Fox News Chief Roger Ailes, never seems to tire of flinging vile and inaccurate accusations at others, and this week is no exception. According to his new biography, Ailes alleges that President Obama is “lazy.” Mediaite.com quotes Ailes as saying that Obama “never worked a day in his life” and “never earned a penny that wasn’t public money.” He chided the president for playing golf and basketball so often while having to deal with important issues. “He’s lazy, but the media won’t report that,” Ailes reportedly told the biographer.
Ironically, just last month, Ailes accused the President of trying to get “everybody to hate each other,” as Ailes told The New Republic‘s Eliza Gray. “The president likes to divide people into groups,” he said. “He’s too busy getting the middle class to hate rich people, blacks to hate whites. He is busy trying to get everybody to hate each other.”
Really Mr. Ailes? It is the President who is trying to be divisive and make us hate one another? It is the President who is race baiting? So you didn’t mean to imply that the President is a taker, not a maker? I think Colin Powell’s comments made in a January Meet the Press interview in response to a past governor calling the President “lazy” bears repeating in light of Mr. Ailes’ recent remarks.
“When I see a former governor say that the President is “shuckin’ and jivin’,” that’s a racial era slave term. When I see another former governor after the president’s first debate where he didn’t do very well, say that the president was lazy. He didn’t say he was slow. He was tired. He didn’t do well. He said he was lazy. Now, it may not mean anything to most Americans, but to those of us who are African Americans, the second word is shiftless and then there’s a third word that goes along with that,” Powell eloquently stated. Too bad his words didn’t resonate for Roger.
Yes Mr. Ailes, the President is black. Thank you for noticing. Now please retreat to your old boy’s club, order a drink, and toast to your antiquated attitudes and incongruent theories. Thankfully, you and yours are a dying breed, and thus far the observably false and inflammatory allegations you make serve simply to engendered more loyalty and love for a President who is under constant attack simply for being black. The 2012 election results are proof of that. Paradoxical, isn’t it?