Where’s the aftermath of the close of last night’s Newshour coverage of the Democratic Convention?
There is no link to the transcript, and near as I can tell no one is talking about it.
Mark Shields, in gushing over Barack Obama, called him Tiger Woods, a comparison which is valid if one considers his youth, the excitement he is generating throughout the party, and his meteoric rise to stardom.
But Shields didn’t mention any of that.
Instead he said that Obama is of mixed-race (just like Tiger Woods). He qualified that by saying he can appeal to everyone. Jim Lehrer laughingly added that people once said that about someone else (whose name I missed — let me know if you caught it), to which Shields quipped:
“He was purebred!”
Lehrer, laughing, echoed him.
“He was purebred.”
And then it was good night, America.
I was honestly stunned.
PBS: pure-bred simpletons?
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8 responses to “PBS: pure-bred simpletons?”
I read somewhere that another commentator called him “Barack Osama.” (Sounds like a Saudi prison….)
All I know is that Obama been lauded.
But seriously folks, I can’t believe a commentator can refer to race in this way without public reaction, especially when he uses terms like purebred to describe people.
It seems to be a theme. William Saletan was making some odd argument that he may have been decieving the public about his race, because wow, his mother was white.
I think Obama is refreshing, and it’s hard not to like stuff like this:
“Now even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us, the spin masters and negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of anything goes. Well, I say to them tonight, there’s not a liberal America and a conservative America ? there is the United States of America. There’s not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America ? there is the United States of America.
The pundits, the pundits like to slice and dice our country into red states and blue states; red states for Republicans, blue states for Democrats. But I’ve got news for them, too. We worship an awesome God in the blue states, and we don’t like federal agents poking around our libraries in the red states. We coach Little League in the blue states and have gay friends in the red states. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and patriots who supported it. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America.”
THANK YOU for hearing that “purebred” comment. I was beginning to think I was the only person listening that night!
I wrote to CNN about it, how offensive the entire exchange was, from the Tiger Woods comparisons to the “purebred” remark from Mark Shields (I believe).
The anchor was saying something about him being like Henry Cabot Lodge and Shields said, “no, no, Lodge was a purebred heh heh heh.”
Tell you what, stunned doesn’t even begin to cover my reaction to that whole segment and CNN has NOT answered me yet!
I suppose it’s a good thing for Shields he leans to the left. He’d have been eaten alive for that comment otherwise. The funny thing is that this is the only place you’ll read about it.
If you want to complain, though, you should direct your complaints to NewsHour (MacNeil/Lehrer Productions):
onlinenewshour@newshour.org
You might also want to try PBS.
Ya know what? There is just too many channels and too many idiots behind microphones neeeding to fill air time.
Thank you for the info. I will write to them. I am still astonished that no one even commented. Maybe we WERE the only ones watching! LOL! Thanks again.
Dianne