From the Mahalo Buzz team… Did Chris Matthews just give credit to Obama for rising above his blackness? Perhaps it didn't come out the way he intended it.
Matthews continued" "You know, he's gone a long way to become a leader of this country and passed so much history in just a year or two. I mean its something we don't even think about. I was watching and I said wait a minute, he's an African America guy in front of a bunch of other white people, and there he is, the president of the United States and we've completely forgotten that tonight. Completely forgotten it. I think it was the scope of his discussion, it was so broad ranging, so in tune with so many problems and aspects and aspects of American life that you don't think that you don't think in terms of the old tribalism and the old ethnicity. It was astounding in that regard, a very subtle fact, its so hard to talk about, maybe I shouldn't even talk about it."4
I think what Matthews said was fine. It was obviously meant to be a compliment and imply that President Obama has come along ways and that he (Matthews) didn’t even notice he’s an African American president but just see him in the same light as all the past presidents. I have the same feeling, I just think of President Obama as “the President” without any additional thought to his physical attributes.
I can’t help but feel that if this was one of the FOX News
hosts who made the same comments they would be run out of
town on a rail. When I first heard this clip I half expected
Sharpton and his like to be getting camera time the next morning.