John McLaughlin Calls Barack Obama an 'Oreo'

Media Matters for America, the progressive media watchdog group, has posted a video of curmudgeonly shoutfest host John McLaughlin slurring presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama this past week on The McLaughlin Group .

In the clip, above, Mr. McLaughlin addressed the controversy surrounding Jesse Jackson's whispered threat to cut Mr. Obama's nuts off, by saying "Obama, who fits the stereotype blacks once labeled as an Oreo—a black on the outside, a white on the inside—that an Oreo should be the beneficiary of the long civil rights struggle which Jesse Jackson spent his lifetime fighting for?"

In the clip, Peter Beinhart, editor-at-large for The New Republic, is seen responding to the point but (probably wisely) ignoring Mr. McLaughlin's unfortunate phrase. Michelle Bernard, of the Independent Women's Forum, addresses it directly after some cross-chatter: "[I]f Barack Obama is an Oreo, then every member of this generation of African-Americans is an Oreo, because we stand on the shoulders of the people who fought for our rights, and all of us say that you cannot blame 'the man' or white racism for everything that ails the black community." She does not, however, rebuke Mr. McLaughlin for using it.