On Saturday's The Ed Show on MSNBC, host Ed Schultz went ballistic over conservative columnist and ABC commentator George Will blaming Detroit's bankruptcy on cultural problems, and charged that Will's comments were "about as insulting and as racist as it gets."
After playing a clip of Will from ABC's This Week show, Schultz ranted:
Conservatives are using the most insulting language possible they can come up with to blame unions, blame black people, blame their culture for Detroit's troubles. But the real parasites, my friends, are their conservative ideals that are coming from the state government and from the feds.
A bit later, as he hosted Detroit NAACP President Wendell Anthony, the MSNBC host posed the question:
Reverend Anthony, going back to George Will's comment, are unions a parasite on your city? And also address what he said about, you have a cultural problem. I mean, that is about as insulting and as racist as it gets. Or maybe you don't view it that way.
Below is a transcript of the relevant portion of the Saturday, August 3, The Ed Show on MSNBC:
ED SCHULTZ: And here comes conservative commentator George Will flat out insulting Detroit on national television.
GEORGE WILL, ON ABC'S THIS WEEK: -can't solve their problems because their problems are cultural. You have a city, 139 square miles. You can graze cattle on vast portions of it; dangerous herds of feral dogs roaming there. You have three percent of fourth graders reading at the national math standards; 47 percent of Detroit residents are functionally illiterate; 79 percent of Detroit children are born to unmarried mothers. They don't have a fiscal problem, Steve. They have a cultural collapse.
(...)
SCHULTZ: Conservatives are using the most insulting language possible they can come up with to blame unions, blame black people, blame their culture for Detroit's troubles. But the real parasites, my friends, are their conservative ideals that are coming from the state government and from the feds.
(...)
SCHULTZ: Reverend Anthony, going back to George Will's comment, are unions a parasite on your city? And also address what he said about, you have a cultural problem. I mean, that is about as insulting and as racist as it gets. Or maybe you don't view it that way.
-- Brad Wilmouth is a news analyst at the Media Research Center