Apparently Congressman James Clyburn (D-SC) hasn’t been following the news. During an interview on Sirius XM’s The Morning Briefing on Wednesday, Rep. Clyburn – the third highest-ranking Democrat in the House – praised President Obama for improving race relations.
REPORTER: What about race relations? Do you think that they have improved under President Obama?
CLYBURN: Oh yes. There is no question about that. But remember President Obama is serving at a time when a tool like the Internet that can be so positive in so many ways can also be very negative in many ways. And we have seen the negativism that can flow from this. When you have manufactured controversies, and that's what's happening here, controversies being manufactured…
“Stop, stop, stop,” Glenn said. “So where is he going? Where is he going? Is it shut down the voices of the Internet?”
CLYBURN: …and then you have people's words and phrases being misrepresented and looped through the news media and thrown out there on the Internet, and people run with it because these things start getting reported in the mainstream media, and before you know it, people believe that stuff.
The people of Germany believed Hitler’s foolishness that led to the Holocaust. They believed that stuff. And people will tend to believe what they hear through the media.
I can't tell you how many times I've had people say things to me, I say "Where did you get that from?" "It got to be true. It was on the television or it was in the newspapers." So, people think these things are true.
And most of these people are not media people; they are bloggers, and they are bloggers for the extreme right wing who misrepresent Shirley Sherrod’s words, cut and print it, next thing you know Shirley Sherrod had lost her job, who misrepresented what was going on with ACORN, and next thing you know it was defunded. All of that stuff was manufactured and people tend to act now and ask questions later and that's what we are falling subject to.
“Is that amazing,” Pat asked exasperatedly.
“No, not in today's world. Not in today's world,” Glenn said. “I'm surprised that he didn't say, ‘And I'm going to light you on fire right now and then deny that I lit you on fire.’ I mean, in today's world I just don't… it's really quite amazing.”