In Fox News' pantheon of scary black men, Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Barack Obama, who accrued much of his scariness from his association with the pastor, top the chart. Ever since Obama's 2008 campaign, Fox News has used Rev. Wright, whose "God damn America" video was played 24 and 7 on Fox, to denigrate Obama at every turn. As late as 2012, Fox wall of genius Steve Doocy predicted that Wright would derail Obama's re-election. Flash forward to 2014 and Fox News is still playing the scary, black Jeremiah Wright card in order to attack the president and, as a special bonus, defend GOP Rep. Steve Scalise who palled around with white supremacists.
Tuesday night, on the alleged fair & balanced Special Report, right wing tool host Ed Henry started off the segment by reading GOP Speaker John Boehner's statement on Scalise's awesomeness. Henry asked if l'affaire Scalise comes at a bad time when the GOP, LOL, is trying to reach out to minorities. After Charles Krauthammer said that if Scalise wanted to help the leadership he could have stepped down from his position as majority whip, he began his defense of Scalise.
Krauthammer noted that this happened twelve years ago and it is "plausible that he didn't know who these guys were" because the name of the group didn't indicate anything about white supremacy. In keeping with the standard GOP script, Henry played the patented GOP talking point about how Democratic Senator Robert Byrd had been a KKK leader but the oh, so amiable GOP said, in essence, no big deal. Krauthammer said that was because Byrd, since his departure from the KKK, acted in an honorable fashion. He defended Scalise with the assertion that "as far as I can tell there is not a shred of evidence that there is anything in the intervening twelve years which would indicate any evidence of racism, hostility or ill will or anything of this nature..."
So far so good but then
Krauthammer pulled out the Rev. Wright card: "There is a double standard. Obama became didn’t just wander into Jeremiah Wright’s church one time twelve years ago. He sat in it for twenty two years as the man who is a racist raved against America and talked about 9/11 being chickens coming home to roost." Henry framed the propaganda message: "So if there's guilt by association, there will be difficulties for both parties." Krauthammer kept with the script: "There should be and these aren't even comparable." He whined that the GOP will "get hit with this a few times." (awww)
As a multi-faceted piece of agitprop, this was priceless. Krauthammer resurrects a tired old attack on Obama as well as create a moral equivalency between Obama and Scalise with Obama's past connection seeming far more sinister. Ed Henry declares "guilt by association" without benefit of trial. And in a classic case of Fox alternate reality projection, Krauthammer claims, with nothing substantive other than racist right wing ideology, that it's really Wright who is a racist whose racism was supported by Obama. The irony here is that Fox News provides a national platform for racism and race baiting.
Gotta love that Fox fairness & balance!
(3/11/20 Update: video is no longer available)
Now I have actual comparative coverage coming in. If the piece happens, it can be based on that. Much easier, and much more likely to be accepted by people who avoid volume of coverage.
Yay?
Would Charles Krauthammer defend GOP Rep. Steve Scalise if he associated with neo-Nazis?
NOTE TO KRAUTHAMMER
You seem like an educated man, Chuck. You do realize that these types of hate groups don’t like Jews.
Let’s educate you, Chuck.
David Duke is an anti-Semite. Ask yourself these simple questions. Why would Scalise associate with an anti-Semite individual and group? Is Scalise a closet anti-Semite?
In David Duke’s book, My Awakening, he has written disparaging remarks about Jewish people. Read it for yourself.
We rarely post anything from Glenn Beck’s website, but since you are conservative we decided to post it from a conservative point of view. The link includes a video which Duke says a few racist remarks about Jews.
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2011/07/08/white-supremacist-david-duke-calls-jews-extremists-says-israel-is-terrorist-state/
Duke says Scalise is a “fine family man.” It’s obvious that Duke knows Scalise very well. You know deep down that something is wrong with this picture, but you are afraid to come forward. You are a coward!
Defending a man with ties to anti-Semites is a slap in the face to six millions Jews who died at the hands of another anti-Semite. You know his name.
