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Rick Sanchez Apologizes After Labeling Obama the 'Cotton-Picking President'
CNN's Rick Sanchez quickly apologized on his Rick's List program on Monday after inadvertently labeling Barack Obama the "cotton-picking president of the United States." Sanchez used the racially-tinged term in response to the President recently addressing the significant percentage of American population who believe he is Muslim or was born outside the U.S. [audio available here]
The anchor raised President Obama's recent comment about his birth certificate with correspondent Jessica Yellin 21 minutes into the 3 pm Eastern hour. Yellin explained that "this is the first time he's talked about it since the polls showing how many Americans believe him to be Muslim came out" and that "you get the sense that he's been sort of through this. He wants to set the record straight, but he really does seem to accept that he's not going to convince everyone, and he's not going to spend a lot of time and energy on something that's not going to change."
Sanchez replied to Yellin full of frustration: "I'm just sitting here just shaking my head. He is the cotton-picking president of the United States!" He continued with another slighter gaffe: "If the president of the United States doesn't have enough of a bully pulpit to convince people of a lie- that a lie is a lie, I should say, then- you know, where are we? What kind of planet are we living on? What the hell is going on here?"
To her credit, the CNN correspondent brought up the many people on the left who refused to believe Obama's predecessor: "The assumption is there are a certain number of people that just don't buy it. You know, there are people who didn't think George Bush was telling the truth. You know, there are all those bumper stickers that said, 'George W. Bush is a liar.'" Even with this, Sanchez continued with his frustration: "Here's the point. I can understand 5%. I can maybe understand 10%. I can maybe understand 15%. We're talking about- what was the latest number? A third of the American people or more?"
Moments later, after taking a commercial break, Sanchez came back with an apology, crediting his Twitter followers for spotting his error:
SANCHEZ: This is great. This is what works about having a conversation with my viewers throughout this newscast, because you know that I'm here on Twitter and I read what you write during the commercial breaks. And many of you are pointing out a fault that I just- a faux pas that I just made, and I want to apologize for it, because I obviously didn't mean any disrespect or anything when I said that.
But I was having that conversation with Jessica Yellin, and I think I said something to the effect- it's so frustrating that people are lying about the president of the United States, that people are saying these things and it seems like he is defenseless to try and deal with it- although this weekend, the President came out and defended himself. And we had a very ample conversation about what it is that the President did, what he didn't do, what his detractors say about him and what he can or can't do.
In the middle of that conversation, at one point, I said, why can't the president of the United States seem to figure this out? After all, he is the cotton-picking president of the United States. Well, soon after I said that, I started getting some Tweets from some of you, saying, you just said 'cotton-picking president of the United States' about the first black president of the United States? Without even realizing it?
I've was just saying 'cotton picking' because it's a term that I've used because I grew up in the South. It's a point that's often used to illustrate frustration- not in any way shown to use- used to show any kind of disrespect. However, I apologize nonetheless for using it, in case it was taken by anyone as an act of disrespect. So, there you go.
And, by the way, thank you! I got about ten Tweets right away from people on Twitter saying- hey, be careful using comments like that. So I do, and I apologize for it.
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