I was going to say just three words about the Obama story on 60 Minutes tonight: Damn, he's good. I can't think of a question I wish they would have asked him, or one I would want him to answer any differently than he did.
That was all I was going to say. But then, towards the end, CBS smeared some of their advertising feces across the screen. As all the networks do in a show of contempt for both their audience and their showmakers.
The Senator and his wife had just been asked whether or not they worried that as a black candidate he would be under a greater threat of assasination. And over a shot of Obama speaking to a typically enraptured crowd, appeared these words:
"Amazing Race All-Stars"
Given the multiple meanings available of the word race, and the fact that Obama is definitely (and rightly) considered a star, this was a hideously inappropriate gaffe. Was it unintentional? I''m inclined to think so. My reading recently (most especially Truth & Duty) suggests to me that at CBS, news is very much under the thumb of the entertainment division, to its detriment.
I'd blame a tasteless advertising executive who wanted to promote a show without regard for context before I'd think that CBS has a division of the KKK. But intentional or not...it was a hideously inappropriate gaffe.
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