In a classic case of the chamberpot calling the kettle (insufficiently) black, News Corp CEO Rupert Murdoch hopped on Twitter today to express his thoughts on whether Barack Obama was a “real” black president. (Answer: Nope!) Murdoch, an 84-year-old billionaire who looks like a sun-bleached skeleton lightly covered in soft, downy fur, made his comments about Obama in the context of a tweet supporting Ben Carson, who Murdoch thinks could be the first black man to take on the mythical role. (Carson was scheduled to appear on the Fox News program The Kelly File.)
Murdoch subsequently clarified his tweet by pointing to a recent New York magazine piece about African American communities disappointed by Obama’s tenure in office, a clarification that did not stop the online hordes from choking on the optics of a sentient bottle of Wite-Out declaring who is and isn’t really black. (In his defense, it’s also possible that Murdoch has somehow come to the conclusion that Obama is Egyptian, and thus is actually white.) Inundated with online outrage and ire, Murdoch responded by continuing to be richer than several countries and in control of vast swathes of the international media, and probably went and took a nap.