Fox News host Andrea Tantaros accused Preident Obama of making us more vulnerable to terrorism because he expressed support for a 14 year-old Muslim boy who was handcuffed, arrested and suspended after he brought a home-made clock to school.
When Ahmed Mohamed was arrested for bringing his clock to school, which he said he wanted to show his teacher, the story went viral. The tech community has reached out to him in a big way, offering him internships and scholarships in response.
But some of the cohosts on Fox News’ Outnumbered show could not get past the fact that President Obama reached out to Mohamed, too. Obama tweeted, “Cool clock, Ahmed. Want to bring it to the White House? We should inspire more kids like you to like science. It’s what makes America great.”
To Andrea Tantaros, 14 year-old Mohamed should have been treated more like a terrorist and less like a hero.
TANTAROS: This story is really - I mean it has everyone, I think, scratching their heads. This clock - does anyone think that it did not look like a dangerous weapon out of a Die Hard movie? What the president did, Sandra, by elevating this story to national attention is he basically got rid of “if you see something, say something.” The teacher did her job. We have an FBI document out there right now that talks about what to look for, okay? This is part of it and we’ve seen terror attacks before. We’ve seen them use cell phones and innate objects. And look, Ahmed is a smart kid. He’s probably going to go to MIT and make a ton of money, but he did a really dumb thing and brought it to school and the president just elevated this to a national issue that doesn’t deserve elevating, frankly.
In Outnumbered’s “Overtime” segment, the gang returned to further demonize Mohamed and Obama in a segment FoxNews.com gave the Cavuto mark of a title, “More to the #standwithahmed story?”
Guest Jonah Goldberg baselessly speculated that Mohamed might really be some kind of jihadiist.
GOLDBERG: It just feels like there’s another shoe to drop. …I could be completely wrong and the kid seems like an entirely sincere, decent kid and I have no reason to doubt that he is, but the fact that CAIR [Council on American–Islamic Relations, a group Fox regularly demonizes] was so quick on the spot to jump on this story, the fact that all of the usual, sort of, social media activist groups were so quick on the story, maybe it’s nothing but it just seems a little fishy.
Cohost and Fox News Messagebot Harris Faulkner made a point of steering the discussion back to attacking Obama: “What about the president responding to this?” she “asked.”
Tantaros reiterated her previous attack: “I think it’s insane! What he basically did is say anybody else who wants to make a device that looks like a bomb, you’re allowed to bring it anywhere. ‘If you see something, say something’ is gone.”
Nobody challenged Tantaros on her outrageous rhetoric in either segment.
However this incident just happened to remind Stepford Anchor Faulkner that President Obama is just too partial to people of color.
FAULKNER: Every time I see the president weigh in, all I can think about is Kate Steinle’s family in northern San Francisco and the hell that they went through after she was killed and the days that we waited to see if the White House would call that family. But the president weighs in on this. I’m sorry, you just have to tell me what the rules are.
Fox News Democrat Julie Roginsky gave Faulkner a pass on this clear implication as well as Tantaros’ more blatant one. Even though terrorism concern troll Tantaros once urged her radio show listeners to “do me a favor” and punch an Obama supporter “in the face.”
Instead, Roginsky merely said she thought Obama was standing up “for all the nerdy kids out there who get beaten up in school.”
“Well, stand up for the Americans, maybe, who are being gunned down by people who are here illegally,” Faulkner rejoined.
Watch Fox News make bigoted lemons out of lemonade below, from the September 17 Outnumbered.
http://www.politico.com/story/2014/12/barack-obama-statement-nypd-officers-killed-113724
http://mediamatters.org/research/2015/09/03/fox-figures-demand-obama-make-remarks-condemnin/205363
Yeah, “Fox & Friends” this morning were the first Fox News partisans I’ve witnessed trying to tackle The Donald’s latest embarrassment. They pulled in registered Republican Geraldo for the ‘liberal’ perspective. 😉
Naturally, they tried to whitewash the incident. One, for example, jumped to conservatives’ first line of defense: A conspiracy theory. He was a liberal plant. Oh, the Fox News dilemma I see evolving! Do you build a conspiracy blaming Obama or Hillary? Oh, it must be both! You know they once worked together so must be in cahoots!
In fairness, Geraldo didn’t take the bait. Neither did they really take on Birther The Donald for dodging the issue. For some odd reason Hillary doesn’t get the same slack. Not suggesting Fox News isn’t fair and balanced, mind you. 😉
If I recall, Geraldo tried to sluff it off as some fringe element of the conservative movement. Seriously? Obama being Muslim typically polls well with conservatives. Over 50% to be exact: http://mashable.com/2015/09/01/republicans-obama-muslim/#r_t0BzYS8iku
…
The success of lazy, thin analysis like “Outnumbered” and “The Five” or lazy, lame satire like “Gutfeld” and “Redeye” proves to me right-wingers are so desperate to be told what they want to hear they’ll watch absolutely anything.
http://www.rawstory.com/2015/09/white-kid-builds-nuclear-reactor-and-homeland-security-offers-help/
Because, you know… Attempting illegal procurement of materials that would result in a mass violation of god knows how many laws is something that should be rewarded if you’re the right colour.
Where was Fox News’ outrage that homeland security overlooked all this and helped him, BTW? Oh, right- white kid. In Fox News’ world, it’s all about pigment.
Of course, there’s this story from Gawker that shows how some “good White ’Merkin kids” managed to get away with the same thing (without involving the cops):
http://gawker.com/7-kids-not-named-mohamed-who-brought-homemade-clocks-to-1730999866
A couple of those kids did their little “projects” before 9/11 but there is the one “anonymous” kid who actually brought in an inert bomb to school (he didn’t get in trouble, but his teacher did; this was just months after 9/11).
I’m sure all the future Timothy McVeighs and Ted Kaczynskis and Eric Rudolphs will be pleased to know they can probably take bombs to school in Texas without a problem.