{"id":6648,"date":"2012-03-12T12:44:19","date_gmt":"2012-03-12T19:44:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=6648"},"modified":"2012-03-12T12:44:19","modified_gmt":"2012-03-12T19:44:19","slug":"fox-nations-war-on-women-sarah-palin-vs-jane-fonda","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=6648","title":{"rendered":"Fox Nation’s War on Women: Sarah Palin vs. Jane Fonda"},"content":{"rendered":"

I am now firmly convinced that the Fox Nation web site is edited by a high school intern. When you consider the absurdly hyperbolic<\/a> verbs that animate their headlines (i.e. “Cheney\u2019s Daughter Annihilates<\/strong> MSNBC Anchor”<\/em>), and their infantile pet names<\/a> for people they don’t like (i.e. “Pig”<\/em> Maher), the only conclusion is that either they have recruited from a remedial program at a local high school or Fox has implemented an IQ cap of 95 for all employees (so as not to exceed Fox celebrity Sean Hannity).<\/p>\n

Today the Fox Nationalists are featuring a story about a video produced by President Obama’s reelection campaign committee. The video (below) addresses comments made last week by Sarah Palin that accuse the President of wanting to take the country back to the days before the civil war.<\/p>\n

Palin:<\/strong> “What Barack Obama seems to want to do is go back to before those days when we were in different classes based on income, based on color of skin.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As usual, Palin’s comment makes perfect sense if you are suffering from schizophrenic hallucinations while in the midst of an alien abduction. Otherwise, you probably can’t help but laugh at the notion that America’s first black president wants to return to the days when he would have been shackled in chains and traded in slave markets.<\/p>\n

The item posted on Fox Nation was accompanied by text that declared with astonishment that, “Four years later, President Obama is still running against Sarah Palin.”<\/em> What makes this particularly amusing is that a little further down the page, Fox Nation’s juvenile and incompetent editor also posted this item: Hanoi Jane Says Fire Nazi Limbaugh.<\/em> The article referenced in the title was an editorial<\/a> Jane Fonda co-wrote with Gloria Steinem and Robin Morgan. The article never called Limbaugh a Nazi, although it did criticize Limbaugh for using such rhetoric against his opponents.<\/p>\n

“Limbaugh doesn’t just call people names. He promotes language that deliberately dehumanizes his targets. Like the sophisticated propagandist Josef Goebbels, he creates rhetorical frames — and the bigger the lie, the more effective — inciting listeners to view people they disagree with as sub-humans. His longtime favorite term for women, ‘femi-Nazi,’ doesn’t even raise eyebrows anymore”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So according to the Fox Nationalists there is something profoundly odd about responding to Sarah Palin because she was a candidate for vice-president four whole years ago, but making a big fuss about Jane Fonda’s adventures in Vietnam forty years ago (for which she later expressed genuine regret<\/a>) is perfectly reasonable. The absurdity of that distinction is obvious. But it should also be noted that Fonda is a celebrity who makes movies and occasionally comments on public affairs, while Palin is currently a Fox News political analyst and still a potential candidate for office (she recently said that she would be open to being drafted as the Republican presidential nominee at the GOP convention).<\/p>\n

And yet, the pimply-faced editor of Fox Nation thinks that engaging with Palin is a throwback to a bygone era and one of its most inconsequential and meaningless characters. He seems to regard Palin as a has-been who deserves to be ignored. He may just have a point.<\/p>\n