Megyn Kelly gave Fox BFF Sheriff David Clarke of Milwaukee an early Christmas present or maybe I should say an early Election Day present.
Sheriff David Clarke has practically taken up residence at Fox News. Coincidentally, he’s a likely candidate for Milwaukee mayor – Republican, of course. Even more coincidentally, Kelly has been harping on a story about Milwaukee’s current (Democratic) mayor speaking out against the state’s lax gun laws and blaming them for a rise in violence.
Yet somehow, “straight news anchor” Kelly never told the “we report, you decide” network’s viewers the very relevant backstory about where Clarke was coming from.
Kelly listened quietly as Clarke made what sounded a lot like a stump speech that repeatedly attacked Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett
CLARKE: When you’re a liberal politician, the tendency is that when you have no solutions to what’s going on in a city, a state, a country, you blame political adversaries. This was a cheap shot by Mayor Tom Barrett. But it’s important to add that Tom Barrett lost twice in a race for governor against Scott Walker.
Clarke also sneered that Barrett is on the board of Michael Bloomberg’s group, “Mayors Against The Second Amendment” and was “just regurgitating” Bloomberg’s “anti-gun talking points.” In fact, Bloomberg’s group is called “Everytown for Gun Safety.” But Kelly did not correct Clarke’s smear.
Clarke also gratuitously added that Barrett has been mayor for 10 years and “It’s his failed policies that have led us to where we’re at today.”
Kelly helpfully added to the meme. She said, “The uptick in crime in Milwaukee has been significant, according to those who are in the know in the area.” She read off some statistics about the homicide rate, auto theft rate, burglary rate and rape rate as being at varying degrees worse than New York City’s. “Basically, they’re saying Milwaukee is a dangerous place to live. They lay the blame at the feet of the mayor! You, as the sheriff of Milwaukee County, what do you say?”
Clarke went on to lavish praise on Wisconsin governor and likely 2016 presidential candidate Scott Walker. Clarke said he worked with Walker when he was the County Executive of Milwaukee. “Public safety was always at the top of then-County Executive Walker’s priority list.” Clarke said admiringly. He even sounded like he was endorsing Walker for president: “I would think that as president of the United States, he is gonna have that same wherewithal to listen to his commanders, his military commanders on the ground, listen to Border Patrol agents and then rely on them to make his decision. …Scott Walker will take responsibility for his decisions and that’s a very important trait that I like about Scott Walker.”
So was Clarke trolling for an endorsement from Walker? A job on the Walker campaign? Kelly didn’t ask.
For “balance,” Kelly’s next guest was “Democratic strategist” Bernard Whitman. Kelly’s first “question” for Whitman set the tone: “So isn’t this the mayor politicizing a tragedy?”
Whitman said no and he made a decent argument. But he never called out the propaganda ploy being pulled on the viewers. As for Kelly, she repeatedly challenged Whitman in ways she did not with Clarke.
Watch it below, from the April 15 The Kelly File.
“When you’re a conservative politician, the tendency is that when you have no solutions to what’s going on in a city, a state, a country, you blame political adversaries.”
I mean, we see that attitude ALL THE TIME.
Scott Walker, for instance. He has NO solutions to the problems his state faces, so he just deflects and does a song and dance, blaming HIS political adversaries for “obstructing” his plans.
Hell, the GOPers in Congress. Vote to repeal the ACA more than 50 times, but, at NO point, offer a serious alternative BEFORE repealing the Act.
And, despite massive budget problems, many (red) state governors and legislatures are wasting time proposing and passing bills that do NOTHING to address their budget problems while blaming political adversaries who challenge these nonsense bills (such as the various “discriminate against the gays if you’re acting under religious beliefs” bills and “personhood” bills) for not letting these bills get passed so “the governor/legislature can get around to dealing with the serious issues.” (It’s just too bad that regular people—ie, “the voters”—don’t get the luxury of paying more attention to the silly things than they do the important things. I mean, if a tree falls on your house, you have to figure out how to pay for the repairs before or even instead of when you’re going to go see “American Sniper” for the umpteenth time.)
His appearance on this worthless “news” network says it all. If they are friends with the Workplace Bullies they are no friends of yours.
Clarke is not qualified to run an ant farm. The Workplace Bullies can hire him. He and Harris can co-host their own Amos and Andy show. That would please their bigoted audience.
Suits Shine and the rest of the boys on The Second Floor are overpaid, worthless clowns. They wouldn’t know how to operate a television remote control.
These boys sit in the conference rooms, or offices to discuss future stories. Daily meetings and daily emails to their staff and mouthpieces are common at the Workplace Bully network.
The suits monitor other media outlets to see how they cover political or other non-political stories. Then these clowns would find angles to the story to fit their twisted agenda.
We will continue to expose these clowns.
Interesting that comments by the Mayor and the Chief of Police are to be attacked and reviled as partisan pettiness, but cheap shots from right wingers (particularly uninformed ones like Loesch) are to be celebrated as bastions of truth and reliability.
I agree this is likely an attempt by Fox News to campaign against Barrett’s re-election. It will be more interesting to see what happens if Walker steps away from the state for the considerable time he’ll need when he attempts to be a presidential candidate.
