Princeton University Professor Dr. Cornel West (Credit: AFP/Getty Images)
Author, PBS host and self-proclaimed "democratic intellectual" Cornel West isn't as happy about President Barack Obama's re-election as you might think. In an interview with "Democracy Now" last week, West called Obama a "Rockefeller Republican in blackface" who is uncommitted to helping the nation's impoverished.
West said Obama has not been the progressive leader that he advertised himself to be. He also blasted a number MSNBC hosts for selling their "souls" to blindly support Obama in exchange for "insider access."
“I think that it’s morally obscene and spiritually profane to spend $6 billion on an election, $2 billion on a presidential election, and not have any serious discussion -- Poverty, trade unions being pushed against the wall dealing with stagnating and declining wages when profits are still up and the 1 percent are doing very well, no talk about drones dropping bombs on innocent people," said West.
"So we end up with such a narrow truncated of political discourse," he added.
West complained that issues like climate change were overlooked during the election discussion.
"It’s very sad. I mean, I’m glad there was not a right-wing takeover, but we end up with a Republican, a Rockefeller Republican in blackface, with Barack Obama. So that our struggle with regard to poverty intensifies," he said.
“That’s a pretty rough assessment of President Obama,” host Amy Goodwin responded.
But West didn't walk his statement back at all. “Oh, that’s what we have. Richard Nixon is to the left of him on health care. Richard Nixon’s to the left of him on guaranteed income and the same policies in terms of imperial foreign policy."
Watch the clip below via DemocracyNow/Mediaite:
Setting his sights on MSNBC, West said the network is comprised of "apologists" for the Obama administration. He jabbed at MSNBC hosts Mike Dyson, Melissa Harris-Perry and even Rev. Al Sharpton in his scathing review.
"I love Brother Mike Dyson too but we’re living in a society where everybody is up for sale. Everything is up for sale. And he and Brother Sharpton and Sister Melissa and others, they have sold their souls for a mess of Obama pottage," West explained.
"And we invite them back to the black prophetic tradition after Obama leaves. But at the moment, they want insider access, and they want to tell those kind of lies. They want to turn their back to poor and working people, and it's a sad thing."
Featured image via AFP/Getty
