How many times is Fox News going to play New Black Panther Party tape as part of its Trayvon Martin coverage and, at the same time, whine about other people inflaming racial tensions? I made a video mashup of just two episodes of Hannity and one of The O’Reilly Factor and came up with quite a few. It’s Fox News 101: Find a villain, portray themselves as victims in some way, and then use that victimhood to fan the flames of hostility further. The phony war on Ann Romney is another perfect example. But Fox’s NBPP game is especially toxic because the “fair and balanced” network is deliberately ginning up racial animosity in the middle of an already racially tense situation. Classy.

The New Black Panther Party is not exactly mainstream America. The Southern Poverty Law Center, which classifies them as a hate group, notes:

The fact is, the New Black Panther Party, despite some similarities to the vastly more successful Nation of Islam, has not picked up the support of millions of black people. It has angered whites, Jews and most blacks, who see it as fundamentally racist. And it has left a bitter taste in the mouths of at least some of the communities that its members, guns in hand, purport to be helping.

In the video below, Fox hosts and pundits repeatedly talk about the need to calm the waters – at the same time that they work to roil them. Note how the NBPP is treated as significant in some way, even when it is admitted that they are not.