As might be expected, Sarah Palin is leading off her new series of programs on Fox News with her strongest asset: lying.
In press reports describing the debut, rapper/actor LL Cool J is listed as part of the exclusive lineup that Palin will be featuring. As it turns out, the interview is actually a retread taped in 2008 and had nothing to do with Palin.
A surprised Cool J tweeted this information:
“Fox lifted interview I gave in 2008 to someone else & R misrepresenting to public 2 promote Palins Show.”
To which Fox News responded in a typically churlish manner:
“Real American Stories features uplifting tales about overcoming adversity and we believe Mr. Smith’s interview fit that criteria. However, as it appears that Mr. Smith does not want to be associated with a program that could serve as an inspiration to others, we are cutting his interview from the special and wish him the best with his fledgling acting career.”
This is clearly the work of Fox News PR Priestess, Irena Briganti (or someone following in her footsteps). The pissy little comment at the close of the response is not only childish, but laughably untrue. Cool J is a veteran of film and TV and currently stars in one of the hottest shows on television, NCIS.
The Fox News PR department is notorious for this kind of unprofessionalism. A couple of years ago, David Bauder documented what came to be known as the “wishing well.” where Fox snidely wishes someone they don’t like well with the back of their hand. Take this for example:
“Because of his personal demons, Keith [Olbermann] has imploded everywhere he’s worked. From lashing out at co-workers to personally attacking Bill O’Reilly and all things Fox, it’s obvious Keith is a train wreck waiting to happen. And like all train wrecks, people might tune in out of morbid curiosity, but they eventually tune out, as evidenced by Keith’s recent ratings decline. In the meantime, we hope he enjoys his paranoid view from the bottom of the ratings ladder and wish him well on his inevitable trip to oblivion.“
Oblivion for Olbermann must a long ways off. Two years later he is still the number two show on cable news. And Cool J’s career is far from fledgling. I would wager that the only train wreck in the foreseeable future is going to involve Palin who still has no discernible talent for anything but dishonesty and quitting.
Update: As my reader, Fed UP, noted, Toby Keith was also not particularly pleased with Palin dredging up a two year old interview and presenting it as new. Now that Keith has joined Cool J in complaining about this sleazy clip show Palin is hosting, will Fox News cut him out of the show as well? Will they insult him as a fledgling country singer? And when will Jack Welch issue a press release revealing that Palin and Fox had not contacted him either? This whole show appears to be a scam that is just a bunch of old clips edited together with some intros by Palin. And worst of all, LL Cool J, a black entertainer, is cut from the program for expressing his objection to being exploited by Fox, but Toby Keith, a white entertainer, does the same thing with no repercussions. Why am I not surprised?
