Juan Williams has lately become a headliner rather than the conduit through which news analysis is delivered to viewers of the Fox News Channel. Yesterday, my LU colleague Mike Dorstewitz wrote that Williams shockingly stated on air that Sgt. Andrew Tahmooreesi, the Marine languishing in a Mexican prison, is “not a serious issue.”
Williams was at it again last night. He converted a panel discussion on impeachment into a spate of baseless accusations of racism directed at anyone who argued that Barack Obama’s “lawlessness” is grounds for a trial for high crimes and misdemeanors. In this case, Williams’s main target was Heritage Action leader Michael Needham. Here is the video. A partial transcript and commentary, provided by Mediaite, follows.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5T6B6aQ4dk
“You listen to Michael and you understand why lots of Republicans think [Obama’s] a demon,” Williams said. “Lots of people in the minority community see it as an attack against the first black President. They think it’s unfair, and so it’s gonna spur their turnout in the midterms, which is going to be critical in several races.”
“If you just break it down as a matter of political analysis and say who is this group [calling for impeachment], it reminds me that the Republican Party has become almost a completely white party,” Williams continued. “The people who want him impeached are all white, they’re all older, and guess what — they’re all in the far right wing of the Republican Party.”
“He might as well have just said they’re all racists,” Needham objected. “That’s ridiculous….You’re the one demonizing people who are concerned about the fact that we have a crisis of Constitution.”
“Look, we can have a principled argument about President Obama’s actions and use of executive actions, but you called him lawless, as if he’s an outlaw, as if he’s riding the range and we gotta go get that guy,” Williams said.
Turning a mundane descriptor like “lawless” into a derogatory racial term?
Originality, -50 pts.
Williams’ liberal colleague over at MSNBC, Chris Matthews, of tingling leg fame, also used the word “lawless” as a jumping off point for an argument that conservatives are racist, saying it was nothing more than “second term birtherism.” Birthers are of course, racist.
Regardless, if the only ones seeking to impeach Obama are old, white people, the Democratic party must be the ones who are in reality, chock full of old, white people.
As NBC reporter Chuck Todd helpfully reminds us, “frankly, the only people talking about impeachment are Democrats.”
Old, white Democrats it would seem…
Peter Roff at U.S. News & World Report writes:
Despite what the White House or anyone else says, there is no current scenario under which the leadership of the U.S. House of Representatives would move to take up impeach [sic] proceedings against President Barack Obama.
To do so would be playing into Obama’s hands. He wants the House to move against him. He thinks it would be a political winner that would salvage his party’s flagging fortunes, galvanizing his voters – who only show up when he is on the ballot – to go to the polls in November 2014 to keep the Democrats from losing the Senate.
In short, the impeachment drive has been nothing more than a Democrat fantasy. And Williams using it to claim Republican racism is just the icing on the cake.
Cross-posted at the Mental Recession
