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Murdoch's 'Real Black,' Unreal for White House

By Clarence Page, Tribune Content Agency on

No one should be surprised that Rupert Murdoch likes Ben Carson. Both seem to think that their ingenuity in one area of life makes them experts on just about everything.

Renowned brain surgeon Carson is running for the Republican presidential nomination because he thinks he knows enough to be a dandy leader of the free world.

Media mega-mogul Murdoch similarly seems to think his business genius makes him an expert on black people.

"Ben and Candy Carson terrific," Murdoch tweeted after watching Carson -- a former contributor to Murdoch's Fox News Channel -- and his wife on Fox's "The Kelly File" last Wednesday. "What about a real black President who can properly address the racial divide? And much else."

Right. And if anybody should know "a real" African-American, it's a white 84-year-old white billionaire from Australia.

The Twitter universe exploded in speculation as to what Murdoch might have meant. After years of allegations from the political right that Obama was too black to give whites -- or, at least, conservatives -- a fair shake, was Murdoch now saying Obama is not black enough?

 

Is Obama in Murdoch's eyes a BINO, Black In Name Only?

Is Murdoch saying, as conservative provocateur Ann Coulter declared on his network four years ago, "Our blacks are so much better than their blacks"?

Murdoch sent a second tweet moments after his first: "Read New York magazine for minority community disappointment with POTUS."

The mogul apparently was referring to "The Paradox of the First Black President," a thoughtful Oct. 7 article by Jennifer Senior about Obama's racial tightrope: How to address urgent black community concerns without sparking too much backlash from white conservatives.

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(c) 2015 CLARENCE PAGE DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.

 

 

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