Matthews: 'Is Sarah Palin a Poster Girl for Racism?'

Geoffrey | October 23, 2013
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CHRIS MATTHEWS: I've never seen a stronger column in the newspapers than what I read this morning when I got up. And the reason I'm so glad Kathleen [Parker] is joining us, Joan, is that she wrote this column basically backing up Senator George Voinovich of Ohio, saying the Republican party, which has done pretty well over the last half century, has been basically getting destroyed by the right wingers in the South. And we've talked a lot about the obsession with this birth movement down in, birther thing down in the South and all the rest of the ethnic potential here.

Here`s a quote that really grabbed me: "That same rage was on display again in the fall of 2008, but this time the frenzy was stimulated by a pretty gal with a mocking little wink. Sarah Palin may not have realized what she was doing. But southerners, weaned on Harper Lee, heard the dog whistle." Kathleen, "heard the dog whistle." Is Sarah Palin a poster girl for racism? Yes or no?
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MATTHEWS: Is she connecting the dots, Joan [Walsh], among Henry Louis Gates, the birther movement, the Sotomayor testimony and confirmation questioning, so tribalistic? There's no doubt about it. All that stuff has become very tribalistic, something we thought we`d begun to crack in this country. Is Sarah the dog whistle that says, yeah, that`s what it`s about?
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MATTHEWS: How about Palin? Let's talk about Palin. Palin has attacked New York, Washington and Los Angeles. She goes after the government, after the media, after Hollywood.

KATHLEEN PARKER: Yes.

MATTHEWS: Anything that's on the coast is evil to her. She's an Alaskan who, I bet you any money, is going to spend most of her time down in the middle parts of the country, the rural white parts. She`s going to find those cul de sacs of whitedom, and exploit the hell out of them, right?
— Exchange aired on MSNBC’s Hardball, August 5, 2009.

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