Geraldo Rivera, a roaming correspondent at large for Fox News and a Donald Trump pal for 40 years has dutifully defended the president whenever he utters a blatantly racist comment or supports a policy that is detrimental to people of color.

Rivera failed to call out Trump’s racism in June 2015 when the then presidential candidate referred to Mexican immigrants as rapists, in December 2015 when he proposed a Muslim ban, in June 2016 when he disparaged American born Judge Gonzalo Curiel as “Mexican” and even after the August 2017 Charlottesville “fine people on both sides” comments.

After Trump’s “go back” demand to four Democratic congresswomen of color Rivera finally had an epiphany and  confessed “as much as I have denied it and averted my eyes from it, this latest incident makes it impossible.”

I realize that being a correspondent for Fox News and a close friend of Trump for decades made it difficult and awkward for Rivera to speak truth to power and denounce his racism, but it should have been impossible to defend him from charges of racism after all of the other aforementioned examples of his pal’s racism.

In the past Rivera has defended Trump from charges of racism by saying that he has always been very kind to him, but the journalist’s celebrity status trumped his ethnicity and made him acceptable to be part of Trump’s social circle. If Rivera was a carpenter working at one of Trump’s building projects, I’m sure he would have cracked jokes about his Jewish/Puerto Rican heritage.

In an interview Rivera conceded:

“I do insist that he’s been treated unfairly. But the unmistakable words, the literal words he said, is an indication that the critics were much more right than I.”

No shit! Trump’s words and actions, over the decades, have demonstrated that he is a racist. Unfortunately, most Fox News reporters and commentators will continue to make excuses for the racist buffoon’s racist words and deeds.  I don’t expect any other of the bobble head dolls at Fox News to finally see the light like Rivera.