Fox News pundit Glenn Beck (r.) called President Obama a 'racist' during a 'Fox and Friends' morning show on Tuesday.
NYDailyNews Reports
Fox News Channel executives are distancing themselves from controversial — and popular — host Glenn Beck, who Tuesday morning branded President Obama a "racist."
The combustable Beck ignited a firestorm when, during a Tuesday morning appearance on FNC's freewheeling "Fox and Friends," he said the President's reaction to the Henry Louis Gates Jr. arrest situation in Cambridge, Mass., suggested a "deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture."
To his credit, "Fox & Friends" co-host Brian Kilmeade — who recently had to apologize for comments he made about racial issues — immediately responded, saying that most of the faces people see of the Obama administration are white, such as spokesman Robert Gibbs or chief of staff Rahm Emanuel.
"I'm not saying he doesn't like white people. I'm saying he has a problem," Beck responded. "This guy is, I believe, a racist."
Beck did not address the point further in his own show on FNC Tuesday night.
A Fox representative said there was no comment from Beck.
However, Fox executives made it clear that although they encourage free speech, the "racist" remark was Beck's and his alone.
"During Fox & Friends" [Tuesday] morning, Glenn Beck expressed a personal opinion which represented his own views, not those of the Fox News Channel," Bill Shine, senior vice president of programming for Fox News said in a statement. "And as with all commentators in the cable news arena, he is given the freedom to express his opinions."
Reaction to Beck's comments on the Daily News Web site ranged from outright approval to dismissing them as coming from a conservative white commentator trying to drum up an audience.
"Glenn Beck is another example of showboating, mostly male, mostly conservative radio and TV commentators who don't speak from fact but rather from their well-considered opinion of how much what they say will rile up their fan base and make them more famous and make them more money," wrote one reader.
"Beck just exposed himself as a racist to the whole world," wrote another. "Half of President Obama's family is white. I hardly think he hates white people. It is clear that Beck is insecure with himself as a white man if all he sees is color in people and not just a person. Many people still need to grow up."
Beck's comments on Obama came out of a discussion another President might have reacted to when asked about the Gates case.
Gates, a renowned Harvard professor was arrested July 16 on disorderly-conduct charges by Cambridge police who had responded to his home after a report of a break-in in progress. Gates and the police disagree on what happened next. The charges were dropped. But the case took on an elevated level of scruitiny after the
President, on prime-time television, said the police acted "stupidly."
After realizing he had inflamed the discussion, Obama backtracked and then invited Gates and the arresting officer, Sgt. James Crowley, to the White House for a beer.
The Gates-Crowley incident — heightened by the Obama comment — has raised the discussion of racial relations in the United States to a larger level.
Gates, who said he hopes to use his experience as part of a study of racial profiling for a PBS documentary, said he was pleased the President wanted to use the incident to create a teachable moment.
"If my experience leads to the lessening of the occurrence of racial profiling, then I would find that enormously gratifying," Gates said in a statement posted at Theroot.com. "Because, in the end, this is not about me at all; it is about the creation of a society in which 'equal justice before law' is a lived reality."
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