UPDATE: Bob Beckel offered a semi-apology Monday evening to those who were offended by his racial slur. He promised to continue to speak out against China and "China apologists."
Congressman Mike Honda (D-San Jose) and other lawmakers are calling on Fox News to fire Bob Beckel after the talking head called “Chinamen” the single biggest threat to national security.
“I am outraged and disgusted by the use of the word ‘Chinamen’ and his other racist and xenophobic comments,” Honda said in a statement. "I agree with State Senator Ted Lieu, Campbell Councilmember Evan Low and everyone else who has called on Fox News to fire Beckel. The ignorance and hatred in his comments are repugnant. The fact that he has yet to apologize for these comments is inexcusable. As the founder of the Congressional Anti-Bullying Caucus, I know that words hurt, and slurs are used to intimidate. Fox News needs to do the right thing and fire Bob Beckel."
Beckel dropped the racial slur last week during an episode of The Five. He was commenting on a New York Times article about Chinese hackers breaching computer networks of a U.S. government agency.
“As usual, we bring them over here and teach a bunch of Chinamen—Chinese people—how to do computers and then they go back to China and hack into us,” Beckel blustered.
The other panelists cringed at the comment.
“This is going to end up on ‘The Soup,’” one remarked.
The incident wasn’t Beckel’s first on-air slur against Asians. Last year he said on the show that his “eyes blew up” after a swim and “it made me look Oriental.”
“I am one of those ‘Chinamen’ with ‘Oriental’ eyes that immigrated to America and majored in computer science,” Sen. Ted Lieu (D-Torrance) said. “We should all be alarmed by the racist, xenophobic comments by Fox News host Bob Beckel. His comments have no place in America, and this is at least the second time he has used racial slurs. He must resign immediately.”
Glenn Beck—no stranger to stepping in it—mocked the media’s outrage at Beckel’s comments.
“You’re shocked by anything Bob Beckel might say?” he said on his show, referring mainly to a Huffington Post intern’s tweet expressing alarm.
Beckel has a lengthy rap sheet of bigoted gaffes.
In August 2012, he called Jewish Americans who took part in a Mitt Romney fundraiser in Israel “a bunch of diamond merchants we don’t know the names of.”
A couple months later, while weighing in on San Francisco’s public nudity ban, Beckel speculated that most nudists, when they were children, were “probably gang-banged. I don’t know!”
He then laughed, adding, “They were probably sexually assaulted. I don’t know!”
By Beckel's standards, one could basically get away with saying anything by simply adding "I don't know."
For example: Bob Beckel is a racist waste of space. I don't know! (Except we do know.)
He's also downplayed the problem of college campus rape.
Fox News announced that Beckel will address his "Chinamen" comment in tonight's edition of The Five.
What is more threatening, the word choice of a minor media figure commenting on political issues on a network watched by adults, or the screams from officials holding office that his voice be silenced? If anyone should resign its Mike Honda, Evan Low, and Ted Lieu, for using the power of government to grossly violate the spirit of one of the founding freedoms that made this country so appealing to their ancestors: free speech.
Their eagerness to play the race card is a disgrace to freedom.
So are you advocating the use of all racial slugs for freedom of speech?
Gotta love the hypocrisy on the left. I would like to point out that, to the best of my knowledge, not one of these jackasses has decried the institutionalized racism of their own (democrat party) or conveniently forgets that theirs was the party which was the party of southern plantation/slave owners, that the Democrat Party created the KKK as their militant wing after they lost the Civil War, as a means of intimidating and oppressing recently freed black slaveowners and which lionized Senator Robert Byrd while blithely ignoring the fact that he was a semi-high-ranking member of the KKK.
Very interesting to see what has emerged from under their rocks.
Danny,
Supporters of free speech advocate for free speech, just as environmentalists advocate for clean air. You wouldn’t challenge an environmentalist as advocating clean air for pedophiles and wife-beaters, yet you are unrestrained in issuing just such a challenge to me, quite possibly because you’ve been brainwashed by an educational system that peddles political dogma at the expense of critical thinking.
Your logic is flawed. Wonder how you will react if someone called you discriminatory names such as white trash or &jj@@? Still free speech? congratulations, you’ve got thick skin. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
Mike I an outranged by everyone in Congress! You guys make a career of doing nothing, yet you suck up our money
( And big money from companies), get life time PENSIONS, HEALTH CARE, ETC. Then you complain or make a statement from some assistant (we know you did not write this) about a free admendment comment. Time for all you old timers to go away and new thinkers to get elected.
> Time for all you old timers to go away and new thinkers to get elected.
Could you be a little more specific as to what new thoughts you would like new thinkers to think?
There’s no point in rearranging the deck chairs if the new thinkers are just going to think the same thoughts as the old thinkers.
http://karaokescene.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=26&sid=b46f6297fcec7b5f0be7952e8af1fb68
That forum is pretty much the epicenter for karaoke information. There you can read how every US based manufacturer is now out of business. Mike, I hounded you for many years to do something, anything. On top of that, the US record labels will no longer grant the required licenses for someone to make karaoke.
Maybe this isn’t a big deal to some, but at one point karaoke manufacturing was a $220M industry that employed 1000’s of people. 10’s of 1000’s more were put out of business by people who never paid a dime for tracks. Now because congress failed to act on fixing the archaic copyright laws (copyright is under congressional jurisdiction) an entire industry has had to shutter its doors.
Thanks Mike. Thanks for nothing. I guess it doesn’t matter to you because you just sing old songs. It doesn’t matter nothing new will ever come out of the US.
Funny thing this SJI… Is it a blog? is it a news source? is it a place that offers “opinion?” or investigative reports as its banner suggests. One never knows, Take this piece by Jennifer Wadsworth. It says right above “Mike” in the title that it is “NEWS.”
Jen reports the party line that Fox is racist blah blah blah ,,, Beckel (big time Liberal – Dem) is racist blah blah blah… Asian politicians are outraged blah blah blah and then this gem of an opinion is inserted:
“By Beckel’s standards, one could basically get away with saying anything by simply adding “I don’t know.”
For example: Bob Beckel is a racist waste of space. I don’t know! (Except we do know.)”\
So much for the feigned attempts at Journalistic integrity… I’ll stick with “we report – you (me myself and I) decide.”
(how soon before it is edited? don’t know don’t care got the screen shot.)
Get over it Honda….until you demand crazy Uncle Joe Biden resign for saying far worse far too many times then you Evan Low and SJI and all other haters of the First Amendment can take a long walk off a short pier!
He is not suit for the job anymore.
“Chinamen” is a relatively mild slur (and frankly, a lot of people still do take an active dislike towards the tyranny that is the Peoples Republic of China; its not much different than some guy in the 1980s characterizing citizens of the USSR as “Russkies”). Beckel should be told not to use that term in the future, but the incessant drive by the self-appointed Thought Police, to destroy a man’s ability to earn a living every time he says something that offends someone, offends me greatly. I think its disgusting.
Wonder why Sterling was banned for life from nba for his racial slur behind curtains, but this piece of serial racist offender walks away free without repercussions. All i can say is American society imposes double standard in everything. US government hacks into china system too.
As my parents used to say, if you don’t have anything better to say, don’t say it at all. Freedom speech does not equal hate speech. If someone says nasty thing about me and my ethics. I will react and take appropriate action too.
Apology is too easy for bob. Did Sterling apologize?
Hey Bob, it’s not 1883, why don’t you take some of the money you don’t spend on suspenders and go git yerself some educatin’.