Doors is correct. And the Fox News mess with Griff Jenkins was actually worse than that. Jenkins and his producer were actually caught on camera trying to “pep up” a Tea Party rally so that Jenkins could say on camera that he was in the middle of a huge, energetic protest of the grassroots against the policies of Barack Obama. When the video of the producer went viral, Fox News did the understandable thing. Instead of admitting that they’d been caught playing games, they simply attacked the producer – as if she would have just done this on her own.

The reality of Eric Cantor’s humiliating loss this week has partly to do with the GOP base moving so far to the right that it’s difficult to see how they think they’ll win a national election again. If the GOP goes through another painful primary season in 2016, one has to wonder WHO they think they could nominate as a party. Here in California, we just had the spectacle of Tim Donnelly vs Neel Kashkari, with Kashkari winning as simply a right wing GOP candidate and former Bush Administration staffer. Donnelly is a far right wing ideologue, and he had hoped the “Tea Party” would allow him a statewide berth to spout nonsense at Jerry Brown. Didn’t work out for him, and I don’t see how it will work out on a national scale in 2016.

The other part of Cantor’s fall is that he was known for really enjoying his position in the House and for his obvious thinking that he could challenge the leadership of not only John Boehner but also President Obama. Even his own constituents look like they’d had enough of his behavior. It’s telling that even Bill O’Reilly is mentioning the stat about Cantor’s dinners adding up to most of the announced entire campaign budget of Dave Brat. Of course, they’re also not mentioning that Brat was heavily supported by the right wing radio hosts in his area as well as names like Ann Coulter and Mark Levin.

It is indeed interesting that Cantor is not being interviewed by the Fox News machine. Instead, he’s clearly being treated as yesterday’s news. Adding to his humiliation was the mandate that he step down from his power position as soon as possible, so as to allow the GOP to have an existing Majority Leader through the fall that can most likely hang on to the position next January. I had expected Cantor to try to run at Boehner’s position. Instead, he’ll be looking for private sector right wing think tank positions. (This is similar to what happened when Newt Gingrich was forced to leave the House in disgrace.)

In the end, I believe history will show that it wasn’t immigration reform that ended Eric Cantor’s career. It was Eric Cantor that ended his own career.

I know Fox didn’t start this Tea Party movement but they definitely provided the electricity to give this monster life with its positive coverage with them at the beginning of the Obama presidency in ’09. Remember when Fox had reporter Griff Jenkins traveling on the Tea Party Express bus across the country with their message, or the publicity and buildup they gave them on tax day 2009?

I always believe the Tea Party represented nothing more than a marketing gimmick for Fox. The Republican Party was in ashes after the ’08 elections and they needed something to energize and most importantly continue to raise money from their dishearten supporters to keep the party afloat.

I’m not sure if poetic justice is the right term to descript Cantor’s defeat, but I really do believe without the Tea Party the R’s would have control of the Senate today. Nominating crazies like Sharron Angle from Nevada cost them that seat when Harry Reid would have been easily defeated along with Christine O’Donnell in Connecticut and the two candidates from Indiana and Missouri with their asinine comments on rape.

They’ll pick up some victories here and there but they’ll never win nationally.

I didn’t see anyone on Fox trying to talk about the upset as an upset that ended the run of a major political name. Every other network treated it like news, and dissected why they thought Cantor lost, but not Fox. They may as well have just been servicing Brat.

And “Cantor’s people said no press!” is not an excuse- They could have had political strategists from an outside view talk. But they didn’t, at least not loud enough to be heard over the slurping.

More about the Cantor loss/Brat win…

http://www.thomhartmann.com/blog/2014/06/dark-money-machine-beat-eric-cantor

@ DjWeideman: Well, usually, a reputable news network (not that that particular term really applies to FoxNoise) would include a “can’t be reached for comment at this time” disclaimer when reporting a story. And if this coverage did last for more than 2 hours, you’d think that someone would’ve said, several times, “We’re unable to get word from Mr Cantor or his representatives at this time” or “There’s been no word from Mr Cantor at this time” or “We’re still waiting to hear from Mr Cantor or his spokesmen at this time” or something to that effect DURING THE BROADCAST.

And you might want to note that the article’s suggestion is “that Fox didn’t try to talk to Cantor directly” and “Cantor . . . refused all media requests” are NOT mutually exclusive points. DID Fox try to talk to Cantor? I’m not seeing anything from the article OR from your “defense” suggesting that Fox did actually attempt to contact Cantor. If they didn’t, then they’re guilty of what they’ve been accused of.

DJWeideman, you mean to tell me there was not a single Republican strategist willing to talk to Fox News on the subject? If so, I’d think they would have said so.

Fox so called news is in the business of inflaming, feeding hatred and division, and throwing red meat to most of its audience. There is a marked for hatred and intolerance.

right-wing gad-gnat
hah!

Even when they cover their own side, Fox promotes its political agenda.