Intellectual Property Law

MSNBC's race problem (and its love affair with John McCain)

By Siva Vaidhyanathan

The rampant sexism of MSNBC personalities Chris Matthews and Keith Olberman has been covered only by the blogs that care about confronting sexism (but without any mainstream media coverage at all).

And, as we would expect, now that they don't have a high-profile woman to kick around any more, MSNBC has let loose its snideness on race and class, with Sen. Obama as the proxy for most of the attacks.

Jamison Foser writes:

... Don't believe me? Almost immediately after Obama went over the top in the delegate count Tuesday night, Matthews began attacking him. Matthews went on an extended rant about Obama's purported inability to connect with "most Americans," because, according to Matthews, Obama has been poor, and he has been rich, but he has not been in the middle.

Later, after guest Harold Ford pointed to the fact that Barack and Michelle Obama were still paying off college loans just a few years ago as evidence that Obama is familiar with the economic concerns of middle-class America, Matthews' colleague Keith Olbermann retorted: "[T]here are people who are saying, ' "Still owe money on my student loans?"; we were so poor, we dreamed of having student loans.' "

So, according to Matthews, Obama's problem is that, having been poor and wealthy, he cannot relate to the middle class. And according to Olbermann, Obama's familiarity with middle-class concerns alienates him from the poor. According to MSNBC's election-night anchor duo, Obama has been too rich, too poor, and too middle class to relate to voters.

Given how frequently he invokes what he describes as Obama's inability to connect with "regular people," one can only assume Matthews must give the topic great consideration while lounging at the pool of his multimillion dollar Nantucket vacation home.

Matthews' election-night portrayal of Obama as out of touch with "most Americans" was striking in its intensity, but it was not a new theme. MSNBC personnel, particularly Matthews, have been trying out this anti-Obama theme for months. Matthews has attacked Obama for shooting pool ("[I]t's not what most people play. People with money play pool these days.") and obsessed over what he claims is Obama's inability to connect with "regular people" in "a dinette." And Matthews and David Shuster mocked Obama for the grievous sin of ordering orange juice in a diner.

Matthews has said of Obama, "[T]his gets very ethnic, but the fact that he's good at basketball doesn't surprise anybody, but the fact that he's that terrible at bowling does make you wonder." On another occasion, Matthews suggested that Obama's lack of bowling prowess "tells you something about the Democratic Party." Matthews has contrasted "regular people" with "people who come from the African-American community." He has suggested Obama should pick a Jewish running mate because he "need[s] some ethnic balance." Matthews has said Obama "seems a little foreign" and that he and Jeremiah Wright are "different faces of the same guy." And he has criticized other people, including comedian Jon Stewart, for using Barack Obama's middle name -- despite the fact that Chris Matthews was the first person to invoke Obama's middle name in a political context in any news report available on Nexis.

Cara at the blog Feministe has much more on Chris Matthews' troubling commentary about Barack Obama.

But Matthews isn't alone among MSNBC employees when it comes to insulting Obama.

Joe Scarborough has described Obama's bowling as "dainty" and suggested Obama is "prissy" and not a "real man." He criticized Obama for saying that he doesn't share all of his grandmother's beliefs -- less than a week after Scarborough himself had said the same thing about his own parents. Tucker Carlson accuses Michelle Obama of having "a chip on her shoulder."

MSNBC personnel like Scarborough and Pat Buchanan routinely refer to Obama as the most liberal member of the Senate, apparently relying on a deeply flawed National Journal ranking based on only a portion of votes cast during only one year. (A less subjective survey placed Obama in a tie for the ranking of 10th most liberal member of the Senate -- and McCain as the eighth most conservative. For some reason, MSNBC doesn't ever get around to telling viewers that McCain is closer to being the most conservative senator than Obama is to being the most liberal.)

MSNBC military analyst Jack Jacobs asserted that "Obama doesn't know what he's talking about" -- and, to support his assertion, misquoted Obama. That was just one of many times MSNBC reporters have distorted Barack Obama's record.

...

There is a lot more in this article about MSNBC's love affair with John McCain.

Disclosure: I have been paid to write columns on digital technology for the MSNBC.COM web site.

Full post as published by SIVACRACY .NET on June 10, 2008 (boomark / email).