Geraldo Rivera got into an entertaining argument with Laura Ingraham tonight over Darrell Issa’s witch hunt against Eric Holder. Rivera rightly summed up the contempt vote as “political hackery” that will now be dropped. But the discussion grew so heated that when Ingraham tried to poke holes in Rivera’s argument by suggesting he was being inconsistent, he began shouting at her, “Stop it! You are dissembling!”
FoxNews.com called the video: Geraldo: Holder contempt charges will go nowhere. But to make sure you don’t give that too much cred, Fox subtitled the video, “Geraldo’s unique take on the contempt charges against Eric Holder.” Of course, Rivera's take is nothing close to unique. It's only unique among Fox News hosts.
The contentiousness began when Ingraham, guest host for The O’Reilly Factor, asked the “fair and balanced” question, “What do you think Holder’s hiding?”
Rivera shot back, “I think you ask the wrong question. What is Darrell Issa hiding? Why is he so intent on creating a scandal that will go away because John Boehner and the Republicans need this like they need a hole in the head?”
Ingraham later admitted, “There may be completely nothing there.” But she continued to suggest otherwise.
Rivera asked, “Weren’t you working on Wednesday, Laura, when Darrell Issa said for the record that not only is there no evidence that Eric Holder or the President of the United States knew anything about Fast and Furious prior to the death of agent Brian Terry… and following up on that said there is not even a strong suspicion that the Attorney General of the United States had any knowledge of what happened in Fast and Furious?”
Ingraham began talking over Rivera and, frankly, she sounded a bit panicky that the discussion was not going in the Holder-damning way she had hoped.
But Rivera barely let her get a word in before talking over her. “This is a political hackery from the get go,” he said.
Ingraham continued to press, saying that Rivera was arguing that Issa was honest when he said there was no evidence of wrongdoing – with the implication that, therefore, he was not likely dishonest in pursuing the contempt case.
That’s when Rivera erupted, “Stop it! You are dissembling!”
Ingraham said condescendingly, “Yelling does not make your point any more cogent.”
“Stop interrupting then,” Rivera snapped. “You ask me a question, allow me to make my point.”
“You’re grandstanding,” Ingraham said. “And grandstanding is a sign of weakness in argumentation.”
“Stop it, please. Stop it,” Rivera said, in a fed up voice.
Then Ingraham played the Terry-family card. “Geraldo, we have a family who’s lost a 40 year-old good man who was serving this country as a border patrol…”
Now Rivera interrupted. “To invoke Brian Terry to make a political point is, is absolutely abject politics. It’s all about politics, partisan politics.”
Rivera summed up. “I make a prediction. Now that Darrell Issa has achieved his short-term goal to smear and taint the Attorney General of the United States, this will be dropped. It will go no place. John Boehner doesn’t want any part of this. He has much larger fish to fry… Darrell Issa will now return to the obscurity of the Oversight Committee.”
They did part friends, or at least Ingraham seemed to think so.