Only a Fox News show would take a quote from President Obama saying that race relations in the country are getting better – and use it as an excuse to mount racial attacks on him.

O’Reilly Factor host Eric Bolling ignored the racist scandal brewing around incoming House Majority Whip Steve Scalise. Since getting caught speaking to a white supremacy group, solid evidence has surfaced to indicate the talk was not the one-off mistake Scalise tried to spin it as. The Daily Beast’s Michael Tomasky notes that Scalise twice voted against a Martin Luther King Jr. holiday in Louisiana and was part of an “extreme, racialized white faction in the Louisiana state house” that opposed it.

So it’s especially nauseating to see Fox give a pass to Scalise at the same time that it seizes on Obama’s innocuous comments and racially attack him, Attorney General Eric Holder and Al Sharpton all over again. 

Bolling played the clip of an upcoming NPR interview in which Obama was asked if America is more divided than when he took office six years ago. Obama replied, “No, I actually think that it’s probably in its day-to-day interactions less racially divided but I actually think that the issue has surfaced in a way that probably is healthy.”

There’s no doubt that Fox’s professional Obama haters would have erupted in 24/7 racial finger-pointing about not loving America, and having a “grievance” had Obama said he thinks the country is more racially divided.

But now that Obama has said exactly what Fox would have otherwise demanded, they’re attacking him anyway – and in the ugliest possible way.

Guest host Eric Bolling – with a race baiting history of his own – opened the segment by citing the Ferguson, New York and other protests and asking, “How can the president possibly say things are better now than six years ago?”

Bolling was addressing Fox News contributor Deneen Borelli. Borelli’s main role on Fox News seems to be as an African American black attacker. She didn’t waste a second getting right to it here.

Borelli: What the president can’t do is ignore the facts and that is what he’s doing. When you look at Ferguson, for example, President Obama inserted himself into that issue. President Obama is part of the problem. He sent Eric Holder down there with 40 FBI agents, Obama’s speech before the U.N. – he made it an international issue as well... Obama is part of the problem. There’s also Al Sharpton who’s there in the White House over 61 times and has the ear of top officials in the White House. A known race baiter – which is absolutely outrageous.

I’m an admirer of Democrat Simon Rosenberg, the other guest, but I will never understand why he did not call out Fox on its dishonest and poisonous tactics. Especially since Borelli went on to accuse Obama of “playing the race card” when he had just done the exact opposite.

BORELLI: We have a president who is pushing the narrative that our country is racist. ‘We have racism that’s rampant in America.’ And that’s just not true. And that is what’s adding to this social unrest. Obama has missed a great opportunity to unite our country. He’s playing the race card. It’s a dangerous thing to do. We witnessed it with individuals who are coming out against the police force. My goodness! What you don’t do is pit Americans against our law enforcement and pit Americans against white versus black.

Racial divisiveness is Fox’s specialty. Isn’t it time for the Democrats who go on Fox to start confronting them about it?

Watch the Karl Rovian tactics below, from the January 2 The O'Reilly Factor.