As NewsBusters reported Friday, Oscar-winning actor Morgan Freeman during an interview on CNN said members of the Tea Party are racists willing to do whatever they can to "get this black man" out of the White House. After his win in Saturday's Florida straw poll, Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain responded to Freeman during an interview with Fox News's Neil Cavuto (video follows with transcript and commentary):
NEIL CAVUTO: Morgan Freeman, the actor, has been very critical of Tea Parties, and said that what they’re doing is racist based, and going after and unseating Obama has at its underpinnings racism. I’m paraphrasing here, but what do you make of that argument? HERMAN CAIN: Well, first of all, I doubt if Morgan Freeman, with all due respect, who is a great actor, has he ever been to a Tea Party? Most of the people that are criticizing the Tea Parties, Neil, about having a racist element, they have never been to a Tea Party.
CAVUTO: But wait a minute, wait a minute. He has played, wait, wait, wait. He has played a President of the United States.
CAIN: Oh. Great, yeah, in a movie. This is real life out here on the campaign trail, man. This is not a movie.
CAVUTO: So, are you offended by that?
CAIN: No, I’m not offended by it. I just, I just think that it is sad that they’re so short-sighted in really understanding what the whole Tea Party citizen movement is all about. I’m not offended by it, because it doesn’t slow down my momentum. It doesn’t slow down the reaction that I get from people. They know that I bring my message from the heart and the head, and they’re responding to it. So, name calling is something that’s going to continue in this because they don’t know how to stop this movement. And this movement is making a big difference in politics, because a lot of the traditional Democrats are moving to the center or moving over to vote for conservatives. They’re taking another look at a Herman Cain.
Cain was spot on.
The past 30 months have been amazing to watch folks on the left tell all kinds of tales about what the Tea Party is. Yet when you ask them if they've ever been to a Tea Party event, they all say "No."
As Cain observed, Freeman is likely one of the millions of liberals that hate the Tea Party but have never once been to an event sponsored by the organization they so passionately despise.
How ironic that these are the same people who claim to be on the more enlightened, open-minded side of the political aisle.
