Posted by Cockney Robin |
I don't often watch Fox News, though I keep intending to make it a habit. I've learned through the owners of this blog that Fox is an unstoppable source of some of the best guffaws going. There is nothing---nothing---like it in England. So I'm grateful to the fine people of News Hounds for watching Fox for me when I forget or am just not feeling up to it. They point so I can laugh. I regard it as a public service.
The best of the latest: According to News Hounds' Ellen, Sean Hannity and someone called Kellyanne Conway have suddenly become moral relativists, at least with regard to Republicans (and specifically, in this case, Rudy Giuliani). To be truthful, I haven't been following the campaign at all closely---it's too bloody early to start getting excited, like seeing the Christmas lights going up before Hallowe'en.
But as I was scanning my subscription list this note caught my eye because of the Clinton reference and, of course, the hilarious hypocrisy.
Enjoyably, it appears that when the people Fox likes are caught with their pants down (figuratively! but also quite literally!), its representatives are all for limiting or banning media coverage in order to protect their privacy and their families. I don't think I need to point out that their attitude is otherwise on the (comparatively) rare occasions when the subject of the scandal is a Democrat, do I? Even a generally nonpartisan Brit can see that, yes? Because the best and most awesome thing about Fox is that they do not even pretend to be impartial. "Fair and balanced," yes. "Impartial," no.
Here's a gem of Foxian discourse that should keep any person with a grain of humour shaking his or her head for days afterward:
[Susan] Estrich [substituting for that fellow Colmes whose name Damozel insists should be rendered Colmes] turned to Conway and noted that in an interview, the current Mrs. Giuliani said she had met her husband in a cigar bar while he was married to someone else. He took her number and started dating her a year before he separated. “In my book, I’m sorry, that doesn’t speak well for a guy,” Estrich said. “You guys all attacked Clinton for cheating on his wife. Why isn’t this just as relevant?”
In a bitchy, holier-than-thou voice, Conway insisted there was a huge difference. “Excuse me, please don’t analogize Rudy Giuliani’s and Bill Clinton’s behavior, a man out in a cigar bar and one as the Commander-in-Chief in the Oval Office being serviced by an intern.” Memo to married Republicans looking to cheat on their wives. Apparently, it’s no biggie so long as you don’t do it in the Oval Office... or maybe it's the cigar bar setting that makes it not so bad.
Still on her high horse, Conway continued, “I find this entire conversation to be unseemly and unclassy… There’s nothing you just said that saved a single soldier in Iraq.”
As Estrich answered back that impeachment (of Clinton) didn’t save any lives, either, Conway took a sudden detour from the high road. “If you want (Bill Clinton’s impeachment) to be an issue in ’08, we’ll be really happy to revisit that, and what a doormat Hillary Clinton was.”(News Hounds)
What I like best about Fox is how they absolutely reliably respond to any question about the misconduct of a Republican with the schoolyard tactic of arguing that the Democrats have been naughty or rash or rude or imprudent too.
Hannity: “Has there ever been a case where a Democratic candidate’s wife has been referred to as a trophy wife? Have the Democratic candidates been asked about their support of partial birth abortion? No. But every Republican is.””(News Hounds)
Everyone's just so unfair to the Republicans! Calling Fred Thompson's wife a "trophy wife" is much worse than calling a United States Senator a "doormat." And while it may be true that no one ever referred to a Democrat candidate's wife as a "trophy wife," Fox commentators have, News Hound Ellen informs me, made their share of exceedingly nasty and unchivalrous cracks.
Some other examples of Republican attacks on Democratic families that Hannity ignored in his lopsided reckoning (H/T Media Matters):
Glenn Beck wondered whether a date rape drug had caused Dennis Kucinich’s wife to be attracted to him.
Talk show host Bill Cunningham told Hannity that the 2004 election was over because “Elizabeth Edwards has sung.”
Columnist Thomas Sowell called Heinz Kerry “rich, white trash.” (News Hounds)
Klassy! I took a quick poll among the females in the vicinity and almost all of them said they would prefer to be known as "trophy wives" than "rich, white trash." And if someone said about my wife what Bill Cunningham said to Hannity about John Edwards', there'd be blood on the grass: either mine (if I failed to wreak summary vengeance by punching him in the nose) or Cunningham's (if I did). But John Edwards is in politics so it probably isn't an option for him.
Anyway, the argument that the misconduct of Republicans is somehow cancelled out by the misconduct of Democrats who behaved the same (or worse) was never anything but a lame one. How many people could rally behind the slogan: "RUDY GIULIANI! NO MORE IMMORAL THAN BILL CLINTON!"? Because you really can't lambaste Clinton for Monica while defending Giuliani for dating while married. Though by "you" I reckon I really mean "I." I have heard Americans say, completely straight-faced, that it's not the oral sex provided by Lewinsky that they minded so much as the fact that it occurred in the Oval Office. Color me confused---is virtue a matter of location? And perhaps if one eventually marries his bit of stuff it somehow legitimizes the wrongfulness? Or is it only the President who is held to a special standard?
I also applaud Conway's riveting non sequitur: "There's nothing you said that saved a single soldier in Iraq." Which makes me wonder: just how credulous are Fox viewers? Can they not see that faked up outrage over a non-issue is the last resort of the desperate?
Well...the people who watch Fox News could, of course. That's an audience of people who seem sincerely to believe that "fairness" and "balance" happen when a person making an argument has it both ways.
Watch it happen here:
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