Now that a Fox News poll has found that most Americans do not want to impeach President Obama, Fox News has suddenly veered away from its own impeachment campaign. Now, the “fair and balanced” network is suggesting President Obama made the whole thing up in order to raise money and turn out his base in the midterms. Megyn Kelly and Chris Stirewalt are there to help with this latest anti-Obama messaging.
Stirewalt visited The Kelly File last night to help attack Democrats for fundraising off the impeachment threat – and, of course, smear President Obama at the same time.
In her introduction, Kelly said scornfully:
A drumbeat of impeachment talk from the Democrats. …All that comes after a recent Fox poll shows that 61% of voters oppose impeaching President Obama. Are those two things connected? And it comes as a growing number of media outlets suggest Republicans have a very good chance to take the senate come November.
She played a clip of Rep. Steve Scalise saying on Fox News Sunday, “This might be the first White House in history that’s trying to start the narrative of impeaching their own president.” Kelly left out the part where Scalise refused to say that impeachment is not under consideration after being specifically asked if it was "off the table."
Kelly also didn’t mention until much later in the segment that Fox News pundits have been salivating over impeachment for years, as I detail at the bottom of this post.
Stirewalt is Fox’s “digital politics editor” which suggests that he’s supposed to be part of Fox’s “fair and balanced” and objective news team. But he, too, “forgot” the history of impeachment talk on Fox and accused Obama of “trolling.” Check out how Stirewalt slyly and disingenuously suggested Dems made up the threat without actually denying there is one.
STIREWALT: If you want to know how lame a lame duck is, when you are trolling the other party in hopes that they will impeach you or begin impeachment proceedings so that you can raise money and if the only you can really get Democrats scared enough to close the lingering and pronounced enthusiasm gap between the two parties for midterms is to say that the president would be removed from office if the Republicans take control of the Senate – which is not true, or it is unfathomable, anyway. …If that’s all you’ve got, you ain’t got a lot.
As if that wasn’t shameless enough, Stirewalt went on to accuse the Democrats of divisiveness over the issue – before using it to further denigrate Obama:
STIREWALT: Unfortunately, what it causes is a more toxic space. Yes, we can all lament that. But the other thing it causes is a super marginalized president. If you are coming from a point of view that says “I’m just trying to hold on here so that they do not pry me out of office, so I am not thrown out of office, that’s not a person who can deal with much in Washington. And given what this guy’s got going on overseas right now, my goodness, you’d think he’d be trying to telegraph strength - not that he’s going to get yanked out of office.
Finally, at nearly four minutes into the discussion, Kelly admitted that “some Republicans have been talking about the “I” word” including some who have come on her show. After making a point of noting that one in five Democrats favor impeachment, Kelly added, “The word has been bandied about.” She failed to mention that she has helped in the bandying.
Now Stirewalt changed his tune somewhat. “Oh, and will continue to be bandied about,” he said. “But when the GOP primary season closes up here in the next few weeks, I would say that this issue will probably be drained of a lot of its venom.”
Well, probably not so long as they can attack Obama over it. Kelly and Stirewalt agreed it was “cynical” of the Democrats to fundraise over what they were now whitewashing as a non-issue. “To talk about your own impeachment in order to try to save the United States Senate majority …You know, it’s grody," Stirewalt sneered. "But politics is a pretty grody business, I guess.”
Fox may want to forget how it has promoted impeachment throughout Obama’s presidency but we will not. Here are some examples that turned up in a quick site search:
- Sestak-gate in 2010
- Fast and Furious in 2012
- Campaign-Ad-Gate in 2012
- Petraeus-Gate in 2012
- The recent Bowe Bergdahl prisoner swap
- And, of course, Benghazi
- In May, Fox host Jeanine Pirro said Obama’s conduct in office “demands” his impeachment.
- In January, Kelly blatantly prodded Senator Mitch McConnell to “consider” impeaching Obama.
- Last November, a Kelly File guest was unchallenged when he announced Obama should be impeached.
- Kelly has promoted Andrew McCarthy’s crusade for impeachment.
- Less than two week ago, Fox’s Judge Andrew Napolitano reiterated his call for impeachment on Fox & Friends.
- Earlier this month, Sarah Palin urged Hannity viewers to demand Obama’s impeachment
This morning, Fox & Friends displayed a similar amnesia in an effort to similarly accuse Obama of manufacturing the threat for political gain.
Watch Kelly and Stirewalt promote this latest trumped-up excuse to attack Obama, below.
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Add to this:
- Hannity once stated that President Obama should be impeached for the use of Air Force One
- Can’t remember who specifically, but someone wanted POTUS impeached for making recess appointments
- and numerous people wanted him impeached for signing Obamacare into law
You know, it’d be a lot easier and these wingnuts would save a lot of time if they’d just admit the REAL reason they want to impeach: they think Obama is guilty of BPWB (Being President While Black)
.
But we should keep something rather serious in mind here. Let’s say that the GOP actually gets a majority in the Senate in November, which is something they’re clearly salivating over. We know they’ll keep a majority in the House. If they actually have majorities in both houses, and a rabid far-right group in their base that irrationally hates this President, what would stop them from pursuing impeachment proceedings? In other words, if the GOP gets their way this November, we could be looking at moves toward impeachment in early 2015.
Of course, the GOP and their promoters wouldn’t want anyone to think they’re REALLY going to do that, would they? Because that’s the sort of thing that would fire up the base of the Dems and get people to vote in a midterm election where they wouldn’t otherwise do so. So it makes sense that Roger Ailes is telling his on-air personalities to downplay that whole idea until after the election.
That whole crowd thrives on that bullshit. For the few opening minutes I could stomach of Slanthead today (Tues), he was on a roll attacking John Kerry, complete with the 2,749th through the 2,753rd time he mocked Kerry’s voice making that statement. In other words, in the few minutes I listened, Hannocchio did this five times!
But otherwise, Hannity was “kind” to Kerry. Just called him a “pompous ass” only 2 times.
