This morning on Fox And Friends, host Brian Kilmeade conducted an interview that demonstrated the lengths to which Fox will go to distort reality and pander to the ignorance of their audience. The segment featured two adorable girls, aged 7 and 4, who Kilmeade exploited in a most disturbing manner.
The subject of the interview was the sidewalk enterprise the girls had set up selling lemonade. But Kilmeade perverted that classic American endeavor into a political attack on President Obama. His creepy inquisition of the kids furthered the Fox-generated lie that the President had insulted small business owners by recognizing correctly that they benefit from the collective contributions of society. And Kilmeade recruited these children to advance his dishonest political smear.
Kilmeade: These two girls built their lemonade business not only without government help, but without any help. […] How do you feel about the president saying that you needed help to start this business?
Clara Sutton: I would say that’s rude because we worked very hard to build this business. But we did have help. Our help came from our investors, our dad and step-mom, along with other friends and family.
When an alleged “news” network asks a 7 year old about the political implications of a presidential speech, you know they are either reaching in desperation for a new angle from which to attack a political foe, or they are conceding that their audience isn’t capable of understanding anything above the level of child.
Even so, Clara’s answer affirmed that she required help to build her business, contradicting the premise of Kilmeade’s question. The only parties whom she credited were her family, but, as a 7 year old, she can be forgiven for having neglected to give credit to the government entities that provided the sidewalk where she located her business, the water she used in her product, the streets her customers used to drive to her stand, the safety provided by law enforcement, and the deduction she represented on her parents tax returns.
Expecting a child to grasp the complexities of a political argument may be a little much to ask. That’s particularly true when the adult asking the question has deliberately lied in his presentation. No doubt the case being made by Fox was eagerly assimilated by their audience who probably can’t comprehend at a level much beyond that of young Clara, but the attempt to corral a child into a partisan debate is disgusting and exploitative. But what’s really sad is that it is not surprising that Fox News would sink to such despicable depths.
Update: Added video.
I read about this on Raw Story and left a comment on it as well. My first reaction was indeed a nausious feeling and then utter contempt for this pathetic talking head on Fox. All of the comments on Raw made the same obvious point, what about the public street and/or sidewalk in front of the house where the stand was setup? This glaring fact went right over this mental midget-Kilmeade. If the average Fox watcher’s brain capacity is so weak as to not see this for what it is then I don’t have a lot of hope for this country.
I imagine that the parents of these two girls are, in fact, FOX News viewers who have drunk the Kool-Ade (Lemonade?). I can imagine they set their kids up as a response to FOX’s coverage of the President’s remarks. When the child uses the word “proprietary” to describe her recipe, and then goes on to say the “investors” signed “confidentiality agreements” it is fairly obvious they were coached, as was Kilmeade in asking the question in the first place. These kids were exploited not just by FOX News but by their parents as well, a situation that if, the point was some progressive ideology, would have caused an uproar on that same show.
You bet, and I found it strange in reading the block quote in Mark’s article above, that the seven-year-old girl says “we did have help. Our help came from our investors…”
I find it hard to believe that the word “investor” is in your average seven-year-old’s vocabulary, or that the concept would even be understood by a seven-year-old, or that one would use that word without being prompted coached or rehearsed.
I’m not sure I see it as much about “exploiting” children so much as a pretty dumb attempt at mocking the presidents notion about how successful people get that way.
Geez. By having children come on and using their innocence and cuteness to make a political statement when the underlying understanding of political metaphor and rhetoric is beyond them IS by definition exploitation. That part is simple and requires little discussion, AND Mark pointed out how it’s exploitation in the article.
I would like to know what you think the “President’s notion of how successful people got that way” is. In the selective quote FOX and Kilmeade used the President is saying the infrastructure, the public works made the roads and thus helped all these business people and their companies successful, and that these same people and businesses did not MAKE THE ROADS, or do any of the things public works does. He is saying nothing about private enterprise except they did not do the work that public funds pay for. You may want to read Mark’s article again and pay attention to the part where he mentions sidewalks, water and roads.
Although my comment wasn’t so much about the specifics on the Barak Obama quote – you do bring up one of those lefty favorites of mine – you only get where you get because of government. I’ll never deny that roads and clean water are good things that we should have or that government does do some positive things, but if you think that’s the primary reason or is even 1/4 the reason for making a success of a person – you are truly an idiot and a sorry excuse for a human being. You are probably one of the leaches on society that can’t make it even on a basic level and therefore need to attack anyone or anything that is more successful than you.
Come on Steve. You can’t point to a single instance of me saying success is ONLY possible through government help. But if you want to argue that public works for interstate highways, local access roads, police, fire, ambulance and water do not contribute a great deal to the success of any given business you are wrong. And yes your remark did pertain to the specifics of Obama’s comment. Oddly, every single Congressional district, regardless of political party, even Tea Party and libertarian applied for stimulus money, even when the representatives of those parties decried the stimulus package. So yeah, all those making hay on Obama’s reasonable argument agreed with him when the money was on the table, lefty as that might seem.
I deny your ability to judge me based on my comments here, and find your ad hominem laughable. In my experience decent human beings do not accuse others of being leeches or even consider others to be “sorry excuses for a human being” (as if being a human being can be one thing or another). I would appreciate it if you limited your discussion to facts and political policy and left personal attacks out of it.
The two little girls should go open up their lemonade stand in Nigeria, even Mexico, and see how far their “investors” and Mom and Dad get them.
All successful businesses have this in common, brand recognition and individual contributions. There is not one person who is solely responsible for the success of a business. The success begins when the community recognizes your idea as valuable, brand recognition, and decides to invest your business, individual contributions.
Now before I catch Steve’s ire, I am not just merely tossing ideas out into the ether. I am speaking from experience, too. My partner and I have been working on creating a business for 4 years now. This is the “American Dream”, so I am told. We are basically real estate investors, but we hope to branch out into other areas later on. We have no brand recognition or community support. So, it feels like most of the time we are literally banging our heads against a wall.
Goddamn these people at F&F are so freakin obnoxious.
God.Damn.