Fox's Brad Blakeman wants to blame President Obama for any future violence that might break out at protests over the George Zimmerman verdict because he dared to give a speech on race relations this week.
July 20, 2013

As John Amato wrote about at C&L last week, conservatives and Fox have been just hoping and praying we were going to see some violence following the verdict in the George Zimmerman case. They haven't gotten their wish yet, but it's not stopping them from placing the blame squarely on President Obama if they finally do.

Susie already discussed the fact that that President Obama gave a "perfectly calm, rational and compassionate speech" about Trayvon Martin and race relations in the wake of the verdict, and the fact that "the calmer he is, the crazier the whack jobs get." Well, here's your dose of crazy from Fox on a Friday evening.

Fox "news" regular and former Bushie Brad Blakeman was asked by O'Reilly guest host Mike Huckabee about Fox's favorite talking point of the week, which is that because race wasn't used by the prosecution or the judge, or others in the Zimmerman trial, we must assume that race is not related to the case at all, and therefore no one is allowed to talk about race in regard to the case... ever -- much less the President.

HUCKABEE: Brad, race is an issue in this country, but race was not an issue in the Trayvon Martin case, at least according to everyone who took a good, honest hard look at it. My question is, wouldn't it have been better for the President to stand up and say race was not an issue in the Trayvon Martin case, so we shouldn't bring it into it, but race is an issue in this country and let's talk about it?

BLAKEMAN: There's no question about it Governor and especially when the President knows that this weekend, there are marches planned and there's demonstrations planned over this verdict that are strictly racially toned. He knows that for a fact, so why in the world would the President then come out prior to these demonstrations and add gas to a fire that should have never been lit.

As you correctly pointed out, there is not one cent ever of evidence, induced in this trial, that said there was race as a motivation. As a matter of fact, the only evidence of race being injected into this tragic event, was from Trayvon himself, who called George Zimmerman a “creepy ass cracker.” Other than that there was no evidence at all.

After their lone “liberal” guest pointed out that President Obama spoke highly of the judicial system and called for peaceful protests during his remarks, Blakeman blew him off and decided to double down on the idiocy instead.

BLAKEMAN: The President should never have injected himself to begin with. This had nothing to do with race. The President knows that there are demonstrations happening this weekend, and if anything, the President incited... incited any violence that takes place over this weekend by his comments that race was somehow involved.

I guess you can give them credit for at least being consistent. No matter what happens, anything that goes wrong is always Obama's fault.

h/t Media Matters

Can you help us out?

For nearly 20 years we have been exposing Washington lies and untangling media deceit, but now Facebook is drowning us in an ocean of right wing lies. Please give a one-time or recurring donation, or buy a year's subscription for an ad-free experience. Thank you.

Discussion

We welcome relevant, respectful comments. Any comments that are sexist or in any other way deemed hateful by our staff will be deleted and constitute grounds for a ban from posting on the site. Please refer to our Terms of Service for information on our posting policy.
Mastodon