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Murdoch: Beck 'Was Right' When He Called Obama Racist

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In an interview with SkyNews last week, Rupert Murdoch, whose News Corp. owns Fox News, said Glenn Beck "was right" when he called President Obama "a racist" this summer.

Some background: In August, after a white cop mistakenly arrested a black Harvard professor in his own home, touching off a nationwide debate about race, Obama said during a news conference that James Crowley, the police officer, "acted stupidly."

Beck jumped on the comment, saying Obama has "a deep-seated hatred for white people." He later said, "I'm not saying he doesn't like white people. ... He has a, this guy is, I believe, a racist."

Asked about that comment last week, Murdoch -- ultimately, Beck's boss -- said Beck was right, even though he maybe shouldn't have said as much.

"On the racist thing, that caused a grilling. But [Obama] did make a very racist comment about, you know, blacks and whites and so on, 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."

(Via ThinkProgress)

Comments (33) | Join the Conversation!

Recommend Recommend (1)

November 10, 2009 12:36 PM   

"blacks and whites and so on??????"

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November 10, 2009 1:21 PM    in reply to howie

Seriously! What comment? Why didn't the interviewer follow up and ask him what "very racist comment" he was referring to? WTF?????

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November 10, 2009 1:26 PM    in reply to miasmo

Murdoch owns SkyNews. Any other questions?

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November 10, 2009 4:17 PM    in reply to Schmed

Ah ha! [light bulb going off over head]

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November 11, 2009 3:59 PM    in reply to miasmo

exactly.

a key fact rachel ought to have included.

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November 10, 2009 2:15 PM    in reply to howie

yeah...the white part of Obama hates blacks and the black part hates whites. Isn't that clear? His will be the first head to explode, by Fox logic.

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November 10, 2009 12:40 PM   

As the cracker himself would say, this makes blood shoot out of my eyeballs.
(Insert caps lock scream)

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November 10, 2009 12:50 PM   

As anyone who has ever read or studied about racists such as Rush, Beck ad nauseum, there are two constant "principles" that they adhere to:
1. The actual racist always calls the *other* person a racist.
2. They are always too cowardly to admit that they are racist.

Beck, Rush, Hannity, Savage, David Duke...all from the same racist pea(brain) pod.

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November 10, 2009 1:03 PM    in reply to dswx

Doesnt it make you love Colbert even more because he included this detail on his parodies of this archetype.

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November 10, 2009 4:09 PM    in reply to dswx

Good comment!

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November 10, 2009 12:55 PM   

I wonder why the wingnuts like their outsourced-to-Australia media?

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November 11, 2009 3:24 AM    in reply to jenesq

It makes them feel cosmopolitan.

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November 10, 2009 1:17 PM   

Why don't journalists look into the underlying story about Fox News? It is controlled by a foreigner, Rupert Murdoch, who has important business ties with the Peoples Republic of China. The elderly Murdoch is married to a much younger Chinese national, Wendi Deng (Deng Wenge born in Xuzhou, Jiagsu, The People's Republic of China in 1968 and educated in elite schools by the Chinese Government). The covert mission of Fox News is to sew discontent and confusion in American Society to further the interests of the Chinese government and its ruling elite. Glenn Beck, Hannity et al are useful tools in this game. A weaker, conflicted America creates openings for Chinese hegemony.

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November 10, 2009 2:06 PM    in reply to bluestatedon

Fox = Chinese Hegemony!

You Decide!

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November 10, 2009 7:28 PM    in reply to Dorn76

stupid chinese australian fox news ruining everything for america

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November 10, 2009 8:30 PM    in reply to n8ji

stupid chinese fox ruining everything for america

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November 11, 2009 3:26 AM    in reply to bluestatedon

He also seems to have ties to Israel via Vivi Nevo.

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November 10, 2009 1:23 PM   

white foreigners from Australia are fine with conservatives but anyone darker skinned than Glenn Beck is either an illegal immigrant or a black nationalist. My advice to thinking people is to not waste your education thinking about these guys more than is necessary to ultimately curb their efforts to destroy this country from within.

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November 10, 2009 1:24 PM   

The advertising boycott should therefore actually be of the entire Murdoch enterprise, not just of Beck's program.

As a powerful mogul accustomed to pushing his agenda unchallenged, Mr Murdoch is unable to restrain his anger against a White House that has dared to call out his propaganda machinery. Unaccustomed to such challenges, he has now publicly helped to legitimize the administration's claim.

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November 10, 2009 1:25 PM   

Nah - I think the old coot just loves money and the young women it can buy him.

But, you could try peddling that to the black helicopter crowd - maybe they'll start campaigning against Fox and wingnut heads everywhere will explode.

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November 10, 2009 2:58 PM   

The world according to Wingnuts.

Racist statement by Obama:

Now, I don't know, not having been there and not seeing all the facts what role race played in that, but I think it's fair to say, number one, any of us would be pretty angry. Number two, that the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home and, number three, what I think we know separate and apart from this incident is that there is a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately. And that's just a fact.


Totally not racist statements by Rush Limbaugh:

"Have you ever noticed how all composite pictures of wanted criminals resemble Jesse Jackson?"

"Look, let me put it to you this way: the NFL all too often looks like a game between the Bloods and the Crips without any weapons. There, I said it."

"The NAACP should have riot rehearsal. They should get a liquor store and practice robberies."

"Let the unskilled jobs that take absolutely no knowledge whatsoever to do — let stupid and unskilled Mexicans do that work."

"they're finally hearing me -- he's an angry black guy. I do believe that about the president. I do believe he's angry; I think his wife is angry. All liberals are enraged all the time anyways. They're always mad."

"It's Obama's America, is it not? Obama's America, white kids getting beat up on school buses now. I mean, you put your kids on a school bus, you expect -- you expect safety. But in Obama's America, the white kids now get beat up with the black kids cheering, 'Yay, right on, right on, right on, right on.' And of course everybody says, 'Oh, the white kid deserved it. He was born a racist, he's white.' Newsweek magazine told us this. We know that white students are destroying civility on buses. White students destroying civility in classrooms all over America. White congressmen destroying civility in the House of Representatives. We can redistribute students while we redistribute their parents' wealth. I mean, we can just redistribute everything. Just return the white students to their rightful place, their own bus, with bars on the windows and armed guards. They're racist. They get what they deserve. Newsweek magazine told us this -- post-racial America. I mean, I wonder if Obama's going to come to the defense of the assailants the way he did his friend Skip Gates up there at Harvard.

"if only President Obama had known that the three Somali community organizers were actually young, black Muslim teenagers, I'm sure he wouldn't have given the order to shoot."

Somewhere I must have missed Rupert and Glenn's expressions of disapproval.

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November 11, 2009 3:30 AM    in reply to The Commenter Formerly Known as NCSteve

Hmmmm. Seems to me the far-right generally, and the teabaggers in particular, are angry-to-enraged. Does that mean they are liberals?

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November 10, 2009 3:19 PM   

Why oh why didn't somebody interviewing him say "so what do you have to say to all of your advertisers that were wrong about that? Do you want to call them liars or stupid? And, would you like to insult them by name, or shall we read this list for you?"

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November 10, 2009 3:53 PM   

I'm guessing this makes the White House want to play nice with FOX News.

John

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November 10, 2009 4:38 PM   

Once upon a time, I used to believe that Murdoch only cared about ratings=money. Clearly, I was very wrong.

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November 11, 2009 3:31 AM    in reply to randomname

He's always been overt far-Reich.

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dal

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November 10, 2009 4:46 PM   

shocking news, just in: Rupert Murdoch is an asshole.

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November 10, 2009 4:47 PM   

shouldnt it be illegal for one person to control so many parts of the news media?

its just too much of a conflict of interest..murdoch owns fox news, wall street journal, sky news (!!!) and i guess there are others i'm leaving out but, shouldnt that be unethical.

shouldnt it also be highly unethical for him to be interviewed by a news coroporation he bloody owns?!!

this capitalism is more trouble than its worth, i tell you

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November 10, 2009 8:33 PM    in reply to elle a

Capitalism's value is emergent. It depends on a struggle between buyers and sellers. The value emerges as each of these two parties fight with each other to maximize their individual welfare.

There is no such thing as a capitalist.

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November 11, 2009 3:33 AM    in reply to elle a

That's why we need restoration of the Fairness Doctrine, and restoration of the old rules limiting media ownership.

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November 11, 2009 9:09 AM    in reply to elle a

Sadly, restrictions were lifted/changed in 1996, with the Telecommunications Act of 1996, signed into law by President Bill Clinton.

http://www.museum.tv/eotvsection.php?entrycode=uspolicyt

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November 10, 2009 5:05 PM   

Can't we have Murdoch's citizenship revoked since it's a sham anyway and then deport the bastard?

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November 11, 2009 9:41 AM   

More importantly, we should hit him where he lives. Stop doing business with Berkshire-Hathaway companies. I cancelled my WSJ the minute he touched it. I won't go to Dairy Queen or buy Fruit of the Loom. They scream about letting the market decide. So decide the market for him. Google the BH list and then stay away.

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