We would not expect Late Night host Seth Meyers to grill Megyn Kelly on the ways she disingenuously promotes Fox News propaganda, but even a little skepticism about her claim to be a “fair, down-the-middle journalist” would be in order, don’t you think?
In her Late Night with Seth Meyers interview last night, Meyers held up Kelly’s interview with Dick Cheney, his wife and daughter as an example of some kind of tough, unbiased journalism. In reality, Kelly asked a splashy, challenging question in the beginning about Cheney’s discredited record on Iraq but for most of the rest of the interview, Kelly handed the Cheneys their talking points on a silver platter.
Don’t tell me she wasn’t expecting everyone to pay attention to her challenge and overlook how she subtly advanced Fox's propaganda elsewhere.
It certainly worked for Meyers. “Was that terrifying? Is it terrifying to call out Dick Cheney?” he asked last night. But the question he should have asked is whether she pre-cleared the challenge with Fox higher ups and, if not, how they reacted.
Instead, Meyers question allowed Kelly to pose as a brave truth-teller as she said it was "not at all" terrifying to confront the former vice president. “It got a lot of attention," she said. "And it was interesting because he, Liz Cheney and Lynne Cheney went on a political roundtable afterward and Mike Allen said, ‘Oh, you know, Megyn Kelly at Fox News – no enemy to you – called you out in this fashion.’ And Mrs. Cheney said, ‘Of course she did.’ She said, ‘That is what journalists are expected to do.’
Kelly said she "really appreciated" Lynne Cheney's comment "because I said on my own show he was right. I’m not an enemy to Dick Cheney and I’m not a friend of Dick Cheney. I’m a journalist who has to ask tough questions and he came in and answered them.”
Kelly got a round of Late Night applause for that.
But the truth is, Kelly only asks tough questions to certain people some of the time. Check out her fawning interview with discredited ACORN "ho” - and right-wing darling - Hannah Giles and compare that to her antagonism toward ObamaCare architect Ezekiel Emanuel, e.g.
Meyers seemed to duck the issue of Kelly’s actual behavior – while promoting her self-serving version: “You describe yourself as a fair, down-the-middle journalist. Your show is on between two, I would describe as very conservative journalists. You’re on after Bill O’Reilly, you’re on before Sean Hannity,” he said slyly.
After joking that O’Reilly might one day write a book called, “Killing Megyn” if she beats him in the ratings, she said, “He does opinion and Sean does opinion.”
Meyers used the same tactic again. “Is it hard on Fox News to convince people or make people believe this idea that you are sort of a down-the-middle journalist?” Again, he didn’t say Kelly is an objective journalist but he handed her an opening to present herself as such.
“No, I mean I think they know,” Kelly said. “I think they watch the show. You know, I do sort of a news analysis show in the evening but I’m not out there, like O’Reilly, you know calling for the troops to X, Y or Z, advising President Obama on how he needs to behave. It’s not my thing. But we’ll put pundits on who will offer their opinions and for me, you know, they still use me in a straight news capacity and I enjoy that. I like doing the presidential debates. I like going out there on election night. That’s the big thrill.”
That may be true in the most literal sense. Kelly does not directly advocate. But she very competently telegraphs Fox’s message every night.
It’s a shame Meyers helped enable this play acting.
Watch how he did it, below.