This is a rush transcript from "The Five," September 27, 2011. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
GREG GUTFELD, CO-HOST: So, about a month ago I told a joke on "The Five." Roll tape, tape rollers.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, AUG. 24)
GUTFELD: This morning, I wrote a joke. It goes like this: What do you call someone who voted for Obama in 2008 but won't vote for him now? A racist.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GUTFELD: That was funny.
Anyway, writer Melissa Harry-Perry just proved that my joke wasn't really a joke after all. In her piece in The Nation called "Black President, Double Standard: Why White Liberals are Abandoning Obama," she pinpoints a tendency among white libs to hold black leaders to a higher standard than whites. This liberal electoral racism has led to a drop of support among whites for Obama from 61 percent in 2009 to 33 percent.
Melissa calls this a more insidious form of racism. Yes, insidious. That's the code word often used when there's not a proof for a silly theory. Can't find evidence of racism? It must be insidious. Perhaps you can't see it because you're not as smart as Melissa. She is professor who probably thinks everyone but her could be a racist.
I mean, let's say you voted for Obama enthusiastically. But, now, four years later, that thrill up your leg is gone. Well, that's on you, racist, and your racist leg.
Which leads me to the real bigotry. Harris Perry, a black woman, considers Obama so weak that she fears he's incapable of being held to a high standard. For me, that's the most insidious racism of all, not just for a black president, but for people of every color.
(CROSSTALK)
(LAUGHTER)
LESLIE MARSHALL, CO-HOST: Bravo.
GUTFELD: That's the -- and sure it ends really flat, but it sounds better than it really is. It's a little --
(CROSSTALK)
DANA PERINO, CO-HOST: Racism is like -- racism is like global warming, because you can explain everything through global warming.
GUTFELD: Yes.
PERINO: It's raining. It's snowing. It's hot. The tornadoes, the earthquake -- everything can be explained by global warming.
And racism, I think, in a lot of ways is becoming like that. If you could any -- it applies to anything when it comes to criticism and for some people. And President Obama himself does not do this.
GUTFELD: Yes, no.
PERINO: It's actually, lots of people talking around him, but he himself does a good job with --
GUTFELD: Yes, I think he finds it kind of, like, ridiculous.
ANDREA TANTAROS, CO-HOST: It doesn't help him.
GUTFELD: Yes.
TANTAROS: If I'm him, I'm saying, stop saying that. That doesn't help him with white voters or Hispanic voters. It doesn't move the country or story forward, I think it does damage.
But, look, he does have a problem with the African-American vote and not in the sense that they might not go to him. He was elected with 96 percent; now he has 58 percent approval rating. They're suffering disproportionately. They were suffering before he came into office, but now, it's much worse and he made them a lot of promises.
So, the question is -- are they going to be enthused enough to get out and vote for him? It really is an enthusiasm question.
MARSHALL: The question for me is -- when was anybody going to tell me that he was black? Obama is a black man? Because this is crazy. First of all, yes, there's racism. It's alive and well in America. There are people that voted for Barack Obama because he's black. There are people that voted for President Obama -- did not vote for him because he's black -- let's be honest.
But to me, to say that -- Melissa, sorry -- but to say that white people aren't going to vote for him or black people aren't going to vote for him because of his skin color, that's ridiculous. People who are angry that they didn't get what they wanted -- whether it was immigration, whether it was gays who want to get married although they are happy about the ban being lifted in the military. You know, there are different groups of people on the left speaking for the left tonight that are unhappy with some of the things he has done --
ERIC BOLLING, CO-HOST: So Leslie, if 90 percent of black community supports Barack Obama -- or supported -- but now, it's 58 percent or 60 percent -- and 17 percent of the black community is now unemployed. And if you're under 25 years, it's nearing 50 percent. Yet, the black community comes out in force for Mr. Obama in 2012. Are they racist?
MARSHALL: No.
BOLLING: How can they not be?
MARSHALL: Well, wait. If I -- wait, wait, wait.
BOLLING: It has to be race.
MARSHALL: If Dana is running for president and I vote for her as a woman because she's a woman and other things, am I a sexist?
BOLLING: You're a sexist.
MARSHALL: I'm not a sexist.
BOLLING: Well, you would have to be. If you don't vote for her on merit and vote for her on sexual orientation --
(CROSSTALK)
PERINO: I actually think people are voting on merit, actually. I don't think there's a lot of -- I think there's a lot of excuse-making for why somebody may or may not want to vote for him and I think it's actually a mask for what really is going on.
GUTFELD: Why don't you run for president? That's the bigger question.
PERINO: I have so much more fun here.
GUTFELD: Yes, it's true.
PERINO: I could be like all the others, like, I might run, I might not run, I might run.
(LAUGHTER)
PERINO: I let you know in three weeks. The filing deadline is not until November.
MARSHALL: I'm definitely not running, look into the camera, with that sincerity, I'm definitely not running.
GUTFELD: Well, President Obama was on BET last night and he was defending his record to black voters who have been -- and about black leaders who have been critical of him lately. Roll the tape.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: What people are saying all across the country is, we're hurting and we've been hurting for a long time. And the question is, how can we make sure that the economy is working for every single person? And, you know, the truth of the matter is, the vast majority of African-Americans understand that.
I want to make sure that you don't just kind of slip in there with the notion that African-American leaders of late have been critical. There have been a handful of African-American leaders who have been critical. They were critical when I was running for president.
All I get from the African-American community as I travel around the country is, we know it's hard, but we're praying for you. And we're behind you.
(END VIDEO CLIPS)
PERINO: Way behind you.
BOLLING: Can I just point something out? That was a response to the question asking Mr. Obama, let's just say there's a 16-year-old black kid in Chicago who's unemployed, has a bad home life, what are you going to tell him when he says I need a job?
And instead of saying, look, we're working on it, we're trying to create jobs, he went ahead -- if you listen to that carefully -- and blamed Dana's ex-boss. He says blame Bush --
PERINO: Oh!
BOLLING: -- saying it's been bad for a really long time and a 16-year-old kid realizes it. Well, I don't think so, Leslie. I think this is --
MARSHALL: That's not about President Bush, that's just the reality, whether it's a good economy or bad. See, Dana knows -- it's a good economy or bad economy, whether unemployment is high or low, it's terrible but it's true, that African-Americans have always had a disproportionate percentage --
BOLLING: It's Bush fault?
(CROSSTALK)
PERINO: I don't think he's saying that in particular, but the missed opportunity -- one of the things that encouraged so many voters, including even those who didn't vote for him, but said, on inauguration, this is a hopeful day. You know what? Let's try to support. And then, slowly the policies started coming forward, and they didn't like the policies and I thought -- well, wait, I don't like the policies, but am I a racist? And there's all of this internal churning when you know, you know what? I'm not for it.
TANTAROS: That's what they want.
PERINO: And then yesterday, on Saturday, when Herman Cain won the straw poll in Florida, at least for anybody making the argument that the Tea Party in Florida, Republicans in Florida are racist -- well, that kind of got turned on its head.
TANTAROS: Well right. They can't say any more the Tea Party is racist with Herman Cain. And there's a lot of opinion pieces out there now that says if Herman Cain runs, does he siphon the black vote away from President Obama?
MARSHALL: No, no, the state of Florida likes pizza.
TANTAROS: Oh! No, I think the state of Florida --
PERINO: They like jobs. They like good economic policy.
TANTAROS: And President Obama, even on his bus tour, one of the biggest gripes of African-Americans, he doesn't even go into urban areas, why doesn't he even try and reach out?
PERINO: He probably doesn't want to tie up traffic.
TANTAROS: And he doesn't want the tough questions, right?
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