At the Tatler, Tony Katz wonders if Ed Schultz will be fired from MSNBC for his RatherGate moment yesterday:
The Racer meme continues to move through the main stream media, and allows the MSM an easy way to discredit anyone who opposes President Obama’s policies. After his announcement in South Carolina, and arrival in Iowa, Texas Governor (and presidential candidate) Rick Perry found himself under attack from the usual Racer suspects.
The other night, MSNBC host Ed Schultz, host of The Ed Show, showed a piece that accuses Gov. Perry of racism by selectively and deceptively editing a video of Perry speaking at the Des Moines Register Soapbox at the Iowa State Fair.
Schultz rails that when Perry states that a “Black Cloud” hangs over America, Perry means President Obama. So there is no confusion, Schultz starts his piece talking about the overt racism in the United States:
I think there’s an element of racism every time people claim the first black President doesn’t love this country. Perry comes from the radical country club that loves to remind white America President Obama is other; not like you. Perry also wants you to know that he is pro-business.
We will set aside Schultz’ inane attack on Capitalism, and focus on his primary lie. This meme, put forth by other key Racers like Janeane Garofalo, Al Sharpton and Keith Olbermann, is not based on reality or truth. Rather, Racers push the meme solely as an attack vehicle, designed to engage class warfare and intimidate the target. In this case, the target is the biggest threat to Obama’s re-election chances to date: Governor Rick Perry.
However, Schultz and his team at MSNBC lied. The video, when played in its entirety, clearly shows that the “Black Cloud” Perry is talking about is the debt, not Obama.
As pointed out by Larry O’Connor, editor of Breitbart.tv, Schultz admits the error in the editing, but does not apologize for the purpose of the editing, which is to engage the Racer meme and distort reality; To portray Gov. Perry as a racist and to engage the rabid, truth-be-damned, class warfare fanatical fan base at MSNBC to rally around President Obama.
“Something huge will happen at 6:00 PM on MSNBC today,” O’Connor writes at Big Journalism:
If the network and the producers have any journalistic integrity, Sharpton will go on the air and admit that his implication of racism against Gov. Perry was false. He has to considering his colleague has admitted that the basis of Sharpton’s charge, the “black cloud” statement, had nothing to do with Obama and was really about the national debt. Sharpton used “black cloud” to support his racism implication. If “black cloud” was not about Obama, Sharpton’s racism implication falls apart.
If Sharpton admits he was wrong about this racism implication it will be the first time in his life that he would do so. Sharpton has made a career of pronouncing people, institutions and corporations “racist.” Even when he was found guilty of defamation by a court of law, he refused to admit he was wrong.
This is why if Sharpton admits error today it will make history. It will be an enormous achievement for citizen journalism and the Breitbart sites. We will have been able to achieve something that traditional journalists have either been unable, or unwilling to achieve.
If Sharpton does not admit error and stands by his implication of racism against a leading presidential candidate, despite the fact that another MSNBC host has admitted that the basis of Sharpton’s charge was a complete deception, then NBC News is in a horrible position. Will the network of Huntley, Brinkley and Brokaw really hire a man who has just used their network to falsely accuse a presidential candidate of racial bias? Will they really hire a man who refuses to apologize and retract the charge even as their other host on the same network has done so?
They can’t. NBC News can’t possibly hire Sharpton if he doesn’t take back his statements. If they do they will proclaim to the world that they are more interested in their extreme political agenda or they are more afraid of Al Sharpton’s reaction and the ensuing charges of racism that are sure to follow.
Either way, something huge will happen at 6:00 PM on MSNBC today.
Why would NBC News object to Al Sharpton when the legacy media has looked the other way at his demagoguery for almost 20 years now?
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