NBC’s David Gregory: GOP has no “Grand Wizard” to force out Cain (Watch Video)

Hotair ^ | 11/09/2011 | Ed Morrissey

[SeekAndFind]

Well, that makes sense. After all, the political party of the Ku Klux Klan wasn’t the Republicans, was it? Click the image to watch:

CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO

Ann Curry, NBC News: “He’s not stepping down, continuing to suck the air out of the narrative the Republican party really wants to tell. Does the party now wish he would just go away?”

David Gregory, NBC News: “Well there is no, you know, grand wizard in the party right now who can really force the issue. I’ve talked to Cain’s advisers in Iowa, they think their support is still strong there, that it’s not falling. There may be cracks in the foundation according to pollsters I’m talking to, that his numbers may be starting to shift but right now core support remains there.”

So … what’s the implication here? That the Democratic Party has “grand wizards” that can boot candidates out of presidential races against their will? That’s absurd on the face of it, and all anyone has to do is note Dennis Kucinich’s two runs at the Presidency for proof. Parties lost the explicit ability to control the candidates when the open primary began prevailing over the open convention model. It’s true that political-party establishments can coax or discourage candidacies at every level, but that doesn’t work when the candidate doesn’t hold any elective office at the moment and has enough money to run his or her own campaign.

Besides the jaw-dropping reference to the Klan, the statement is absurd on its face anyway. It’s the same as lamenting that a Deus ex machina doesn’t actually exist to solve a specific, momentary problem of any kind. Those only existed in Greek theater, not real life, much like the “grand wizards” in Gregory’s head that handpick candidates for presidential races.

Update: Let’s enter the Wayback Machine and recall this catch by Newsbusters from six months ago (via HA reader Pain Train):

GREGORY: First of all, you gave a speech in Georgia with language a lot of people think could be coded racially-tinged language, calling the president, the first black president, a food stamp president.

GINGRICH: Oh, come on, David.

GREGORY: What did you mean? What was the point?

REP. GINGRICH: That’s, that’s bizarre. That–this kind of automatic reference to racism, this is the president of the United States. The president of the United States has to be held accountable. Now, the idea that–and what I said is factually true. Forty-seven million Americans are on food stamps. One out of every six Americans is on food stamps. And to hide behind the charge of racism? I have–I have never said anything about President Obama which is racist.

Can someone please take the race card out of Gregory’s less-than-full deck, please?

Update II: Via an NBC News e-mail, David Gregory apologized for the comment on Twitter later:

“Wizard” remark this morning was a very poor choice of words. Did not mean to make that connection at all. Was not thinking. I apologize

CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO

[verity]

Gregory is a stoopid F’ing bastard.

[miss marmelstein]

Rush is now calling him Grand Wizard Gregory.

I’m sure this was something he was saying backstage at NBC and then walked out and made that huge gaffe. He’s a pig.

[BienHoa69-70 RVN]

How much more evidence do we need in order to scream that the reason that the sole black Republican candidate for President is being attacked is because he is an uppity black man, in the mode of Justice Clarence Thomas, who dared to challenge the white Democrat plantation owners and their white apologists. Consider the following: All of his accusers are white; all of the accusers’ lawyers are white; all of the news media critics are white; all of the critical tv news “personalities” are white; the Politico and other by-line reporters are white; all of the political pundant critics are white; and the Republican candidate critics are all white. Appears to me to be a prima facie case of a racially motivated and coordinated attack on this black candidate.

[Calvin Locke]

I was thinking that this morning, but didn't get around to looking it up to confirm.

Rush Limbaugh mentioned it too, in the beginning of his show.

[TexasCajun]

Rush on it now.

[NavyCanDo]

The Democrats gave birth to the Monster known as the KKK

• The Democrats have been the real racist since before the Civil War.
• The Democrats are the party of Jim Crow
• The Democrats stared the KKK to intimidate
• The Democrats are the party that never did vote for anti-lynching laws proposed by Republicans
• The Civil Rights movement did not start in the 1960s it stared 100 years ealier, and it was the Democrats that harshly opposed giving former slaves Civil Rights.
• It was the Democrats that began poll taxes, literacy test, grandfather clauses, hide-and-seek polling places, and several other ways to keep the Blacks from voting (because blacks voted 100% Republican).
• It was the Democrats who would lynch Blacks & whites trying to advance Civil Rights for former slaves.
• It was a Democrat who shot the Great Emancipator Abraham Lincoln.
• And it was Democrats that did not elect their first Black to Congress until 1935 while Republicans have been doing it for 67 years.
The First Blacks In Congress Were All Republicans
United States Senate
Hiram Rhodes Revels (1822-1901); Republican – Mississippi; 1870-1871
Blanche Bruce (1841-1898); Republican – Mississippi; 1875-1881

House of Representatives
John Willis Menard (1838-1893); Republican - Louisiana; 1868
Joseph Rainey (1832-1887); Republican - South Carolina; 1870-1879
Jefferson F. Long (1836-1901); Republican – Georgia; 1870-1871
Robert C. De Large (1842-1874); Republican - South Carolina; 1871-1873
Robert B. Elliott (1842-1884); Republican - South Carolina; 1871-1874
Benjamin S. Turner (1825-1894); Republican – Alabama; 1871-1873
Josiah T. Walls (1842-1905); Republican – Florida; 1871-1873, 1873-1875, 1875-1876
Richard H. Cain (1825-1887); Republican - South Carolina; 1873-1875, 1877-1879
John R. Lynch (1847-1939); Republican – Mississippi; 1873-1877, 1882-1883
James T. Rapier (1837-1883); Republican – Alabama; 1873-1875
Alonzo J. Ransier (1834-1882); Republican - South Carolina; 1873-1875
Jeremiah Haralson (1846-1916); Republican - Alabama; 1875-1877
John Adams Hyman (1840-1891); Republican - North Carolina; 1875-1877
Charles E. Nash (1844-1913); Republican – Louisiana; 1875-1877
Robert Smalls (1839-1915); Republican - South Carolina; 1875-1879, 1882-1883, 1884-1887
James E. O’Hara (1844-1905); Republican - North Carolina; 1883-1887
Henry P. Cheatham (1857-1935); Republican - North Carolina; 1889-1893
John Mercer Langston (1829-1897); Republican – Virginia; 1890-1891
Thomas E. Miller(1849-193); Republican - South Carolina; 1890-1891
George W. Murray (1853-1926); Republican - South Carolina; 1893-1895, 1896-1897
George Henry White (1852-1918); Republican - North Carolina; 1897-1901

The Democrats did not elect their first black American to the U.S. House until 1935, and he was from the North. The Southern Democrats waited until 1973. The first Black Senator was not elected until 1993.

[CarmichaelPatriot]

Even more offensive than the obvious racial overtone of this remark is the suggestion that the Republican party is controlled by a single person. That might be the way the Democrat party works, but the Republican party practices democracy within it’s ranks. The members of the party are free to support who they wish to support. The Democrat party, in contrast, is controlled by a few agenda setters and all are expected to line up in lock-step according to their direction. That sounds a lot like a politburo and the peasants they control... Hmmm

[RavenATB]

Very true. All the “grand wizards” were wearing white hoods and sheets and leading the Democrat party.

[sanjuanbob]

Cain is democrat’s worst nightmare. They keep on the Romney chant, but they’ve got their game plan in place to take him down.
Cain could be the beginning of the end for the RAT party owning the black vote. Then it’ll be the Hispanic vote that
splits from the plantation. Unions are already eating themselves with no money for their extortion tactics on tax payers. They’ll never admit it, but Cain scares the hell out of them, as he has the best chance of beating Obama.

[Tenacious 1]

Everyone should stop reading FR right now and pen a letter of disgust for the racist remark made by their host. Post the text here.

[Tenacious 1]

Here is my e-mail to the Today Show:

“David Gregory’s racist comment on the Today show was overt and offensive.

To suggest this was a “poor choice of words” is further insulting. Only a racist would use the term “Grand Wizard” in a slip up or otherwise. Media figures have been suspended and fired for far less agregious “slip ups.”

Because my daughter asked me what a “Grand Wizard” was, The Today Show will not allowed on our TV until David Gregory apologizes to Herman Cain and the GOP for even suggesting a political party should have a “Grand Wizard” determining the political fate of People of Color.

Sincerely (and ashamedly),

- My real name was here.”

[Tenacious 1]

MSNBC on the Internet
One Microsoft Way
Redmond, WA 98052

You can also mail a letter to:

NBC News
30 Rockefeller Plaza
New York, N.Y. 10112

Or make a comment here:

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/10285339/ns/today/t/contact-us/

[fatima]

OMGOD.

[GnL]

Not only is David Gregory a racist, he is a racist nutcase journalist, though I repeat myself.

[SueRae]

Nice touch, David.

And just which grand poobah of the Democrat party will tell 0bama that he should step aside???

[InvisibleChurch]

he’s not even mildly clever

[Ranger Warrior]

Of course the GOP has no Grand Wizards. Those folks belong to the Ku Klux Klan, and you have to be a Democrat to belong. That goes with the history, i.e., the origins of the KKK. What is this, more Alinsky stuff?!?!?

[Osage Orange]

I wrote them....

Nothing will happen though.........

[Tenacious 1]

Here is my e-mail to the Today Show:

“David Gregory’s racist comment on the Today show was overt and offensive.

To suggest this was a “poor choice of words” is further insulting. Only a racist would use the term “Grand Wizard” in a slip up or otherwise. Media figures have been suspended and fired for far less agregious “slip ups.”

Because my daughter asked me what a “Grand Wizard” was, The Today Show will not allowed on our TV until David Gregory apologizes to Herman Cain and the GOP for even suggesting a political party should have a “Grand Wizard” determining the political fate of People of Color.

Sincerely (and ashamedly),

- My real name was here.”

[Future Snake Eater]

Can you imagine Tim Russert saying something like this?