It was a bumper crop of outrageousness on Fox last week. If our 14 candidates aren't a record number, it's certainly one of the highest we've had yet. Your choices this week, dear readers, include Dick Cheney justifying the invasion of Iraq, Shannon Bream worrying that anti-bullying measures will somehow oppress conservatives, impeachment talk, the War on Christmas and a new psychoanalysis from Dr. Keith Ablow. And, of course, lots of outrageousness about ObamaCare. Click through if you dare...
This week's nominees are:
Dr. Ben Carson’s unintentional irony and hypocrisy in discussing The Affordable Care Act, i.e. “ObamaCare,” and its supporters from his perch at all-divisiveness-all-the-time Fox News – and even as he made his own divisive statements:
This is antithetical to the original intent of what America was supposed to be. Federal government was there to allow people to pursue life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, not to control every aspect of their lives. And we’re sleeping through it. We need to wake the people up.
…The American people, we the people are not each other’s enemies. The enemies are those people behind the curtain pulling every string, driving a wedge in every place that they possibly can. Be it race, be it gender, be it age, be it income. Doesn’t matter. If you can keep everybody divided and at each other’s throats and you can throw them off the real issues, then they won’t even noticed that the government is insinuating itself into every part of their life and gradually changing America into something that we don’t want it to be.
FoxNews.com’s title of a video: “Who’s worse, Russell Brand or Harry Reid? One’s a comic, the other’s a clown.”
Dick Cheney, still justifying suggesting Iraq had WMDs: “What we gained – and my concern was then and it remains today is that the biggest threat we face is the possibility of terrorist groups, like Al Qaeda, equipped with weapons of mass destruction. With nukes, bugs or gas. That was the threat after 9/11 and when we took down Saddam Hussein, we eliminated Iraq as a potential source of that.”
Bill O’Reilly giving Cheney a pass on an invasion and a war O’Reilly doesn’t think was worth it. Compare this with his impeachment talk about Obama (below): “What did we get out of Iraq? I mean, as Americans, we’re all in it together. We’re all in it together. It’s easy to finger point… I don’t want to do that. …I don’t blame you – you, Vice President Cheney or President Bush for doing what you did. I’m not Monday morning quarterbacking.”
Bill O’Reilly, a few days later, forgot that we're all Americans "in it together" as he suggested President Obama might deserve to be impeached for saying you could keep your doctor and your plan under The Affordable Care Act (“ObamaCare”).
“Did the President mislead the country? Absolutely—no question about it. Did he know he was misleading it? Maybe—most likely. Did he lie? Very possible but the evidence is not conclusive.
…President Obama has a lot to lose if he did indeed tell outright lies (about Obamacare) to the American people. In fact, he could be impeached if that were proved beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Fox News contributor Dr. Marc Siegel complaining about The Affordable Care Act: “Before they started this, we were all in trouble with insurance to begin with. There’s too much health insurance. It covers too much.Too many people have it and they can’t get in my office to see me. I’m full. …I can’t see all these people.”
Sean Hannity proving that, at least in his mind, there’s no daylight between being a Fox News host and being a conservative activist. Referring to a threatened primary challenge to Tea Party Senator Mike Lee by mainstream Republicans in Utah, Hannity said: “I’m telling you right now. If they do that to Mike Lee, I’m gonna get my buses full of people. We’re going out to Utah.”
Steve Doocy: “You know how schools work, they’re trying, in many cases to, they’re trying to scrub God completely out of them.”
Shannon Bream worrying that anti-bullying programs will oppress conservatives: “(C)ases like these make anti-bullying programs seem like a step in the right direction; but some say that programs that are supposed to stop kids from bulling may actually be suppressing conservative ideas on some things like gay marriage and abortion, amounting to bullying of kids who are conservative on those issues.”
Fox regular Lars Larson suggesting President Obama should be impeached over ObamaCare: “What’s it going to do to the economy? …Can you imagine what it’s going to do to America’s economy when tens of millions of families are losing additional two, three, four hundred dollars per month and getting less for it? This should make Americans very, very mad and especially because we’ve got a president who lied to us. We’ve previously impeached presidents for lying to us. I think this president deserves it as well.”
Megyn Kelly helping to fight the War on Christmas (and pretending not to take a side) against a New Jersey public school which does not want Christmas carols as part of its winter concert: “(N)o Christmas carols at the winter concert, what are we going to sing about, the snowflakes over and over and over?
Psychiatrist Dr. Keith Ablow psychoanalyzing President Obama on the Fox Business Network:
“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.’”
Tucker Carlson using a gay stereotype to attack Media Matters’ David Brock: “It’s so embarrassing. Just sucking up– being a professional Hillary throne sniffer? It’s just, like, it’s pathetic. Worshipping her like Judy Garland? I just think it’s just awful.”
John Tamny advancing Fox News’ war on food stamps: “I say don’t cut, just abolish it. …We’re talking about gaming of the system and lots of fraud, that’s precisely a result of the federal government trying to fight poverty from Washington DC. …I say they do an even better job in the private sector through charities.”
My vote is for Ben Carson, who really should know better. When Fox ran the ad “Seeking educated black man who is willing to say stupid shit about the president ON TV”, he was the first applicant in line.
http://nofibs.com.au/2013/11/01/breaking-news-sex-lies-murdoch-succession-paul-barry/