Fox News is so obsessed with smearing Hillary Clinton, you’d think she was the most powerful woman in the free world and not their guy, Donald Trump.
As I reported last night, Sean Hannity made Clinton’s emails, and former FBI Director James Comey’s decision not to prosecute her over them, the top story despite escalating tensions with North Korea, Hurricane Irma bearing down on the U.S., Trump’s repeal of DACA and Hurricane Harvey still impacting Houston.
But Hannity is far from the only Fox News host who can’t get over the fact that Clinton lost the election and holds no public office. The Story with Martha MacCallum spent so much time talking about Clinton’s new book last night, I wondered if it had been published by one of Fox’s sister companies (it wasn’t) and the network was actively promoting it under the theory that no publicity is bad publicity.
Although Fox calls MacCallum an “anchor,” as opposed to (opinion) host, and suggests The Story is objective, the only guest to discuss Clinton’s book last night was Trump’s deputy campaign manager, David Bossie. He's a birther who has made a career out of smearing and lying. He’s also a Fox News contributor.
MacCallum spent more than two minutes teasing the attack, I mean discussion, with clips and jabs at Clinton before Bossie had a chance to open his mouth. I’ll spare you the details of their “analysis” but the gist was Clinton's audacity of criticizing and blaming Bernie Sanders in her new book. Whatever you think of that (I don't like it) I can assure you that Fox would be smearing Sanders just as heartily, if not more so, had he won the nomination or the presidency. Fox would probably be defending Clinton's attack now if Sanders had won the 2016 election.
In fact, Bossie gave a hint of how much Fox would be hating on Sanders had it been expedient for Fox. Bossie suggested Sanders is behind the rise of Antifa, saying its members “are the Bernie Sanders supporters” whom he “riled up” during the 2016 primary.
But that was off message. MacCallum quickly ended that line of discussion.
With less than a minute left, she got around to asking Bossie about Trump’s repeal of DACA. That move caused chaos, stress and fear to 800,000 young residents, known as Dreamers, who did not come here by choice. The repeal could also cost the country hundreds of billions of dollars. Even most Trump supporters approved of DACA.
I think we can guess why MacCallum and Fox News would rather talk about Clinton. But I'm sorry, Fox, your guy won and no amount of Clinton talk can take away from his growing unpopularity with his base.
Watch Fox News’ priorities on display below, from the September 5, 2017 The Story with Martha MacCallum.
Thank you. This drives me nuts. Hannity can just manage semi-competent “anchoring” well into some breaking news event— just barely — but an anchor is an anchor and a host is a host. They’re two entirely different roles and skills.
The Foxies are worried.
Breitbart has plans to launch a new network, and the Fox “News” suits are nervous. The day Trumpster tells has followers to watch Breitbart Network will be the end of the Foxies.