Wednesday, February 22

Brit Hume Plays the Race Card

In today's Grapevine Brit Hume plays the race card in trying to back up the Bush adminsitration's much lambasted decision to allow a company owned by the United Arab Emirates to exercise control over U.S. por security.. Quoting pollster John Zogby, Hume notes:

Arab Americans are blaming the uproar over an Arab company assuming control over U.S. ports not on security concerns, but on bigotry. Arab American Institute president James Zogby says, "I find some of the rhetoric being used against this deal shameful and irresponsible."

He adds that politicians who oppose the deal are merely exploiting post-9/11 fears, saying, "The slogan is, if it's Arab, it's bad. Hammer away." And a spokeswoman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations says, "The perception in the Arab-American community is that this is related to anti-Arab sentiment."

It's too bad that Hume's spent the last couple of weeks terrifying his viewers with scary stories about violent A-rabs marching in the streets, burning everything in their path, and coming up with newfangled names for Danish pastries in response to the controversial Mohammed cartoons of Jyllands Posten. Kinda makes his newfound concern for our Arab brothers seem a little less than genuine, don't you think?