Fox News host Bob Beckel's snide condescension toward Native American opposition to the Dakota Access Pipeline proves he has not changed his racist, Vichy-Democrat stripes in the year and a half that he was gone from the network.
On The Five today, the five white cohosts discussed Donald Trump's plan to expedite the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) that the Army had sidetracked under President Obama after vehement protests over potential water contamination and the damage of sacred tribal sites.
Beckel was supposedly there as the lone liberal on the totally fair and balanced five-person panel. But he's never been a reliable liberal voice and he has a long record of insensitivity and worse toward people of color. Now, Beckel dismissed Native American objections to DAPL by suggesting that they have nothing to complain about - because casinos.
BECKEL: I spent a lot of time in Indian reservations, in casinos. And they have made a fortune on casinos. Good for them. I'm all for it.
[...]
My point is that the idea of getting in this fight over something that really is not - they're not gonna stop it. It does not have the implications they say it does, and when they talk about the indigenous people, these people are now building casinos left and right and good for them.
Of course, Trumpster cohost Eric Bolling didn't care about the Native point of view. He declared the pipeline the safest and cleanest way to transport oil and then crowed about all the economic benefits. Ever the bully, he sneered, "You should be happy about that, liberals."
Cohost Kimberly Guilfoyle was another sore winner. She sneered, "And the markets sure loves it. Sorry, Jane [Fonda]. Record high."
And how did Beckel "balance" this Trumpsterism? By, essentially agreeing with it.
BECKEL: You know the other thing I'll say about this is, it is amazing how much oil and gas is trucked around this country every day and shipped around and there's no accidents, I give them a lot of credit for that.
Cohost Dana Perino offered her white, conservative perspective: "I think that if the tribes look at this and think it is going to happen anyway, then they should try to cut a deal. Because they would be able to get a better deal under President Trump than they would have with President Obama," she said.
But Beckel may have been the worst when he suggested that a casino was a fair exchange for water and sacred land.
BECKEL: Well there's 20 applications for casinos sitting there. That's a good deal, pipeline - 20 casinos.
Watch what passes for a liberal on Fox News below, from the January 25, 2017 The Five, via Media Matters.
The main new state law the Right is piling into North Dakota is one that says that if a driver runs over one of the protesters “inadvertently”, then it’s the protester’s fault.
I believe that this situation could become violent in a hurry – and not by the protesters. North Dakota is now looking to be a place where we really see principled people being physically assaulted on a level we have not encountered since the 1960s. I don’t think it’s alarmist to be concerned about what the Right intends to do here. It’s clear to me that they intend to instigate a confrontation and then use that as an excuse to brutally assault anyone that disagrees with them.
