I love The McLaughlin Group like upper middle class white liberals love Barack Obama–which is to say, near unconditionally–so I admit I am no unbiased observer, but the furor over his use of the term “Oreo” this weekend does not hold up in any reasonable context. First of all, McLaughlin was clearly using the word in an attempt to label the root cause of Jesse Jackson’s animus toward Obama–i.e., “the stereotype blacks once labeled as an Oreo–a black on the outside, a white on the inside.” Jackson was the one being skewered here, and all the panelists used McLaughlin’s cue to flail the bad Rev. and not Obama. Second, regular viewers of the show can attest that McLaughlin, while predictably skeptical and tough, has not been anything approaching an Obama-hater on his show and, indeed, at times has seemed quite warm towards his candidacy.
