Dan Rather Apologizes for 'Watermelons' Comment (He really meant to say 'Fried Chicken')

NewsBusters ^ | March 10, 2010 | Goeffrey Dickens

[Argus]

Keep digging, Kenneth.

[a fool in paradise]

I was talking about Obama and health care and I used the analogy of selling watermelons by the side of the road. It's an expression that stretches to my boyhood roots in Southeast Texas, when country highways were lined with stands manned by sellers of all races. Now of course watermelons have become a stereotype for African Americans

This stereotype didn't exist when Dan Rather was a boy, it cam afterwards ("Now of course... have become...")?

Dan, you said Macaca and now must go on the air with Al Sharpton to apologize.

[mlocher]

"I used the analogy of selling watermelons by the side of the road. It's an expression that stretches to my boyhood roots in Southeast Texas" but then goes on to plead "I'm sorry people took offense."

What a crappy appology. He did not say he was sorry for saying what he did. He said he was sorry that some people took offense. He took no responsibility for his statement; rather he appologized because some people took it the wrong way. What a wimp.

[VRWCmember]

In his explanation Rather offers his Texas background as an excuse saying, "I used the analogy of selling watermelons by the side of the road. It's an expression that stretches to my boyhood roots in Southeast Texas"

I've lived in Texas all my life, and I've NEVER heard that expression used.

[Pavegunner72]

I love it when a-holes step on the same landmine they buried.

[FlingWingFlyer]

It’s a good thing he didn’t say “pistachios”. The muzzies would be all over his SeeBS-looking @$$.

[MrB]

But I bet ol’ Dan’s busier than a one legged man in an ass kicking contest trying to backpedal over that remark.

[RushIsMyTeddyBear]

LOL!

[kcvl]

But anyone who knows me personally or knows my professional career would know that race was not on my mind.

Dan, you don't have a mind. We figured that out when you were trying to bring down Pres. Bush with a phony made up story.

[reagandemocrat]

Dan Rather gets hoisted by his own petard.

[equalitybeforethelaw]

Dan, the gift that keeps on giving. And thats how it is America.

[Michael.SF.]

"echo chamber that claims the banner of news but trades in gossip, gotcha, and innuendo.

And who would know gossip, gotcha and inuendo better than you Dan?

[olepap]

Poor Dan and his fake ‘folksy’ persona. He is under enourmous internal pressure, trying to maintain two false-self systems at the same time (country boy and urban liberal). The watermelon comment is a ‘freudian slip’, a ‘tell’, or an ‘indicator’.

Most inconvenient.

Most difficult for political progressives to constantly monitor what they say, and keep the list of forbidden words and phrases up to date.

[freespirited]

I hate the speech police, so in an effort to be fair to all sides, I give ole Dan a pass.

[Lancey Howard]

I hate the speech police, so in an effort to be fair to all sides, I give ole Dan a pass.

It was Dan Rather and the scumbag left who gave us "the speech police".
..So screw that closet racist Dan Rather.

[JoeProBono]

[Pessimist]

“.. that claims the banner of news but trades in gossip, gotcha, and innuendo.”

Well, if that isn’t the pot calling the kettle black!

[razorback-bert]

Courage, Dan!

[TChris]

I'm sorry people took offense.

*sigh*

Yet another liberal non-apology.