Megyn Kelly

Megyn Kelly Nabs Sean Hannity’s Timeslot On Fox News – Per Drudge

Posted by on August 8, 2013 at 4:08 pm. 22 Comments :

Megyn KellyAs reported here last month, Fox News daytime anchor Megyn Kelly is set to move to primetime when she returns from maternity leave in September. At the time of the announcement there was no indication of which current primetime host would be ousted.

Today, Matt drudge is reporting that Kelly will be taking over at 9:00pm, the timeslot currently held by Sean Hannity. Drudge may not be the best source for news, but later this afternoon Fox News CEO Roger Ailes was asked about the rumor and, while declining to confirm or deny, pretty much confirmed it. When asked specifically about Hannity, Ailes only offered a vague non-reply saying, “Hannity is a brand that many of our viewers love and want to see, and, as you know, is one of the nicest guys in the building.”

Setting aside the fact that Hannity is perhaps the most despised person in the building (Bill O’Reilly won’t even talk to him), Ailes’ obvious dodge is revealing. There is still room for speculation, however. Hannity could be moved to 10:00, and Greta Van Susteren bumped out of primetime – perhaps to 7:00 where Shepard Smith is currently hosting his second hour of the day. Ailes was quoted at an investors meeting saying that “Shep and I have been working quietly on something we will roll out in September on how news is presented, a new way to deliver news.” So there is some fluidity in Smith’s future. Rolling out a “new way to deliver news” sounds suspiciously like throwing something up on the Internet.

Fox Nation vs. Reality is available now on Amazon

In a demonstration of how inept the Fox News team is, they reported the news of Kelly’s scheduling by citing the Drudge Report and noting that “A Fox News spokesperson said no official announcement would be made at this time.” So apparently Drudge has better sources about Fox News than Fox News does. And don’t expect much to change at the network. As I wrote last month…

“[Fox News] will continue to be rabidly right-wing, with a clearly denoted bias for Republican Party dogma. Kelly’s entry into the club will not change that. In fact, it will congeal the conservative hackery into a younger, more alluring package. But the brain-dead zombies who watch Fox won’t have to worry a bit about whether they will continue to get a daily dose of propaganda devoid of those pesky and annoying facts that make understanding current events so difficult. For them, Kelly will be a comforting and reassuring breath of fresh lies.”

Megyn Kelly is nothing more than a younger, prettier, Glenn Beck. Her devotion to right-wing propaganda and conspiracy theories is just as strong, however her background in law and her personable presentation makes the disinformation that much more palatable to Fox’s geriatric, white, male audience. Stay tuned for more details.

[Update] Sean Hannity has commented on the programming rumors saying “Let’s just say in the end I’m very happy. That’s all I can say at this point.” That sounds like a confirmation that Kelly is pushing him aside and he is spinning it as positive for him. But unless he’s getting O’Reilly’s spot, I can’t see how getting booted out of the timeslot you’ve had since the network launched is a good thing.

Fox News Rewards Megyn Kelly’s Bootlicking Conservative Bias With A Promotion To Primetime

Posted by on July 2, 2013 at 2:14 pm. 13 Comments :

This just in: “Megyn Kelly will move to FOX News Channel’s (FNC) primetime lineup upon her return from maternity leave, announced Roger Ailes, Chairman and CEO, FOX News.”

Megyn Kelly GQThis was just a matter of time as Fox News has pretty obviously been grooming Kelly for a prominent role at the network from the day she was hired. Both Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes had taken a profound (and somewhat creepy) interest in her due to her pinup girl good looks, her background as a lawyer, and her eagerness to fulfill the Fox mission of slandering anyone and everything liberal without regard to honesty or ethics. (See Fox Nation vs. Reality)

Kelly fits the Fox mold to a tee, as a busty blonde presenter who would appeal to the Cialis-chomping, scooter-riding, gold-hoarding, geezers who make up such a large part of Fox’s audience and advertiser base. And Kelly is not shy about marketing her sex appeal as demonstrated by her pictorial in GQ Magazine.

As an anchor, Kelly has fashioned a more palatable version of Glenn Beck’s conspiracy-riddled wingnuttery. The stories she features are a collection of partisan tripe and manufactured outrages that have little basis in fact. From her near-obsession with the irrelevant New Black Panther Party, to her false accusations against then-Pennsylvania senate candidate Joe Sestak, Kelly has been a non-stop, gushing flow of disinformation and gossip. For more examples:

  • Kelly defended an anti-Islam filmmaker as a “patsy” of the Obama administration.
  • Kelly asserted that Americans have “gotta get a little squeamish” about the prospect of being killed by drones.
  • Kelly told her colleague Bill O’Reilly that pepper spray used against student protesters was just “a food product, essentially.”
  • Kelly moderated a discussion that was based on a series of “Fox Facts” that were cribbed directly from a Republican National Committee press release.
  • Kelly featured a disreputable reporter with a history of violence (who was later arrested for sexually assaulting a four year old girl) in her frequent attacks on the funders of the Islamic Center that Fox derisively referred to as the “Ground Zero Mosque.”
  • Kelly misrepresented the results of a Fox News Opinion Dynamics poll to argue that Democrats are defying the will of the people.
  • Kelly helped to cover up the extra-marital affair of GOP senator John Ensign and failed to disclose her personal involvement in the story.

It’s easy to see why Fox would want to advance Kelly to their primetime lineup. The musty presences of Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, and Greta Van Susteren could surely use an injection of new blood. The problem is that one of them will have to be booted from their perch. The most obvious loser would be Van Susteren, whose show is the weakest performer of the lot. However, Hannity’s position is hardly safe considering that he is despised by most of his colleagues. Even O’Reilly cannot be dismissed since he has floated suggestions that he might be ready to retire.

So we will have to wait until Fox announces their new schedule to see who comes up short. But in the end it will make no difference in the content that Fox offers. It will continue to be rabidly right-wing, with a clearly denoted bias for Republican Party dogma. Kelly’s entry into the club will not change that. In fact, it will congeal the conservative hackery into a younger, more alluring package. But the brain-dead zombies who watch Fox won’t have to worry a bit about whether they will continue to get a daily dose of propaganda devoid of those pesky and annoying facts that make understanding current events so difficult. For them, Kelly will be a comforting and reassuring breath of fresh lies.

[Update: 7/10/2003] There is still no word on where Kelly will land in primetime, but one of the replacements for her daytime gig will be Fox & Friends co-host Gretchen Carlson, whose experience as a former Miss America certainly prepared her for a role as a Fox News anchor. Media Matters has prepared an exhaustive look back at Carlson’s credentials.

On Fox News GOP Rep Lies, Accuses Glen Greenwald Of Threatening To Out CIA Agents

Posted by on June 12, 2013 at 6:40 pm. 3 Comments :

Remember when Fox News was OUTRAGED at the possibility of the United States government prosecuting a reporter for doing his job? It was only a couple of weeks ago. At that time their own James Rosen was revealed to have been conspiring with an employee of the State Department to acquire and publish classified documents concerning sensitive operations in North Korea.

The news of Rosen’s involvement in the matter, and the government’s investigation of him, sent Fox News squawking heads into a tizzy. They complained loudly and repeatedly that it was unconscionable that a reporter would be subject to such an unthinkable burden merely for doing what any respectable reporter would do under the same circumstances. Never mind the fact that Rosen was not conducting routine investigative reporting. He was caught persuading a source to break the law in order to advance his own political agenda. He literally told his source that he wanted to “force the administration’s hand.”

Fox News

Well, that commitment to the First Amendment was decidedly short-lived. Today on Fox News, Megyn Kelly hosted GOP Rep. Peter King to discuss King’s remarks regarding Glen Greenwald, the reporter who broke the NSA story. King had previously said that he believes that Greenwald should be arrested and prosecuted for his reporting. When Kelly gave King an opportunity to clarify his position, King said…

“In this case, when you have someone who has disclosed secrets like this and threatens to disclose more, then to me yes, there has to be…legal action should be taken against him. […] No right is absolute. Obviously, freedom of the press has to be cherished in this country, but in this case where some people are glorifying Snowden and making him a hero, and now acting as if Greenwald was a legitimate journalist.”

Kelly sought to make the connection between Greenwald and Rosen, asking King if there was a difference. King thinks there is:

“James Rosen never said he was going to release information that was going to kill Americans. He was never going to release the names of CIA agents and operatives around the world.”

Well, as Greenwald noted today on “All In with Chris Hayes,” he never made any such threat. He further insisted that he doesn’t even know the names of any covert CIA agents or operatives. King’s accusation was entirely made up. But that didn’t even matter, because when Kelly asked him if Greenwald should be prosecuted for anything he has already done, rather than something King is afraid he will do in the future, King responded in the affirmative.

Throughout this interview there was no sense of outrage, no horror that a government official – the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee no less – was advocating the prosecution of a reporter for doing his job. There was none of the indignation that Fox showed for Rosen expressed for Greenwald. There wasn’t even any push back at King’s allegation that Greenwald was threatening to take actions that would kill Americans, an allegation that if proven could result in Greenwald being executed for treason.

This is about as clear a demonstration that Fox’s concern for freedom of the press is a charade. They couldn’t care less about the First Amendment except in situations where they can exploit it for political advantage. Greenwald is a legitimate journalist (unlike Rosen who is a political operative), but when his rights are threatened by a lying congressman, Fox News thanks the congressman and moves on to their next story. Remember that the next time somebody on Fox pretends to be shocked by some scandalous event in the news.

Enough Already! Eric Holder Did Not Lie Under Oath About Leak Investigations

Posted by on May 28, 2013 at 4:13 pm. 5 Comments :

The media is once again demonstrating their bottomless capacity for ignorance and their utter inability to grasp simple concepts.

Fox News

Fox News and other lazy pseudo-reporters are all aflutter over an answer given by Attorney General Eric Holder at a House committee hearing. Holder was asked a question about press freedom raised by a Justice Department investigation into the leaking of classified data. Holder responded saying…

“With regard to the potential prosecution of the press for the disclosure of material, that is not something that I’ve ever been involved in, heard of or would think would be a wise policy. In fact, my view is quite the opposite.”

That’s a pretty straight forward answer with little ambiguity. Nevertheless, the media can’t seem to grasp the meaning. They are journeying far afield to surmise that Holder may have committed perjury because it was later found the he had approved the search warrant for phone records and emails pertaining to alleged State Department leaker, Stephen Jin-Woo Kim. Megyn Kelly on Fox devoted two segments of her program to this overtly slanderous charge, complete with her hallmark smugness and affected outrage. And of course, the prize-winning prevaricators at Fox Nation featured multiple renditions of this non-story.

The search warrant in question included records for Fox reporter James Rosen who, evidence suggests, was Kim’s accomplice. And now the witch hunters in the GOP-mismanaged House of Representatives are setting fires under Holder in an attempt to further smear the administration.

Let’s make this simple. Holder said that he was uninvolved and unaware of any effort to prosecute any member of the press for “disclosure” of classified materials. That is unarguably true according to all of the available facts. No one was being prosecuted, or even investigated, for disclosing information in the press (i.e. publishing or broadcasting). Rosen was not being investigated for any type of disclosure. He was being investigated for soliciting Kim to transmit secret documents to him.

Holder’s involvement was limited to Kim’s conspiring to give Rosen access to classified data that he did not have security clearance to receive. The search warrant specifically addressed that activity and nothing relating to the publication of such material or any other press function.

If Holder had sought to prosecute Rosen for distributing the material to others, or for the story he later published on Fox News containing the classified data, that might be a different matter. But that never occurred and there is no evidence that it was even considered. The crime here is that Kim and Rosen conspired to exchange government secrets, not that any of those secrets were part of Rosen’s reporting.

Consequently, there is nothing in Holder’s actions and testimony that are inconsistent. It would nice if the media were smart enough to figure this out. Perhaps that is expecting too much.

Fallen Hero Worship: The Double Barrel Hypocrisy Of Fox News

Posted by on May 10, 2013 at 3:08 pm. 1 Comments :

As the dedicated and accomplished propagandists that they are, Fox News can be relied upon to twist facts and manufacture falsehoods to advance their extreme right-wing agenda. But sometimes they jump so far over the line of decency that it’s hard to imagine how anyone can take them seriously.

Today on America Live, anchor Megyn Kelly interviewed the parents of a Navy SEAL who was killed in a helicopter crash two years ago in Afghanistan. Other than another request to launch an inquiry into the circumstances of the crash, there was no new information related to that event that might have made this interview newsworthy. It seems that the only reason that Kelly brought these grieving parents back on (they were interviewed on Fox eight months ago) was to give them, and Fox, an additional opportunity to bash President Obama. And that’s precisely what they did. The father, Billy Vaughn, began his discussion with Kelly by saying…

“Our military’s slogan – it’s called ‘relentless pursuit of the enemy.’ And I’ll tell ya, I don’t know where it came from, but it makes just about as much sense in what it’s referring to as ‘the Affordable Health Care Act.’” [Insert rimshot here]

It seems inappropriate, to say the least, to inject an unrelated ObamaCare zinger during a discussion about one’s son who was killed in the line of duty in a war zone, and about whom you are supposedly grief-stricken. That sort of blatantly political jab diminishes the sobriety of the moment and reeks of disrespect. But Vaughn didn’t stop there. During the interview he repeatedly and deliberately displayed the tattoo on his left forearm reading MOAON AABE (translation: Come and Take Them), which amongst other things is the motto of the United States Special Operations Command Central, but is also a phrase that has been adopted by the radical right in America and the gun lovers of the 2nd Amendment movement.

Fox News

Lest there be any confusion as to Vaughn’s leanings, he also told Kelly that, in regard to his view of the inquiry into his son’s death, “Government is doing nothing. They sympathize with the enemy.” That’s a fanatical sentiment that was also expressed by his fellow grieving father at a press conference yesterday who said that “The U.S. government and many high-ranking military people own more credit for the shoot down than the Taliban.” This is Trutherism on a smaller scale.

The first barrel of hypocrisy from Fox is loaded with raw bullshot. While the grief of these parents is beyond question, the motives of Fox are not. For several months Fox anchors, and Republican guests, have been belittling the testimony by the families of the slain children of Sandy Hook. They have accused them of exploiting the massacre for political purposes. They have disparaged them as props of the White House. They have even sought to outright dismiss anything they might say with the outrageous claim that they are psychologically impaired by their grief and, therefore, unfit to render an opinion. Yet somehow those same mental deficiencies have not prevented a steady stream of victims from parading through the Fox News studios to deliver tirades against the President.

The second barrel of Fox-pocrisy was the blast of faux outrage over the assertion that the Obama administration’s recognition of SEAL Team 6 for their heroic mission to dispense with Osama Bin Laden was a betrayal of the unit’s anonymity. That came as Kelly prompted Mrs. Vaughn to describe how she believed the administration put a target on her son’s back. However, the White House never revealed the names of the team members, only the unit, which was not a particularly well-guarded secret to begin with. On the other hand, it was Fox News who outted an actual SEAL Team 6 member who participated in the Bin Laden raid. Afterward, his life, the lives of his family, and the lives of his SEAL comrades were threatened by Islamic jihadists.

Hypocrisy is a common byproduct of the Fox news grinder. But this feat of squeezing two hyper-hypocrisies into a single story is an accomplishment that only extraordinarily adept prevaricators should ever attempt. And that pretty much leaves the field to Fox News.

WTF? Fox Nation Ties Cleveland Kidnapper To Anti-Islam Video Maker, Benghazi, And Obama

Posted by on May 9, 2013 at 4:17 pm. 6 Comments :

These freakin’ slimeballs at Fox Nation continue to demonstrate that they have no morals whatsoever. Not to mention no integrity, honesty, or decency. They will take any grotesque episode, no matter how far removed from President Obama, and attach it to him by some depraved, alien logic. Take this for instance:

Fox Nation

The original article referenced by Fox Nation was from their own Fox News via the Associated Press. It reported on the arrest of Areil Castro, the charges against him, his bail, and went into some detail about the alleged crimes.

For some reason, Fox Nation focused on the one sentence in the 700+ word article that mentioned Castro’s bail. But even more baffling was their insertion of this paragraph:

“The creator of the controversial anti-Islam You Tube video, that the Obama administration used in its talking points as the motivation behind the September 11th attacks in Benghazi, was held without bail. It was later revealed that the attack in Benghazi was not a reaction to the video.”

That text was not anywhere in the original article. It was composed entirely by the Fox Nationalists and inserted into the story without any disclosure that they had fabricated it themselves. It obviously has nothing to do with the story and sticks out for its surreal irrelevance.

For the record, the filmmaker, Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, was arrested for allegedly violating terms of his probation. The judge, citing probation violations including lying to probation officials, ordered him held without bail, a common occurrence under these circumstances. He pleaded guilty to four of the charges against him and was sentenced to one year in prison and four years of supervised release.

[Update: Fox News is now actively defending this filmmaker who they portray as a “patsy” of the Obama administration]

Fox News
…..

So what was the point that Fox Nation was making by embedding this extraneous content into the article? Clearly they were drawing some sort of deranged parallel between Obama, Nakoula, and Castro. Perhaps their purpose was to imply that Obama personally interceded to insure that Nakoula was held incommunicado to keep him from exposing Obama’s covert plot to promote the video and inspire a global Islamic uprising. Or maybe Fox was attempting to suggest that Obama had some sympathy for Castro and secretly engineered his bail (at only $8 million). Or maybe Fox just hadn’t written the word “Benghazi” in the past five seconds and thought this would be a good time to slip it in again.

What on earth are these imbeciles thinking? They just lost a historic election that they were convinced would be a cake-walk for the GOP. They underwent what they themselves called a “postmortem” analysis of their epic failures. They were named the “stupid party” by one of their most prominent governors. And yet they are still resorting to the sort of idiocy and extremism that has earned them the lowest favorable ratings in history.

And this wasn’t even the only incident of Castro-izing Democrats today. On Fox’s America Live with Megyn Kelly, their conservative contributor Chris Plante inexplicably said that “Ariel Castro might get the ‘hospitality of the year award’ from the Democrats in Congress.” What unholy orifice did he pull that from?

This is evidence that Fox News and their GOP pals have learned nothing from the 2012 elections. It also proves that they are a gaggle of repulsive and childish mental deficients with no discernible honor or even the common civility that would permit them to go out in public among decent people. Where the fuck does it stop with these cretins?

And not to be left out. the “Moonie” Washington Times joined in with this asinine crap:

Washington Times

Fox News Confirms Arrest/No Arrest Of Boston Marathon Bomber

Posted by on April 17, 2013 at 6:37 pm. 14 Comments :

It is well known that Fox News is an unreliable network for anyone interested in factual representations of current events. They will unabashedly lie in order to advance the ideological agenda of their political and corporate allies. And yet, it is still unsettling when something like this happens:

Fox News

Within the space of about half an hour, Fox News vividly demonstrated that their issuance of a “confirmation” is of no value whatsoever. After announcing that an arrest had been made in the Boston Marathon bombing, Megyn Kelly repeatedly assured her viewers that the information she was reporting had been verified by multiple sources. But it didn’t take long before the bottom fell out of her assurances.

To be fair, CNN also misreported the story and had to make an embarrassing retraction. The only cable news network that applied the rigorous standards of journalism and refrained from jumping on the erroneous story was MSNBC. Pete Williams, NBC’s justice correspondent, and NBC anchor Brian Williams, both made appearances to refute the reports that were coming out of other news outlets.

Will these people never learn? A few months ago both CNN and Fox (also Megyn Kelly’s show) misreported the Supreme Court decision on ObamaCare. And again, only MSNBC got the ruling right. On that occasion CNN acknowledged their mistake and apologized to viewers. Fox refused to do either, claiming that their analysis was justifiable at the time because they believed it was correct and, therefore, there was nothing for which to apologize. I know…it’s crazy.

Nevertheless, a prolonged discussion took place in the media about the pressure to be first butting up against the responsibility to be right. And despite the universal agreement that accuracy is the measure by which news enterprises will be judged, they continue to fall short of the professional standards they profess to hold.

News organizations can be forgiven for making mistakes from time to time because they are staffed by people and people are not perfect. But they ought ot learn from their mistakes and they ought to demonstrate that they care about the product they produce. At least CNN respects their audience enough to show some remorse. Fox News doesn’t have that kind of class. In fact, their routine abuse of their audience via fabrications and distortions suggest that Fox couldn’t care less what their viewers think they know. From Fox’s perspective, the more confused their viewers are, the easier it is for Fox to continue to deceive them.

Hilarious MoveOn.org Video Rankles Right-Wing Prudes

Posted by on November 1, 2012 at 10:11 am. 5 Comments :

A new video produced by MoveOn.org with help from Michael Moore is causing some right-wingers to reach for the smelling salts. The rest are falling off their chairs with outrage and frothing criticisms. What has them so unraveled?

OMG! Old people cussing. The world has finally succumbed to Satan’s call. What better evidence is there that Armageddon is imminent?

This little video is generating thousands of views, and millions of guffaws, across the InterTubes, but in the realm of the right it is stirring nothing but anxiety and outrage. It has been featured on Fox News on at least three programs: America Live with Megyn Kelly, Hannity, and the O’Reilly Factor. All of these “news” alerts castigated the video with vitriol usually reserved for terrorist bombings or Obama sightings.

Sean Hannity and Megyn Kelly both brought Fox News “Democrat” Kirsten Powers on to fulfill her mission of pretending to be a liberal while bashing her alleged allies. As the representative of the left she responded to Kelly’s leading questions saying “I don’t know why Michael Moore would do it, but even worse, I don’t know why MoveOn.org would be associated with it.”

Far worse, however, was Bill O’Reilly’s Talking Points Memo segment that he titled “Threats From The Far Left.” In his feverish denouncement of the video he said “So now the far left is threatening violence if President Obama loses the election.” Then he charged that President Obama is “culpable” for the video because he hasn’t condemned it. Really?

Someone needs to inform O’Reilly that this video is what we humans like to call “comedy.” It is not threatening any actual violence. For a demonstration of actual threats, just visit the Fox News community web site, Fox Nation. There you will find Fox fans literally yearning for Harry Reid to die; for Nancy Pelosi to have her skull crushed; cheering Arlen Specter’s death; advocating the assassination of President Obama. Since O’Reilly has never condemned these remarks he must be regarded as culpable for them.

The zealous acrimony expressed by these puritanical louts is almost as funny as the video. They clearly have a hard time discerning the difference between comedy and reality. And that may explain why they are unable to see the humor in this video but they can take Mitt Romney seriously.

ADDENDUM: For an idea of what the Fox News crowd thinks is funny, note this item posted on Fox Nation:

Fox Nation

The rating given to this article by the Fox Nationalists is “Funny.” Apparently they regard bad news for American businesses and workers as a joke. These cretins actually celebrate the hardships of fellow citizens. For the record, Fox failed to note that GM’s earnings statement was actually better than analysts expected and the stock rose almost 10% after the release. It was an indication of an improving economy. But that didn’t stop Fox from latching on to what they could spin as bad news and lifting the hearts of their America-hating audience.

Anatomy Of A Fox News Lie

Posted by on June 20, 2012 at 12:14 pm. 2 Comments :

If you’ve ever wondered about the course of the obvious prevarications that eventually wind up on Fox News, a fascinating example of this process was revealed recently in an affair that involved a Montana congressman and a collection of disreputable players.

In early June, Rep. Denny Rehberg (R-MT), currently the GOP candidate for the senate, accused the Environmental Protection Agency of conducting spy operations with unmanned drones over Montana farmland. He sent the EPA a letter demanding that the practice be stopped, saying…

“The Obama Administration has, once again, stepped way over the line. First they wanted to expand their authority to regulate water, and now they want to use air drones to spy on American citizens. Enough is enough.”

The only problem with Rehberg’s complaint was that there was no truth to it whatsoever. He later admitted that he was wrong, but somehow managed to blame the Obama administration for his mistake. His spokesman issued this statement:

“The Obama Administration rarely reveals its secretive plans to anyone but its closest allies. Since Denny doesn’t vote with the President 95 percent of the time, he must often rely on news reports and constituent input.”

See? If the Obama administration had revealed its secret plan to not do something they would later be accused of doing, there wouldn’t have been any problem. Here is a timeline of the news reports Rehberg cited. Feel free to follow along at home…

  • One of the first references to the non-existent drones came from radio conspiracy theorist and 9/11 Truther, Alex Jones.
  • The next day the New American, a publication of the uber-rightist John Birch Society, posted their own version of the hoax.
  • On June 6, the story was picked up by The Daily Caller, which is run by Fox News contributer Tucker Carlson.
  • That was followed by a piece in Investors Business Daily.
  • And finally, the story bubbles up on Fox News, where it is subjected to even more hyperbole courtesy of host Megyn Kelly.

Megyn Kelly

Kelly: “Even an American terrorist, an American al-Qaida, was killed by a drone. So now you’re in the Midwest, and you know you’re not a terrorist, but nonetheless, you gotta get a little squeamish when you see a drone going overhead.”

The progression of lies through the conservative media is a peculiar and dangerous phenomenon. And the way it is exploited by Fox News demonstrates their overt aversion to factual journalism and objective reporting. They exist for only one purpose: To advance the interests of the Republican Party, conservative extremists, and their wealthy benefactors. They will employ any information and tactics to achieve their ends, no matter how contemptible and illegitimate.

Fox News Escalates The War On Women Out Of All Proportion

Posted by on April 12, 2012 at 2:21 pm. 4 Comments :

Leave it to Fox News to leap on a political molehill and start shoveling feverishly in the hopes of building a mountain.

Yesterday Hilary Rosen, who works for a democratic public relations firm, appeared on CNN and made the mistake of not parsing every single word she said before opening her mouth. The result was a firestorm of criticism aimed a short immaterial phrase that is hardly representative of her full statement. Here is what Rosen said with the part conservatives have latched onto in bold:

“With respect to economic issues, I think actually that Mitt Romney is right that ultimately women care more about the economic well-being of their family and the like. But he doesn’t connect on that issue, either. What you have is Mitt Romney running around the country saying well, you know, my wife tells me that what women really care about are economic issues, and when I listen to my wife, that’s what I’m hearing. Guess what? His wife has actually never worked a day in her life. She’s never really dealt with the kinds of economic issues that a majority of the women in this country are facing in terms of how do we feed our kids, how do we send them to school, and why we worry about their future.”

Clearly Rosen was addressing the absurdity of a wealthy housewife assuming the role of Home Economics expert and pretending that she relates to people who have to struggle to make ends meet. Nothing in her comments suggests that she was talking about the difficulty or the satisfaction of raising children. But that’s how the right is spinning this matter, and they are spinning it as hard as their little gerbil feet can spin.

Take a look at the coverage on Fox News where it was the headline story. And their wingnut affiliate, Fox Nation, has posted at least seven articles on the subject – more than any other topic including the presidential election, the Trayvon Martin shooting (and Zimmerman’s arrest), the economy, etc.

Fox News - War on Women

Fox News, the Republican PR Agency, has launched a full-blown campaign to help dig Mitt Romney out the hole he has dug for himself with his anti-woman rhetoric and policies. The 19 point deficit Romney suffers in polling for women’s votes was seen properly as an electoral red flag and the flacks at Fox jumped in to rescue the floundering candidate.

Much of the criticism has expanded from jabs at Rosen to swings at President Obama. Never mind that Rosen is not attached to the President or the campaign in any capacity, and those who are have repudiated her remarks.

Jim Messina, Obama campaign manager: I could not disagree with Hilary Rosen any more strongly. Her comments were wrong and family should be off limits. She should apologize.

David Axelrod, Obama campaign strategist: Also Disappointed in Hilary Rosen’s comments about Ann Romney. They were inappropriate and offensive.

What’s more, Rosen herself has apologized:

“I know my words on CNN last night were poorly chosen. In response to Mitt Romney on the campaign trail referring to his wife as a better person to answer questions about women than he is, I was discussing his poor record on the plight of women’s financial struggles. […] I apologize to Ann Romney and anyone else who was offended. Let’s declare peace in this phony war and go back to focus on the substance.”

None of that has prevented Fox News from slathering their unique brand of propaganda and hyperbole over this affair in an effort to keep it bubbling up in the news cycle. Megyn Kelly spent a good portion of her program on this issue alone, interviewing several guests including former First Lady Barbara Bush (In a moment of ironic overflow, Kelly raised the issue of women who were fortunate not to have had to struggle financially, to which Mrs. Bush said “It wasn’t always that way for us.” Remember, this is the wife of the wealthy son of an oil baron and former president. Nah, they aren’t out of touch at all, are they?).

Also on Fox, they brought in their resident “Psycho” Analyst, Keith Ablow, who opined that “Hilary Rosen provided a clear psychological window on women who despise other women.” That’s the patented Ablow remote diagnosis of people he’s never met. He then projected this flaw onto Obama, who had nothing to do with any of this.

The whole point of this manufactured controversy is to lay into Obama for having the temerity to be popular with America’s women voters. And if they have to lie and distort reality to pull him down, well, that’s why Fox News exists in the first place.