Schultz Says Racism Behind Republican Opposition To 'Occupy' Movement

October 10th, 2011 10:50 PM

Serious question: if he ever had it, has Ed Schultz totally lost it?  There's lots to be said about the Occupy Wall Street movement.  But of all the cockamamie comments, of all the nutty non sequiturs, surely Ed Schultz's takes the crazy cake.

On his MSNBC show tonight, Schultz claimed that what lies behind Republican criticism of Occupy is . . . racism.  In a beyond-bizarre analogy, Schultz somehow said that there's "no difference" between GOP congressman Peter King's criticism of Occupy Wall Street and Trent Lott's 2002 birthday-party praise for Strom Thurmond. Video after the jump.
 

Watch Schultz's synapse-snapping, utterly incoherent attempt at analogy.

 

ED SCHULTZ: I am absolutely amazed that Peter King is getting a pass by the media for saying what he said on Friday on Laura Ingraham's radio show.  Let's just get into this a little bit more. He says: "I remember what happened in the '60s when the left wing took to the streets and somehow the media glorified them and end up shaping policy. We can't allow that to happen." Well I'm old enough to remember the 60s as well, congressman.  And those protests were about stopping the war in Vietnam that eventually took 56,000 American lives. That was a time period in this country when we were also fighting for civil rights. You know: so black folks could go fight, to go vote.  I mean, is that what you're for? 

So I ask Mr. King tonight: do you agree with Trent Lott, who said back on December 5th, 2002 that you know what? If we had voted for Strom Thurmond, we wouldn't have had all these other problems. I mean, those two comments, what Peter King said on Laura Ingraham's radio show and what Trent Lott said back in December of 2002: there's no difference! It's a mindset of the Republican party. If they don't hear what they want to hear they want everybody else to shut up.  But it's also that dirty little secret of the Republican party: they've got a real issue with race.

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