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Barack Obama may be our first post-racial politics candidate, but it's clear the media has not caught up to that paradigm, especially any show that includes John McLaughlin and Pat Buchanan amongst its panel. Kudos to Media Matters, who caught it first:
On the edition of the syndicated program The McLaughlin Group that aired the weekend of July 11-13, while discussing recent comments made by the Rev. Jesse Jackson about Sen. Barack Obama, host John McLaughlin said: "Question: Does it frost Jackson, Jesse Jackson, that someone like Obama, who fits the stereotype blacks once labeled as an Oreo -- a black on the outside, a white on the inside -- that an Oreo should be the beneficiary of the long civil rights struggle which Jesse Jackson spent his lifetime fighting for?"
If I had been a guest on that panel, I think my jaw would have dropped right then. Oreo? Really, that's the best place to take this conversation? To his credit, Peter Beinart does tell McLaughlin that it's an unfair depiction, but McLaughlin perseveres, thinking he's caught Beinart in a rhetorical trap when Beinart dismisses the notion that Obama should give as much weight to issues of discrimination in incarceration.
BEINART: But...Barack Obama doesn't talk about jobs and healthcare? He talks about it all the time. If he wanted to talk about the fact that there are too many people in prison, then you're asking him to do something that will lose him the election. That is politically...no serious political strategist...
MCLAUGHLIN: Oh...oh...oh...[crosstalk]
BEINART: He is a man trying to win the presidency, John.
MCLAUGHLIN: But then he's exactly what Jeremiah Wright says he is. He will do whatever is necessary to win.
So hold up here, McLaughlin. That he doesn't talk about prison rates in the black community but encourages fathers (on Father's Day, mind you) to be present in their children's lives, he's doing whatever is necessary to win? And then you had to give the floor to Pat Buchanan:
MCLAUGHLIN: Does Jackson have a legitimate point?
BUCHANAN: No, he doesn't. I'll tell you why, John. Here's why. What Barack Obama is saying is the message that needs to be heard. It's the Bill Cosby message. It is "Look, this is our responsibility. These are our families. White society is not responsible for our kids dropping out of schools or using drugs or going on welfare. We are." What Jesse Jackson says, is the white community's responsible and they've got to solve our problems.
Oh help me. Stereotype much, Pat? This is what passes as elevated public television political debate in this country. The omnipresent Michelle Bernard tries to get this back on track and get the old guard to catch up on post-race politics:
BERNARD: I want to go back to the point you made about whether or not Barack Obama is an Oreo, because if Barack Obama is an Oreo, then every member of this generation of African Americans is an Oreo, because we stand on the shoulders of the people who fought for our rights and all of us say that you cannot blame "The Man" or white racism for everything that ails the black community.
Pam's House Blend looks at that "nugget of truth"...
UPDATE: Media Matters is circulating a petition to ask John McLaughlin to apologize on air.
Transcripts below the fold:
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When asked for his opinion on the whole Jesse Jackson/Barack Obama dust up, Dan Rather talks about his admiration for the legendary civil rights activists, and says Osama bin Laden wouldn't be possible without him. Say what? 
