Kilmeade: Dems 'playing the race card' during Holder contempt vote

Fox News host Brian Kilmeade insists that Democrats in Congress were "playing the race" card when they walked as House Republicans were voting to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt.

Kilmeade on Friday asked Geraldo Rivera "who looks best" after Republican Representatives -- led by House Government and Oversight Committee Chairman Darrel Issa (R-CA) -- made history by voting to hold the nation's black attorney general in contempt.

Rivera pointed to the following quote by Justice Clarence Thomas: "And from my standpoint, as a black American, as far as I am concerned, it is a high-tech lynching for uppity blacks who in any way deign to think for themselves, to do for themselves, to have different ideas. And it is a message that unless you kowtow to an old order, you will be lynched, destroyed, caricatured by a committee of the U.S. Senate rather than hung from a tree."

Thomas was admonishing Democrats for accusing him of sexual harassing Anita Hill while he was her supervisor at the U.S. Department of Education and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, but Rivera observed that the same could be said about Republicans' actions against Holder.

"The optics are horrible," he explained. "This is a terrible thing that John Boehner and Darrel Issa allowed."

"Anybody can play the race card any time they're not happy!" Kilmeade objected.

"Did race play a role in Clarence Thomas' [confirmation]?" Rivera asked. "Probably not. Did race play a role in Eric Holder being held in contempt? Probably not. But they have given sufficient ammunition to the other side to reach that conclusion."

"This is congressional graffiti. This is legislative vandalism," he continued. "Darrel Issa knew that there was not even a strong suspicion that Eric Holder knew about Fast and Furious. They could have negotiated this. They could have gotten the information they needed."

"Aren't you sick of the race card being played every time something controversial happens?" Kilmead exclaimed. "So no race card with Obamacare, that's no problem. But there's a race card when something goes wrong with Fast and Furious."

The Black Caucus, Hispanic Caucus, Progressive Caucus and other Democrats -- including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) -- walked of Congress in protest on Thursday as the contempt vote was being held.

"You’re seeing the whole diversity of the Democratic caucus," Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO) told reporters. "This is a terrible day for the House of Representatives. What it’s about, we can’t decide for sure, but it’s not about Eric Holder and handing over papers. We don’t want to participate in something that has some kind of smell to it."

Watch this video from Fox News' Fox & Friends, broadcast June 29, 2012.