Greg Gutfeld

The Fox News War On Women Presents: Boobs On The Air

Posted by on September 25, 2014 at 2:49 pm. 7 Comments :

Yesterday’s broadcast of The Five on Fox News featured a brief segment (video below) wherein Kimberly Guilfoyle delivered a rather inspiring tribute Maj. Maryam Al Mansouri, a female fighter pilot from the United Arab Emirates who led the UAE’s forces in attacks on ISIL.

Guilfoyle aimed her comments directly at the terrorists saying “Hey ISIS, you were bombed by a woman.” She highlighted the poetic justice of religious extremists who won’t even allow women to drive cars, getting blown away by a competent, accomplished female soldier from an Arab nation. Unfortunately, the response from her male colleagues on the program was somewhat less dignified.

Fox News

The panel’s resident troll, Greg Gutfeld hurled a stereotypical insult at the Major saying that “The problem is, after she bombed it, she couldn’t park it.” Then Eric Bolling chimed in with a demeaning and sexist query, “Would that be considered boobs on the ground?” And all Guilfoyle could do was plaintively ask why they were ruining her piece.

If that were the only example of offensive, juvenile, anti-woman behavior by Fox News jerks it would be bad enough. But this came shortly after Brian Kilmeade and Steve Doocy of Fox & Friends made “jokes” about the lesson from the video of Ray Rice beating his girlfriend into unconsciousness is that he should have taken the stairs where there were no cameras to capture his assault. It came after Fox News “psycho” analyst Keith Ablow belittled First Lady Michelle Obama’s efforts on behalf of healthier children saying that “How well can she be eating. She needs to drop a few.” It came after Fox’s Anna Kooiman introduced right-wing YouTubers, the PolitiChicks, as “A lot of hotness on the couch this morning.”

The pattern of demonstrating such brazen disrespect for women is a familiar part of Fox News programming. They regard women as little more than eye candy for their predominantly old, male viewers. Fox CEO Roger Ailes has been reported as insisting that his female anchors wear skirts and show leg. But to carry this boorishness over to demean a woman who is putting her life on the line against terrorists is especially repulsive. Sadly though, it is not unexpected from Fox News.

For more repulsiveness and dishonesty from Fox…
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[Update] The following day Bolling made an apology of sorts. He said…

“I realized some people didn’t think it was funny at all. I said sorry to my wife and I apologize to all of you as well.”

So he was only apologizing because the joke wasn’t funny, not because it was brazenly offensive and demeaning to women and soldiers? And the “apology” was only directed to his wife and Fox viewers, but not to the pilot or others he insulted? Typical Fox avoidance of responsibility and ethics.

PolitiFact Proves Fox News Bias On ISIL Hearings – Also That Greg Gutfeld Is An Ass

Posted by on September 18, 2014 at 10:05 pm. 9 Comments :

On Tuesday Media Matters published their analysis of Fox News bias during coverage of a Senate hearing on President Obama’s plans for dealing with ISIL. Media Matters showed that during Fox’s broadcast they would air remarks by Republicans on the committee and then cut away when Democrats began to speak. The result was that Republicans were given twice as much airtime as Democrats on the allegedly “fair and balanced” network. This is an old tactic by Fox which News Corpse documented last year in another Senate hearing.

Today PolitiFact weighed in with an article seeking to confirm the data that Media Matters reported. They found that…

“Media Matters said that Fox News gave Republican senators twice as much air time as Democratic ones during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing. They said Republicans got 16 minutes compared to the Democrats’ eight. That matches our count.

“We also found that other networks provided more time and more evenly divided time to members of both parties.

“We rate the claim True.”

Fox News Greg Gutfeld

This is not exactly breaking news. Media Matters is a reliably consistent source for accurate information about the biases and partisan excesses of right-wing media. What makes this interesting at this time is that it occurred almost simultaneously to a feverish rant by Fox’s Greg Gutfeld, co-host of The Five. Gutfeld was perturbed by reports that cited Media Matters research showing the obsession that Fox News has for the Benghazi hoax. The study revealed that Fox aired nearly 1,100 reports on the subject, most of which were decidedly slanted to the right. For instance, 97% of the congressional interviews on Fox relating to Benghazi were with Republicans.

The accuracy of Media Matters’ reporting, however, was immaterial to Gutfeld’s rightist indignation. He let loose on Media Matters saying that…

“…the left-wing hacks would just work from Media Matters’ press releases […] It’s much easier than doing original research to just read from a press release.”

That’s true. And it’s also hilariously ironic coming from a Fox News flunky. The reporting that Gutfeld was complaining about just happened to be unarguably correct, as noted by PolitiFact. But his griping over journalists using research from Media Matters is just plain stupid. Every media organization uses research from independent sources to augment their reporting. Often they latch onto providers with viewpoints that are aligned to their own. And, of course, Fox News is one of those media enterprises that does this. In fact, Fox’s Brit Hume gave a slobbering endorsement to one of the most blatantly partisan research outfits, the Media Research Center. Hume praised them saying…

“I want to say a word, however, of thanks to Brent and the team at the Media Research Center […] for the tremendous amount of material that the Media Research Center provided me for so many years when I was anchoring Special Report, I don’t know what we would’ve done without them. It was a daily buffet of material to work from, and we certainly made tremendous use of it.”

So according to Gutfeld, Hume is a “lazy hack sitting with his laptop, covered in Cheetos.” And if that weren’t bad enough. Gutfeld must have entirely missed the scandal when Fox News was caught red-handed reporting verbatim from a Republican Senate press release as if it were their own reporting, complete with a typo that appeared on the original. And then there was the time that Fox’s Megyn Kelly did the same thing with a press release issued by the Republican National Committee, pretending it was authored by the Fox news staff.

Clearly Gutfeld doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He’s too focused on being the comic relief for the network, but instead comes off like the boneheaded sitcom neighbor who mistakenly thinks he is either funny or suave. In the end he is little more than a troll working for a network that has once again been proven to be an unrepentant purveyor of lies. And their practice of airing Democrat-free Senate hearing just insures that their audience of misinformed dimwits will remain ignorant.

And speaking of Fox News lies…
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Fox News Pundit Exploits Steve Jobs’ Death To Make Idiotic Political Point

Posted by on October 7, 2011 at 9:36 am. 3 Comments :

Fox News recently announce that “The Five,” the program that replaced Glenn Beck temporarily, will be given that slot permanently. This just proves that it takes five morons to fill the shoes of Super-Moron Beck.

Yesterday on The Five, co-host Greg Gutfeld advanced a theory that only a dimwitted Fox News viewer could love. In an attempt to hijack the untimely passing of Steve Jobs, Gutfeld turned his commentary into a screed on abortion that made no sense when fully thought out. He said…

“The big story isn’t Steve Jobs’ death, but his life. Jobs died Wednesday at the age of 56, was given up for adoption after his birth to an American mom and a Syrian-born father. Apparently, the mom’s father didn’t want his daughter to marry a Syrian, so the baby was adopted by working class couple who encourage the child’s later interest in electronics. Their names were Paul and Clara jobs.

“So, one hero in all of this is Steve’s birth mother who gave him up for adoption instead of choosing a more finite alternative. Imagine what a hole there would be in this world if she went the other way. Lucky for us, the choice she made was the one she made. In that sense, Steve Jobs makes me think not just of the people here but people who aren’t.”

The notion that by having made a decision against an abortion, Jobs’ birth mother insured a future of Macs and iPhones, is utterly ludicrous. Only the most shallow thinker could entertain such nonsense. Gutfeld is merely exploiting a personal tragedy in order to advance his right-wing, anti-choice agenda.

He is arguing that Jobs’ birth mother made the right choice by not having an abortion, and that resulted in the life of an historic technological innovator. But if Jobs’ mother had done what the right really advocates there would have been no Steve Jobs at all. That’s because the right’s answer to unwanted pregnancies is abstinence. By Gutfeld’s logic Jobs’ birth mother should not have had premarital sex in the first place and become pregnant with the future Apple founder. So while Gutfeld attempts to credit conservative dogma for Jobs’ existence, in reality it would have been the conservative path that would have insured an Apple-less future.

Extending Gutfeld’s ravings, you would also have to conclude that abortion would have been the right choice for the mothers of Timothy McVeigh and Charles Manson. So is Gutfeld now advocating a pro-choice position? Of course this is all speculation that ignores the fact that no one can predict the future, nor can anyone predict an unrealized future that might have occurred had events transpired differently.

It is easy to see why Fox News awarded Gutfeld and The Five a permanent place on their schedule. While they have a ways to go before achieving Glenn Beck status, they are clearly making a respectable start down the road to utter lunacy and extremist political exploitation and bias. Good work, guys.

Sarah Palin Is Not Running For President And Fox News Is Lying About It

Posted by on August 4, 2011 at 10:56 am. 3 Comments :

Sarah PalinThe GOP field of candidates seeking the 2012 presidential nomination is pretty settled. The only significant holdouts are the Texas evangelical, secessionist governor Rick Perry, and former half-term Alaska governor, and Fox News bobble-head, Sarah Palin.

The thing is, Palin is not running. She has no campaign staff; no organization in early primary states; no press office. Polls place her near the bottom of the pack and losing to President Obama by 20 points. She is not engaging in public appearances. In fact, her much ballyhooed national bus tour was aborted after just six days without ever making it off the east coast.

Too bad. I wish she were running. It would add another element of comic relief to supplement Newt Gingrich and Michele Bachmann. With Donald Trump out of the game the comedy factor took a serious hit.

The problem is that Fox News is still pretending that she’s a candidate and, by doing so, they are deliberately lying (so what else is new). Several months ago there were four Fox employees who were also speculative candidates for the Republican nomination: Palin, Gingrich, Santorum, and Huckabee. All four were in precisely the same position with regard to the race. They were all openly exploring campaigns and discussing it in public. At that time Fox gave two of them, Gingrich and Santorum, ultimatums insisting that they declare their intentions or be terminated. There was no apparent reason for excluding Palin and Huckabee from that edict.

Since then Gingrich and Santorum officially declared and Huckabee bowed out. This leaves Palin as the only prominent Fox employee still dangling. But with no visible manifestation of a candidacy, can she be taken seriously? The fact of the matter is that if Palin was a candidate in earnest, Fox could not keep her on the payroll. At this late date they would have to insist that she either fish or cut bait, just as they did with Gingrich and Santorum. She could not be both undecided and a Fox News contributor.

Evidence of the Palin predicament occurred yesterday as two Fox News analysts admitted on the air that they temper their criticism of Palin because she is their colleague:

Greg Gutfeld: The only problem with talking about Sarah Palin is that she works here, and it’s like a coworker. And if I say something bad and I see her in the hallway I feel really awkward and wrong.

Bob Beckel: It has nothing to do with that. It has everything to do with your paycheck. That’s why you feel awkward about it. I know exactly what you mean. I’ll be honest, I’ve pulled my punches.

These admissions are not surprising and are not limited to Gutfeld and Beckel. It is the law at Fox News as it was laid down by the boss:

Roger Ailes: For the first time in our 14 years we’ve had people apparently shooting in the tent, from within the tent…We prefer people in the tent not dumping on other people in the tent.

So how does a Fox News reporter cover Palin when he has been warned by his boss not to criticize fellow tent-dwellers? That’s the problem, and that’s why Sarah Palin is not a candidate for president. Fox knows that they can’t cover even a potential candidate who receives a Fox paycheck this late in the game. If Palin has not informed the network that she isn’t running, they would have to sideline her. Since that has not happened, it’s a safe bet that she has already told them that she’s out of the race.

If that’s the case, then Fox News knows that a prospective candidate has opted out, but they are keeping it secret. That is not acceptable behavior from a legitimate news enterprise, which of course, Fox is not. They are withholding a significant news item that journalistic ethics would require they disclose. Particularly because the only reason for them to withhold it is for their own financial benefit, and for that of Palin.

What’s worse is that they are brazenly manipulating the course of the election in a manner that has implications for the other candidates and, of course, the voters. It is long past time for Fox to come clean and reveal what they know about Palin’s alleged candidacy. And in the unlikely event that she really is undecided, then Fox should suspend her just as they did Gingrich and Santorum.

The Horror Of A Laughing President

Posted by on March 23, 2009 at 12:21 pm. 4 Comments :

It’s really sort of pathetic how utterly humorless modern conservatives have become. Following Barack Obama’s interview last night on 60 Minutes, a torrent of indignation was released across the mediasphere that blew past Politico, Drudge, and countless right-wing blogs. What had Obama done to unleash such fury, even causing interviewer Steve Kroft to inquire if Obama was “punch drunk?” He laughed. Yep, that’s it. He laughed.

To any rational viewer, the moment merely demonstrated the President’s amusement of the relentless curiosity of media figures that don’t get it. At worst, he was just using laughter as a stress reliever. That’s something that many real people do during anxious times. For critics who have been hammering him for weeks about being too glum, it is absurd for them now to assert that a gentle laugh suggests that, all of a sudden, he is too flippant and detached.

All of this fits right in with the sorrowful character of conservatives. They were dismayed when they thought Obama did not do enough to assuage their grief. Now they are disturbed that he is not exhibiting enough grief of his own. Either way they are consumed by their incessant grieving and blaming it all on Obama.

The lack of humor on the part of the right is reaching epidemic proportions. Their comic heroes are Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter. How sad is that? Last week Tucker Carlson presumed to lecture Jon Stewart on the art of comedy. This weekend, Bill O’Reilly’s column attempted to bring the funny, but missed miserably. The article is a collection of fake headlines (something O’Reilly and Fox News should be adept at), aimed at mocking the liberal media. But there are two significant problems with O’Reilly’s comic foray. First, it isn’t remotely funny. Second, the only thing he succeeds at making a mockery of is himself. In the first paragraph he says:

O’Reilly: The other day, left-wing muckraker Seymour Hersh went on MSNBC and said he had information, provided by the usual anonymous sources, that Dick Cheney was running an assassination squad out of the White House.

However, the Pulitzer Prize winning Hersh never went on MSNBC with this story. So in an article seeking to ridicule the liberal media for making up news stories, O’Reilly actually made up a story of his own in the part of the article that he presented as factual. Is there any part of his wretched reality that doesn’t put satire to shame?

So where are the funny conservatives? Where is the right’s Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Chris Rock, Tina Fey, George Carlin (RIP), etc.? Is Rush going to have to be both the head of the Republican Party and the chief conservative comic? Or will it be the indecipherable Dennis Miller or Fox’s Greg Gutfield, who just got a few yucks at the expense of dead Canadian soldiers? There is, of course, the hysterical escapism of Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity, but if you don’t already suffer from acute paranoia, do you really want to assume that risk?

It really is pathetic how desperate and forlorn the right has become. They appear to have nothing left but to invent outrage where non exists, and to cling to leaders who offer only obstacles. And when the human spirit requires uplifting more than ever, they are stuck with clowns who have painted on permanent sneers. And even worse, their melancholy is magnified merely by witnessing the horror of a laughing President. It makes me sad just thinking about it.