Fox News “Democrat” Kirsten Powers Accuses Obama Of Sympathizing With Terrorists

The next time you hear the Fox News slogan “fair and balanced,” be sure to remember that their rendering of fairness is to trot out covert conservatives and label them Democrats. Their concept of balance is to pair a right-winger with a far-right-winger.

Kirsten Powers - Ann Coulter

A perfect illustration of this is the op-ed on the Fox News web site posted by Kirsten Powers. If you changed the name in the byline to Ann Coulter nobody would have blinked an eye. And the anti-Obama bile begins with the title: “President Obama, stop blaming the victim for Mideast violence.”

This characterization of the debate could not be more biased and dishonest if it had come from Sean Hannity (on whose show Powers frequently appears). Her article takes the position that President Obama has not directed enough outrage to the perpetrators of the recent atrocities in Libya and Egypt. Her evidence of this is that Obama referred to the anti-Islam film reputed to have inspired the violence as “disgusting and reprehensible,” but went soft in criticizing the rioters by saying only that he “strongly condemn[ed] the outrageous attack.”

First of all, I’m not sure that Powers understands that a strong condemnation is just as resolute a criticism as an expression of disgust. They both send a pretty clear message of unmitigated disapproval. But Powers left out of her wimp-baiting the fact that Obama also declared unequivocally that those responsible for the attacks would be brought to justice. His record on accomplishing that task is familiar to the dozens of dead Al Qaeda operatives, including Osama Bin Laden.

In an effort to bolster her liberal bona fides, Powers brags that she has…

“…defended the Obama administration against the complaints from the right that they have run an ‘apology tour’ in the Middle East because I believe the US should admit when we make mistakes.”

Of course an actual liberal spokesperson who isn’t a Fox toady would have defended the President because there never was an “apology tour.” It was a complete fabrication by rightist liars. Yet Powers has accepted the phony premise and is now complicit in propagating it.

Powers spends much of her column seemingly offended herself that the Da Vinci Code or Bill Maher have engaged in offensive utterings directed at Christians. It’s a comparison that is so absurdly misused that one has to be concerned about her mental stability. Her contention is that our response to religious insults, and the actions they provoke, be the same for American Christians as for Middle-Eastern Muslims. But she is ignoring reality with that shallow opinion. There are, after all, no Christians rioting in the streets of Tuscaloosa.

Whether we approve or not, there are distinct differences between our cultures. Most of the world’s 1.2 billion Muslims have not participated in any violence, and in fact reject it. There were probably no more than a hundred protesters who have resorted to violence in the events of the past week. But the President, and the official American position, has to take into account the potential for harm to Americans at home and abroad and to mitigate such dangers. That’s a responsibility that Powers and her pundit class don’t have to labor under. And it’s the reason that Obama’s public statements exhibit a measure of diplomacy that loudmouth commentators lack.

The President is doing what presidents do. He is accumulating facts and intelligence. He is communicating with allies and his defense and security staff. He is strategizing in private so as not to alert our enemies or further inflame an already volatile situation. That’s how adults with real responsibilities, and lives in the balance, handle these matters. Already Libya has arrested four suspects in the embassy murders.

Obama doesn’t have to talk tough and thump his chest (like our last president, Bush, who achieved nothing). He just needs to get results and administer justice. With less than a week having transpired, there is no reason to believe that Obama is not progressing toward those ends. And it doesn’t help to have Fox propagandists pretending to be on the President’s side and making irresponsible statements like this:

“The condemnations are paired in with claims about respecting religious beliefs, which is implicit sympathy for the claims of some of the attackers and rioters.”

So Powers thinks that respecting religious beliefs is tantamount to sympathizing with terrorists. She cannot comprehend that the respect is offered to the vast majority of peaceful Muslims who had nothing to do with last week’s murders. If she thinks that demonstrating American principles of freedom of religion must be dispensed with because a few members of a religion are reprehensible killers, then she doesn’t have much faith in American principles.

It’s a good thing that Powers is confined to the narrow plank of conservative media that is willing to tolerate her, because her views would be tragically inappropriate in any official diplomatic post. What’s more, she is not the sort of person that liberals want representing their views on national television. She is just another Fox News phony (ala Pat Caddell, Doug Schoen, etc.) acting as an accomplice to tarnish liberals and fill the seat of someone who might otherwise take legitimately progressive positions.

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7 thoughts on “Fox News “Democrat” Kirsten Powers Accuses Obama Of Sympathizing With Terrorists

  1. Fox will not put a real liberal on to balance an argument. In fact they have gotten even worse now that Mitt is behind in the polls. I condemn fox news for their biased and misinformation of news. Perhaps they will take that as my apology. I used the word condemn. Maybe their low information viewers confuse condemn with condone.The disturbing point is they lead their audience to believe all Islams are terrorist and hate Americans.They don’t distinguish that it’s only the radicals that do these acts.I suppose if an Egyptian watched a broadcast of hannity on Fox they would think all Americans hate Obama.

  2. If you saw Maddow last night (or the other day?) she talked about how politically charged rightist ‘news articles’ are taken as fact because they’re ignorant as to how propaganda works here. So when someone writes an islmaphobic article, it can be used to justify protests and riots, which apparently can be hijacked by radicals to murder people.

    Man, is it just me or are the repubs gonna be real sorry for this whole ‘the president sympathizes with the attackers’ thing when it’s confirmed that it was a real terrorist operation that actually killed those people? That’s what you get for politicizing it right away.

    • I was watching Morning Joe (please don’t ask me to explain) after the first Embassy riots and was shocked to see that the debate was centered around stopping idiots who create inflammatory media from exorcising their base American right to ‘free speech’. When did it become necessary to silence the voice of the few whom we may or may not agree with for the benefit of the many? I find it troubling that in a society that likes to say it’s all for ‘free speech’ that we allow our government and police state to reign it in and limit it whenever it suits them or those with an agenda.
      Don’t make fun of Mohammed because some religious zealot nut job will try and kill you.
      The media in this country is scared to death of these fervent followers.
      Christ, Buddha, God, or any other deity is fair game though, even for the afore mentioned zealots.

      Real free speech is a commodity to be bought, sold, and restricted just like everything else and as we are told, for our benefit.

  3. Where do I begin?

    As long as Fox is continuously given a pass on their blatant lies and innuendo by the main stream media, we can all be labeled ‘terrorist sympathizers’. It’s not enough that News Corpse, The Rachael Maddow Show, or even The Daily Show; we need more nationally syndicated media sources to also make a point of showcasing the depth of depravity that Fox is more than willing to steep too.
    But money talks and truth walks, or in the case of Fox – left to die by the side of the road.
    I’ve too often seen the atrocities of Fox glossed over by MSNBC, CNN, and other cable networks as if the lies that got the story noticed in the first place were just something that occurred in passing. Yet we all put up with it and that is what makes us all ‘terrorist sympathizers’.

  4. THANK GOD!!!! Someone finally called Kirsten out. She is suppose to be a Democrat but she constantly slams president Obama. If you Google her name all you see are articles in which she is slamming the left, the president, and claiming that Mitt Romney does not get fair coverage on the media. Your article is 100 percent accurate. She is always on Hannity and even on her twitter she argues with Other democrats about Romney. It is so obvious she is a use-to-be democrat who use to work for Clinton and is leading the charge on what she thinks is a Clinton vs Obama war.

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