Megyn Kelly used a familiar Fox News tactic to politicize the Boston Marathon bombing – and pretend otherwise: she accused Democrats of doing the politicizing and then played the victim. And Fox News' "objective" Chris Stirewalt was a willing helpmate. Maybe it slipped by their Fox faithful but astute observers should take note of the charade.
I’m sure it was just a coincidence that Kelly burnished her “I’m not playing politics” credentials as she choked up in the previous segment over the death of a child in the tragedy. And then, with hammy regret, she moved on to say, “In the meantime, unfortunately, (she sighed dramatically) at least one Democratic Congressman is raising new questions about – well, politics. And whether the sequester …is making the investigation more difficult in Boston. And then the House Minority Whip, Steny Hoyer, followed up by saying the bombings are, quote, proof that those automatic spending changes negatively impacted the intelligence community.”
Proof that Kelly was doing nothing more than playing politics herself? First of all, she didn’t bother to investigate whether Hoyer’s charges were accurate but leapt immediately to playing the sensitive victim of other people's politics. Despite the fact that at least two colleagues at Fox News had already politicized the bombings. Secondly, rather than just leaving it there, she and Stirewalt spent the rest of the segment bashing Democrats.
Ignoring the substance of the allegations, Kelly asked Stirewalt to confirm what Hoyer said. Stirewalt explained that last week, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper testified that the sequestration cuts were hampering national security and intelligence gathering and were dangerous. But both Stirewalt and Kelly showed a curious lack of interest in exactly what Clapper had been referring to and, more importantly, whether he had been correct in his assessment.
Instead, Stirewalt added, “Then this morning, Xavier Becerra (which Stirewalt mispronounced as “Zavier”), Democrat, spoke and said, ‘Look, in Boston, they’re having all of these problems because of the sequestration…’”
Kelly continued, her voice rising with her trademark indignation. “I mean, I don’t know – maybe that is the case, maybe they can prove that to us in the days to come, Chris. I don’t know but is today the day for that… Is this any time to be pointing the fingers on something like that?”
In other words, Kelly – whose 1-3 PM ET program is supposed to be part of Fox’s “objective news” hours – couldn’t be bothered to find out whether it was true or not because she was too busy dwelling on what was bugging her about the Democratic Congressmen.
Stirewalt took it a step further. “Imagine, if you will, if today John Boehner or Eric Cantor on the Republican side had come out and said, ‘You have to wonder whether President Obama’s policies in Syria or Iraq or the Middle East haven’t left us more vulnerable to this.’” Then, in a comment I’m sure he thought proved his non-partisanship, Stirewalt talked about how cool and Commander-in-Chief-like President Obama had been – right before taking a completely gratuitous swipe at Democrats of his own: “Unfortunately, what you see here is that Congress is currently obsessed with spending and Democrats are currently obsessed with the idea these automatic reductions to automatic increases in federal outlays and could not apparently resist linking the two.” But Stirewalt wasn’t done. He said that if Clapper was right, it was President Obama’s fault for signing the sequester bill in the first place. “He had the wherewithal as Commander-in-Chief not to do this. So if there are fingers being pointed here, eventually, they start pointing up the other way on Pennsylvania Avenue to the president.”
Do you think Kelly objected to that politicization? Of course not!
Apparently Kelly forgot that little lecture she gave to African Americans about taking personal responsibility and not blaming others. Because on Fox News, Democrats and/or liberals are always to blame for something.
If it were an al-Qaeda operation one would think there would have been a bragging video released very soon afterwards. And I cannot think of any bombings they have been responsible for that did not cause tremendous loss of life and property damage. The Boston bombs were pretty weak in comparison to, for example, the London tube bombings and the IED’s in Afghanistan. I’m leaning more and more towards some yahoos who had no idea what they were doing.
And, with regards to politicizing Boston, in a continuation of the very selective style of reporting that FOX “news” does, Varney was on F&F this morning pointing fingers at Dem. Steny Hoyer. The 3 stooges and Varney were outraged that Hoyer would politicize Boston by bringing up the possible effects of the sequestration on security issues (even while admitting that they didn’t know if what Hoyer said was true or not).
But most telling was that not a word was said by any of them about how BOR and others on the right have moved to politicize the bombings – nah, in the bizarro world of FOX “news”, it’s only the left that goes political during such tragedies. I seriously do not understand how anyone can believe that FOX “news” is “fair & balanced” in their coverage.
Hoyer’s remarks when responding to a reporter…
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/04/boston-marathon-bombing-congress-reacts-90136.html?hp=l1
http://www.catholic.org/national/national_story.php?id=50539
The case for the bombers being domestic is getting pretty solid, and I’m hearing less and less about minority suspects, outside of Fox and it’s viewers. They already look racist harping on dead angles like the Saudi National, they better hope they’re on the wrong side of the politics, as well.
1) Trumping up the Saudi “Person of Interest” -Even after being debunked by the Boston Police, who have asked the media to move on from that angle.
2) Bashing Democrats, and/or promoting Fox News talking points. Once again, even though this has taken them almost completely out of the game.
3) OMFG, Republicans are such victims- They’re even bigger victims than the people who were actually blown up!!! Despite that even religious news sources have Right-Wing extremists high on the suspect list:
http://www.catholic.org/national/national_story.php?id=50539
Likewise, Fox Nation comments aren’t worth my time to grab on this because, despite how disguting they are… they’re all the same three notes- They hope everyone who dies from their injuries turns out to be a liberal, they want to politicize, and OMFG, could they talk anymore about Benghazi and Gun Control?!
To be fair, no one’s done a good job with this story- Unless changing the story every 10 minutes and playing nonstop dumb on that counts. But Fox News’ coverage is the biggest joke I have ever seen. Online Tabloids and tactless humour sites have come closer to real news. I would cite Mad Magazine before I cited them in serious debate.
And yes- This is how frustrated I am with the whole ordeal talking.
NHP