Megyn Kelly is featured on the cover of Vanity Fair magazine. Author Evgenia Peretz did acknowledge that Kelly’s show is much like all the other shows on Fox News but she seems to think Kelly is so fabulous and appealing that it doesn’t matter.
The title is a dead giveaway about the kind of gushing to follow: “Blowhards, Beware: Megyn Kelly Will Slay You Now.” But either Peretz didn’t know or she was too bowled over by Kelly to notice that it’s only a select group of blowhards who get slain. Blowhards like Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin, black racist Kevin Jackson, and extremist Sheriff David Clarke have all been treated favorably, even as they blew hard.
Meanwhile, serious liberal guests trying to make polite arguments, such as Rep. Al Green and Ezekiel Emanuel have been treated with shocking rudeness.
I don’t know what Kelly’s calculation is between those who get those infamous “Megyn moments” and those who don’t. But I do know that any interviewer worth their salt should have at least noticed and tried to find out.
Peretz misleadingly wrote that Kelly “transcends politics with her skillful skewering of windbags of both parties, most notably Donald Trump.” The fact is, Kelly was for Trump before she was against him. Before the debate, when Trump was under fire over his “Mexican rapists and drug dealers” comments, Kelly thought he had a point. In an interview, she sympathetically allowed him to double down on his comments.
But Peretz thinks Kelly is the Julia Roberts of TV news:
It helps that she’s a woman of preternatural charisma, with star power closer to that of Julia Roberts than to, say, Norah O’Donnell or Erin Burnett—two other beautiful TV newswomen who have made it big but have never exactly exploded.
…Prominent female journalists from rival networks can’t help but praise her uncanny charm. “She doesn’t talk down to her audience,” says Campbell Brown, who hosted her own prime-time show on CNN and now leads a nonprofit in education. “There is none of the sanctimonious, condescending attitude. And, frankly, none of the hate. I think people are sick of these prime-time chest thumpers characterizing the other side as evil.” Jessica Yellin, a former chief White House correspondent for CNN, says, “She defies all the pigeonholing that usually happens to women on TV. She’s smart, strong, sexy, fierce, sympathetic all at once.”
Charming, yes. But while she’s at it, Kelly is as much a propagandist as anyone else on Fox News. A Fox in sheep’s clothing, if you will. Even Peretz caught on:
The Kelly File, which Kelly bills as a “news” show as opposed to an opinion show, like Hannity or The O’Reilly Factor, is made up largely of the kind of stories you’d find on many other Fox News shows at any other time. Some recurring themes are political correctness run amok, the left-wing slant of the mainstream media, and the question of Hillary Clinton’s trustworthiness. (Hint: “She’s lying! She’s absolutely lying!,” says the mother of one of the Benghazi victims in a teaser.) Not so infrequently, the right-of-center axis roams into Hannity territory, like a recurring bit on “Ahmed, the clock boy,” who was mistakenly arrested after school officials thought he might be building a bomb—and then got invited to the White House. Not only was the clock really lame, The Kelly File told us, “just wait until you see what we found on his father’s Facebook page.” (Supposedly it called 9/11 an American hoax to encourage a war against Islam.) A go-to guest on the subject of race and law enforcement is Mark Fuhrman, the disgraced race-baiting policeman from the O. J. Simpson trial.
And yet Peretz seemed not to have asked Kelly about her disingenuous claims to be an independent, “straight news anchor.” Even though Peretz reported that when Kelly applied for a job at Fox, she told Brit Hume she “believed in Fox News’s mission.”
Also somehow mostly overlooked is the bigotry Kelly has evidenced since even before she became a prime time star. She has shown openly racial animosity toward former Attorney General Eric Holder, Black Lives Matter protesters and Oprah Winfrey, to name a few. Heck, Peretz didn't even mention Kelly's infamous "assurance" to kids that Santa and Jesus are/were white.
Those flashy “Megyn moments” that distract from her workaday routine of pushing Fox News’ narrative (and help Fox pretend that Kelly doesn’t spend most of her time doing just that) are why Media Matter has dubbed her Fox's “most dangerous host.”
Kelly is a formidable talent at Fox. You might be surprised to know that I think there are plenty of reasons for someone to admire and respect her. But there’s simply no excuse for someone of Peretz’ stature (she’s a contributing editor at Vanity Fair) to focus on so much of the sizzle and to miss so much of the steak.
Graphic by DonkeyHotey.
Sexist? Maybe.
But before you chastise Megyn for the professional decisions she’s made in her life, answer this: what do you do for a living —…?
She’s no different than the racist and bigoted KKKlannity & Billdo Reilly clowns, but admittedly with nicer legs, more makeup, and better cocktail dresses.
And even the GOP Uncle Toms only get respected by her as far as agenda allows. If I had even a penny for every time she acted like talking to Carson, Clarke, Jackson, Malkin, and so on made her sick, despite saying that they were saying/doing the exact same things as the white people…