Sean Hannity's pal, Bill Cunningham - a regular guest who loves to use Barack Obama's middle name (and insinuates that it's related to his supposedly lax war on terror) - may have finally gone too far last night. This time, Cunningham exploded at Fox News contributor (and Hannity admirer), liberal Tamara Holder, telling her to "know your place and shut your mouth." And more.
Holder seems to have a talent for igniting incendiary discussions. But Cunningham beat her to it in this segment. He started out by accusing her of suffering from "Beckel-itis" and repeatedly calling her a "stooge." He said, near the end, "You're a liberal stooge and an excuse monger for the Obama administration." Later, as Holder muttered, "Never mind," and looked down, Cunningham attacked, "What, are you going to cry?"
Sadly, the real loser is anyone looking for information out of this segment. Today, Martha MacCallum made the same point on America's Newsroom (the second video below). And both her guests, Juan Williams and conservative Marty Katharine Ham agreed that Cunningham had not only crossed a line but, as Williams said "obliterated" the line. So you know Fox was looking to distance itself from Cunningham's remarks. As for making a real effort to impart information - well, unless it's anti-Democratic, don't hold your breath.
Oh, and it's worth noting that Cunningham's stock in trade is inflammatory conservatism that Fox has never previously had a problem with. So this sudden concern with civility quacks a lot like a "We don't want to appear anti-woman," CYA move.
Video is available here.
This isn’t even clean-up, and it’s damage control in name only. They hit a line that even the women who are begging for their own rights to disappear object to, so they’re gonna play nice until it’s smoothed over, then Cunningham will be right back with the same line- Just toned down.
Furthermore, it’s the same thing he GOP as a whole is doing- Making a big deal out of the times everyone talks about to “show they changed,” while not giving two licks of piss about the ones that don’t make it past minor-local. They don’t care about what happened, they care about the electability issue it created for the right.
More proof Ailes is losing it- And even more than that, if this was his big plan.
Conservative group, ShePAC is demanding the resignation of Montgomery County GOP Chairman Jim Allen for making sexist and racist remarks to Erika Harold, a former Miss America, a conservative congressional candidate.
Allens said this about Harold: On May of 2014, Erika will be back in Chicago “working for some law firm that needs to meet their quota for minority hires,” and “Miss queen is being used like a street walker and her pimps are the Democrat Party.”
ShePAC is holding a fundraiser to force the resignation of Allen, and they will not rest, until this political hack is removed from office.
The GOP War on Women is coming within their own party. Pop that popcorn!
And, then….they’ll blame Obama.
NOTE TO BILLY
Is that how you talk to your wife, you hot headed little fool? You tell her to shut-up when she argues with you? Ah, yes. You must have learned that little trait from your absentee father. You remember how he treated your mother. Did he tell her to shut-up too? Did he hit her as well? Yeah, you remember those childhood days.
Like father, like son. You worthless bog.
Hannity was off camera for a lot of this, but it sounded like he was making faces at Holder when she was talking (She said “You’re looking at me like I’m crazy and I’m not crazy”). So she was being completely ganged up on, which is par for the course for her appearances on Hannity, sadly. She wound up in the end trying to not have the segment go any further into the sewer but it’s obvious she had no intention of shaking Cunningham’s hand. Instead, she threw one last shot at him, calling him a troll.
Frankly, I’ve seen Michelle Malkin get away with much nastier and more hateful statements on Hannity. Yet, she doesn’t get called on them. Cunningham will get called on this one because what he said was pretty openly sexist. Malkin’s statements are simply hateful, without getting into a male-female thing.
There is another aspect to Cunningham telling her to “know her place”. He’s also referring to her position on the network as a resident liberal commentator. Fox News does not employ liberals who will challenge them, at least not on a regular basis. Holder’s place on this program is to offer a soft, non-confrontational sort-of support for Democrats while dignifying the most ridiculous claims made by angry hard right pundits. She’s not about to just say that what Cunningham and Hannity are doing is peddling complete lies. She’s there to say “Well, I support the President (or the AG or the Secretary of State or take your pick) but I agree with you Sean that there’s a problem here…” I personally think that Cunningham thought he was snapping her back into line.
Unfortunately for Cunningham, he may have made himself the story in this case. The impression I got from the other clip is that other female anchors at Fox News were not pleased at his conduct here. We’ll see how this plays out today.
He saw the press that Dobbs and Erikson got with their sexism and wanted climb on board the circus train.
If anything, I think that he redefined the line.
This kind of spew will continue with impunity.
