It seems senior Austrian journalist Klaus Emmerich would like to take up the reins from right-wing politician Joerg Haider who died recently in a car wreck. Emmerich was the "Wolf Blitzer" of Austria and very popular, but his career has most likely crashed after he made blatantly racist comments about Barack Obama last Wednesday, live on Austrian national tv.
He has never publicly made any racist comments before in his entire 60 year career in journalism, part of which was spent as their US correspondent based in Washington D.C.
"I wouldn't want the Western world to be directed by a black man. When you say that is a racist remark: right, without a doubt."
It gets worse...after the jump.
In contrast to most politicians or journalists who 'accidentally' make racist gaffes and frantically try to backtrack, not Emmerich. He was totally unrepentant and even went further.
Americans are "racists, now as before, and it must be going very badly for them that they so convincingly ... send a black man, and a black, very good-looking woman, into the White House," he said.
The commentator of the talk show quickly changed the subject and didn't allow Emmerich to continue speaking for the rest of the show.
But he wasn't finished. In subsequent interviews afterward:
Obama's victory was an "extremely disconcerting development" he told the Austrian Standard on Wednesday, because "blacks aren't as politically civilized." Meanwhile, he told Die Presse in an interview published on Friday that Obama has "a devil-like talent to present his rhetoric so effectively."
WTF? Just because Joerg Haider went out in a fireball doesn't mean the country needs another racist mouthpiece. I doubt even Haider would have said something so unabashedly racist. Hopefully he'll never be able to show his face on tv again.