October 1, 2009 | 2:56 pm

Another Racial Wacko in the Obama Administration

Posted by  Joe R. Hicks

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Is Mark Lloyd the new Van Jones?  Jones was Barack Obama’s “Green Jobs Czar” who was forced out after, among other things, it was revealed that he was a “truther.”  Turns out, he’d signed a petition which alleged that the Bush administration had prior knowledge of the 9/11 terror attacks.

Well, there’s yet another wacko in the Obama administration.  Mark Lloyd is President Obama’s “Diversity Czar” at the Federal Communications Commission, a fellow who has decidedly questionable views.

This gentleman has spoken about having white media executives step down out of deference to minorities; called what’s going on inside of Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela “an incredible revolution.” 

It’s not that prior presidential administrations haven’t had their share of strange characters wondering around, but the hard left seems to have found particularly fertile ground inside the Obama administration.

How do you bring a guy into your administration who believes Hugo Chavez led “really an incredible revolution – a democratic revolution.”?

And how insulting is it that the Obama administration has embraced a guy who’s said that whites need to get out of the way of people of color, gays and others, “so someone else can have power.”  I suppose in Lloyd’s mind, merit and hard work has nothing to do with power or position.

However, this diversity czar has other opinions which reveal his racial paranoia.  He offered the astounding opinion that “There are few things, I think, more frightening in the American mind than dark-skinned black men.”

Really Mr. Lloyd?  After more than 40 years of working in the trenches of race relations work, it is my view that most Americans judge people by the content of their character and care far less about the color of someone’s skin than Lloyd imagines.  I also think most Americans detest crude displays of racial victimization – something Lloyd’s comments illustrate.

Are you comfortable paying this man’s salary with your tax-dollars?

One of the things the FCC should be most avid about is protecting American’s freedom of speech and expression.  But even here Lloyd doesn’t measure up.

In his 2006 book “Prologue to a Farce” he questions Americans devotion to free speech.  He wrote “at the very least, blind references to freedom of speech or the press serve as a distraction from the critical examination of other communication policies.”  Huh?

Being the “Diversity Czar” is a relatively silly position inside government. So, why should we be concerned about Lloyd?

Hidden in all of this is the raging debate at the FCC over the “Fairness Doctrine.”  This is an old law that formerly required broadcasters to provide opposing viewpoints on their programs.

Julius Genakowski, the FCC Chairman, has said the fairness doctrine isn’t currently on the agency’s agenda.  But there remains reason for concern.  Lloyd co-authored a 2007 study for the ultra-liberal Center for American Progress which examined what they called the “structural imbalance of talk radio.”  In media interviews, Lloyd has whined incessantly about how 91 percent of talk radio is controlled by conservatives.  But so what?

As a former radio talk show host, I knew that my show would live or die based only on ratings. It was the marketplace of ideas that would determine my fate.  Lloyd seems to have little understanding of this.

The liberal answer to conservative talk radio, Air America, was launched in 2004.  By 2006 it was bankrupt. Why? Listeners quickly labeled it boring and humor-less.  Now re-named Air America media, and with new owners, listeners still find the station boring and humorless and it struggles to attract listeners. 

Will Obama’s Diversity Czar follow Van Jones into oblivion?  Only time will tell.  Stay tuned.

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