Megyn Kelly scolded the New York Times for calling the recent Nice attack a “truck attack” and not a “terror attack.” Then she trotted out a religious bigot to lecture us about how much more we need to hate and fear Muslims.
In contrast to The Times, Kelly lauded England’s Daily Telegraph for featuring a blood-spattered cover about Nice.
Notice that Kelly didn’t care about the quality of the actual reporting, just whether or not a headline was lurid enough or fear mongered enough.
So who better to turn to for commentary about responsible terror coverage than former FBI assistant director James Kallstrom. You may recall that he has previously blown the “Obama’s a secret Muslim” dog whistle on Fox:
“The president is very interested in flooding this country with people from the Middle East for some reason. […]I’m not gonna say what the reason is but there’s some reason why this is happening. And why aren’t the Christians coming into this country?”
The Times headline was all Kallstrom needed to declare that the “mainstream media” “might as well just join the Democratic Party. They’re a mouthpiece for ‘em.”
There was no challenge from Kelly. Apparently saying “Truck attack” is some kind of secret “Vote for Hillary Clinton” code word.
Ironically, Kallstrom complained “They would make Pravda jealous… by what they don’t say.”
Before long, Kallstrom got down to his plan to defeat terrorism. “The Congress needs to declare war on radical Islam,” he commanded. “They need to do that right away. It needs to happen.”
How would Congress declare war on a portion of a religion? Kallstrom didn’t say and Kelly didn’t ask.
“We kill ‘em and then we get the other Muslims that aren’t radical to stand up and talk about what this ideology is doing to their religion,” Kallstrom announced.
Then came the requisite swipe at Obama: “I don’t see that happening in the United States until we have a new administration because they’re not gonna want to go to the, you know, the weakness that’s in there,” Kallstrom said.
Next, for a little race baiting, Kallstrom complained that the FBI is operating under “this heavy, heavy burden of political correctness.” What burden and why is it so heavy? Kelly didn’t seem to think it worth asking.
Soon, it was time to start attacking Attorney General Loretta Lynch.
KALLSTROM: The attorney general, I think, should resign. You know, in March, Megyn, she directed the FBI to consider bringing certain climate change deniers up on RICO charges. I mean, can you believe that?
She shouldn't Even the Fox pals at Mediaite have debunked that.
But Kelly helped validate it. “Well, they’ve said they consider climate change one of the greatest threats facing the nation and they won’t name radical Islam.” As if one had anything to do with the other – except for race-baiting purposes.
However, Kelly did provide some decent pushback. She pointed out that the Obama administration doesn’t think “naming it does any good.” Then she noted that the Nice attacker was no radical Muslim. “He’s eatin’ pork and drinkin’ beer and gettin’ a divorce and didn’t go to mosque.” She suggested, “Maybe we should just be saying ‘radical killer.’”
Kallstrom ignored that suggestion and resumed attacking the attorney general. This time, he accused her of threatening to bring people up on racketeering charges “that talk badly of Muslims.” He said ominously, “I don’t know where that all ends.”
Fact check: Lynch was talking about charging people whose hate speech “edges towards violence,” not just people who “talk badly of Muslims.”
Kallstrom concluded by offering up his immigration solution:
KALLSTROM: Anybody that comes in here from nations that practice Sharia law should go through some sort of Sharia test and if they’re Sharia-type people and they want to practice that, they should be turned around to head back where they came from.
That’s blatantly un-American and quite possibly unconstitutional.
But instead of challenging such religious bigotry, Kelly helped validate it by saying, in a sincere voice, “Jim, thank you for being here.”
Watch it below, from the July 15 The Kelly File.
That’s a good point about how scripted this was. It’s something I try to highlight in posts because while Fox likes to act as though it’s just listening to different points of view, the fix is in as to what the message will be before anyone opens their mouth, most of the time.
I also want to make the point that it’s bad enough the Foxies are demanding we declare war against ISIS but this guy wants to declare war against “radical Islam.” Which is ridiculously impractical or impossible. What are we supposed to do, go door to door in Syria and Iraq, give them the “sharia test” he advocates for immigrants and, if they flunk it, kill them? Bomb the neighborhood where any “radical Muslims” are? Drop propaganda leaflets?
It speaks volumes about Megyn Kelly that she didn’t even ask for more details about this so-called war he wants to wage.
I know the current leader of Iran has a very similar name, but this guy is supposed to be an international expert.
Seriously. Where to begin to rip this comically bad analysis to shreds?
Obviously, this segment is a complete, scripted setup. Megyn is deliberating feeding Kallstrom to kick off an anti-politically correct rant. But what I find interesting is Kollstrom keeps looking down like he’s reading from notes. Oh my….
Lie #1: “…the mainstream media is a 5th column in this nation. They might as well join the Democratic Party.”
Forget the hypocrisy of such a statement being made on GOP TV. Anyone watching the media ferociously going after Hillary over Emailgate can’t take the charge seriously.
More interesting to me is the hypocrisy Megyn is perpetuating here. Fox has overflowed their diapers whining about a rush to judgement over recent domestic mass shootings reason gun control. Here she brings on this wacko who she expects will (note she says she’s had him on before) – as he does – go off the deep end promoting, for example, the recent GOP TV meme (as mouthed by Bill O’Reilly) Congress should formally declare war on ISIS.
Kollstrom’s (and presumably Megyn’s) objection to the NYT referring to this tragedy initially as a “truck bombing” overlooks their headline is 100% factually correct. What troubles the pair is conservative political correctness which loves to label everything “Islamic terrorism” and other dog whistle terms.
Is this an act of terrorism? At this point it looks like a mentally unstable, violent man (according to his father) who didn’t particularly practice Islam is less inspired by ISIS but copy-catting recent acts of violence. Time will tell. However, based on Kollstrom’s rambling rant and Megyn’s lack of any real push back it’s obvious this segment is another excuse to feed many conservative Fox memes: fear Muslims, step up the war on terrorism, political correctness exacerbates terrorism, etc.
Fib #1: Megyn claims the Obama administration doesn’t say ‘radical Islam’ because it goes no good.
More to the point it does harm by alienating our allies with significant Muslim populations.
Lie #2: FBI has hands tied behind their backs because of political correctness.
I’m not aware of this being a problem. Kollstrom provides no evidence. Megyn doesn’t ask for any. Incredible.
Ellen did a good job of debunking Kollstrom parroting Brietbart’s and Fox News’ disinformation regarding Loretta Lynch.
However, I disagree Megyn is providing any push back by pointing out the perpetrator wasn’t a very good Muslim. It appears to be a keep-alive to me because Kollstrom looks like he’s glancing back to his prepared notes which leads to his rant on climate deniers and RICO which leads to him ranting Lynch has tried the same thing with people saying bad things about Muslims (Is Megyn sympathetic? She mutters something I can’t make out) which leads to the Clinton bribing Lynch on the tarmac conspiracy.
If Roger Ailes isn’t too busy talking with his lawyers he should send Kollstrom a nice attaboy note. ;^)
As to that “Sharia law” test, as long as we impose a similar test on GOPers trying to ram through all those anti-LGBT bills in the name of “religious freedom,” I could live with it. Of course, right-wing GOPers don’t have a problem with Christian extremism.
