lying jr. Senator from Ill. kept getting snookered over and over again. I guess that's what happens when affirmative action programs keep promoting self esteem at the expense of wisdom and experience, we wind up with a fool in the white house. When his press conference on health care goes south because he hasn't read the bills, he pulls out the race card and starts spouting off about something else without knowing the facts.
Posted by: Hans | July 29, 2009 1:43 PM
Malkin must be a total idiot - she actually thinks the majority of white people in the country voted for BHO because he's a "racial opportunist." She succeeded in therefore calling most of the white population stupid. To imply the majority of white people in the country voted for the President because he's non-white (implied by the "racial opportunist" remark) is ludicrous. If I had been so idiotic as to buy her book, I'd be burning it right now. Dear Michelle, I'm looking at a chair in my living room that has more brains and makes more sense than you do.
Posted by: Dogleg | July 29, 2009 1:45 PM
"Germans were interred during WWII as well. Does that make me a self hating german-american minority...Never let an irrelevant situation get in the way of slamming whitey."
My German friends just got a side-splitting laugh out of this one, especially since "whitey" is a term Germans don't even use. Looks like it's you who's relying on a handbook. Start learning to think for yourself instead of parroting GOP talking points.
Posted by: Diane | July 29, 2009 2:06 PM
I love it. Wastes of humanity like Janiene Garofolo can call the Conservatives at the Tea Parties, Tea Baggers and Racists and nutjobs like Keith Olbermann and the bull dyke Rachel Maddow can nod their head in agreement. When a Conservative questions the Messiah, whoops, I am sorry, the President Osama, there I go again, Obama, and calls him a Racial Opportunist or a Racist, they are attacked.
It seems that the Liberals cannot stand to have the person they believe to be their personal Jesus be criticized. It is almost like they cannot comprehend the idea that people think Obama is a snake oil salesman who is trying to find a way to lead this Country into Socialism.
Posted by: Joe Vodifay | July 29, 2009 2:22 PM
Hans, American citizens of German heritage were not rounded up en mass and shipped off the camps in the deesrt simply because of their ethnicity, as happened to American citizens of Japanese heritage. If that would have happened to American citizens of German heritage as well, it would have been just as wrong as what happened to the Japanese-americans. What part of that don't you get?
Posted by: Jake | July 29, 2009 2:31 PM
The average Republican in this country has no idea whatsoever about what is really happening in the world because they live in a propaganda bubble world created for them by their Republican overlords.
Democrats are debating how to tackle health care and whether a public option works best and how best to get costs under control..........Meanwhile, the Republican party has become fixated on crap meme's like "Obama is racist against angy old white guys" and the idea that Barack Obama's family faked his birth certificate 47 years ago, knowing he would run for President eventually and need a cover story?!?!
I find it amazing that the average Republican minion in 2009 can even dress themselves in the morning without first getting instructions from Druggy Rush, Glenn Butthead and Michelle Malkin etc.
Posted by: former Republican | July 29, 2009 2:36 PM
but the stupid cowboy somehow managed to fool all those smart dems into voting to keep funding the war. Even the lying jr. Senator from Ill. kept getting snookered over and over again. I guess that's what happens when affirmative action programs keep promoting self esteem at the expense of wisdom and experience,
Posted by: Hans | July 29, 2009 1:43 PM
I have to say you have guts talking about Bush and wisdom and experience in the same breath. While you're proud of Bush "snookering" America, it stems from the right playing on the worst of America's emotions. You criticize the war....you're unamerican, a traitor.....you criticize police feeling the need to arrest an old blackman with a cane in his own home , acting stupidly and you are a racist.....tell me...is playing the "patriotic card" worse or better than the "race card".
Posted by: bill r. | July 29, 2009 2:43 PM
Mark: thanks for all your Wiki research. You left out the Kabuki revolving stage that Owebama does not (yet) incorporate as puppeteer of his tele-scripted town hall meetings, infomercials, and addresses.
Cue "I'm a liberal & I'm shocked" Helen Thomas:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ou7SGNo5QHE
Posted by: OWEbamabotsACTIVATE | July 29, 2009 2:49 PM
And now there is more evidence that Sgt. Crowley falsified his report of the incident. The 911 tapes show that the 911 caller never said that the two men were black. The 911 caller has also come forward and sid that she never mentioned race to Sgt Crowley when he arrived at the scene. Crowley's report states that she said that the two men were black (in fact on the 911 tape, when directly asked the race of the men, she said “There were two larger men,” One looked kind of Hispanic", adding that she did not see what the second man “looked like at all.”)
Sgt. Crowley had no reason to believe that Prof. Gates was one supposed intruders based on the witness description. He jumped to that conclusion all on his own, and then lied in his report to cover that up.
Posted by: Jim | July 29, 2009 2:57 PM
The Rethugs and their Mouthpieces (Malkin, Beck etc) have no ideas, no viable legislative proposals and they have a core constituency who actively wants them to do nothing except disrupt, distort and delay.
That leaves crap-stirring and carping. It's all they have left.
This is all about the money for the Right-Wing Lunatic fringe blowhards (Malkin etc) and they will continue their outrageous and pathetic acts as long as there are a few Wingnuts who will watch them and a right-wing ideologue psychopath like Rupert Murdoch to sign their fat paychecks.
Posted by: We Owebama a re-election nod in 2012 | July 29, 2009 3:33 PM
"GOP FACEBOOK WANNABEES SPEAK" Just call him a racist! Just call him a racist! We need an uprising! We need a black uprising! We need a brown skin, brown eyed uprising! We didn't spend Billions on Prisons for Profits for nothing! So what if we failed in getting 12 million brown skin, brown eyed alike to come out of their homes and "attest" attest to their citizenship and or naturalization. Just call him a racist, Just call him one! His wife, his kids, his Opportunist wife, kids! We need an uprising! Halliburton needs an uprising! Prisons for Profits in America need an uprising! He's black! He's an Opportunist. He's black He's a racist! Just say it! Just say it! It's okay, It's alright we're just trying to stay in there and fight, fight fight! He's black! Too much "Chicken and Change" It's the GOP PAYBACK, it's the GOP GETBACK, all because you sold us out for "Chicken and Change" and now Two Tacos, rice and beans. He's a racist, He's an opportunist! Just say it! Just call him it! It's okay, it's alright, we're just trying to stay in there and fight fight fight! Who me, I'm Korean, no not from the North stupid! What, papers, what papers! We're talking about Obama! What, Passport! What passport, I'm not black! Obama is! I'm not an opportunist! Obama is! Papers! What, Here's my GOP Papers!
Posted by: Roger Morris | July 29, 2009 3:49 PM
"bull dyke Rachel Maddow" - hey, Joe boy. guys like you are why lesbians exist -- and the numbers are growing! usually terms such as "bull dyke" reflect anger .... anger at being excluded from sex - quite frequently - in the case of WM anger towards lesbians, sorry to inform you, jo boy, rachel is Dr. Maddow, as in PhD ... does that matter to you? can you get over the fact that you will be forever excluded from sex by a woman with a PhD who could never be interested in your pants?
Posted by: Dogleg | July 29, 2009 3:50 PM
Bill r and the rest of the worthless crud that makes up the Loony Left, the true racists again are you folks and you love to call anyone a racist. Bush was called a racist over and over by the Left and still is:
http://www.hicktownpress.com/george-bush-buys-house-in-racist-texas-neighborhood/
http://blogcritics.org/politics/article/is-kanye-west-right-about-racist/
Anyway, "Jim," Sgt. Crowley falsified nothing. Here again, the dingbats that make up the Left are lying about the facts, lying about the police. The motto of the Left is to blame America first, blame the military, blame the police, blame the rich, blame the middle class, blame the whites.
Loony Left = absolute crud.
Posted by: John D | July 29, 2009 4:01 PM
It's amazing that the people who don't like Malkin seem to insult her personally INSTEAD of what she said about Michelle and Barack Obama. Why didn't Matt Lauer question Malkins' assertion that Michelle Obama's salary went from $117,000/yr to over $300,000/yr after her hubby got into office in 2004? Even after the company she worked for returned $20 million for overcharges, why didn't she get fired? Lauer didn't refute any of Malkins assertions in the book at all. In fact, he looked baffled as if he for the first time heard some common sense about the fraud who we have in the WH.
Posted by: commonsense | July 29, 2009 4:04 PM
"Kabuki theater?"
Methinks Ms. Malkin is an Asian opportunist!
Posted by: Quippy | July 29, 2009 4:57 PM
So John D, have the 911 tapes been falsified? Is the woman who called 911 lying? Were you there John? Are you a poersonal witness to what the officer was told? Or do you just believe that evry cop is telling the truth at all times?
"Even after the company she worked for returned $20 million for overcharges, why didn't she get fired?"
That might have something to do with the fact that her position had NOTHING to do with charges or billing in her role as Vice President for Community and External Affairs.
Posted by: Jim | July 29, 2009 5:22 PM
Ahhhh John D lusional........Great...I ask for a journalist calling Bush a racist and you provide Kenya West an entertainer and article written about a neighborhood that Bush decided on and the fact that neighborhood until 2000 didn't allow blacks. By the way...wipe that foam from your mouth, you look rabid. Don't confuse truth with blame, John. If you were looking for truth maybe before you ingage mouth you might want to apply brains. Although Gates acted ridiculous, why in the world would you find the act of arresting any color man in his home once you knew he lived there? I don't expect you to use rational thought...it just aint your style.
Posted by: bill r. | July 29, 2009 6:20 PM
There's something happening here
What it is ain't exactly clear
There's a man with a gun over there
Telling me I got to beware
I think it's time we stop, children, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
...................................
Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you're always afraid
You step out of line, the man come and take you away
We better stop, hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
Stop, hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
Stop, now, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
Stop, children, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
Posted by: Buffalo Springfield | July 29, 2009 6:27 PM
Malkin and the rest of the right-wing whackjobs make the case for the Democratic party with more enthusiasm than even most us who hate the Republican party ever could..
I mean, could I ever hope to make the case for single-payer medical insurance better than Michael "hiphop makeover" Steele, and his sidekick Joe" "not a real" "Plumber already have?
Not to mention Jeff "where's my formal white sheet" Sessions
The entire clownish cast of the C Street "bible" mafia
Senator Hushmoney Ensign
Governor Lovestruck in Argentina
Rep. Michelle BachmaCrazyspeak
Rush "Oxy" Limpbaugh
Diapers Vitter
Dick (and I mean DICK) Cheney
Junior Dick "call me Liz" Cheney,
Sarah "also" Palin,
Gramps "what was I thinking?" McCain,
And the best argument for Democrats in forty years:
George Dubya Bush - a man who showed the entire world exactly what the Republican party would do to America when entrusted with the White House, both houses of Congress, and a majority on the supreme court - steal from it, destroy it from within and kill it's citizens in phony wars for profit.
A network could turn the 2009 Republican party into a sitcom and it would be hilarious.
Posted by: electrical supply products secretary | July 29, 2009 6:36 PM
Bill r., Gates was arrested for giving the officer a hard time and for causing a scene, disturbing the peace. That is why he was arrested. As I have said repeatedly, if I was the officer I would not have arrested Gates, even though he was being a moron and a racist. Calling a white officer a racist for doing his job of answering a break-in call is racist in and of itself.
Regarding the 911 caller, I believe what she said. I also believe the police report. Crowley's take on the happenings also was supported by a black officer and Hispanic officer on the scene. Those are the facts we WE know them.
Posted by: John D | July 29, 2009 7:57 PM
Those are the facts we WE know them.
Posted by: John D | July 29, 2009 7:57 PM
******************************
.
Lil' Johnny Diaperboy,
No, those are the "facts" that exist no where other than that giant beanbag that you call a head.
Like I said before, if Gates would have had a gun and had started shooting up things, all the while claiming that he was "defending his house", the Wingnut clowns like Lil' Johnny D here would be drooling all over him with praise.
Posted by: janet | July 29, 2009 8:32 PM
"Regarding the 911 caller, I believe what she said. I also believe the police report."
John D, do you have a split personality? Because the police report and the 911 caller say different things. They can't both be right. I know it's hard for you to admit a white person could possibly be wrong, especially when there are black people to demonize, but one of them must be in error.
Posted by: Jim | July 29, 2009 9:31 PM
She fancies herself as the Charlotte Corday of the American right.
Posted by: ornery | July 29, 2009 10:51 PM
She sounds absolutely fringe. Malkin & her brood are beyond pathetic. Conservative politicization of the race issue is every bit as polarizing as race-baiting from the Left...talk about hypocrisy & opportunism...!
http://beyond-the-political-spectrum.blogspot.com/
Posted by: Beyond-The-Political-Spectrum | July 30, 2009 10:37 AM
ornery,
Perhaps Madame Defarge? (Do I hear the click of knitting needles?)
Posted by: C.Morris✧ | July 31, 2009 11:00 AM
Roger Morris,
Where ya been?
Hilarious posting.
I do prefer, however, the all caps format.
Posted by: C.Morris✧ | July 31, 2009 11:13 AM
"There's something happening here
What it is ain't exactly clear
There's a man with a gun over there
Telling me I got to beware "
hey buffalo breath .... what's goin' down? are your brain cells backfiring again?
Posted by: Dogleg | July 31, 2009 3:34 PM
The Obama's are both racial opportunists.. They have climbed politically by trading on their ethnicity and "oh, woe is me stories." Obama recently revealed that he is NOT the healer and unifier, but racial opportunist who will capitalize on ethnicity when it benefits him. Professor Gates and Obama used this as a "teaching moment" of what Obama is really about. I have read the Malkin book.. it is well written, well documented, and reveals the true Obamas. Before you criticize, read her book and try to refute her points through critical analysis and counterpoints, not just lame criticizm that reveals YOU are racist.
Posted by: C. Truth | August 4, 2009 10:01 PM
The Obama's are both racial opportunists.. They have climbed politically by trading on their ethnicity and "oh, woe is me stories." Obama recently revealed that he is NOT the healer and unifier, but racial opportunist who will capitalize on ethnicity when it benefits him. Professor Gates and Obama used this as a "teaching moment" of what Obama is really about. I have read the Malkin book.. it is well written, well documented, and reveals the true Obamas. Before you criticize, read her book and try to refute her points through critical analysis and counterpoints, not just lame criticizm that reveals YOU are racist.
Posted by: C. Truth | August 5, 2009 11:06 AM
What happened to what was supposed to be a post racial era?
I have not heard so many racial slurs since the 50s and 60s.
A president that was supposed to take us past this has divided this country.
I am so confused.
Posted by: Deborah | August 8, 2009 7:40 PM
Was Matt on glue? Of course Obama got where he is by being a “racial opportunist”! He’s a “community organizer”, for God’s sake! If you take his cloak of media camouflage away, he’s Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson, who made a living by shaking-down businesses and govt. agencies for money and/or power.
Posted by: sd karte 4gb | October 16, 2009 12:20 AM
Anyone who supports Obama is a traiitor to all that America stands for. Obama is destroying the economic future of our country.
Posted by: Greg Van Curen | April 13, 2010 6:03 AM