Andrea Mitchell’s Revelation to GOP Congressman: ‘You and I Are Both White’
MSNBC host Andrea Mitchell on Thursday brought the specter of bigotry into Representative Peter King's hearings on the threat of radical Islam in America. While interviewing Congressman Dan Lungren of California she awkwardly hinted, ” Well, you know, you and I are both white .” The irritated Republican wondered, “What does that mean?” Mitchell lectured, “I'm just asking, get in their heads for a second and try to think about how it is to be a Muslim-American facing these kinds- this kind of testimony today. That's all I want to know.” In an earlier segment, the Andrea Mitchell Reports host casually insisted that the hearings are “a great lesson against the dangers of over-generalizing, of generalizing at all about particular groups.” [See video below. MP3 audio here .] Correspondent Kelly O'Donnell appeared with the anchor and offered a similarly condescending tone. Highlighting the guests that King called to speak about the threat of Islamic fundamentalism, O'Donnell asserted, “We have been hearing from some experts and I use that word with almost quotations around it, because the expert qualifications have been challenged ” O'Donnell found some of King's witnesses to be suspect because they were relating “personal stories.” FoxNews.com described one such witness: Melvin Bledsoe, whose son allegedly attacked an Army recruiting center in Arkansas, said in written testimony — which Fox News has seen — that Americans are ignoring the issue. “There is a big elephant in the room, but our society continues not to see it. This wrong is caused by political correctness. You can even call it political fear,” he said. Bledsoe plans to describe how his son, Carlos, was radicalized when he went off to college in Nashville, Tenn. In his testimony, he explained how his son's personality changed and how, when he returned home for the holidays in 2005, he told his family he converted to Islam. From that point, he changed his name and eventually traveled to Yemen. A transcript of the first segment and a partial transcript of the segment one, both of which aired on March 10, follow: 1:05 ANDREA MITCHELL: NBC News correspondent Kelly O'Donnell is on the hill. Kelly, what is the outcome of all of this? What have we learned today? KELLY O'DONNELL: I think we've clearly seen how exposed emotions and raw nerves are on display here for nearly four hours now. It is so unusual to see the validity and the appropriateness of the hearing to be challenged throughout the hearing. And that's the sense you got with that exchange between the Chairman, Peter King and Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas. We have been hearing from some experts and I use that word with almost quotations around it, because the expert qualifications have been challenged as well, of people who have come forward to say a loved one of theirs was radicalized by groups to do harm to the United States. More personal stories. There's that part of it. There's been a witness who has been talking about the need for more cooperation within the Muslim-American community, to not have political correctness, is the phrase often being used, to hinder cooperation. On the other side, we had really emotional and exceedingly unusual testimony from Congressman Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected to Congress, who spoke with such emotion, as you showed a portion of that at the beginning of the program. He was trying to say, as many others are,
Posted by
on March 10, 2011. Filed under