It took Ann Coulter roughly three sentences to ruffle Whoopi Goldberg's feathers on Thursday's "View."
The controversial conservative pundit appeared on the ABC daytime talk show to promote her new book, "Mugged," in which she argues that civil rights only "belong to blacks" because the U.S. "has a legacy of slavery." She also writes that the O.J. Simpson trial verdict was "good for America."
As Coulter started to discuss her book, Goldberg grew seemingly frustrated.
"What are you talking about?" she demanded. Coulter attempted to continue, but Goldberg cut her off.
"Oh you know what, hold up Ms. Coulter, please stop. Please stop," Goldberg said. "If you are going to talk about race, at least, at least, know what you're talking about."
"What don't I know?" Coulter asked.
"Well tell me what you know about being black," Goldberg said. "Your facts are a little shaky. I mean, you're saying that because liberals have abandoned black people now—what? I don't get it. I don't understand."
"I don't think liberals ever cared about black people," Coulter said. "Five minutes after the Civil Rights Act of 1964, they start calling everything that has nothing to do with black people a civil rights issue: abortion on demand, homeless rights."
Goldberg seemed to have had enough as Coulter continued answering more questions. She was eventually bleeped out when responding to Coulter, appearing to have used the word "bullshit."
Rick Perry is skipping this weekend’s celebration and unveiling of the new MLK memorial in Washington, D.C. (No surprise there.)
Instead, Perry will be heading to Fredericksburg, Texas to attend a “call to action” retreat/fundraiser, where he will hobknob with religious nutbag and self-styled historian David Barton.
According to a Washington Monthly article in January 2010, Barton, the former head of the Texas Republican Party, and Peter Marshall, who the article described as “a Massachusetts-based preacher who has argued that California wildfires and Hurricane Katrina were God’s punishment for tolerating gays,” had even more ideas in mind when they testified before the Texas Education Assembly. Per the Washington Monthly:
As Barton put it, “Only majorities can expand political rights in America’s constitutional society.” Ergo, any rights people of color have were handed to them by whites–in his view, mostly white Republican men.
I just watched Joy Reid make an excellent point on Al Sharpton’s show, and that is (in my words): If right-wing nutbags are going to keep pounding the Jeremiah Wright/”Goddamn America!” drum (and you know they will, even though they can’t explain how Barack Obama is simultaneously a secret Muslim and an America-hating Christian), then Democrats need to make sure that Rick Perry is held accountable for the racist and utterly absurd views of his BFF, David Barton.
Beck denies the claim and says he plans to “salute Dr. King and the civil rights movement” at the rally. But Beck seriously hurt his civil rights credibility on his Fox News show yesterday when he used a quote from a 1966 speech by former Eisenhower Secretary of Agriculture Ezra Taft Benson to justify his claims that communists are infesting America:
BENSON: “You Americans are so gullible. No, you won’t accept communism outright; but we’ll keep feeding you small doses of socialism until you’ll finally wake up and find that you already have communism. We won’t have to fight you; we’ll so weaken your economy, until you fall like overripe fruit into our hands.”
BECK: Are we here? We were warned that the communists were not going to go away. They were just getting started. Ezra Taft Benson knew that serious threat. He saw it first hand. He knew communists were in the government. He knew they were in the government.
Beck then went on to favorably cite disgraced Sen. Joseph McCarthy and his claim to have in his “possession the names of 57 communists who are in the State Department.” Watch it:
Who is Ezra Taft Benson? He’s a former Mormon Church apostle who, according to his AP obituary, was “closely identified with the John Birch Society” and “once told a reporter he could not see how a person could be both a liberal and a good Mormon.” He also once called the civil rights movement “a communist program for revolution in America.” [Associated Press, 5/31/1994] Benson also authored a pamphlet titled “Civil Rights — Tool of Communist Deception” and reportedly referred to Martin Luther King Jr. as the “Communist leader of the so-called civil rights movement.”
This isn’t the first time Beck has invoked this Benson quote about communism. Beck biographer Alexander Zaitchick writes:
On the morning of October 31, 2008, Beck played for his radio audience a scratchy recording from the 1960s. He set up the clip by identifying the voice on the tape belonging to Dwight Eisenhower’s secretary of agriculture, Ezra Taft Benson. While serving in that position, Beck explained, Benson had met with Nikita Khruschchev during one of the Soviet premier’s visits to the United States. In that meeting, Benson claimed to have gained valuable insight into the global communist conspiracy. Three days before the election, Beck was eager to share Benson’s insight with his audience. “Listen carefully,” said Beck. The voice on the tape began to speak:
I have talked face-to-face with the godless communist leaders, though I still feel it was a mistake to welcome this atheistic murderer as a state visitor. As we talked face-to-face, [Khruschchev] said to me, “You Americans are so gullible. No, you won’t accept communism outright. But we’ll keep feeding you small doses of socialism until you wake up and find you already have communism. We don’t have to fight you. We’ll so weaken your economy until you fall like overripe fruit into our hands.”
Beck stopped the tape there and asked, “Is that where we’re headed?” He quickly answered his own question. “I contend we’re already there, gang.” In fact, Beck had proof that we were already there. He then played an audio clip of a giddy African American woman who had just left a Barack Obama campaign speech.
“It was the most memorable time of my life,” she says. “It was a touching moment. I won’t have to worry about gas or mortgage. If I help him, he’s gonna help me.
In these words, Beck heard the fulfillment of Khruschchev’s threat, as relayed by the grandfatherly seer, Ezra Taft Benson. “I never thought this day would happen,” said Beck, as if extraterrestrials had just landed a spaceship in Central Park.
Beck’s decision to feature Benson on his show was a revealing one. As Beck knew quite well, Benson was not just a member of Eisenhower’s cabinet. He was a notoriously illiberal Mormon Church president who helped pioneer Mormonism’s apocalyptic hard-right strain, which Beck latched on to and appropriated following his conversion. Had Beck allowed the tape of Benson’s lecture to continue, it is possible that listeners would have heard Benson ask, “When are we going to wake up? What do you know about the dangerous civil rights agitation in Mississippi?” Or they might have heard the sound of Benson’s voice railing against “traitors within the church” who criticized the mixing of religion and extreme right-wing politics.
Update From a November 8, 1985 New York Times article, via Nexis:
In a speech in Logan, Utah in 1963, he said civil rights campaigns in Mississippi were ''fomented almost entirely by Communists.'' Legislation then proposed to protect the liberties of black people, he said, was ''about 10 percent civil rights and 90 percent a further extension of socialistic Federal controls.'' No long after that he was sent to supervise missions in Europe.
In 1965, on returning to Salt Lake City, Mr. Benson spoke at a church conference. ''When are we going to wake up?'' he asked. ''What do you know about the dangerous civil rights agitation in Mississippi? Do you fear the destruction of all vestiges of state government?''
