Alter defends Obama's outreach to black racist

Tucker Carlson takes leftard Jonathan Alter behind the woodshed on this one. Jonathan Alter, hopelessly leftist "editor" from Newsweak (you know, those guys who made up the whole Koran-flushing story?), tries to whitewash NYC Councilman Charles Barron. Barron, a former Black Panther and big time apologist for Zimbabwe's dictator Robert Mugabe (who starves his own people), is remembered for his "I wanna slap Whitey" remarks.

Anywho, Alter gets schooled, as seen here on Newsbusters:

Understanding fellow, that Jonathan Alter . . .

On this afternoon's "Tucker Carlson" on MSNBC, the eponymous host mentioned that Barack Obama had travelled to NYC to seek the support of Charles Barron of Brooklyn. Carlson knows Barron well, the NYC Councilman being a frequent guest on Tucker's show. Carlson described Barron as a "pretty straightforward racist, pretty straightforward black nationalist, anti-white character, exactly the kind of person you would not expect Obama to be courting." He then asked guest Jonathan Alter: "What is Obama doing?

SENIOR NEWSWEEK EDITOR JONATHAN ALTER: "Well, I think Obama wants the support of everybody, and I think the question is whether he can have a tent that's actually as big as the United States . . . The whole point of his campaign Tucker is to say "don't judge me by any one of my supporters, I'm trying to get a super-big tent here" . . . I think it would be unfair to hold any of his supporter's politics, you know, hold him accountable for what Charles Barron thinks.

Tucker wasn't buying, and drew the logical analogy.

MSNBC HOST TUCKER CARLSON: If Rudy Giuliani went down and asked David Duke for his support, would you say, "you know, it's unfair to hold Rudy Giuliani accountable for what David Duke said?" No, of course not! You'd write a cover story attacking him. That's a ludicrous point.

ALTER: Charles Barron is not David Duke, so let's not let that slide through, he's not David Duke.

CARLSON: I would say he's pretty close.

ALTER: If he was David Duke, you really wouldn't have him on your show, Tucker. Even you have limits.

CARLSON: No, actually, I don't.
...
Whether Barron is a black David Duke can be debated. But it is beyond cavil that Alter would vociferously condemn a Republican candidate who sought the support of a white leader with views mirroring Barron's.

Score this one for Tucker.

Score, indeed. Alter is typical of what I generally expect to get from the left: a P.C. panderer who speaks before he thinks (since he also "feels" before he thinks). Carlson nailed him with an appropriate analogy, and the best that Alter could muster was "it's not the same thing"...when actually, yeah, it is the same thing.

So, to recap Alter's position: shmoozing with a black racist is "super big-tent outreach", but shmoozing with a white racist would be horrible. Got it. Thanks for the clarification.