Somebody emailed me this link to the video where Newt Gingrich decided to see how Juan Williams’ liver tasted:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ka0LMt5ciRc
Transcript and discussion after the fold.Well, a taste from the transcript:
[Juan] WILLIAMS: Speaker Gingrich, you recently said black Americans should demand jobs, not food stamps. You also said poor kids lack a strong work ethic and proposed having them work as janitors in their schools. Can’t you see that this is viewed, at a minimum, as insulting to all Americans, but particularly to black Americans?
[Newt] GINGRICH: No. I don’t see that.
(APPLAUSE)
Look, I like Juan Williams, often despite of himself. I think that he makes a good-faith effort to deny what every liberal instinct in his body tells him about conservatives sometimes and actually treat us like human beings. And the Online Left whines about him a lot, which is always a plus in my book. Still. Williams deliberately walked into a buzz-saw there – especially since the venue was South Carolina; the state GOP is really not interested in being lectured on racial harmony by outsiders, particularly since they just elected an Indian-American woman Governor and an African-American man to Congress. So I can’t be too upset that it ended badly for Juan: the man knew the risks.
Moe Lane
I’ve always liked Williams, he strikes me as one of those “honest Liberals”, even when he can’t resist defending Obama against all charges. He really made himself look bad with that race-baiting though.
I almost felt bad for Williams until I remember he brought it onto himself.
I’ve seen this called Newt’s “I paid for this microphone” moment already. I think that’s going a bit far, unless Newt now goes on to win South Carolina and the nomination.
South Carolina is a bad place for Democrats to lecture Republicans on issues of race, period. It’s where they started their literal revolt that ended with Republicans chased out of office so they could impose Jim Crow without any pesky pre-existing office holders to worry about.
I’d say that’s gonna leave a mark… but it won’t. Juan Williams was playing a role, both for the cameras and his liberal buddies. He got smacked for it like he was supposed to. He knows what he was doing, and so does everybody else. Political Vaudeville, nothing more, nothing less.