You have to wonder what gave Democratic Congressman Dan Kildee the idea to go on Fox News to discuss reporting that Donald Trump extorted Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden’s son without preparing to call out the predictable deflections and diversions.
Host Neil Cavuto may not be a big Trump fan but that doesn’t mean he’s going to pull all his partisan punches, especially not on an issue so potentially explosive.
Kildee said that if the allegations are true, Trump’s behavior was “dangerous” and “likely” a violation of law. But Kildee also lectured Trump critics to avoid “too many hasty judgments until we have an opportunity to evaluate the information.” Instead of blasting the Trump administration’s stonewalling on providing the still-secret whistleblower complaint about Trump and Ukraine, Kildee said what’s “clearly troubling” is that the law requiring that complaint be turned over to Congress “is simply being ignored,” probably because “it’s more convenient.” Uh, how about the word “cover up,” Congressman?
As soon as Kildee finished that mild criticism, Cavuto pivoted to suggesting that the whole issue is just anti-Trump partisanship from hypocritical Democrats. First, he accused Democrats of paying “not nearly so much” attention to an upcoming IG report about the origins of the Mueller investigation “maybe under very nefarious circumstances.”
Instead of calling out such an obvious tactic, Kildee helped the narrative by saying, “Yeah, obviously we have a concern about the activity and the behavior of this president."
"Don't you owe it to everybody to look into what might have have prompted this one?" Cavuto said.
Again, Kildee failed to challenge Cavuto’s sleight-of-hand.
"I think the Mueller report kind of speaks for itself," Kildee said.
Cavuto persisted. "Let's say the inspector general, in this case Horowitz, goes and concludes there were a lot of specious elements that got the ball rolling," he said, referring to the Russia investigation.
Finally, Kildee said, "This question is right before us right now, and there's just an absolute denial, no information is being transmitted." But he continued to act as though Cavuto – and to some extent, even Trump – was not acting in partisan bad faith.
"So you have no issue with when the vice president as a vice president working with Barack Obama was putting the heat and pressure on the Ukraine at the time it was very corrupt?" Cavuto continued. "You don't have any suspicions about what Joe Biden might have been doing in that case."
"I do think that's been scrutinized more than a lot of people are giving notice to," Kildee replied.
"So nothing wrong with what he did," Cavuto pushed.
Now Kildee completely caved to the hijacking. "I'm not suggesting that there's nothing wrong," he said.
Having gotten what he wanted, Cavuto turned to the GM strike.
Memo to Democrats: It doesn’t matter how nice a Fox host is off the air, he or she has a partisan job to do and if you don’t want to combat that, you shouldn’t go on Fox. Period.
Watch Kildee get hoodwinked below, from the September 21, 2019 Cavuto Live.
I don’t know if it is some clever bastard at Youtube’s idea of hilarious juxtaposition, but when I let it run on I was presented with this epic John Oliver crucifixion of Pence.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rs2RlZQVXBU&frags=wn
You make a great point regarding Sinclair.
I have never seen their notorious corporate right-wing editorials in my local market. My local Sinclair station found a loophole exempting them. It’s a Fox affiliate (surprise, surprise) but it contracts with a local NBC station to broadcast its news.
However, with the purchase of Tribune Media by Sinclair they’ll take ownership of our local ABC station and likely be forced to sell our Fox affiliate. So soon I’ll be chased by the ‘thought police’.
Here’s an Orwellian video of Sinclair’s ‘newspeak’. Scares the you-know-what out of me:
https://youtu.be/_fHfgU8oMSo
Fox, talk radio and the odious RWNJ websites may be poisoning minds 24/7, but they are in effect gerrymandering willing victims, concentrating them and reducing their impact on the world at large. The most dangerous media devil is Sinclair, feeding propaganda to the masses through ‘news’ on local and general entertainment channels.
Meanwhile Democrats (and everyone else) don’t take the additional effort to pay attention to Fox so they can understand their propaganda enough to refute it. Who can blame them? Fox’s Trump sycophancy makes me vomit in my mouth when I try to monitor it.
So Dan Kildee – who I’m sure was carefully screened in advance by Fox producers to ensure he’s the perfect rube – walks into a mine field thinking he’s well informed on issues because, say, he reads the Washington Post and watches CNN when he can find the time plus hears some floor debates (and I’m sure this is too recent to hit the floor outside of committees).
Trump’s lying his ass off in a repeat performance of his Mueller report tactics. Lie you’re ‘perfect’. Blame deep state partisans (even when you say you don’t know who they are). Deflect that the real scandal is some make believe Democratic scandal. Repeat daily.
Fox News ignores past GOP failures. #Benghazi. Clinton emails. The Mueller report. Now there’s the claim the Mueller investigation is founded in fraud (forgetting, no matter, it found illegality). Forget their first foray, indicting McCabe is going down in flames.
1. I have repeatedly been stating that people have to be vigilant about the constant attempts by angry Right Wingers to set up false premises in their questions as a way of tricking the listener into inadvertently agreeing with a nonsensical position. (“Do you think the Dept of Education is getting anything done these days, with Betsy DeVos there?” “Uh, no, not really” “GREAT! We on the Right have been saying that for decades! We’ll just eliminate that department right now and you just said you agree with it! Thanks!” “Uhhhh, wait a second…” “Nope! Too late! You already agreed to it! Or are you going to flip flop now?”) So I’d always counter even the premise and make sure that there isn’t an open pitfall or manhole hanging around before agreeing with ANYTHING coming from an angry Right Winger.
2. John is totally correct to note that the people who enabled the Pence White House and cheered on the bigotry will need to be held accountable. My take on it is that they don’t get to walk back their conduct and they’ll simply need to live with their shame. I will never allow a single one of these people to lecture anyone about morality or ethics again. The correct response when any of them complain about the next President cleaning up the mess these deplorables have made will be “NO. YOU SUPPORTED BIGOTRY AND HATRED. YOU TRIED TO BULLY EVERYONE ELSE. YOU CAN SIT DOWN NOW. LIVE WITH YOUR SHAME.”