Former long-time CBS Evening News anchor Dan Rather is no stranger to controversy (and that is putting it quite mildly). And, once again, it seems Rather finds himself in the middle of some stuff:
As a guest on The Chris Matthews Show, the following comment was heard:
DAN RATHER: Part of the undertow in the coming election is going to be President Obama’s leadership. And the Republicans will make a case and a lot of independents will buy this argument. ‘Listen he just hasn’t been, look at the health care bill. It was his number one priority. It took him forever to get it through and he had to compromise it to death.’ And a version of, ‘Listen he’s a nice person, he’s very articulate‘ this is what’s been used against him, ‘but he couldn’t sell watermelons if it, you gave him the state troopers to flag down the traffic.’
Are these comments from Rather fair or foul?
First, Rather speaks of President Obama as being articulate. Now, how often do you hear someone who is white complimented for being articulate? Uh, he graduated from Columbia and Harvard.
Second, he invokes the infamous word “watermelon” in his comments. One would think Rather would be smart enough to avoid using a word saturated by historically negative racial stereotypes.
Chris Matthews tried to rescue Rather at the end, but the damage was already done.
