You can barely turn on Fox News lately without hearing a pundit or a host complaining about a “rush to judgment” or “irresponsible” reporting. Yet, Fox is throwing stones from the very thin walls of its own glass house. This is the network that promoted Donald Trump’s birtherism in a big way and continues to promote Trump as a credible pundit even after he was proved spectacularly wrong. It’s hard to think of anything more irresponsible for a news network than promoting a phony claim that our president is not American-born and not legally qualified to serve. But Trump is far from the only irresponsible pundit treated seriously on Fox News.
Exhibit A: Ann Coulter. Besides the fact that voter-fraud obsessed Fox doesn’t seem to care about the – not one, but two! – voter-fraud investigations Coulter has triggered with her very suspicious voting behavior, she has a long history of making irresponsible, inflammatory statements, many right there on Fox News. In fact, you might say, she’s made a career out of it. Just a few of her “greatest hits” include:
A recent suggestion that it’s “time” for conservatives to “go after the Obama children.” (3/21/12, Hannity)
“(Rahm Emanuel’s brother) is on my death list. Hold the applause. I’m going to be on the death panel.” (8/12/09, Hannity)
She agreed with and supported Andrew Breitbart calling Ted Kennedy a “piece of excrement” when he died because, “he was a piece of human excrement.” (3/12/12, Hannity)
There are also her more well-known “witticisms” such as joking about poisoning Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens and joking about assassinating President Clinton.
Coulter is far from the only one. There’s Hannity’s pal, the slavery-loving, woman hating Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson who announced on the air that “Most blacks, not all but most in Tennessee, especially in the Memphis, Tennessee area, are… so racist.” (8/6/08 Hannity & Colmes) and “I think we all agree that Barack Obama was elected by, mostly by black racists and white guilty people.” (2/3/09 Hannity).
There’s also Liz Trotta who joked about assassinating President Obama and recently suggested that if women want to serve in the military they should expect to be raped and not make a big deal out of it. Trotta is still a Fox News contributor.
Need more? Check out our list of outrageous quotes from a while back.
Despite all that, Bill O’Reilly and Bernard Goldberg teamed up last night to bitch about NBC’s doctored audio of the Trayvon Martin 911 call (as if Fox had never monkeyed with any of its video) and attack its bias. Sneering about Rev. Al Sharpton’s role in the Trayvon Martin case, O’Reilly said it would be like him having “some kind of political agenda.”
You mean like repeatedly characterizing Dr. George Tiller as “a baby killer?” Or trying to get Professor Ward Churchill and the president of the University of Colorado fired? Or promoting a discredited doctor with a sympathetic opinion on Terri Schaivo? Or promoting unvetted, later-discredited and doctored videos that succeeded in bringing down ACORN, a community organization Fox didn’t like?
Or like having that same Ann Coulter appear on Fox that same night – without a word about her controversial history – to opine on who would be an appropriate vice presidential pick for Mitt Romney? Because that’s exactly what O’Reilly did last night, within minutes of the Goldberg bitch session. The Goldberg video is below. The Ann Coulter video is at Mediaite.
So yeah, they did it- break out the outrage.
When you’re done, think about this: They issued an apology, and are looking for who did it. How often have we seen either out of Fox News? The only sincere apology I’ve seen out of that network- ever- has been the one recently made by Geraldo to Trayvon’s parents.
I’ve also yet to see Fox News brass condemn this kind of behaviour from it’s employees. Where was the ethics investigation on O’Reilly when he was up for sexual harassment? Where was the Investigation into the Sammon memos? When Beck, Hannity and Coulter were all up for various forms of fraud, where was the outrage that their network hosts would do that?
Yeah- thought so.
Just this morning on F&F, the 3 stooges were more than pleased to report that NBC made a public apology for their editing of the 911 tape. In the first hour, Daddy Douchey pimped the upcoming segment about NBC by saying that “NBC admits editing a tape to make George Zimmerman sound like a racist. This isn’t the first time something like this has happened so when is sorry not enough?”
Clearly, the stooges don’t like it that NBC chose to edit the 911. So I assume they would be just as outraged that their own BOR dishonestly edited the same 911 to make Zimmerman look LESS racist, right? Yeah, riiiiight, in the F&F playbook it’s only the “librul” media who should be called out.
So where is the demand that BOR apologize for HIS editing? After all, when it comes to BOR and editing, “this isn’t the first time something like this has happened”. Just another example of FOX “news” double standards and F&F hypocrisy.
Having said that though, I have noticed that FOX “news” is finally coming to realize a hard truth for them to swallow — just how important the Hispanic vote is going to be to the GOP candidates that they spend so much time pimping for. That’s why we’re hearing the FOX talking heads putting forth Mark Rubio and Susana Martinez as VP choices for Romney. I also have no doubt whatsoever that their wish to get a piece of the ever growing Hispanic population voting block is also behind their decision to start a FOX “news” Latino website.
The reality of the growing Hispanic population has put FOX “news” is a rather difficult position. Anyone remember this gem?
Under the false pretense that he didn’t want Hispanics to “carry the whole load”, former FOX TV host, John Gibson, "urged viewers to “[d]o your duty. Make more babies,” because he had found out, from a recently released report, that nearly half of all children under the age of five in the United States are minorities. Gibson added: “You know what that means? Twenty-five years and the majority of the population is Hispanic.” Gibson later repeated: “To put it bluntly, we need more babies.”
Reality bites, eh, FOX? LOL!
Take the “enhanced head wound” they been passing around of Zimmerman- putting aside that whoever made that apparently doesn’t know the first thing about head wounds, or how they’re treated (it’s not even the right type!), they made it something that, if real, would have shown up on the original video.
People zoomed in on it, played with the colour, played with the contrast- the RW blogger who first reported it for The Daily Caller just happened to be the only one who found the right editing. And won’t tell anyone how to re-create it. Fancy that.
Naturally, Fox News doesn’t care- it supports their side, so it’s admissable in their court.
Even sillier is the attack on NBC for the editing of the 911 recording of George Zimmerman. I agree that an NBC employee editing this material was unprofessional and inflammatory, and should be properly dealt with. However, if Fox wants to go down this road, I’m delighted. It means that they are ready to openly condemn the works of Andrew Breitbart and James O’Keefe, whose deceptively edited material have caused a tremendous amount of confusion and misery.
And if people were so concerned about media behavior, they should explain the Duke lacrosse rape hoax, the lack of coverage of the murders of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom, or their continued defense of the Reverend of Nothing Al Dimwit and his refusal to apologize for the Tawana Brawley rape hoax.
