Gibson to caller: "You just like [Obama] because he's ... like you and you want to see one of you up there"
SUMMARY: Reacting to a caller who spoke favorably of Sen. Barack Obama, John Gibson said: "You don't know what Barack Obama stands for. You just like him because he's -- he's -- he's like you and you want to see one of you up there, and you don't care what he stands for." The caller responded: "He's not one of me just because he's a black guy or something like that. That doesn't make him one of me. He's standing for him, not me."
On the June 6 edition of his Fox News Radio show, John Gibson said to a caller who spoke favorably of Sen. Barack Obama: "You don't know what Barack Obama stands for. You just like him because he's -- he's -- he's like you and you want to see one of you up there, and you don't care what he stands for." The caller responded: "[H]e's not one of me. ... He's not one of me just because he's a black guy or something like that. That doesn't make him one of me. He's standing for him, not me."
As Media Matters for America noted, on the April 9 broadcast of his radio show, Gibson told a caller who had identified herself as an African-American, "You're sticking with Obama, because he's ... he's a brother" and that Obama "is lying to your face but he knows you are so -- you so identify with him on the basis of race, you will not even see the lies."
From the June 6 edition of Fox News Radio's The John Gibson Show:
GIBSON: Thomas in Cleveland, Ohio. Is Barack Obama a far-left liberal or not?
CALLER: I don't know if he is or not. But all I know is this man is trying to do something different for this country, standing up for something that he believes in, and it seems like all I hear is everybody tearing him down. I just want to know
GIBSON: Well --
CALLER: -- what has anybody else has tried to accomplish to make this country a little better than what it is now --
GIBSON: Well, wait a second here. I mean, are you saying that because Barack Obama's got ideas for the country, anybody who doesn't agree with him is trying to tear this country down?
CALLER: No, I said that you're trying to tear that man down, not this country, trying to tear this man down --
GIBSON: Well, I don't -- Thomas, I don't like his ideas.
CALLER: Say that?
GIBSON: I don't like his ideas.
CALLER: Well, OK, that's fine. Everybody don't like everybody's ideas and stuff. But, this man from what I'm seeing, what I'm hearing, he is trying to accomplish something -- from what I hear and what I see, trying to accomplish something that no one else is, and all I can hear is everybody tearing him down.
GIBSON: All right. Well, Thomas, listen to foreign policy plans.
OBAMA [audio clip]: Second, I will cut tens of billions of dollars in wasteful spending. I will cut investments in unproven missile defense systems. I will not weaponize space. I will slow our development of future combat systems. And I will institute an independent defense priorities board to ensure that the quadrennial defense review is not used to justify unnecessary spending.
GIBSON: All right, Barack Obama is against a missile defense system, which only yesterday tested again successfully and is really our only protection against somebody like Iraq getting a missile and firing something at us -- excuse me, Iran. So, Thomas, what exactly do you like about his foreign policy position that he just enunciated?
CALLER: Well, I could really barely -- I could barely hear what he was saying, actually. [unintelligible] I could barely hear what he was saying. So, I can't -- I don't really know too much about that.
GIBSON: Well, I mean -- but that's the point, Thomas, isn't it? I mean, when I say, look -- I criticize Obama over his friends, [Rev. Jeremiah] Wright and [Rev. Michael] Pfleger and [Rev. James] Meeks and the terrorist bomber and, you know, sidling up to [Louis] Farrakhan and stuff like that, somebody like you, Thomas, will call me and say "Hey, deal with the issues." I start dealing with the issues, I ask you about it, and you haven't dealt with the issues. You don't know what Barack Obama stands for. You just like him because he's -- he's -- he's like you and you want to see one of you up there, and you don't care what he stands for. Is it OK if I care what he stands for?
CALLER: Well, listen, he's not one of me, he's [unintelligible] he himself. He's not one of me just because he's a black guy or something like that. That doesn't make him one of me. He's standing for him, not me.
ANGRY RICH (show producer): Well, then have a clue what you're talking about.
GIBSON: Well, I'll tell you what, Thomas. If that is your position, that you are one of the 8 percent that voted for somebody else or didn't vote for Obama because you're proud that he's a black guy and that's the first time it's ever happened, you are among a small minority of black guys in this country, because that is all I've heard for day after day after day.
Does the right-wing hold the patent on projection? Or do they just have a bulk-rate deal with the manufacturer?
What George W and the Republicans stand for:
-Ever mounting Deficits
-Unending wars
-inaction environmentally
-Tax Cuts
-Tax Cuts
-Tax Cuts
-Fat Cats
-Tax Cuts
The Fraud that Republicans can govern effectively has been demolished by compassionate conservatism and George w Bush.
The Republican Party's slogan should be: We know how to get elected!
Too bad they can't govern worth a shet...
compassionate conservatism
This is a very suspect phrase. It means that we'll make sure you're living the way we think you should in order to make sure you get into heaven. It has NOTHING to do with alleviating suffering in this life. That kind of compassion is for commies and atheists. But it's OK: Vote for us and we'll get ou into heaven faster!
A large group of Christian Fundamentalists approaching you with the interntion of doing you good is only slightly preferable to a large group of Muslim Fundamentalists approaching you with the interntion of doing you harm.
It's to bad this caller wasn't able to speak the facts and his thoughts in an orderly fashion......
It was obvious where the caller was going, but I think his thoughts got scrambled after he realized who he was on the phone with...... I mean.... come on.... John Gibson and Angry Rich? Puh-leez!
Gibson utilizes a two year-old's method of argumentation.
They screen for that at Faux News. I hear the bar is set pretty high.
MATT:
Help me out here. WHO among the GOP are actually "CONSERVATIVES", and what makes them conservative?
CONSERVATIVES oppose big government, unnecessary government intrusion, oppoes secretive government, oppose foreign entanglements and things like "nation building", approve fiscal responsibility and balanced budgets, and are true environmental stewards.
I don't see a single CONSERVATIVE among the GOP. Who am I missing?
"CONSERVATIVES oppose big government, unnecessary government intrusion, oppoes secretive government, oppose foreign entanglements and things like "nation building", approve fiscal responsibility and balanced budgets, and are true environmental stewards."
They oppose those things only if no monetary gain can be realized from them, e.g. if Halliburton couldn't make a dime off this war and the resultant nation-building then they wouldn't have launched it.
It's all about the money, not principal. Money does strange things to the conservative.
RABBIT:
Under the banner of "conservative", the corporate NeoCons have launched their "conquer the world" plans.
NeoCons are our aristocrats, after dollars and power no matter who all it hurts. They are without conscience and without any hint of social responsibility. They can utter some of the conservative's buzz words ... free market, personal responsibility, American exceptionalism ... but their only interest is in exploiting every possible advantage for personal gain. And the biggest tool for exploiting world treasures? The U.S. Government.
What a bunch of hooey! For conservatives the issue has never been big or small government. The issue is simply that the entire state belongs to them. "L'etat c'est moi!"
Whether they reach their position by vote or by coup,
the state works for them, not for me, nor for you!
Doesn't this Gibson genuis realize that Obama won some of the whitest states in the country? How about Iowa? What about the Rocky Mtn states he won? Those people didn't vote Obama because he was "like them." They were white. I am also white and male and voting for Obama.
I've never seen this guy or heard him--but it doesn't sound like I have missed much. I watch Hannity for amusement because I love watching him squirm as he screams incesently about pfleger, Wright and Ayres over and over to no avail.
Even he must know that the Republicans are in deep doodoo. After all, they have shattered our reputation on an international level, allowed the worst housing crisis in the nation's history, and threw the nation into an economic downspin towards possible depression with the gas prices, and who do they roll out? A frizzled old geizer who's the same old same old. They have to know they are done. Or am I overestomating their intelligence again?
Not to mention the crux of the charge: To support someone for office who is "JUST LIKE YOU."
When have the Republicans put forward someone who was not "JUST LIKE" Gibson ... a white male? Does Gibson support them because they're "JUST LIKE" him?
Gibson is a moron. And a racist.
Far too many conservatives are....
It's located next to white meat in the containers marked "elitist".
You know, Fox News still pretends in their own Orwellian world that they are "fair and balanced." Do any of them listen to each other? or themselves? or Bill Moyers?
Second time today...boom!
So many talking wingnuts are jumping on this train that Obama is getting huge numbers from black voters just because he is a black candidate. They seem to be saying that black voters judge a candidate by skin color first and foremost. If this were true, why weren't the Presidential runs of Al Sharpton, Carol Mosely-Braun, Alan Keyes or Jesse Jackson more successful? Isn't it more likely that given a choice between two very similar candidates that then racial identity might become more of a factor? While Hillary and Barack are not identical, they have a pretty fair equivalency in pluses and minuses and policy proposals that really don't diverge until one gets into the details. Which is borne out by the way that gender/racial identity tied in fairly closely to the voting in the primary.
Of course, since Gibson and his ilk have done so much to establish the myth that Obama supporters cry racism at the drop of the hat, now he can go ahead and be "as racist as he wanna be" and try to get away with it. John tried to masquerade what he was saying with a quick tangential reference to policy and platform but his primary message here was pretty clear "Black people are stupid and only like Obama because he is one of them."
What is going on is that the rightwing is going bananas over this. All the talkers were set on running against Hillary and they had all their little props ready for action. They were all prepared to drag Bill's eight years in the White House and all the 'scandals' into the mix. Then the unexpected happened... and now they are scrambling to find anything, ANYTHING, regardless of how illogical and moronic it may be, to use against Obama.
Rush using that utterly stoopid and UNFUNNY 'Barack the Magic Negro' bit is only the beginning. Expect much more of this. Much more.
If you want technicalities 50% puts him in minority status. It's like me trying to claim I am american indian - can't do it cause it's way less than 1/8th of my blood. (don't remember the dividing line, BTW)
So MSM should call Barack Obama biracial despite the fact he defines himself as black/African-American? I think mixed race people have every right to define themselves however they want, and if Barack Obama wants to define himself as black/African American (same as Halle Berry) then people should not be upset over his decision. It's not as if he disowns his white mother and grandparents, he talks about them all the time, but in America, he looks black, and if he wasn't a superstar politician and some regular guy with a 9 to 5 job, he would be treated as black man, regardless of having a white mother. Being black is a social construct in America, it has less to do with biology. It has more to do about consciousness and how the dominate society treats you. Furthermore, if we want to REALLY get technical about this, most African-Americans have white ancestors due to Slavery. So, despite Obama being biracial, black folks in general are all mixed. (Many should check out Henry Louis Gates, Jr. two-part documentary on PBS that explores this even further.) For example, my great, great grandfather was Anglo-Saxon, great, great grandmother was black, should I suddenly label myself "biracial" even though I look "black" and accepted by the larger society as "black"? I mean, I'm what folks in the south would label high-yella just like Harold Ford, Jr., though I'm still defined as being black.
Even when Barack Obama began his campaign and you heard pundits reporting that many in the black community are asking whether Obama is "black enough," that had more to do with him knowing the cultural history of blackness and empathizing with the struggle of being black in America than him being biracial. Being half white or having white ancestors is nothing new to black people in this country, and during Slavery, and later, Jim Crow, those with one-drop of black blood was still placed as second-class citizens in society. Obama is aware of this, thus, he considers himself black, like millions of others from a similar background. Sure, legally Slavery and Jim Crow has been outlawed in this country, but the mindset and the Diasporas that were formed because of the two still live on today in this country.
I'm surprised the mentally handicapped 'Angry Rich' didn't chime in with some useless quip like "By The Way, We're Winning The War!!!!"
Yes Gibson, you are a racist. Congratulations.
So he's saying its not right for black people to vote for a black person simply because he's black? I think in an ideal world, thats probably fair. But do you hear him attacking southerners, or evangelicals, or ignorant white people, who will vote for a texan or a christian or no doubt a white male without having the slightest idea of the 'issues.' I'd say Gibson probably fits that category, firstly trying to derail his caller with a tangent about weapons systems, and then saying Iran is going to bomb the US. If you think Iran is planning on doing that, then you're an ignorant war hawk and maybe you Gibson, should enrol in the marines if you feel that strongly.
Gibson embarrasses himself with the above just after playing a clip of Obama making intelligent remarks about how he would cut the bloated defense budget. Naturally, he accidentally says Iraq when he means Iran (I suspect he doesn't understand either country) and claims that star wars is our only hope. It's amazing totally that the airwaves are full of b.s. like this and people who can't understand reason and logic and refuse to even try.
Amazes me everytime I hear some racist clown say blacks are racist for voting for Obama. AS IF AFRICAN-AMERICANS HAVEN'T OVERWHEMINGLY VOTED DEMOCRAT FOR DECADES.
And that's what really gets my goat. The hypocrisy of it all. Kerry, Gore, Clinton, Kennedy, etc . . . ALL WHITE MALES!!
Seriously, how many times has Gibson voted for an African-American to be president of the U.S. of A?
Seriously, how many times has Gibson voted for an African-American to be president of the U.S. of A?
I'll bet he's done it many times, and then wakes up screaming from his worst nightmare.
Greetings all, have you ever wonder what the reaction would be if Obamah declared that he was "white," and what the reaction would be? Do you think he would accepted by those who identify them selfs as "white"? And if not why not????