Gen. John Kelly channeled his inner Trump last night as he spoke of “honorable” Robert E. Lee, praised “both sides” of the Civil War and doubled down on his false attacks on Rep. Frederica Wilson.
White House Chief of Staff Kelly was the featured guest on the debut of Fox’s Ingraham Angle show last night.
First, Kelly suggested that Donald Trump is under investigation when he said the Mueller probe is “very distracting to the president as it would be to any citizen to be investigated for something while at the same time trying to carry the weight of what being president of the United States means on his shoulders.”
A real journalist would have caught the implication and pressed to find out whether Kelly had just spilled the beans on something or had misspoken. But not Ingraham! She moved on to ask how much Oval Office time is spent on the investigation. (“Multiple conversations a day, generally, in the morning,” Kelly replied.)
Kelly stood by his smear of Rep. Wilson despite video proof to the contrary
But it was in Part 2 of the interview that things got interesting. First, Ingraham brought up Wilson. You may recall that Kelly stepped forward to attack Wilson in the middle of Trump’s self-made debacle over the deaths of four soldiers in Niger. That included accusations that Wilson lied when she spoke out about Trump’s insensitive remarks to Gold Star widow of La David Johnson, Myeshia Johnson (corroborated by both Mrs. Johnson and her husband’s mother), overheard on a speaker phone. Kelly had piled on by falsely accusing Wilson of wrongly taking credit for funding for an FBI office in Florida.
There’s video proof that Kelly got it wrong about Wilson and the FBI office. But Ingraham obviously thought it her place to support Kelly, not provide the truth to her viewers. Instead, she deceptively described the situation. (Transcript via Tampa Bay Times, with my emphases added):
INGRAHAM: LaDavid Johnson’s widow had given an interview on television after your remarks and said that what Frederica Wilson said was actually right. She basically corroborated what the congresswoman recounted about the conversation. So that was her reaction. There’s also comments that Frederica Wilson, in her speech, did not brag about getting funding, as you indicated in your remarks. I actually watched Frederica Wilson’s speech and she certainly used the word “I” a lot in talking about how — and I think we actually have a clip of it.
[…]
KELLY: Well, I’ll go back and talk about before her comments and at the reception afterwards. Again, it was a package deal. Don’t want to get into it. As far as the young widow goes — she has every right to say what she wants to say. But it’s the politicization of something that was so from the heart.
INGRAHAM: But do you feel like you have something to apologize?
KELLY: Do I?
INGRAHAM: Yeah.
KELLY: Oh, no. No. Never. Well, I’ll apologize if I need to. But for something like this, absolutely not. I stand by my comments.
Next question? “What do you pray for?”
Kelly echoed Trump's Charlottesville remarks when he praised Robert E. Lee
When Ingraham brought up the controversy over Confederate monuments. Fox’s lower third referred to them as “historical monuments.”
Transcript excerpt via NBC News:
KELLY: I think we make a mistake, though, and as a society, and certainly as individuals, when we take what is today accepted as right and wrong and go back 100, 200, 300 years or more and say, ‘What Christopher Columbus did was wrong.’
You know, 500 years later, it’s inconceivable to me that you would take what we think now and apply it back then. I think it’s just very, very dangerous. I think it shows you just how much of a lack of appreciation of history and what history is.
I would tell you that Robert E. Lee was an honorable man. He was a man that gave up his country to fight for his state, which 150 years ago was more important than country. It was always loyalty to state first back in those days. Now it’s different today. But the lack of an ability to compromise led to the Civil War, and men and women of good faith on both sides made their stand where their conscience had them make their stand.
Kelly not only rewrote the history of the Civil War (while purporting to honor it), this was shades of Trump’s remarks about “very fine people on both sides” remarks about the white nationalist demonstration and counter-protest in Charlottesville.
So how did Ingraham respond? Despite just promising to “hold the powerful accountable,” she sneered, “They’ll be pulling down the Washington monument at some point.”
Watch what should be renamed The Ingraham Propaganda below, from the October 30, 2017 The Ingraham Angle.
When I see an interview like this I get this Twilight Zone-esque feeling that I’m watching some future dystopian tale like ‘V for Vendetta’, but it’s happening in the present and it’s happening to us!
Fox “News” employees call out Pie and Ms. Laura to CNN.
http://money.cnn.com/2017/10/31/media/fox-news-employees-russia-mueller-coverage/index.html
NOTE TO MS. LAURA
You are well aware that some Fox “News” employees can’t stand your silly azz. More stories about you coming down the pipeline.
#RevoltatFoxNews