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Contessa Brewer does a good job of taking RNC Chairman wanna' be Chip Saltsman to task when he attempts to blame the controversy over the CD containing the racist song "Barack the Magic Negro" he distributed, on the media.

Brewer: Chip the analysts though say you can't win an election on white votes alone now. It's impossible to do and you sent RNC members a Christmas CD that included the parody, that song Barack the Magic Negro. I mean how in the world could you lead Republicans in appealing to minority voters when you did something that even Newt Gingrich called so inappropriate it should disqualify any Republican National Committee candidate who would do this?

Saltsman: You know I think it highlighted a couple things. One that we're definitely not playing on a level playing ground with the media on that issue. I mean there was no outrage when the L.A. Times article coined that phrase and I don't remember the national media calling David... (crosstalk)

Brewer: You're blaming the media for bringing attention to it?

Saltsman: Contessa I'm asking you. Were you outraged when you read the article in the L.A. Times a year and a half ago? (crosstalk)

Brewer: I'm asking you what you were thinking when you sent that CD out?

Saltsman: It was a parody Christmas gift and I sent it out without even thinking about what was on it. I've been friends with Paul Shanklin for a lot of years and sent out a lot of his stuff over the years. Obviously when you do something like that you don't want to offend a lot of people when you do. That's something you don't want to do um and you know hopefully we'll move on, talk about the future of the party but this is obviously something that wasn't helpful.

Brewer: Can you understand why?

Saltsman: Sure. Oh absolutely Contessa. Absolutely. Absolutely. But I think we've also got to understand as you look at the media's reaction to it there is no level playing ground because this was a, this was a parody based on a newspaper article...(crosstalk).

Brewer: There's not going to be an opportunity to shoot the messenger. It was an offensive CD to send out and people I think are right to be offended by it.

Saltsman: Well.

Brewer: Alright. Thank you.

Saltsman: I think there's some people that, yeah, I understand that.

Brewer: Good luck in your race for the Chairmanship of the RNC. Thank you for your time.

Saltsman. Good. Thank you. Yes ma'am.

December 30, 2008 News Corp

BILLO: Impact Segment tonight, a viewer warning, there is a satire called "Barack the Magic Negro" that will offend some people, no doubt about it. But in order for us to report on this, we have to play some of the satire, so be forewarned.

The parody is by Paul Shanklin, who writes comedy material for Rush Limbaugh among others. The problem is that Chip Saltsman, a former Tennessee Republican chairman, has sent Shanklin's satire to some RNC members, and that is causing some concern. Roll the tape ...

Dave N: Yes, it deeply pains BillO to run this tape. After playing it, Larry Elder tries to pretend that liberals say similar things all the time and get away with it (right).

None of the guests seem to remember that as soon as Barack Obama was elected, the airwaves were filled with right-wingers -- from Bill Bennett to Sarah Palin to Michelle Bachmann -- talking about how Obama's election made them feel good about America and themselves because it was such a racial landmark and how it proved racism was now dead in America. Talk about a magic Negro!

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Larry Elder makes a fool of himself defending the GOP distributing the racist CD on Anderson Cooper 360.

ELDER: It's much ado about nothing. Let's remember the genesis of this, there was an article Anderson, in the "L.A. Times" calls "Barack the magic Negro." It was not written by a conservative, in which he made the argument that the reason that people appeal to Barack Obama is that he's not offensive, he's not scary, he's not a criminal, and that's why whites like him.

Limbaugh then did a parody to, as you pointed out, "Puff the Magic Dragon," but the parody really was a Sharpton-like singer. And what the Sharpton-like singer was saying is, I'm unhappy that all these white people like Obama, because if Obama wins, what the hell am I going to do for a living? And so that's what this was. If anybody ought to be offended, it's Al Sharpton.

What bothers me, Anderson, is this whole piece. Democrats say things that are racist or at least racially insensitive about Republicans all the time.

Donna Brazile, who works for your network, once referred to the Republican Party as having a white-boy study.

Howard Dean once said, well, if Republicans were here at this convention, Democrats -- blacks were -- Republicans were here, the only blacks here would be serving tables.

Claire McCaskill running for senate said, George W. Bush let people suffer and die on rooftops in Katrina because they were poor and they were black.

Charlie Rangel, the head of the house and ways committee --

COOPER: You're saying a double standard?

ELDER: -- said that Republicans want taxes. They don't say "N" word or "s" word anymore, they just say, let's cut taxes. They make blatant racist appeals all the time that you let a Republican do a parody, and the fit hits the shan (ph). It's nuts, Anderson.

No Larry what's nuts is calling anyone who points out that the Republican party is full of racists "racially insensitive" or making "blatent racist appeals". I'll say it's becoming increasingly unnecessary to point that out to anyone since the GOP is doing a fine job all on its own of making sure that racism is in your face.

ELDER: It was -- Ms. Rosen, it was satire. And I don't think you want to go over the racist history of the Democratic Party; the party that was opposed to the 13th, the 14th, the 15th amendment, the party that founded the Klan. I'm not defending Republicans' insensitivity in the last two years. They were wrong.

ROSEN: What are you defending?

ELDER: If you want to go over the history of the party, the Democratic Party is a party, historically --

Well Larry you also forgot to point out that those Democrats you're talking about became Republicans.

Full transcript below the fold.

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Don Lemon talks to Reid Wilson and Lynn Sweet about the CD distributed by Chip Saltsman which included the Barack the Magic Negro song. The absolute tone deafness out of Saltsman is pretty astounding given that the GOP pretends that they would like to figure out how to improve race relations within their ranks and with voters and become more inclusive. This just set them back a step as noted by Wilson and Sweet. If they want be the party that embraces Rush Limbaugh and his racist "jokes" I look forward to them continuing to shrink those red spots on the electoral map until there's little or nothing left of them.

Over at MSNBC another African American news anchor, Tamron Hall, was not quite as reserved as Don Lemon on CNN with her criticism of the CD and portraying it as a "parody". She let conservative pundit Kate Obershain know just how listening to this garbage made her feel as reported by Think Progress.

Full transcript and video of Hall from Think Progress below the fold.

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