The New York Daily News reported Politico White House correspondent Joe Williams was suspended for suggesting Mitt Romney is only comfortable around White people. Actually, it appears Romney is only comfortable around non-humans and automatons.
Politico suspends reporter, Joe Williams, for saying Mitt Romney is ‘comfortable’ with ‘white folks’
White House reporter related Republican presidential candidate to hosts of ‘Fox and Friends,’ whom he characterized as ‘white folks who are very much relaxed in their own company.’
By Brian Browdie / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
A political news website has suspended its White House reporter after he made comments suggesting Mitt Romney is only comfortable around white people.
Editors at Politico are reviewing remarks by Joseph Williams on Thursday they say call into question the veteran correspondent’s obligation to cover politics fairly.
“Romney is very, very comfortable, it seems, with people who are like him,” Williams told MSNBC’s Martin Bashir, in an appearance later flagged by The Washington Free Beacon, a conservative website. “That’s one of the reasons why he seems so stiff and awkward in some town hall settings, why he can’t relate to people other than that.”
“But when he comes on ‘Fox and Friends,’ they’re like him, they’re white folks who are very much relaxed in their own company,” Williams added.
Williams also has zinged the presumptive GOP presidential nominee for his wealth and more in a series of tweets compiled by Breitbart.com.
“Either Ann Romney meant Mitt is flaccid or that when we ‘unzip him’ we’ll find he’s a d—k,” Williams tweeted after Romney’s wife told an interviewer in April her husband’s campaign “better unzip him and let the real Mitt Romney out” if people thought he lacked a sense of humor.
“Politico journalists have a clear and inflexible responsibility to cover politics fairly and free of partisan bias,” editors John Harris and Jim VandeHei reportedly wrote in a memo to the website’s staff. “Regrettably, an unacceptable number of Joe Williams’ public statements on cable and Twitter have called into question his commitment to this responsibility.”
Before joining Politico, Williams was deputy chief of The Boston Globe’s Washington bureau, where he covered the 2008 presidential campaign and 2009 inauguration.
“I regret that this happened,” Williams wrote in an email to Politico on Friday. Though Williams charged a “small group with Internet access and an ambitious agenda” with distorting analysis of political news, “it’s quite unfortunate and incredibly frustrating, however, that I landed in the crosshairs this time, calling Politico’s integrity into question and jeopardizing a job and a career that I love.”
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