On the April 30 edition of CNN Headline News' Glenn Beck program, conservative pundit Ann Coulter asked of Sen. Barack Obama: “Is Obama a Manchurian candidate to normal Americans who love their country? ... Or is he being the Manchurian candidate to the traitor wing of the Democratic Party?” Host Glenn Beck did not challenge Coulter's remarks.
Coulter has previously referred to Obama as "B. Hussein Obama" in the past and called him "President Hussein." She has also compared Obama to Adolf Hitler, calling Obama's book, Dreams from My Father, a “dimestore Mein Kampf.”
Coulter is not the first media figure to apply the “Manchurian candidate” label to Obama. On February 26, conservative radio host Bill Cunningham both referred to Obama as “this Manchurian candidate” and asserted, “I do not believe Barack Hussein Obama is a terrorist or a Manchurian candidate.” On February 25, Time magazine political analyst Mark Halperin posted a list titled “Things McCain Can Do to Try to Beat Obama That Clinton Cannot,” on his website The Page, in which he suggested that McCain “can ...[e]mphasize Barack Hussein Obama's unusual name and exotic background through a Manchurian Candidate prism.”
During her appearance, Coulter also suggested that Obama “secretly agrees with the Weathermen and the Reverend Wright faction.” In fact, Obama has denounced Wright's controversial statements as “a profoundly distorted view of this country” and “not only wrong but divisive”; indeed, just the day before Coulter's appearance, Obama said that he was “outraged” at Wright's comments to the National Press Club, calling them “divisive and destructive” and asserting that they were “completely opposed to what I stand for and where I want to take this country.” Additionally, neither Coulter nor Beck acknowledged that Obama has condemned the “detestable acts” of William Ayers, a former member of Weather Underground.
From the April 30 edition of CNN Headline News' Glenn Beck:
BECK: You know what? You know what? As uncomfortable as you -- as uncomfortable as you are with Hillary Clinton or I am with John McCain, you are with John McCain, it is not somebody who says, “Hey, I'm going to sit with leaders of Iran and Syria and Cuba and Venezuela who hate us. And by the way, my record on judging people is I didn't think this hatemonger was a hatemonger for 20 years.”
COULTER: Right, right. And calls -- and obviously hates the United States. This is part of the traitor wing of the Democratic Party. And I guess the question is: Is Obama a Manchurian candidate to normal Americans who love their country -- and he secretly agrees with the Weathermen and the Reverend Wright faction? Or is he being the Manchurian candidate to the traitor wing of the Democratic Party? And he, I guess, has to take the position now that, “No, I was just trying to hoodwink the traitor wing.”
BECK: Like I'm going to trust --
COULTER: Kind of a tough road to hoe.
