David Gregory was just on Hardball and played a clip from his interview with President Obama that will air Sunday on \u201cMeet the Press.\u201d In the question, Gregory, as have many others, misrepresented what Carter said. I don\u2019t have the transcript of Gregory\u2019s interview yet, but what he said, to paraphrase, was \u201cCarter attributes most of the opposition to you to racism,\u201d and then asks Obama whether he agrees with that.<\/p>\n
As we follow this story, I think we\u2019re going to see that translation of Carter\u2019s remarks take hold\u2014that he blames most of the opposition to Obama on race. It will become fact the way the meme about Gore inventing the internet became.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s what Carter said:<\/p>\n
\nAn overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man, that he’s African-American. <\/p>\n
I live in the South, and I have seen the South come a long way. And I have seen the rest of the country that shared the South’s attitude toward minority groups at that time, particularly African- Americans. That racism in connection still exists. <\/p>\n
And I think it’s bubbled up to the surface because of a belief among many white people, not just in the South, but around the country, that African-Americans are not qualified to lead this great country. It’s an abominable circumstance and grieves me and concerns me very deeply.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
What he\u2019s saying is that a large majority of the people who are carrying the most offensive signs \u2013 showing Obama as a witch doctor (clearly racist) or calling him a traitor, a Communist, or wishing his death \u2013 are racists. If you look at the protests in Washington last weekend, the truly offensive signs were not among the majority, though there were quite a few of the distasteful \u201cBury Obamacare with Kennedy.\u201d If you look listen to the raucous town hall meetings (which were the minority of town hall meetings, by the way) or viewed the signs outside those contentious arenas, most of them are not personally attacking Obama or are offensive. Hyperbolic, sure, but not offensive. <\/p>\n
What Carter is saying is that only an \u201coverwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Obama is\u201d racist, not most of the opposition. He\u2019s saying that a large portion of the small portion of protestors are racists.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
David Gregory was just on Hardball and played a clip from his interview with President Obama that will air Sunday on \u201cMeet the Press.\u201d In the question, Gregory, as have many others, misrepresented what Carter said. I don\u2019t have the transcript of Gregory\u2019s interview yet, but what he said, to paraphrase, was \u201cCarter attributes most… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1753"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1753"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1753\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}