Fox News Analyst Interprets Obama’s Neutrality On Arizona Boycott As A Step Short Of Treason
Reported by Ellen - May 28, 2010 -
Is there anything President Obama can say or do that someone at Fox News doesn’t fear monger as some kind of threat? Their latest attempt would be laughable if it weren’t so toxic. Fox News’ Peter Johnson took Obama’s statement that he would neither endorse nor “not endorse” the Arizona boycott and accused him of shredding the Constitution and “engaging in the same kind of sectionalism that destroyed the United States in the 19th Century.” With video. (H/T Media Matters)
On Fox & Friends this morning, Alisyn Camerota played a clip of Obama saying that though he opposes the Arizona immigration law, “I’m president of the United States. I don’t endorse boycotts or not endorse boycotts.”
Camerota was obviously not willing to go where Johnson would go but she set the stage by suggesting that the statement represented something nefarious. “First, the president reminded Americans that he’s against the Arizona imigration law then he says a boycott is not up for him to decide. What gives?”
Johnson interpreted Obama’s comment as “tacitly endors(ing)” the boycott. He’s not the first on Fox News to say so. Johnson used that “tacit endorsement” as a springboard to launch attacks on Obama that stopped short of accusing him of treason. To Johnson, Obama was “abdicating” both his legal responsibility and his moral responsibility. “He knows full well there’s precedent” and that the boycott is, according to Johnson, is “illegal and unconstitutional.”
“The public has their own right (to boycott),” Johnson continued, “but we elect a president… not only… to tell us what the law is but to exercise moral leadership. So when you have a president who tacitly endorses a boycott, he is engaging in the same kind of sectionalism that destroyed the United States in the 19th Century… To say… I’m not gonna get involved… that tears the, shreds the Constutiton. That tears the threads that bond us together as 50 states.”
Camerota offered the mildest of “balance.” She said, “I heard it as pure political speak.” She compared it to the “meaning of is, is”
But “legal analyst” Johnson had read his tea leaves and was ready to declare his interpretation as hard and fast truth - and then compare Obama to the Nazi's.. “I think it’s obvious (Obama’s) for the boycott… (It’s) right out of the Alinsky playbook. Pit people against each other. Divide and conquer… I think of the 1933 boycott by the Nazi regime in which they governmentally regulated a boycott against all Jewish businesses. I’m not saying that this is the same thing. I’m saying that government can act in nefarious, bad ways that bring bad consequences to an entire nation.”
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