Fox & Friends scorned Pete Buttigieg’s withdrawal from the presidential primary with the old Queen song, “Another One Bites the Dust” this morning. That’s tasteless and disrespectful enough. But it’s especially tasteless and disrespectful given that Americans are dying in an outbreak of the coronavirus.
Cohost Steve Doocy seemed to realize the questionable bumper music choice because he quickly said he thought the producers chose the song “because Pete Buttigieg announced, ‘You know what? I’m gonna suspend operations. I can’t win at this point.’”
But gloating over the departure of a presidential candidate is only a little better. And in case anyone missed the malice, Doocy immediately followed up by saying, with unhidden glee, “There is a report out there that supposedly he called – he was looking for Joe Biden and left a message at the wrong number and that has gone viral.” Super Duper Christian Ainsley Earhardt grinned.
Whatever you think of Buttigieg, the 38 year-old deserves a lot of respect for what he has accomplished. As Time put it, “The former mayor of South Bend, Ind., entered the race with no name recognition, natural constituency or personal wealth. He leaves it as one of the party’s brightest young stars. A polished speaker and disciplined performer with a knack for persuasion, Buttigieg built a strong national organization, proved an able fundraiser and rode a message of unity to a surprise victory in the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses before faltering in his attempts to build a diverse coalition in later states.”
But on Fox News, the Buttigieg candidacy was memorialized as a joke. And, pardon the pun, it was a sick one at that.
You can watch the callous schadenfreude below, from the March 2, 2020 Fox & Friends.
(H/T reader Andrew)