There’s just so much wrong with Greta Van Susteren’s short-sighted, selective outrage at the 16 conservative women pundits who have called for Donald Trump’s campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, to be fired.
In an “Off The Record” commentary, Van Susteren said the following:
VAN SUSTEREN: A media scrum around a presidential candidate, Donald Trump, with routine pushing and shoving, ended with an allegation of a crime. …Now, whatever happened in the scrum – and I don’t think the video or eyewitness statement is convincing – this incident never should have ended up as a crime. It should have ended with an apology.
I’m talking about “Grab-gate” or “Pinch-gate,” whatever you want to call it. Reporter Michelle Fields, in a scrum around Donald Trump, trying to get a sound bite from him, was grabbed, pinched, resulting in bruising. She said Trump’s campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, did it intentionally. Yes, of course, grabbing someone accidentally or even intentionally is not so nice but is this one a crime? Plus, don’t forget, court dockets are already so overcrowded. And now, it has been blown up even more. Sixteen women in the media - some reporters, some analysts – signing a letter calling on Trump to fire Lewandowski.
It's Trump's Effort To Stifle The Press, Not The Grabbing That Matters
Van Susteren may well be right that this incident should have ended in an apology. But in her effort to make it sound as though Fields and her supporters are hysterically over-reacting, Van Susteren somehow overlooked the main issue, which is the Trump campaign’s literal strong-arming of the press (and Fields is not the first) as well as its brutish, sexist behavior toward Fields.
As Megyn Kelly highlighted just two hours later on Fox, the Trump campaign has engaged in a systematic effort to discredit Fields. First, they attacked her as having made up the incident. Then, once the video came out showing that she had been grabbed, they started accusing her of being a threat to Trump, even though the Secret Service didn’t think so. That, Kelly pointed out, was an effort to gaslight and intimidate her.
Kelly also noted that Lewandowski had threatened her in a call to Fox. That happened and was made public in January.
Why didn’t Van Susteren point out this pattern of Trump behavior toward the press? Let’s not forget that Fields, a former Fox News contributor, is a former colleague as well.
Putting aside the question of Lewandowski’s criminal guilt or innocence, the professional way for Trump to have handled the incident would have been to immediately and dispassionately look into what happened then once Lewandowski was charged, remove him from the campaign until the criminal investigation is complete.
It’s more than puzzling that Van Susteren apparently thought all that irrelevant. Instead, she went on to suggest that the 16 women had committed some kind of journalistic malpractice:
VAN SUSTEREN: Two things: One, Lewandowski hasn’t even had a trial and they’re calling for his head. Yes, they’ve tried and convicted him. And second, each of these women has now shot herself in the foot How can any one of them continue to cover the presidential race by not waiting for the D.A.’s decision to try the case or not or wait for a jury verdict but instead, coming out swinging, taking sides in such a public way. It may be a hard sell for each of these women now covering this election to say she’s fair.
If you can stop laughing at a Fox News host complaining about anyone else’s lack of objectivity, especially covering Donald Trump, Van Susteren’s concern trolling is even more ridiculous. For one thing, each of the women are openly conservative. For another, where has Van Susteren’s concern been when Fox trotted out Mark Fuhrman as a supposedly neutral analyst to discuss Ferguson protests? When Dick Morris was presented for years as a “former Clinton advisor” without advising viewers that he virulently hates them?
As for convicting before trial, Hillary Clinton hasn’t even been charged over her emails and Fox repeatedly suggests she's on the way to jail. And, she’s been cleared of wrongdoing over Benghazi, but Fox acts as though she were convicted.
Come on, Greta, I can’t believe you don’t know better than this.
What’s even more disturbing? One day after she threw her own colleagues under the bus in favor of Trump, it was announced that Van Susteren will hold a special town hall with him on Sunday, one day before the Wisconsin primary. We can hope she'll press him on this issue but I'm not holding my breath.
Watch Van Susteren below, from the March 30 On The Record, and The Kelly File's response later that same night.
The Fox “News” Civil War between the hosts is getting worse and worse. We wouldn’t be surprised if a few people left this disgusting network.
Coming down the pipeline:
1. The backstabbing continues at Fox “News” Network
2. Hosts shun each other.
3. Ailes’ and the women.
4. Hannocchio forced to take sides.
NOTE TO MASSES
Grab that popcorn. A shocker is coming.
@carole S.— Greta, as far as i can tell, doesn’t read much beyond the stuff her producers forward to her. I’ve heard her assert “facts” that had been long since widely and very publicly corrected/debunked or clarified in multiple media days earlier, yet she was unaware of it. She just loves to talk about doing “homework” on this or that issue, but she very clearly hasn’t, so “homework” clearly means reading the links her producers see fit to send her.
I very much doubt any Fox producer gives their show’s “talent” anything that calls into question the party line, if it that line has been proven factually false. Can’t let any shreds of doubt in there, after all. And I suspect this is even more of a rule with Greta, who isn’t a trustworthy ideologue. Keeping her as ignorant as possible is the better tactic.
“You didn’t need anonymous sources or brilliant deductive skills to do it, you just needed to know how to read.”
The above is in reference to the absolutely ridiculous accusation that 147 FBI agents are investigating Hillary’s emails.
http://www.mediaite.com/online/why-didnt-msnbc-liberals-call-bs-on-147-fbi-agents-investigating-hillary-email/
Greta is a hypocrite!
I’m so glad Hillary has chosen to say away from FOX interviews!
Jane S, you are right that Greta is a long-time Trump toady. However, I have never had the feeling she agrees with his politics, just that she likes him. Regardless, it is simply inexcusable for her to suck up to him on his horrible, sexist behavior not only toward a reporter but to her own colleague.
She said in her “Off The Record” commentary tonight that her only agenda for the Trump town hall is to get information for the viewers. If she doesn’t challenge him good and hard on his treatment of Fields and Kelly, she will lose any and all respect I ever had for her (not a huge amount but some).
I was just wondering the other day if you were going to report on this. Van Susteren also took to her blog and wrote that these women, “have obviously shown their bias.” I really did have a good laugh over that comment! What in the world was she thinking? I would also like to add that her producers also ran with the ridiculous statement by WAPO that 187 FBI agents have been called to investigate the email scandal. It is absolutely false! Will she walk that one back and correct her reporting? I think not!
Good post!
But poor Greta never got the scoop about him actually running for president she so hoped all that fawning would result in. Yeah, poor Greta. How much moolah has she made from selling her soul to Foxworld?
But yes, an apology would have ended this, but the Trumpsters never apologize, they only deny, deny, deny.
Yes, it’s a relatively trivial thing, but it absolutely fits the definition of misdemeanor battery, which is what he’s been charged with. Fields clearly would never have gone that far with it if she hadn’t been relentlessly smeared and called a liar repeatedly by the Trump people but had gotten even a grudging apology.
I don’t like Michelle Fields, never have, but she’s in the right on this.
It’s just one more example of Greta having been thoroughly and voluntarily absorbed into the right-wing borg.
But team tRump is wholly incapable of accepting any blame, acknowledging any fault or feeling any compassion, so naturally it blows up way beyond what it should have. The bloated orange pussbag controls the conversation once again. God I hate this bastard.
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