Megyn Kelly’s “fair and balanced” way of covering the news that Major Nidal Hasan, aka the “Fort Hood Shooter,” had been granted the right to represent himself at his upcoming trial was to promote the idea, along with one of Hasan’s victims, that he had been granted some kind of special privilege. That was bad enough given that Kelly is an attorney and should know better. But she also helped promote the victim’s dubious argument that, thanks to the ruling, Hasan’s psychiatric credentials would allow him to play some kind of mind games with witnesses and trial watchers so as to “push those buttons” that would trigger the victims’ PTSD and “rally extreme jihadists” during the trial. To top it off, she didn’t mind when her guest hinted he and others might lynch Hasan if that happened.

Kelly surely knows that the real issue with self-representation is that it puts Hasan at a disadvantage. For example, The Guardian wrote:

After questioning Hasan for about an hour, the judge, Colonel Tara Osborn, ruled that Hasan was mentally competent to represent himself and understands “the disadvantage of self-representation”. She repeatedly urged him to reconsider his request, noting that the lead prosecutor has more than 20 years of experience and that Hasan will be held to the same standards as all attorneys regarding courtroom rules and military law.

“You’ve made that quite clear,” Hasan said after the judge asked if he understood that representing himself was not “a good idea”.

But Kelly, whose show airs during what is supposed to be part of Fox’s “objective” news lineup, pretended that Hasan had been granted some kind of edge. Check out her “objective” first question to her guest:

Your reaction to this news that this man, accused of shooting you and killing so many others will now have the opportunity to give openings, to give closing arguments and to sit you down on the witness stand and cross examine you.

You really need to hear her say it to get just how full of indignation she was, or pretended to be.

Let me say my heart goes out to her guest, retired Sergeant Alonzo Lunsford. He was seriously wounded in the attack and is not an attorney or a news person. There’s no reason to expect or demand that he have the same amount of  - or even any – distance or professionalism in the matter. So I don’t blame him for saying:

Yes, it’s a travesty. And Major Hasan is trying to make a mockery out of our justice system… and our way of life. I feel as if he’s going to use the trial as a platform to try to rally other extreme jihadists to try to react in a negative manner. As well as that by him being a psychiatrist, he knows what buttons to push to trigger our PTSD and TBI. But what he fails to realize is that we are smarter people so my being an NCO myself, I’m not going to let him push those buttons because I will maintain my military bearing.

But Kelly has no excuse. If nothing else, a judge would almost certainly exclude any testimony designed to “rally other extreme jihadists” or push any PTSD buttons. However, she gave Lunsford’s theory undeserved credibility by responding:

Good for you, Sergeant, and that’s a good point though, that I hadn’t considered that, (Nadal’s) psychiatric background and how he might use it to the detriment of the witnesses he’s going to cross examine.

Don’t shut your jaw just yet, though. Lunsford went on to say, “Whatever happens to Major Hasan, be it that he is convicted of his crime and even… if he pushes a button to trigger one of us to physically react on him - in words that he would understand, ‘imshallah,’ meaning God’s will. So he would get what’s coming to him.”

Kelly ignored that her guest had just hinted at lynching someone. Instead, she said, her voice all sympathetic, “You know, you were just doing your job that day when suddenly you felt a bullet hit you in the left side of your head and then more bullets pounded into your back. …Do you feel like you can sit on that witness stand, look him in the eye just as you did moments before he shot you, and tell that story?”

Lusnford continued to make vaguely threatening utterances and Kelly continued to ignore them and treat him as a credible expert.

Shame on her.