After a video conservative news outlets hyped as a racially explosive Obama bombshell turned out to be a public and widely covered 2007 speech by the then-Democratic presidential candidate, The Daily Caller co-founder Tucker Carlson took to Fox News to bash the “throne sniffers” in the media who dismiss the story as old news.
“You are seeing now the press, which contains many reflexive defenders of Obama — many throne sniffers who instinctively suck up to power — you are seeing them try to dismiss this as old news,” Carlson said on “Fox and Friends” Wednesday morning.
Carlson co-wrote The Daily Caller’s 1,500-word piece on the video, pegged as an “exclusive,” and The Drudge Report promoted it with teasers Tuesday afternoon. Carlson then went on Sean Hannity’s Fox News program, which unveiled the video as part of the story’s rollout. Hannity and Carlson claimed Obama spoke with an overtly African American “accent” and accused the federal government of racism. During the speech, Obama addressed the Bush administration’s inadequate response to post-Hurricane Katrina New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, where many black residents remained displaced nearly two years after the storm.
Carlson on Wednesday claimed the original reports of the speech were based on Obama’s prepared remarks, not his more aggressive and ad-libbed delivery.
“It’s very revealing of where the press stands in this election,” he said. “They have by and large taken a side and it’s a subversion of what journalism is supposed to be. It’s wrong.”
Carlson himself — along with NBC News, the Associated Press and others — covered Obama’s remarks in 2007.
Watch the video:
David Taintor
David Taintor is TPM’s News Editor. He contributes to TPM’s Livewire coverage, among other areas. David is from Chanhassen, Minnesota, where, yes, it gets very cold. Reach him at taintor [at] talkingpointsmemo.com
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