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Last night Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich lost the Florida primary by a wide margin, and like his opponent and the night's winner, Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, he spent much of his primary-night speech going after not his fellow Republican candidates but President Barack Obama. Gingrich created a stir when he took a not-so-veiled swipe at President Obama's recent belting out of a few bars of one of Reverend Al Green's greatest hits.
"I'm not going to compete with Obama in singing, because I'm not running for Entertainer-In-Chief," said the second-place-finisher, "I'm running for President! And I would say to him now: Mr. President, you cannot sing your way past the disaster of your presidency."
That statement became fodder for an 11-minute heated argument on MSNBC later in the evening between former Gingrich advisor and current Gingrich Super PAC (an "independent" group that can spend unlimited amounts of money to back a candidate) head Rick Tyler and MSNBC hosts Rachel Maddow and Al Sharpton about whether or not Gingrich was using racially-coded and race-baiting language. They also called out Gingrich for calling Obama a "food stamp president."
The phrase "Entertainer-In-Chief" is not new to this campaign. Former Minnesota Governor and former presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty, who long, long ago was the frontrunner to face President Obama, used the line not once, but many times. And for the record, Mitt Romney did some singing of his own recently, of "America the Beautiful." Watch and listen at your own risk.
Do you think calling President Obama "Entertainer-In-Chief" was a racist statement? Let us know in the poll below!
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