It’s one thing for a Democrat to oppose the Trump impeachment and quite another to write a FoxNews.com column and appear on the Fox News Channel to rail against it.
Democrat Cathy Areu regularly appears on Fox, so it’s not as though she didn’t know that the poisonous, partisan propaganda is its stock-in-trade.
Nevertheless, Areu wrote a column for FoxNews.com called, “Cathy Areu: Speaker Pelosi, from one Democrat to another, please jump off the impeachment bandwagon.” It begins:
Dear Speaker Nancy Pelosi,
Please consider this open letter from an old friend.
I know it’s been a while, but I just really felt the need to write you this letter.
Sure enough, that got Areu a friendly spot on Fox News’ Cavuto Live show on Saturday. Host Cavuto said, “again, that is a Democrat,” and called her column a “big deal, big deal.”:
“It was, it was,” Areu agreed, without saying whether any Democrats gave it any serious thought. She did say she had not heard anything from Pelosi (the column was published the day before).
Areu claimed she wrote the open letter after speaking to “so many different sources, it’s almost like we’re meeting in a garage like “All the President’s Men.” She claimed her sources told her, “There’s no win. It’s a lose, lose situation for Democrats, for the country.”
She predicted impeachment will backfire. “So, let’s say he’s impeached,” Areu argued, “and then what? You get Pence?” She also predicted the Democratic base will be angry at such a result.
“So you think this is jeopardizing them not only taking the White House, but expanding the lead in the House and maybe taking the Senate,” Cavuto underscored.
Areu even echoed a Trump talking point: “You’re taking away the rights of the voters,” she accused. “Are you, Congress, saying that we Democrats, we are so stupid that we do not know how to vote this guy out so you’re going to do it for us?” She argued that Congress should be investigating, not impeaching.
“That’s what they’re doing,” Cavuto pointed out.
While she was at it, Areu took a gratuitous swing at Democrats over Kavanaugh. “I was against also the Kavanaugh hearings,” she said. She called them a “waste of taxpayer dollars” and “a waste of time.”
Despite all that, Areu said she’ll be voting for “anyone but Donald Trump” next year.
Cavuto closed by saying Areu “did make waves with this” and claimed “a good many” Democrats feel the same way.”
FACT CHECK: According to FiveThirtyEight.com, 81.4% of Democrats support impeachment as of November 17, 2019.
Watch Fox’s kind of Democrat below, from the November 16, 2019 Cavuto Live.
Unless they are forced to watch in bars and bus stations, I can’t imagine many ‘undecideds’ are ever exposed to more than a minute or two of Fox propaganda.
But yes, they still make my blood boil.
I believe Areu used “Kavanaugh hearing” as shorthand for the “extra” hearing with Christine Blasey Ford. But your point still stands: The hearings are part of the Constitutional process and there were serious accusations made against Kavanaugh that Congress had a duty to hear. The fact that Kavanaugh was able to hijack them is no excuse for saying that they should not have happened in the first place.
She’s also wildly mistaken in her statements. As a simple primer for her, the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings were constitutionally mandated. Would she have preferred for Kavanaugh to just have been rammed onto the Supreme Court without even a hearing? And did she think confirmation hearings would have been “a waste of time” for Merrick Garland?
But the simplest truth here is that Areu’s personal opinion isn’t just wrong – it’s irrelevant. Fox News can trumpet her all they want, just like they did with Pat Caddell and Doug Schoen shamefully demanding that President Obama not run for re-election in 2012. It won’t make a difference. And history will record these many attempts by Fox News to rewrite it.
Meanwhile, back to the real world….
- 70% of Americans think Trump’s actions in Ukraine are wrong.
- 51% of Americans think Trump should be impeached and removed from office.
- 58% of Americans say they’re following the impeachment hearings closely or somewhat closely.
https://www.theweek.com/speedreads/879144/poll-majority-americans-are-closely-following-impeachment-hearings-say-trumps-actions-wrong
I have a deep suspicion that many aspiring politicians are not really driven by any fundamental principles or values. They’ll do anything, say anything, twist and turn until they find a nice cushy spot somewhere. No matter what party: they can sing all the songs and spew all the talking points. They are usually not very successful, except on Fox where poor acting skills are OK so long as they aim in the right direction.
