In a third segment in which Bill O’Reilly used Martin Luther King Day to play the racial victim last night, he hosted Bernard Goldberg specifically to attack journalists who expressed concerns that Republican racism will be a part of the 2012 race. Unfortunately for O’Reilly, Goldberg hilariously shot himself in the foot with a failed attempt to look racially hip. Goldberg brought a photo (undoubtedly Photoshopped) of him posing with Ice Cube. But Goldberg mistakenly and repeatedly called Ice Cube “Ice-T” and O’Reilly had to correct him.
Nevertheless, O’Reilly explicitly used Martin Luther King as an excuse to attack racial sensitivity.
O’Reilly: Isn’t it a shame that we have to talk about this stuff on Martin Luther King’s birthday, when that man was so inclusive. He wanted everybody to join together to have a better society, a more fair society, which is why the federal holiday is dedicated to him. Isn’t it a shame we have to be talking about this garbage on this day?
Goldberg: I’ll tell you what else is a shame. It’s that liberals… can’t see anything except through a prism of race. They fancy themselves progressives but they haven’t progressed one inch from the bad old days of segregation and Jim Crow. And I’ll tell you, Bill, I’m starting to think that these people are laying the groundwork for an Obama loss. That way they can say the only reason, the only reason Barack Obama didn’t win re-election is because of these racist bigots who are all over America and threw the election to the Republican candidate. It’s pathetic… on this day or any other day.
O’Reilly: But it is happening big time and it is ramping up, now that Romney looks to be the guy that’s going to run against the president. He is going to be portrayed, as you said, as the favorite of the bigoted class. And where was this class when Barack Obama was elected and beat John McCain, another white guy, right? I mean, I don’t know where they were then but I guess they’re back with a vengeance.
Goldberg: …A certain kind of liberal is going to yell ‘racism’ whenever somebody disagrees with President Obama. It can’t possibly be that conservatives don’t like him because of his policies. That is something that is beyond their comprehension… As I’ve said before, it is doing a lot of harm and it’s a shame that it’s liberals who are at the forefront of this Civil Rights movement who are trashing an important word like racism. They are trashing it. They are turning it into just mush.