Fox News’ crackpot psychiatrist, Dr. Keith Ablow, visited the Fox Business Network yesterday where he offered up yet another over-the-top psychoanalysis of President Obama that winds up making Ablow look like the one who needs treatment. Yesterday’s message, on Varney & Co., warned parents of the urgent need to “immunize” their kids from the “very negative psychological message” being sent to them by Obama.
Ablow told host Stuart Varney:
I think it’s time to come to terms with the fact that we have to immunize our kids from a very negative psychological message. The president’s message is that individuals are not, in and of themselves, powerful; certainly not through their connection to any kind of God in the universe, which the president would say is sort of a superstition. I believe he’d say that.
And so they’re getting a very disempowering message: “You can’t do it. People don’t build their own businesses. They need the government. You’re gonna need foodstamps. You’re gonna need unemployment. You’re gonna need to stay at home until you’re 26 on your parents insurance. And you can’t decide how to use your money ‘cause we’re gonna make you buy stuff like insurance, even if you don’t want it.”
Of course, we depend on the government every day: to make sure the food we eat is safe, that our roads are in good condition, that law enforcement officials deter and arrest criminals, etc.
But neither host Stuart Varney, nor the other guest, Fox News’ Charles Payne, offered a peep of dissent. To the contrary, there were appreciative chuckles as Ablow said, “The president would say to the Boston Red Sox, ‘You didn’t win the World Series.””
In fact, Payne validated Ablow’s message. When he went on to say that it’s “awful” but “we have to” tell our children that “the message from the president is toxic,” Payne added, “It’s not just young people.”
Varney said that he thought Ablow would provoke a lot of reaction on the show’s Facebook page “and we welcome it.” Varney closed by saying, “Good stuff!”
So what does this have to do with business? Well, nothing. Unless you accept that the business of Fox is undermining and sabotaging all things Obama, Democratic or liberal.
But even Fox’s internet PR arm BFF Mediaite is sick of Ablow. Andrew Kirell wrote yesterday, “Look, as a libertarian I oppose a great deal of Obama’s policies, but for crying out loud, Ablow: Find a new shtick.”
Furthermore, in a satisfying bit of turnabout as fair play, Kirell came up with his own diagnosis:
Methinks there’s a particular Fox pundit who received very little attention from mommy and daddy as a young boy, and so he seeks to impose that desperate-for-attention attitude upon the rest of America.
Someone. Please. Make it stop.
Memo to Fox: When you’ve lost Mediaite, you’ve lost the game.
By the way, Stephen Colbert did his own satisfying analysis of Ablow a few weeks ago, which was caught by NewsHounds' Priscilla here.
I’ll go the simpler route and believe that the President just wanted to help the poor and disadvantaged from being savaged by the for profit health care system.
But what do I know, I’m no Faux News psycho-analcyst!
Said the doctor — apparently unaware immunization is covered under the ACA . . .
.