One of the biggest spins from the State of the Union Address post mortem was the statement made by Chris Matthews who somehow manages to rub everyone the wrong way. He said that:
NEW YORK (AP) — MSNBC’s Chris Matthews says President Barack Obama has done so much to heal racial divisions that he “forgot he was black” while watching his State of the Union address.
Those four words — “forgot he was black” — so instantly set the Twitter world afire that Matthews came back less than 90 minutes later Wednesday night to explain what he meant.The MSNBC commentator said it was noteworthy to him that a black president was addressing a room of mostly white people and how it didn’t seem to be an issue. He said he saw it in the context of growing up at a time racial divisions were ever-present.
Says Matthews: “I went in the room tonight, you could feel it wasn’t there tonight and that takes leadership on his part, to get us beyond those divisions.“
So what did Chris Matthews really mean? How do you forget someone is black? Was he complimenting Obama or was he stepping all over himself with awkward words. This obviously wasn’t just a tingle. Chris Matthews is famous for being pro-Obama so he obviously isn’t trying to insult him.
Chrissie said he “forgot he was black”.
Biden said “you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy”.
Reid called ObaMao a “light-skinned African American with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.”
Seems to be a pattern. But, of course, they’re forgiven because they’re democrats.
Oh! Before I forget, Bobbie Byrd was the Exalted Cyclops in the KKK. But, of course, he was forgiven because he’s a Democrat, and he “progressed” beyond that.
Oh! And, of course, the biggest opponents of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 were…… Democrats. They filibustered the heck out of it. Republicans got it passed. Hmmm.
Your partisanship is showing, Ring. Is it possible to discuss the topic without being partisan?
Biden puts his foot in his mouth regularly. That’s almost not as bad as half the stupid things he’s said over the years, and that’s saying something!
As to Matthews, I suppose it could be described as some kind of “back-handed compliment”, assuming it can in some way be considered a compliment, which depending on how you view it, it may not be.
The most interesting part of the SOTU was Obama’s discussion of bi-partisanship.
Obama could easily achieve a bipartisan healthcare bill with overwhelming public support if he limited the scope of the bill to provisions such as allowing consumers to purchase medical insurance from other states, requiring insurance companies to cover pre-existing conditions and perhaps enabling drug re-importation. Such a bill would cause Obama’s approval rating to shoot up and allow him to claim a huge victory. Given his astute political instincts, you have to ask yourself, why won’t Obama do this?
The inescapable conclusion is that he does not want a bill without some type of public option or government mandate. If he allows a limited bill to proceed, it might just be successful in limiting medical costs and therefore the opportunity to promote government-controlled healthcare could be lost forever.
On the other hand, if the current bill dies in Congress, sharp increases in the costs of medical care are likely and the resulting “crisis” may offer another shot at government healthcare in the near future. Plus, Obama can claim that the lack of bi-partisanship by the Republicans was the cause of the “crisis.”
As a result, I suspect that Obama is more interested in bi-partisanship as a political weapon than as a means for cooperation.
What ran through Matthew’s head once he remembered that President Obama is black?
I like to hope Obama is finally serious about bipartisanship. He promised that in his campaign but so far hasn’t really followed through. I’m willing to give him a chance this time and see what happens.
John Boehner today brought up the point about limiting the size of these bills. I think the whole process of healthcare reform would seem more transparent if we tackled one or two major issues at a time, and not tried one huge, “comprehensive” package rife with backroom deals.
How do we get everyone covered by something? Those who aren’t covered are costing all of us a fortune.
How do we ver find out about the bills without the big mouths from both parties trying to run over top of things and drowning out the simple questions?
I support some kind of health care reform. I don’t want to blindly take anything just to say we have health care reform.
The current bill still leaves 13 million uninsured. It seems we could start by taking smaller steps to reduce costs for everyone. Those small victories could add up to much larger political currency for President Obama than the “comprehensive” approach, which as yet has yielded him nothing at all.
You know, I am evalutating this in terms of what will help the American people, not how much political currency President Obama gets. 13 million is a whole lot better than 40 million. I simply want to be told, perhaps by my representatives, what the current bill involves.
If you poll the average person on the street and ask them about health care, they don’t know enough to have an informed opinion and they will tell you that. No one has told them.
ARe people really color blind in their dealings? I don’t think I would ever forget a person’s race if it were visually obvious or their nationality if they told me. I probably would also remember their religion if they told me and where they were born.
How do you say what Chris Matthews was trying to say without just being gauche?
Why did he feel the need to bring it up in the first place? Res ipsa loquitur-the thing speaks for itself. Drawing attention to it means that Matthews is VERY aware of racial differences and far from “post-racial.”
I don’t even know what post-racial really means. Could someone explain it?
Emma has a point, this talk about Obama’s race has kind of been discussed ad nauseum. There’s not many more points to be made about it, and others before him have tried to almost say the same thing that Mathews said. He would just have been better off keeping his mouth shut and not saying anything at all.
I could easily duct tape CM.
On the other hand, Obama is the first non-white president of the United States. When we haven’t had a woman president, people like me sort of hone in on any one who isn’t a white male. I would think females and minorities might be more honed in on non-white male than the average bears. Of course, that doesn’t excuse CM. He just isn’t one of my favorites. He lacks humor and always seems angry. Olbermann always seems angry. Jon Stewart has humor and isn’t always angry. His humor is also often self-deprecating.
M-H, I think you are confusing CM with the McLaughlin guy, no idea how to spell it. CM is more like Kojo from NPR, he is fascinated by politics and really loves his job.
I forgot about race during the speech as well. Partisanship was the divide that was in the air, even though the President is Black and everyone in the entire Republican side of the room was white except the one who voted for health care.
Did anyone see Colbert lampooning our Governor, fawning over his Confederate charm, and proclaiming him “the White President” I guess because the stage craft looked like a miniature replica? He also made fun of the obvious use of people of color for props.
As such, I thought about race constantly when the White President was speaking, and never while the real President was speaking. How ironic.