NBC Exec: Obama's skin color gives him more legitimacy than any American leader in history

Pic is Mark Whitaker.

The number two man at NBC News believes Barack Obama's skin color gives him more legitimacy around the world than possibly any American leader in history.

For those unfamiliar, Mark Whitaker is the Senior Vice President that succeeded the late Tim Russert as NBC's Washington Bureau Chief, and currently oversees national and international reporting for all the network's news programs including the "Nightly News," the "Today" show, MSNBC, and "Meet the Press."

As part of the panel on Sunday's "The Chris Matthews Show," Whitaker said the following about Barack Obama:

I think it goes beyond the Middle East, and I think it's a bigger phenomenon which is the leader of the biggest democracy in the world is now a person of color and that is going to give him what political scientists would call a legitimacy in the street around the world that I don't think an American leader has had, ever perhaps.

Imagine that. Because Obama is black, before he even steps into the White House and accomplishes one darned thing he already has more legitimacy around the world than possibly every American president that came before him.
Isn't that racist? Isn't suggesting that someone is better or more "legitimate" solely because of the color of his or her skin a tremendously offensive concept?

Doesn't this go counter to Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream that his four children "will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character" (h/t NBer Mike Bratton)?
Read on.

And Whitaker needs to go back and re-read MLK speech. And the late Tim Russert is certainly missed.