Fox News Channel personality Glenn Beck on Tuesday said he believes President Obama is a racist, upping the ante in a racially charged media controversy involving the president, a white police officer and a black Harvard professor. Beck made the comment while being interviewed for "Fox and Friends," where the commentators were weighing in on the firestorm surrounding the July 16 arrest of black Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. in his own home by white Cambridge police Sgt. James Crowley. Crowley was responding to a call of a possible break-in when he came upon Gates, who found himself locked out of his house after a trip. Obama has taken some heat for saying the police department "acted stupidly," but has since backed off that language and invited both men to the White House for a beer. On Tuesday, Beck said he believes Obama "is a guy ... who has a deep-seeded hatred for white people or the white culture -- I don't know what it is," he said. When Fox host Brian Kilmeade countered that 70 percent of Obama's staff is white, Beck responded: "I'm not saying he doesn't like white people; I'm saying he has a problem -- this guy, is, I believe, a racist." Fox News Channel official Bill Shine, SVP of Programming, subsequently told Mediabistro's TVNewser site that " . . . Beck expressed a personal opinion which represented his own views, not those of the Fox News Channel. And as with all commentators in the cable news arena, he is given the freedom to express his opinions."
