On this day when the Repblican National Kvetch-a-Skecth is scheduled to kick-off; when a hurricane is threatening the Gulf Coast; this is the day that Fox News features this as the headline article on their web site: “Too Conservative To Sell?”
The story, which was also covered by Megyn Kelly on Fox News, is about an actor who is still whining two years after having allegedly been fired by GEICO Insurance for saying that President Obama is trying “impose socialism” on America and is “destroying the country.” There is no new information to update this two year old story. It was simply plucked from the past and placed atop Fox’s web page, displacing all of the current news events that are far more significant. Note: GEICO denies that the actor was fired. They say that his contract expired when the campaign for which he was hired came to an end.
The scorned actor, typical of whiny wingnuts, bemoaned his fate as some sort of conspiracy saying that conservatives in Hollywood have to “watch out.” He apparently agrees with Kelsey Grammer who whined a couple of weeks ago about not getting an Emmy nomination because he is conservative (forgetting that he already has five Emmys).
Not reported by Fox News in this item is that GEICO also fired a liberal actor a couple of years ago. D.C. Douglas (aka Lance Baxter) phoned the Tea Party string-pullers at FreedomWorks and left a message on their answering machine saying in part “I just need to know what the percentages of people that are mentally retarded who work for the organization.” After a call-in campaign by FreedomWorks’ followers, Douglas was let go. However, rather than wallow in self pity for years, Douglas produced a string of YouTube videos spoofing the right-wing extremists and hate-mongers. Fox left all of that out of their reporting despite the fact that they had reported on it at the time, albeit in their typical biased manner that got much of the story wrong.
This behavior is characteristic of conservatives who, while talking like bullies, are actually thin-skinned wimps. It’s a personality disorder that is evident in their party’s standard bearer, Mitt Romney, whose entire campaign seems to be a strategic kvetch-a-thon. Romney has spent the last several weeks complaining that Obama has been saying unkind things about him. He gripes about being asked to release his tax returns, as almost every other candidate for president does. He throws tantrums when Obama dares to reveal his record as CEO of Bain Capital or governor of Massachusetts.
Since Romney has no agenda to run on, he spends all his time bemoaning any criticism of him no matter how accurate. And while calling the President a socialist and referring to him as “foreign,” and questioning his patriotism, Romney has the gall to assert that Obama is running a negative, divisive campaign. That sort of projection is emblematic of whiners like Romney. So expect to see much more of it during the convention and the days that follow.
However, Fox News had a different assessment of the news value of this incident. They plucked the story up from Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment blog and featured it both on air and on the Fox Nation website. In doing so, they got the story all wrong. Note the caption to the graphic posted by the Fox Nationalists: “Is the Geico Lizard a Tea Party Crasher, Too?”