Murdoch meltdown: Now Fox News spokesperson says Murdoch "does not ... think the president is a racist"

Michael Calderone's November 10 Politico blog post:

News Corp. chief Rupert Murdoch has drawn criticism following an interview with Sky News Australia, where his comments were interpreted by some as being in agreement with Glenn Beck's view that President Obama's "a racist."

But News Corp. spokesperson Gary Ginsberg tells POLITICO that Murdoch did not intend to suggest that he had the same opinion as Beck.

"He does not at all, for a minute, think the president is a racist," Ginsberg said.

Murdoch, in the interview, said that the president "did make a very racist comment" and seemed to indicate he thought Beck was right in making the controversial claim. Media Matters, and others, quickly seized upon the interview as evidence that Murdoch shared the same view as the Fox News host.

Ginsberg said that's not the case, but did not comment further on the interview.

In his interview with Sky News Australia, Murdoch said of Beck's comment that President Obama is a racist, "that was something which perhaps shouldn't have been said about the president, but if you actually assess what he was talking about, he was right":

SPEERS: The Glenn Beck, who you mentioned, has called Barack Obama a racist, and he helped organize a protest against him. Others on Fox have likened him --

MURDOCH: Yeah.

SPEERS: -- to Stalin. Is that defensible?

MURDOCH: No, no, no, not Stalin, I don't think. I don't know who that -- not one of our people. On the racist thing, that caused a [unintelligible]. But he did make a very racist comment, about, you know, blacks and whites and so on, and which he said in his campaign he would be completely above. And, you know, that was something which perhaps shouldn't have been said about the president, but if you actually assess what he was talking about, he was right.