Neil Cavuto’s Sexist Bashing of White House Communications Director Anita Dunn: “Let’s Pretend You’re Not Overwrought and Snapping. . . Overworked and Snippy”
Reported by Julie - October 13, 2009 -
A mocking whinny: “Yeaaaah . . . .” And so began Neil Cavuto’s sexist diatribe on Monday’s Common Sense segment (10/12/09). Oh, what vitriolic hand-wringing and sexist venom over White House Communications Director, Anita Dunn’s, recent comments (as quoted by Cavuto): “Let’s not pretend they’re a news network . . . she just said that on CNN after saying the same to Time Magazine. Lately it’s been her schtick, her game, so Ms. Dunn, let’s continue playing it, shall we? Let’s pretend you’re serious, let’s pretend you’re not a tad, oh, I don’t know, thin-skinned . . . Let’s pretend you get your facts straight . . . Let’s pretend you are open to criticism . . . Let’s pretend when someone opposes your view they might have a point and when you simply refuse to accept it you’re the one who might not have a clue . . . Let’s pretend you work for the President of the United States and not some left-wing blog in the United States. Let’s pretend you’re as big as the historic place you work and not as petty as the less than historic words you spout . . . So let’s pretend you’re focused on the issues that matter and not the petty squabbles that do not, just as we should pretend you’re not overwrought and snapping – maybe you’re just overworked and snippy.” (Sexist comments, my emphasis). With video.
Can you imagine Cavuto calling some guy “overworked and snippy” or “overwrought and snapping?” Dunn had some harsh words for Fox – and it’s high time someone from the White House did. Here are some of the highlights of her comments – the comments that have left the hoist-on-their-own-petard Fox Newsies apoplectic:
“If we went back a year ago to the fall of 2008, to the campaign, that was a time this country was in two wars that we had a financial collapse probably more significant than any financial collapse since the Great Depression. If you were a Fox News viewer in the fall election what you would have seen were that the biggest stories and the biggest threats facing America were a guy named Bill Ayers and a something called ACORN.”
“The reality of it is that Fox News often operates almost as either the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican Party. And it is not ideological... what I think is fair to say about Fox, and the way we view it, is that it is more of a wing of the Republican Party.”
“Obviously [the President] will go on Fox because he engages with ideological opponents. He has done that before and he will do it again... when he goes on Fox he understands he is not going on it as a news network at this point. He is going on it to debate the opposition.”
“[Fox is] widely viewed as a part of the Republican Party: take their talking points and put them on the air, take their opposition research and put it on the air. And that's fine. But let's not pretend they're a news organization like CNN is.”
Fox News is now in the secondary business – you know, second to being an arm of the right-wingers -- of rewriting history, it seems. All of a sudden, Fox News apologists/defenders are running hither and yon defending themselves as simple reporters with no bias whatsoever.
Damn, Neil, I gotta say, you’re looking a little overwrought and snappy. Could it be because you’re overworked and snippy? I’m thinking you can’t be as petty as the less than historic words you spout. Surely, as a professional tough-as-leather journalist, you’re not that thin-skinned. Petty squabbles? Pot, meet kettle.
