“Fair and balanced” Fox News is so obsessed with Hillary Clinton’s accent that it can’t be bothered to report on the substance of anything she said.
Last night, Megyn Kelly started off an entire segment on the subject by saying, “We noticed something a little different about Mrs. Clinton after a stop at a waffle restaurant.”
Fox’s chief Washington correspondent James Rosen “reported” – in the snarkiest manner possible.
ROSEN: It didn’t take long once candidate Hillary Clinton returned to Dixieland for her patented southern accent – that fickle and elusive creature that only surfaces in select settings – to raise its proud head once more.
Maybe the trigger was the reportedly unscheduled stop at KiKi’s Chicken and Waffles… outside of downtown Columbia, South Carolina, the state Clinton lost to Barack Obama in 2008 by nearly 30 points - because it was directly from Kiki’s that the former secretary of state, the Illinois native who graduated from Wellesley and represented New York in the U.S. Senate headed off to address a group of South Carolina Democratic women. And there found herself careening, accent-wise, from the Chitlin’ Circuit to the debutante ball.
Funny, but while jeering at Clinton for talking southern while in the south, Rosen forgot to mention that Clinton lived in Arkansas for nearly 20 years, from 1974 - 1993.
But wait, there's more.
ROSEN: After a pit stop in the familiar Midwestern nasality with which she usually speaks, pronouncing the word “hard” with two syllables, Mrs. Clinton again pointed her dialectic compass southward.
Yup, there was another clip of Clinton speaking in Columbia.
And Rosen didn't stop there, either.
ROSEN: In comparative historical terms, long-time Hillary watchers will observe that today’s southern digressions were relatively tame in juxtaposition to the most pronounced drawling on record, back in 1983, when the future first lady of the United States was merely the first lady of Aransas.
Now, there was a clip from, presumably, that historic day.
The scorn continued right up until the end.
ROSEN: Details of the Clinton campaign’s strategy and schedule have been slow to reach news organization. As soon as we learn of another unscheduled change of accent, however, we’ll bring it to you right here.
Back in the studio, “straight news anchor” Megyn Kelly was giggling with delight. “There does seem to be a pattern,” she said, in a mock drawl.
Media Matters noted that in Clinton's South Carolina remarks, she “laid out her vision for America and highlighted her support for President Obama following their 2008 primary fight.” She also placed “a heavy emphasis on her support for gender pay equality and helping middle class families, while pushing for civility and coalition-building.”
But Fox News had no interest in any of that. Along with Megyn Kelly, Media Matters also caught Fox & Friends attacking Clinton’s accent along with some other news outlets.
But Fox is the one that’s supposed to be “real news, fair and balanced.”
Think you’ll ever see a report like this comparing Mike Huckabee’s accent in various venues? Or Marco Rubio’s?
While you're making up your mind, watch the snarkfest below, from the May 27 The Kelly File.
I’m surprised he’s not being called on that accent since he’s done it far more often than Ms. Clinton.
Maybe for O’Reilly it’s more of a speech impediment that Faux News is reluctant to mock him about, or maybe it’s ‘cause he’s a REPUBLICAN!
The one clip where HRC does rather notoriously and fairly grotesquely imitate an accent some years ago, was actually a black Southern accent, but she was quoting from an old song— correctly, but painfully.
I lived in the Boston area for as long as HRC did in Arkansas, and whenever I go back for a visit, I slip right back into the Boston “patois,” whether I intend to or not. “Hi, howaya?”
It would be satisfying to see Faux in a tizzy over an issue they simply meant to insult Ms. Clinton over.
A) There’s an actual joke, and
B) When you tell said joke, instead of just being a dick.
This is not a joke by any stretch of the imagination.
And Megyn Kelly doesn’t have the first lick of room to talk about how people speak. She talks like someone who’s sixth in line for the bathroom after her seventh drink.
I just don’t get these stupid ass-holes at fox-nonsense. So what? My ears aren’t all the keen to picking up a tinge of accent, but this is really a pathetic waste of “bitch-time” on fox. I’m sure their brain dead geriatrics and haters will be boiling over the whole "no"thing.
