Apparently, Gabby Douglas becoming the first African-American to win the the gold for all-around gymnastics and leading her team to gold isn’t “patriotic” enough for the folks at FOX News.
Faced with the daunting task of having to actually report positively on the accomplishments of a young black person, FOX decided instead to revert to something they’re better at: simply making stuff up. Enlisting the “expertise” of their resident token black person, Tea Party radio personality David Webb, FOX News anchor Alisyn Camerota lamented that Douglas and others’ “uniforms don’t carry the Stars and Stripes look as much as they had in past years,” and that this somehow indicated a level of pride in their country. Webb asked indignantly, “What’s wrong with showing pride? What we’re seeing is this kind of soft anti-American feeling that Americans can’t show our exceptionalism.”
Really? Gabby Douglas, the 16-year old African-American gold-medalist who beat out competitors from other countries isn’t a flagrant example of American exceptionalism because she and her team wore hot pink instead of draping themselves in a flag? What about the fact that she hadn’t seen her father in two years because he was serving his country in Afghanistan? He showed up to cheer her on literally waving an American flag. That’s not not patriotic enough for FOX News and the Tea Party?
It takes a narrow mind to conclude that the only way to show your patriotism and pride is through printing the flag on your leotard. It takes an even narrower mind to insult an incredible American gymnast and her military family in the wake of such a stunning victory.
UPDATE: FOX News anchor Alisyn Camerota has since defended her criticism of Gabby Douglas’s uniform. Camerota went on a radio show hosted by FOX & Friends buffoon Brian Kilmeade, who brushed off the unfair criticisms as more hype by evil liberal media pundits like Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. Colbert drew more attention to the FOX News segment in question on Tuesday when he mocked it on The Colbert Report.
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