Beck calls Obama racist, Fox executive distances network from comments

Beck: Obama a “racist” who has “a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture.” On the July 28 broadcast of Fox News' Fox & Friends, Beck discussed remarks Obama had made about the controversial arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates and declared that in his response to the arrest, Obama “exposed himself as a guy” with “a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture.” Beck added that Obama is a “racist.”

Fox executive: Beck's opinion “represented his own views, not those of Fox News Channel.” Later that day, Fox News senior vice president of programming Bill Shine issued the following statement to TVNewser.com: “During Fox & Friends this morning, Glenn Beck expressed a personal opinion which represented his own views, not those of the Fox News Channel. And as with all commentators in the cable news arena, he is given the freedom to express his opinions.”

Murdoch on Beck's comments: “He was right”

Murdoch: Beck “was right,” Obama is a “racist.” In a November 6 interview with Sky News Australia political editor David Speers, Murdoch declared that while Beck “perhaps shouldn't have” said it, Beck was “right.” From the interview:

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.