A Gross Cookie Analogy

After watching Hillary get ripped apart by the media, this should infuriate all of us. On this weekend's edition of the The McLaughlin Group, John McLaughlin described Barack Obama as an oreo cookie--"a black on the outside, a white on the inside."



The comments were made during a discussion of Rev. Jesse Jackson's hot-mic comments about wanting to castrate Senator Obama. Here is a transcript from Media Matters:

McLAUGHLIN: OK, let's nail this thing down, and here's a sample of what Jackson apparently sees as Obama disparaging the black community.

OBAMA [video clip]: If we're honest with ourselves, we'll admit that too many fathers are also missing. Too many fathers are MIA. Too many fathers are AWOL. Missing from too many lives and too many homes. They've abandoned their responsibilities. They're acting like boys instead of men. And the foundations of our family have suffered because of it. You and I know this is true everywhere, but nowhere is it more true than in the African-American community.

McLAUGHLIN: 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? Peter Beinart.

BEINART: Who knows what Jesse Jackson is thinking? But that's a completely unfair depiction of Barack Obama, who -- the genius of Barack Obama is that he moves seamlessly between the African-American world and the white world in a way that even Bill Clinton couldn't possibly match. And the tragedy of this experience is that you know who's spoken very eloquently for many, many years about personal responsibility in the black community? Jesse Jackson. He of all people should recognize, in fact, that what Barack Obama is saying is not contrary to the message of the civil rights movement, it is keeping with that message.

Mr. McLaughlin's characterizations of Rev. Jackson as the angry black man and Senator Obama as the oreo are completely inappropriate and he needs to apologize for them. To register your protest with The McLaughlin Group, visit the About Us for contact information. Or click on this direct email link. You can also visit the Ombudsman Column at pbs.org. Michael Getler serves as an "independent internal critic" who reviews complaints and monitors content. You can contact him via his feedback page.

[UPDATED by psychodrew at 1:47 am EST]

From PBS's website:

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The Ombudsman addressed complaints about the McLaughlin Group in December, but added this:

Also, the McLaughlin Group is not a PBS program, although it normally appears on more than 200 PBS-affiliated stations. PBS member stations are free to purchase programs from other distributors such as, in this case, Oliver Productions of Washington, DC. The program also airs in the New York and Washington, DC, areas on NBC.