Fox News didn’t air former President Barack Obama’s stemwinder of a campaign speech for Abigail Spanberger over the weekend. Two days later, they tried to use it to bolster Spanberger’s Black opponent, Winsome Earle-Sears.
They did it the Fox News way: with racial attacks against Obama.
I’ll just pause here and note that it’s a sign of how poorly Earle-Sears is doing that Fox tried to prop up her campaign with racial attacks on Obama instead of focusing on her platform. As I write this, on the morning of Election Day, Spanberger has a healthy lead in the polls in her run to become governor of Virginia. Do they really think there’s a large contingent of voters who will suddenly be motivated to vote for a Black Republican woman just because Obama campaigned for the white woman? And did I mention Earle-Sears is a nut case?
But on Fox News, there’s no excuse too flimsy to race bait, even when it doesn’t make sense.
Earle-Sears got the ball rolling by accusing Obama of being a racial hypocrite for not supporting her. “Last year this time, he told everybody to vote for the Black woman,” she said accusingly. “And now, he’s singing a different tune. Hypocrisy all the way.”
Any honest host would have pointed out the obvious (Democratic) reasons behind Obama’s support for Spanberger and Kamala Harris. But not Charlie Hurt! He claimed not to understand why Obama didn’t support Republican Earle-Sears. “You know, you raise a really important point, and I really, honestly do not understand it,” he said.
Then he suggested that the reason must be because Obama is anti-white. Or maybe not Black enough. Or something:
HURT: We were told that [Obama’s historic presidency] was the greatest thing, and it was going to solve all these problems. Of course, it didn’t. And in fact, polls show that over the eight years of his presidency, race relations actually deteriorated badly in this country, and then for him to have an opportunity to help out the first Black female governor, by the way, of a state that elected the first Black governor in the United States. Explain to me, where, what are we missing? How does it – I can’t square this.
C’mon, Charlie, even you are not THAT stupid.
