Megyn Kelly made a show of concern about the outbreak of violence in Chicago over the July 4th weekend last night. But it was almost immediately evident that the only real “coverage” of the tragedy lay in using it as a platform for Fox contributor Allen West to attack gun control, “liberal progressives of the Democrat Party, teachers unions, the media, black families, welfare, welfare queens and Lyndon Johnson. Among others.
Ironically, Kelly introduced the segment by (falsely) accusing liberals of not paying enough attention to the tragedy:
The city of Chicago hit hard by gun violence over the weekend and July 4th. With reports saying as many as 80 people were shot, almost a dozen dead. My next guest writing a column Monday where he said, quote, liberal progressives will use any gun violence to further their anti-gun agenda. However, when it’s in their backyard, they are amazingly silent.
Lt. Col. Allen West is not really in a position to point fingers at others over gun violence, given his own narrow avoidance of a court martial from the military for, essentially, using a gun to torture a detainee. Nor does he have any professional expertise on the subject. He doesn’t even live in Illinois. But he was treated as though his every opinion was unquestionably authoritative.
Instead of facts, West let the talking points fly:
WEST: It is right there in the backyard of Barack Obama. Hillary Clinton is from Chicago, Rahm Emanuel, David Axelrod, David Plouffe, Louis Farrakhan, Jesse Jackson Sr. and you don’t have the normal ability to talk about where gun control could play a part because Chicago has some of the most stringent gun control laws there. And furthermore, it’s happening in the inner city, in the black community, the black neighborhoods. And I don’t think that it is very important to the liberal progressives of the Democrat party to solve this problem in the inner city, that it’s not just isolated to Chicago, it’s also Detroit, it’s Philadelphia, my hometown in Atlanta. It’s all of these inner cities where these policies are failing.
So if this was something that was happening in a combat zone over a weekend, you would have it plastered all over the front pages of papers. But now, of course, it doesn’t fit into that agenda, you’re not hearing anything about it. And what is also interesting, you hear about these illegal immigrants that are escaping the violence and the deplorable situations in Central America. You have a lot of that happening right here in our own America and there’s no concern.
In fact, the media is covering the violence and in a far more substantive way than The Kelly File. For example, in a lengthy July 8th article on the subject, The Los Angeles Times noted that most of the guns used in Chicago violence come from outside of Chicago. Kelly merely hinted at that information - as part of a suggestion that Mayor Emanuel was trying to duck responsibility. She said in an accusatory tone, "Rahm Emanuel, the city’s mayor, has come out and once again talked about guns, saying, 'Where are the gun laws? Where are the national leaders so that we don’t have the guns of Cook County, Indiana and downstate Illinois flowing into this city?'"
In contrast to The Kelly File, The Ed Show, on Tuesday, spent nearly 12 minutes analyzing the problem and offering solutions with a University of Pennsylvania professor who works to end violence and Chicago’s Rev. Dr. Otis Moss. The MSNBC show was not shy about criticizing Chicago’s Democratic Mayor Rahm Emanuel, either. The video of that segment is embedded below. The night before, on July 7th, Al Sharpton called for “all hands on deck” to deal with the problem, ““from parents to city hall to politicians to preachers.” He said he would be working on it as well.
That’s a far cry from The Kelly File coverage which could be summed up as, “hate Democrats more!”
West continued with his diatribe:
It’s the failure of those (Democratic) policies in the inner city. When you have a black unemployment rate that is probably closer to 15-16%, real unemployment rate, black teenage unemployment rate at 40%. You’re seeing young people that don’t have anything to do and so they’re turning to gangs and gang violence. And furthermore, when you have the deplorable situation of schools in the inner cities and the teachers unions that are really in control …these are the type of policies that are adversely affecting the black community, that the left does not want to talk about.
…When you have the breakdown of the black family to the point where only 28% of black children have mothers and fathers in the home because Lyndon Johnson …decided to give checks out to young women who were having children out of wedlock and they will continue to get those checks as long as they kept a man out of the home, we see an incredible cacophony of liberal, progressive policies that has destroyed the inner city and created a prime situation whereby the gangs can rise up.
…I don’t understand why it’s not a focus for President Obama.
Actually, President Obama has tried to address the issue with his Brother’s Keeper initiative. But the only time I ever hear about it is in passing on Fox.
Kelly murmured her appreciation of West’s comments before closing the segment.
Watch the political spin cloaked as analysis and then compare that to The Ed Show's discussion below.
Growing violence in Chicago's South Side
The death toll from Chicago's tragic 4th of July keeps rising, bringing attention to the issues impacting the less-affluent parts of the city. Michael Eric Dyson, Salamishah Tillet and Rev. Dr. Otis Moss discuss.