In the piece, Holder claims that many of his critics are playing “Washington ‘gotcha games,’” viewing him as someone who takes “consistently progressive stands” instead of examining his record and seeing that he takes a more realistic view of law enforcement. The most powerful attacks against Holder have come in the wake of the ATF’s controversial “Fast & Furious” gunrunning scandal. In the interview, Holder admits that he regrets sending a letter to Congress assuring legislators that “agents always tried to interdict illegally purchased guns,” which turned out to be incorrect.

RELATED: Cenk Uygur Blasts New York Times Coverage Of Eric Holder’s Voting Rights Speech

But Holder’s main focus in the interview is on the “hyperpartisan” nature of political attacks on the Justice Department, and he makes a rather interesting accusation about those targeting him and the president.

Of that group of critics, Mr. Holder said he believed that a few — the “more extreme segment” — were motivated by animus against Mr. Obama and that he served as a stand-in for him. “This is a way to get at the president because of the way I can be identified with him,” he said, “both due to the nature of our relationship and, you know, the fact that we’re both African-American.”

If Holder was a lightning rod for partisan criticism before, you can imagine what the reaction might be to racial politics being injected into the discussion.

David Gregory asked Cain if race had any role to play in the presidential race. Cain explained he did not, highlighting several instances of black voters telling him they would be supporting him in the primary and general elections, but not because of the color of his skin, but because of his ideas. He touted the popularity of his 999 plan, and argued that unlike the other candidates, he has put “specific solutions on the table” to fix the United States’ economic problems.

RELATED: Herman Cain Rips Harry Belafonte And Cornel West: ‘They Don’t Want Black People To Think For Themselves’

Cain then explained why he prefers to be called a black American as opposed to an African-American.

My roots go back through slavery in this country. Yes, they came from Africa, but the roots of my heritage are in the United States of America, so I consider myself a black American.

The candidate contrasted his own background with that of President Obama‘s, factoring in his own rough childhood and his eventual rise to small business owner.

Watch the video below, courtesy of NBC News:

Beck notes that, in South Africa, recognized races and ethnicities include black and “colored” (Wikipedia explains the term thusly: “In the South African, Namibian, Zambian, Botswana and Zimbabwean context, the term Coloured (also known as Bruinmense, Kleurlinge or Bruin Afrikaners in Afrikaans) refers to an ethnic group of mixed race people who often possess some sub-Saharan African ancestry but not enough to be considered Black, either by themselves or by others.”)

So is the term “colored,” Beck and co. wondered, really such a “bad thing” as we’re lead to believe? “Only here,” he lamented, referring to the U.S. “Why are we made to feel bad?” He has a theory:

“African American” was not made to do anything except try to create a super man. “Oh don’t you dare feel bad about yourself! You’re African American!” No. You’re an American. Instead of building the country up and saying, “Lookit. We all have the right, here in this country… Look at what happened with Martin Luther King. That makes you an American. ‘Judge not by the color of your skin.’” And you weren’t over in Africa! Your great-great-great grandfather was, your great-great-great-great grandfather may have been, but you weren’t!

And sure this country sucked for blacks. Sucked. Beyond sucked, for a long time. But it doesn’t now. It doesn’t now. Be proud to be an American.

He added that all the PC labels we have for another end up making Americans afraid to speak with one another, because Americans don’t inherently want to offend one another. We want to say the “right” thing and take the kindest course of action, but we’re impeded by our fear of offending one another. His advice? Have no fear and “dismiss these human rights frauds.”

Listen to the segment, via The Glenn Beck Show:

(h/t)

Diversity media watchdog Richard Prince is reporting at his Maynard Institute column that NBC suggests it wants greater diversity at Meet the Press, with an NBC spokeswoman telling Prince the show is “committed to having a more diverse group of voices on the show whose opinions and expertise reflect, not just the news of the day, but the cultural, economical and political landscape of our country.”

The comment comes after Zucker was grilled by African American and Latino members of Congress during a hearing over the NBC Universal/Comcast deal. Reps. Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-Texas), Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), and Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) repeatedly asked Zucker and Comcast chair Brian Roberts about the lack of diversity on their corporate boards and on both prime-time and Sunday morning shows, with Jackson-Lee telling Zucker, “[t]here is no diversity on the Sunday morning talk shows,” the blog Main Justice reported.

Looking at the schedule for Feb. 28 Sunday news shows, the complexion of guests and journalists is still very white.  MTP will have the Urban League’s Marc Morial and the Obama administration’s Nancy-Ann DeParle (who is Asian American) as guests and ABC’s This Week will have Elizabeth Vargas as host.  Face the Nation and CNN’s State of the Union will have no non-white guests or panelists (or hosts).  Only Fox News Sunday comes close to having good consistent representation, with Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J) as a guest and regular panelist Juan Williams of National Public Radio.

If this all sounds familiar, it should.  In 2005, the National Urban League issued its Sunday Morning Apartheid report which criticized the Sunday morning news shows for lack of racial diversity in guests and journalists. Since the report, things haven’t changed much.

After the Urban League issued its report, MTP’s Tim Russert and executive producer Betsy Fischer about the lack of diversity on MTP, which traditionally had the largest panels on Sunday mornings.  Russert was famously supportive of greater diversity and was comfortable dealing with race, as Gwen Ifill related after Russert’s death. Ifill–who was mentioned as a possible Russert replacement and who hosts her own show on public television–said that Russert tried to increase the number of African American journalists featured on the show. Ifill, along with National Public Radio’s Michele Norris and the Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson were often panelists during the Russert era after the Urban League report.

But the number of African American and Latino guests and journalists featured on the broadcast and cable news shows is still an issue of significant controversy, as Keith Olbermann’s recent defensiveness demonstrates. While Ifill often shows up on various panels and ABC This Week includes pundit Donna Brazile in their regular rotation of panelists, only NPR’s Williams is a Sunday morning regular.  There are no Latinos or Asian Americans who routinely show up on Sunday morning news shows.

MTP deserves credit for, again, voicing its desire to increase the diversity on its show.  But it shouldn’t take a testy Congressional hearing for the pledge to be made and, hopefully, this time there will be some tangible results.

One line of the President’s stood out as possible fodder for criticism in much the same way Judge Sonia Sotomayor‘s “wise Latina” comment became a conservative talking point.

Here’s the full passage:

That’s part of the African American experience. You are, in some ways, connected to this distant land, but on the other end, you’re about as American as it gets in some ways. African Americans are more fundamentally rooted in the American experience because they don’t have a recent immigrant experience to draw on. It’s that unique African American culture that has existed in North America for hundreds of years long before we actually founded the nation.

The key line, of course, is “African Americans are more fundamentally rooted in the American experience.” Obama did not expand on this, nor did Anderson Cooper ask a follow up. So did Mr. Obama mean that African Americans are more rooted in American experience than other Americans, or more rooted in American experience than the African experience? Or does it really matter?

Perhaps more importantly, will this become a “gotcha” moment? The quote could imply, at least without proper context, something similar to Sotomayor’s “wise Latina” comment. It could be the calm before the storm – it hasn’t even been a week since the interview first aired. So far it has been picked up only in the context of a discussion on the African American experience.

Whether the line becomes a conduit for a larger discussion on race in this country, or a talking point for the Obama detractors remains to be seen.

The interview is below, with the key passage starting around the 6:45 mark:

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