A week after Fox & Friends were widely ridiculed for trying to make the Charleston shooting about an attack on Christianity, the Curvy Couch Crew defended themselves – by blaming liberals for being too racially sensitive.
The mea not culpas started by attacking liberals for being too touchy about race in the first place.
KILMEADE: It’s been over and over again, especially in the last six years. Every time you bring up a criticism or something like that, then you are a racist. …If you look at immigration and say, "I’m concerned about illegal immigrants," you don’t like Hispanic people. If you criticize the president, you don’t like black people. It’s just not the reality.
Of course, it’s not the criticism of Obama nor the concern about immigration per se, but the way Fox uses dog whistles and fear mongers that is its hallmark. But don’t expect anyone on Fox to acknowledge that. They’re only sensitive to their own fee fees. Like now.
“It’s disappointing and it’s irresponsible to call racism when it’s not racism,” Elisabeth Hasselbeck added.
Steve Doocy explained how we know Fox is not racist. “If we were a racist nation, Barack Obama would not have been elected president of the United States twice. It’s a math thing,” he said.
For extra “we hate liberals, not blacks” points, they played a clip of Fox’s Bernard Goldberg saying, “Liberals have turned the word 'racist' into a meaningless word. …Now it’s mush.”
But just so we all know that Fox & Friends is not racist anyway, Hasselbeck said, “To be clear, no one is saying that what happened in Charleston, South Carolina – once the facts were in - was not a hateful, racist, murderous act.”
As our Priscilla pointed out, at the time of the Fox & Friends broadcast (6-9AM ET), it had already been reported that the shooter said to his victims, “You rape our women and are taking over our country” and “You have to go.” Even if this had yet to be confirmed, Fox & Friends should have at least noted that.
But Doocy – whose comment, “It’s extraordinary” that Charleston church shooting is being called a hate crime,” went viral, blamed everybody else.
DOOCY: They took shots at Fox & Friends because a week ago this morning, we knew that it was a hate crime. But at that time, we didn’t know the nature of it. Keep in mind, it happened at a church. And we had Bishop Jackson on in the morning. And he said let’s wait for all the facts to come in, but remember, it happened at a church. Maybe it was an attack on religion.
At that time, right through our program, we were never told the nature of the bias. I think at 9:50 or 10 o’clock, it was revealed that the guy who did the shooting was a racist. …And yet the dishonest political left took what we had reported and we were unable to say the nature of the bias crime. But we had said it was a hate crime. But we did not say it was based on race. And then the political left… said, ‘Look, Fox & Friends could not admit the guy was a racist.’ That was not true, it was completely dishonest.
“And disingenuous,” Hasselbeck chimed in. She also pointed to “Dr.” Alveda King (the doctorate is honorary) for saying, “the exact same thing.”
Kilmeade defended their stance – because ISIS and President Obama.
KILMEADE: The bottom line is, it was not implausible for this to be (an) attack on Christians. …Here’s why. Because Christians are being beheaded around the world, they’re being attacked, they’re being burned alive, they’re being drowned in cages and no one in the White House seems to bring that up or think it’s important to emphasize.
It was bad enough that Fox twisted itself into a pretzel trying to avoid making the Charleston shooting a racist crime. It’s even worse that they’re trying now to blame other people for their own failing.
Watch it below, from today’s Fox & Friends, via Media Matters.
But, are we to expect anything else?
Hey, F&F stooges, your network’s motto is “we report, you decide” so stop withholding pertinent news reports from the folks. And, Douchey, stop fibbing and making lame-ass excuses. You and your fellow cohorts were caught spinning a “war on Christians” scenario that was contrary to the news on the ground. You tried to manipulate the news and your audience but, unfortunately for you and FOX “news”, some of us were paying attention and you got busted. Your coverage that morning was an epic fail and you deservedly became the joke of the day. Your viewers deserve an apology not finger pointing and excuse making.
If the F&F stooges want to call out dishonesty and disingenuousness, all they have to do is look in the mirror.