Fox News contributor Erick Erickson got a very friendly platform on Fox & Friends to boast about shooting up a New York Times front-page editorial advocating for gun control.
Media Matters caught the following friendly exchange between Erickson and Fox & Friends host Steve Doocy (emphases are ours):
STEVE DOOCY (HOST): What were you trying to do?
ERICK ERICKSON: Well, you know, I read the editorial. It was so full of holes to begin with I figured I'd put some actual ones there.
DOOCY: Here's the thing, though. After you did that, the Twitterverse, which for the most part leans to the left anyway, they exploded. ...Had you known what the reaction would have been, what would you have done?
ERICKSON: I would have done it a lot sooner. I mean people were really enraged. You would have thought I shot their bible, which I guess in a way I did.
Instead of challenging this outrageous remark, Doocy probed for more.
DOOCY: What were you trying to say by putting holes in The New York Times?
ERICKSON: Well, that they're not going to curtail the Second Amendment rights. It's very interesting last year The New York Times read an editorial in April of 2014 saying we need to get rid of the terror list, we need to get rid of the no-fly list. They're a violation of civil liberties and a nation of democracy with due process shouldn't have anything like that. And now they're saying hey, let's use the no-fly list and the terror list to get rid of people's Second Amendment rights. It is a constitutional right and they want to get rid of it without due process.
DOOCY: Well you certainly have the freedom to say things. You're expressing yourself this way. You're one of the few people who actually bought The New York Times over the weekend, and yet --
ERICKSON: I was given it for free.
DOOCY: Oh, a free copy. Mr. Lucky.
ERICKSON: Yeah. When a store manager found out I was going to do, he was happy to give it to me.
DOOCY: I understand, alright. Well you've been criticized roundly by the not-so-tolerant left.
Doocy displayed some of the Twitter backlash before "asking" Erickson, "Why are they so angry at you just giving your opinion? They’re giving their opinions, why can’t you?"
As if Fox wouldn’t have had a meltdown if any liberal shot up a conservative publication. Don’t believe me? Consider the hissy fit over Quentin Tarantino speaking out against police brutality with words the Fox free-speech lovers didn’t like. When a Fox & Friends guest said he thought Tarantino should “shut the hell up so we don’t have to listen to him any more,” free-speech lover Doocy said, “Amen to that.” Doocy also seemed supportive of a police effort to boycott Tarantino’s movies as a result. We've got video of that segment below, in case you've forgotten.
But besides the hypocrisy, Doocy’s question was also an obvious prompt to Erickson to attack the left. And he took the bait.
ERICKSON: The left says that they’re tolerant but they don’t tolerate dissent. Dissent was patriotic when President Bush was president but now that President Obama’s president, we all have to tier his way. If we don’t, we then we need to be shut up and sidelined and taken out of the town square. They don’t really like democracy except when they’re in the minority.
DOOCY: Exit question: Would you do it again, given the reaction?
ERICKSON: OH, I’d probably burn it afterwards.
Watch it below, from the December 7 Fox & Friends, via Media Matters.