Chris Matthews approvingly says 'I forgot he was black' of Obama's speech

Well, at least he didn't say President Obama doesn't speak with a Negro dialect. That phrase, of course, got Senator Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) in hot water recently. 

Reid was apparently trying to be complimentary about Obama's fitness as a presidential candidate. Tonight  MSNBC commentator Chris Matthews, while assessing the State of the Union address, said Obama was a "post-racial" figure whose presence was no longer a surprise or novelty. "I forgot he was black tonight," he said. Check out the video for his remarks.

-- Steve Padilla

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Comments

[sara]

Wow, he really is an idiot. He's the only one that still seems amazed that a black man is our President. Chris just loves to hear his own voice, no matter what stupid thing he is saying.

[Kaleb Miguel Felder]

I'm black and I completely understand what he said, why he said it, and what he meant. However, popular media is going to EAT HIM ALIVE TOMORROW!

[sc]

I saw this comment live and knew it was going to get picked up by the larger media. I like Chris, but he is obsessed with race and has no problem talking about it when often times he should just stop himself by shutting up.

[joe rowe]

Forgot he was black? What in the hell does that mean? Forgot he was black? What an idiot. I suppose that goes with a tingle down his leg.

[ed scott]

What else can you say but..............WOW

[Walter Young]

Comments like this underscore the reality that many Americans,both literate and illiterate,cling to the notion that to "be black" is to be unintelligent or philistinistic. With morons like Chris Matthews leading the way,it is doubtful that we will ever be a "color blind" society. I,too,had forgotten I was black until this idiot reminded me that I am,and always will be in the eyes of the true philistines of this world.

[Jose]

He's still in denial that a Black man has the mental capacity to outsmart a white man like himself. America needs to wake up and ACCEPT the fact that there President is Black. I wish him the best of luck and I hope he continues to make the Black community proud. As a Mexican myself, I only dream that one day we will also have a Hispanic/Latino President but for now I am happy to have Mr Obama.

[don keyhote]

.....RACISM EXISTS IN THE DEEP RECESSES OF OUR MINDS!...WE ALL HAVE TO CONFRONT OUR RACISM AT ONE TIME AND GET ON....TRY TO BE A BETTER PERSON.... C. MATHEWS IS ONLY EXTOLLING THAT DEEP RACISM AND HIS LOQUACIOUS VERBAGE PUTS HIM IN A SPOT SOMETIMES....WE ALL HAVE TO ADMIT PRESIDENT OBAMA IS A GOOD SPEAKER AND HE IS MESMERIZING AT TIMES....I AM A RACIST BUT I CONFRONT THE DEMON IN ME AND DO MY BEST TO AVERT ANY CONFRONTATION THAT BRINGS IT TO THE FORE....I GET ALONG WITH MY REDNECK NEIGHBORS JUST FINE IN THAT REGARD!!

[frank burns]

Sure Kaleb, after all, there are as many black racial bigots as white ones.

[tw]

A comment like that from a BLOND......NO SURPRISE!!!!

[Judy Willis]

Chris seems to forget Obama is 50% black, 50% white. Like everyone else it seems. His biological mother was not at all black. Is everybody on the punch?

[MClift]

Harry Reid and Now Mathews. He really seemed oblivious to any possible ramifications.
Excellent Biting Satire of This:
http://www.politiwit.com/2010/01/chis-mathews-for-hour-i-forgot-you-were.html

[wince...]

There's really no way to spin that comment to avoid making the guy how uttered it NOT look like an idiot.

[Melody]

What an idiot!! Can everyone get over the color of Obama's skin and see him for what he is, our President! He is an extremely intelligent man and in my opinion a great leader. Would everyone stop with the racial crap already, we have more important issues to focus our energy on!

[Uncle Bernie]

I am curious who watches this channel. Now I know-leftists from the media.

[david gonzales]

Chris Matthews, a national TV commentator? I forgot how stupid and nieve he can be.

[jim]

Stand by for the double standard machine to start up. If this were spoken at Fox News, there would be howls in the streets for his firing and advertiser boycotts. But since he said it on a media outlet where "we know the character of their heart", he'll likely get a free pass.

[billyW]

Of course, he voted for him because he IS black, not because he was the party hack from my state of Illinois who won elections by getting opponents off the ballot
Media incomptetence gave us Barry Obama.
he had accomplished nothing except two self serving books
stunning, we must never elect and unqualified man president again

[LKF]

Who is chris matthews?

[Jake]

Get your fangs off Chris's back. He was highlighting how all the race talks during the campaign have withered by Obama's presence.

[Burn]

You wonder why this country is in trouble, when the news report this incident instead of having a real discussion on what he said. What he said, in context, wasn't bad at all. He is talking about the strides he has made in this president as a leader. People still need to admit that a large portion of the country are still rooted in our racial past. I remember pausing the TV last night when they showed a Republican reaction to Obama's speech. It was a group of 30 old white men, not even a woman or minority. I laughed really hard, but I guess it was to make me feel better of the glaring problem in our country.

[Deb]

Chris Matthews proven over the years to be sexist. So it is not suprising that he would make a racially insensitive comment. Will FOX or MSNBC win the cable Darwin awards this year ?

[Jon K.]

People need to let go of the broken era of political correctness.

Political correctness is the Devil because it puts far too much emphasis on the power of words and titles and empowers people who are dysfunctionally over-sensitive.

What Chris Matthews said was no big deal. Look at the intent, not the words. He was commenting on how we are psychologically moving towards a post-racial society... which will be the ultimate celebration of the original intent of the founding of this great nation.

We need to focus a lot more on the things that unite us and much less on the things who divide us.

People who seize upon little words to shame people are extremely petty, self-righteous people.

I put little stock in what they have to say.

[Jon K.]

Kaleb Miguel Felder,

I get the impression that many black political leaders really emphasize the culture of political correctness as a means of shoring up their own power base. It's sad to me because they're betraying the people they claim to be fighting for the hardest by attempting to engrain a culture of shame and victimhood in our society as a means of increasing person power.

We need to move beyond this. People are people and we all need to get along. We all don't need to like each other, but we all should get along and allow people to be different when they want to be.

We should leave it at that.

[SpearHead]

I am glad that we are finally coming out of the closet with the issue of race, I personally get tired of lying people saying they are not this and they are not that when their everyday lives say different. Every-time this fool opens his mouth he proudly sticks his own foot in it. But it is what it is and now he can be seen for who he really is, the a_ _ hole that forgot the president was BLACK.

[msnbc is democratic national headquarters]

anyone remember chris matthews saying he "felt a tingle coming up his leg" during the election when he listened to an obama speech? chris matthews and keith olbermann are not newsmen - they are entertainers like the fat guy in florida.

[new]

I'm black and I see nothing wrong whatsoever with what he said. Matthews only meant there's a feeling now that Obama is just another president, with his color retreating into the background in our consciousness. This means from now onwards it's just a normal thing to have a black man as president, just as it's now so normal to have women vote.

From now a black president will be a president, nothing strange or otherwise about that.

[Mike Butler]

Steve,

Is this really all you could come up with. I want you to imagine yourself in the same position as a liberal journalist and President Bush making a public comment about Colin Powell that because of his accomplishments as a military stratigist "I forgot he was black." Would you post the same six sentence story.

You're a hypocrite.

[Jim]

He did it on purpose to continue to inject race into the debate. No one cares about race, so they have to create a controversy to make it seem like everyone does. All everyone cares about is whether Obama and his friends are going to rape us more, or let us go. Chris Matthews is the lowest form of "news" analyst.

[Jim8]

I think most of the Republican Party is amazed that our president is black. Some are really upset about it.

[jeff]

More proof that 99.5% of White people, of all 'stripes', are racists. Can't tell you how many times I've heard similar comments from truly well meaning folks. It's been bred into American society. It would be easy to play '6 degrees' with this line of thought and the people who hold it.

[Dave]

He isn't. He is an oreo.

[jeff]

'Some of my best friends are Black?" or "You're so reasoned, thoughtful, and non-threatening, I forgot you were Black?" or "You're different than most Black people?
I've lived w/ these sort of comments my whole life and take more than offense to them. It would be truly foolish to think that racism isn't something passed down fron parents/g-parents, of the mid/early 20th century, to many of the White people that smile all up in your face these days. I'm under no such illusion.

[JA]

People completely miss the point, with their fake, unjustified outrage when Harry Reid or Chris Matthews make their verbal gaffes.
Of course, there is such a thing as a "negro dialect" and speaking "like a black man". Anyone that does not understand what this means has been living in a cave, in a place called "denial".
That's not the point though, not at all.
The point is, that all of the celebration (or condemnation, depending) about our first "black President", is false.
Obama is not "black", he's mixed race. He's as white as he is black, yet somehow no one is celebrating his whiteness. Why would they? He's not white either.

He did not grow up in the rural south, or in a northern inner city slum, he grew up in Hawaii, raised by his white mother and grandparents, all of whom were from Kansas, the whitebread capital of the universe.

So, he doesn't speak with a "negro dialect" or like a "black man"? Of course not, why would he?

[ALBERT j. wILSON]

THE AMERICAN PUBLIC IS STILL UNABLE TO ACCEPT A NEGRO,pRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA AS THE DULEY ELECTED PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.ONE VOTER FROM PENNSYLVANIA, DURING THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION WAS QUOTED BY THE PRESS " NOW WE ARE GONIG TO HAVE A BLACK HOUSE INSTEAD OF A WHITE HOUSE" THIS SAME VIEW WAS WAS EXPRESSED BY THE FIRST EUROPEAN EXPLORES THAT TOUCHED THE SHORES OF THE AMERICAN CONTINET."THEY ARE NOT LIKE US" HISTORY BOOKS ARE FILLED WITH THE RESULTS OF THAT FIRST REACTION. CHRIS. mATTHEWS IS SIMPLY COMMING TO GRIPS WITHE THE FACT "HE IS NOT LIKE US"
AND DOESNT HAVE AN ACCENT"hENRY KISSINGER HAD AN ACCENT. nOBODY MENTIONED IT, HE WAS WHITE. hE WORKED IN A wHITE hOUSE THAT WAS BUILT BY BLACK LABOR. " THEY ARE NOT LIKE US"
ALBERT j. WILSON

[Jimi Wilson]

What a freaking idiot! Did he get a thrill up his leg while he made this comment?

[sophie]

When a white person speaks articulately, is highly intelligent, speaks fairly, etc., do we think "wow, I forgot he's white"? No, because the media, popular culture and our society allow us the opportunity to understand that there is great variety within the white race, and that the white race is somehow free of constraints of race. However, we are not given that opportunity for other races, which are presented with stereotypes to us.

[Stan Barry]

Hmm. I forgot Matthews was still on TV!

[jeff]

See, most White Americans are closet/unconscious racists; a legacy of 20th century parents/g-parents who were MOSTLY racists and lived in the 'good 'ol' Jim Crow days of official discrimination. You, know, the days Glenn 'Beaver Cleaver' Beck pines for?;the old lynching, job/housing disciminating, official government racism, days that he sheds tears for.? Is this you?

[Dick]

Maybe not but still knew he was a liberal.

[IWMPB]

I'm not sure many people realize he served as a speech writer for President Carter, worked on the staff of four Democrat members of Congress and was a top aide to Tip O'Neill for six year. Hardly leaves you with the impression that you can expect him to be fair and balanced. Poor judgement is another discussion entirely.

www.iwantmypartyback.org

[Almost_Angeleno]

Depending on how you feel about any particular person, or where you stand politically, whether you're the ethnic/racial subject being referred to, or what kind of mood you got up in...one will always try to find the negative racial angle in everything.

[Tara]

Well, Chris, he is. The first ever to lead this country. It's an historic fact. If you 'forgot' that he is Black perhaps you thought that he is White?!

[C. Nelson]

So Matthews noted the fact that Obama was black and it didn't seem to be an issue. Well, duh. It's not an issue and never has been, except to some liberals who are endlessly obsessed with race-based identities.

[el chapulin]

Chris Matthews is one of the primary reasons why MSNBC is pretty much irrelevant and gets kicked around EVERY night by Fox. He is in love first with himself and the nonsense he repeatedly spews and second he is in love with Obama ("I get a tingle up my leg when I hear him talk"). I get a much different reaction when I hear Obama speak. It's called disgust. The Amateur Hour at the White House has given way to the Amateur Year and counting. After a year pretty much wasted on healthcare reform, now the genius is going to focus on jobs, something that should have been the priority all along. Except Obama DOESN'T know how to create jobs. Matthews better put his seat belt on. The ride will get quite bumpy for him and other ultra-left "newsmen" when conservatives sweep through the November elections.

[KD]

Kaleb I'm black, and I can't for the life of me understand why he said that. Why is it such an unusually strange phenomenon for a black man to be able to clearly enunciate, and to convey his message in an articulate manner. Stop and think about it people. Just as you wouldn't see a person of any other ethnicity who can't enunciate and speak clearly and intelligently holding the office of POTUS (GWB notwithstanding), you aren't going to see a black person holding that office either. News flash: If you're a homie, thug, gangbanger, redneck, or vato, ya ain't gonna be no Prezidunt ov da Undid Stats

[jenn]

Kaleb, as a black woman I don't know what statement shocks me more, yours or Chris'. Then again I would have to go with yours because nothing from the media involving race shocks me anymore because it is almost expected. There is no way of sugar coating the meaning of Chris Matthews statement and it was both offensive and ignorant. Since you "completely" understand what he said, why he said it, and what he meant why don't you help me in doing the same.

[Michael]

I am black and understand completely what Chris Matthews meant by this comment.

I interpreted Chris' comment to mean that President Obama addresses issues relevant to ALL AMERICANS without emphasizing his racial makeup.

I was remarking to a colleague this morning that the problem with Jesse Jackson's rhetoric in the late 80s and early 90s was that Mr. Jackson emphasized his "blackness" whereas Mr. Obama emphasized America [as he did so well in 2004].

[cshargeit]

whatever color he is, it doesn't seem to matter what he says. he, as well as we, know he is teflon-protected. this country is in decline.

[Jim]

Pres. Obama is a strong leader and fabulous communicator. He leads a divided nation in the grip of a Recession nearly as deep as the Depression of Roosevelt's era. He appeals to the "better angels" of our nature. He has the respect of the entire world outside of the USA. I could not ask for a better president in these difficult times. His mixed racial background is irrelevant.