Gibson to caller: "You just like [Obama] because he's ... like you and you want to see one of you up there"

Summary: Reacting to a caller who spoke favorably of Sen. Barack Obama, John Gibson said: "You don't know what Barack Obama stands for. You just like him because he's -- he's -- he's like you and you want to see one of you up there, and you don't care what he stands for." The caller responded: "He's not one of me just because he's a black guy or something like that. That doesn't make him one of me. He's standing for him, not me."

On the June 6 edition of his Fox News Radio show, John Gibson said to a caller who spoke favorably of Sen. Barack Obama: "You don't know what Barack Obama stands for. You just like him because he's -- he's -- he's like you and you want to see one of you up there, and you don't care what he stands for." The caller responded: "[H]e's not one of me. ... He's not one of me just because he's a black guy or something like that. That doesn't make him one of me. He's standing for him, not me."

As Media Matters for America noted, on the April 9 broadcast of his radio show, Gibson told a caller who had identified herself as an African-American, "You're sticking with Obama, because he's ... he's a brother" and that Obama "is lying to your face but he knows you are so -- you so identify with him on the basis of race, you will not even see the lies."

From the June 6 edition of Fox News Radio's The John Gibson Show:

GIBSON: Thomas in Cleveland, Ohio. Is Barack Obama a far-left liberal or not?

CALLER: I don't know if he is or not. But all I know is this man is trying to do something different for this country, standing up for something that he believes in, and it seems like all I hear is everybody tearing him down. I just want to know

GIBSON: Well --

CALLER: -- what has anybody else has tried to accomplish to make this country a little better than what it is now --

GIBSON: Well, wait a second here. I mean, are you saying that because Barack Obama's got ideas for the country, anybody who doesn't agree with him is trying to tear this country down?

CALLER: No, I said that you're trying to tear that man down, not this country, trying to tear this man down --

GIBSON: Well, I don't -- Thomas, I don't like his ideas.

CALLER: Say that?

GIBSON: I don't like his ideas.

CALLER: Well, OK, that's fine. Everybody don't like everybody's ideas and stuff. But, this man from what I'm seeing, what I'm hearing, he is trying to accomplish something -- from what I hear and what I see, trying to accomplish something that no one else is, and all I can hear is everybody tearing him down.

GIBSON: All right. Well, Thomas, listen to foreign policy plans.

OBAMA [audio clip]: Second, I will cut tens of billions of dollars in wasteful spending. I will cut investments in unproven missile defense systems. I will not weaponize space. I will slow our development of future combat systems. And I will institute an independent defense priorities board to ensure that the quadrennial defense review is not used to justify unnecessary spending.

GIBSON: All right, Barack Obama is against a missile defense system, which only yesterday tested again successfully and is really our only protection against somebody like Iraq getting a missile and firing something at us -- excuse me, Iran. So, Thomas, what exactly do you like about his foreign policy position that he just enunciated?

CALLER: Well, I could really barely -- I could barely hear what he was saying, actually. [unintelligible] I could barely hear what he was saying. So, I can't -- I don't really know too much about that.

GIBSON: Well, I mean -- but that's the point, Thomas, isn't it? I mean, when I say, look -- I criticize Obama over his friends, [Rev. Jeremiah] Wright and [Rev. Michael] Pfleger and [Rev. James] Meeks and the terrorist bomber and, you know, sidling up to [Louis] Farrakhan and stuff like that, somebody like you, Thomas, will call me and say "Hey, deal with the issues." I start dealing with the issues, I ask you about it, and you haven't dealt with the issues. You don't know what Barack Obama stands for. You just like him because he's -- he's -- he's like you and you want to see one of you up there, and you don't care what he stands for. Is it OK if I care what he stands for?

CALLER: Well, listen, he's not one of me, he's [unintelligible] he himself. He's not one of me just because he's a black guy or something like that. That doesn't make him one of me. He's standing for him, not me.

ANGRY RICH (show producer): Well, then have a clue what you're talking about.

GIBSON: Well, I'll tell you what, Thomas. If that is your position, that you are one of the 8 percent that voted for somebody else or didn't vote for Obama because you're proud that he's a black guy and that's the first time it's ever happened, you are among a small minority of black guys in this country, because that is all I've heard for day after day after day.

—G.J.

Greg Johnson is an intern at Media Matters for America.