Will Fox News Cover "Conservative Loons" Other Than By Embracing Them?
Reported by Priscilla - August 25, 2009 -
As Jon Stewart so deftly pointed out, Fox News is fond of covering "liberal loons." Bill O'Reilly is quite fond of that phrase and most recently used it in a discussion about a naked lady in Oregon and gays in San Francisco. Bill tried to dance his way around referring to 2004 anti-war protestors as loons by splaining that he was only referring to the ones who got arrested. Rather than a "summer of love," 2009 seems to be the summer of hate with right wingers screaming Nazi, Fascist, Socialist, Commie, etc. at their congressional reps during Town Hall meetings. Even Rush Limbaugh has jumped into the fray with his comparison of Democrats to Nazis. Militia groups are bringing their weaponry to Town Halls. Obama as Nazi is a popular meme in "right America feeling wronged." Certainly they do not represent those Americans who feel that disrupting meetings is counterproductive. One suspects that Fox wouldn't have anything nice to say about liberals screaming incoherent and paranoid rants at elected officials - especially those who are Republicans. They might even refer to the screamers as "loons." So one wonders if Fox will deign to cover folks like a lunatic right wing Arizona preacher whose incendiary rhetoric was discussed, yesterday, by MSNBC's Contessa Brewer and a terrorism analyst. The discussion centered around how this kind of heated discourse can incite people to violence. But rather than discuss how these radical fringe elements are a danger to our society, it seems that Fox News embraces them as "real" Americans.
H/T Crooks and Liars
Pastor Steven Anderson wants to kill gays because God wants you to. His paranoia is "Beckian" in that he thinks that they are "recruiting" America's youth. Obviously he represents an extreme; but on the lower end of that scale you have Bill O'Reilly talking about the dangers of the gay agenda and fuliminating about "Tiller the baby killer." As we know, Tiller was murdered by a man who held many of the same opinions as O'Reilly. Yet, O'Reilly refers to liberal "loons" when today's lunacy is emanating from his corner of bizarro world.
According to Media Matters for America, Fox News has provided coverage to those members of the right whose incoherent, paraonoid, and offensive views of Obama as Nazi seem to get sympathetic treatment from Fox News who, in their Orwellian view, consider them part of the angry mainstream. Fox is showing them as "victims" of those "other" Americans led by a president whose legitimacy is in question. These common folk are the kind of people who shouted homicidal comments about Obama at McCain/Palin rallies; but who complained that the Homeland Security Report, which talked about monitoring racist militia groups, was an insult to good conservative Americans. So go figure.
Anyway, a discussion needs to be had about the climate of hate that is dividing this country. But then Fox News seems to be invested in division - "real' Americans vs. evil liberals, white vs. black, conservative Christians vs all others not properly orthodox. There is no common ground in Hannity's America and Fox Nation. There is a lot of hatred out there from folks, who if they were liberal, would be termed "loons." And hatred fosters violence. We need look no further than the Tiller murder and the Holocaust Museum shooting. I would hope that the "fair and balanced" network would do a little critical examination of the situation. But I'm not holding my breath.
**Update - "News Corpse" has a great litany of Bill O'Reilly "loon" talk.
