Paterson on Giuliani's racism defense: 'The president is still black'

Former New York Gov. David Paterson on Saturday said Rudy Giuliani embarrassed himself with a “simplistic and almost childish” attack on President Barack Obama and laughed at his insistence that he couldn’t be racist because Obama had a white mother and was raised by white grandparents.

“The president is still black,” Paterson said in an interview with POLITICO, taking time out from the winter meeting of the Democratic National Convention, which he was attending as the New York State Democratic Party chairman.


Paterson, who’s African-American, said Giuliani’s defense of his comments earlier this week that Obama doesn’t love America doesn’t make sense.

“Gee, you look at a lot of African-Americans, you can tell, that some place there was some white lineage — and guess what, they got discriminated against just like everybody else,” Paterson said.

Paterson, who was a state senator from Manhattan during Giuliani’s years as mayor of New York City and has known him since, said he wasn’t as concerned with an apology to Obama.

“I think Giuliani should apologize to himself — because he’s embarrassing himself on the national stage, and he knows better. There’s no excuse for that type of thing,” he said.

Paterson said Giuliani’s recent spate of comments attacking Obama’s commitment to America seems like a plea for attention from a man who ran for the White House in 2008, toyed with a second run in 2012, and has seen the 2016 race take shape without him.

“There are those who see a lot of people running for president, they’re not on that list and maybe they’re just craving for a little attention, and maybe they’ll just say anything to try to get the rest of us to talk about them,” Paterson said.

If that’s the case, Paterson said, it would make what Giuliani said worse.

“What bothers me is the manipulation of circumstances by people who in their heart probably don’t hate anyone, but are so bent on being popular that they’ll say anything, even if it sounds like it, to be that way,” Paterson said. “This certainly had a taint that informs me that it was not motivated by what I would call good will.”