Gibson to caller: “You just like [Obama] because he's ... like you and you want to see one of you up there”

Reacting to a caller who spoke favorably of Sen. Barack Obama, John Gibson said: “You don't know what Barack Obama stands for. You just like him because he's -- he's -- he's like you and you want to see one of you up there, and you don't care what he stands for.” The caller responded: “He's not one of me just because he's a black guy or something like that. That doesn't make him one of me. He's standing for him, not me.”


On the June 6 edition of his Fox News Radio show, John Gibson said to a caller who spoke favorably of Sen. Barack Obama: “You don't know what Barack Obama stands for. You just like him because he's -- he's -- he's like you and you want to see one of you up there, and you don't care what he stands for.” The caller responded: "[H]e's not one of me. ... He's not one of me just because he's a black guy or something like that. That doesn't make him one of me. He's standing for him, not me."

As Media Matters for America noted, on the April 9 broadcast of his radio show, Gibson told a caller who had identified herself as an African-American, “You're sticking with Obama, because he's ... he's a brother” and that Obama “is lying to your face but he knows you are so -- you so identify with him on the basis of race, you will not even see the lies.”

From the June 6 edition of Fox News Radio's The John Gibson Show:

GIBSON: Thomas in Cleveland, Ohio. Is Barack Obama a far-left liberal or not?

CALLER: I don't know if he is or not. But all I know is this man is trying to do something different for this country, standing up for something that he believes in, and it seems like all I hear is everybody tearing him down. I just want to know

GIBSON: Well --

CALLER: -- what has anybody else has tried to accomplish to make this country a little better than what it is now --

GIBSON: Well, wait a second here. I mean, are you saying that because Barack Obama's got ideas for the country, anybody who doesn't agree with him is trying to tear this country down?

CALLER: No, I said that you're trying to tear that man down, not this country, trying to tear this man down --

GIBSON: Well, I don't -- Thomas, I don't like his ideas.

CALLER: Say that?

GIBSON: I don't like his ideas.

CALLER: Well, OK, that's fine. Everybody don't like everybody's ideas and stuff. But, this man from what I'm seeing, what I'm hearing, he is trying to accomplish something -- from what I hear and what I see, trying to accomplish something that no one else is, and all I can hear is everybody tearing him down.

GIBSON: All right. Well, Thomas, listen to foreign policy plans.

OBAMA [audio clip]: Second, I will cut tens of billions of dollars in wasteful spending. I will cut investments in unproven missile defense systems. I will not weaponize space. I will slow our development of future combat systems. And I will institute an independent defense priorities board to ensure that the quadrennial defense review is not used to justify unnecessary spending.

GIBSON: All right, Barack Obama is against a missile defense system, which only yesterday tested again successfully and is really our only protection against somebody like Iraq getting a missile and firing something at us -- excuse me, Iran. So, Thomas, what exactly do you like about his foreign policy position that he just enunciated?

CALLER: Well, I could really barely -- I could barely hear what he was saying, actually. [unintelligible] I could barely hear what he was saying. So, I can't -- I don't really know too much about that.

GIBSON: Well, I mean -- but that's the point, Thomas, isn't it? I mean, when I say, look -- I criticize Obama over his friends, [Rev. Jeremiah] Wright and [Rev. Michael] Pfleger and [Rev. James] Meeks and the terrorist bomber and, you know, sidling up to [Louis] Farrakhan and stuff like that, somebody like you, Thomas, will call me and say “Hey, deal with the issues.” I start dealing with the issues, I ask you about it, and you haven't dealt with the issues. You don't know what Barack Obama stands for. You just like him because he's -- he's -- he's like you and you want to see one of you up there, and you don't care what he stands for. Is it OK if I care what he stands for?

CALLER: Well, listen, he's not one of me, he's [unintelligible] he himself. He's not one of me just because he's a black guy or something like that. That doesn't make him one of me. He's standing for him, not me.

ANGRY RICH (show producer): Well, then have a clue what you're talking about.

GIBSON: Well, I'll tell you what, Thomas. If that is your position, that you are one of the 8 percent that voted for somebody else or didn't vote for Obama because you're proud that he's a black guy and that's the first time it's ever happened, you are among a small minority of black guys in this country, because that is all I've heard for day after day after day.

Greg Johnson is an intern at Media Matters for America.