On Friday night’s The Kelly File on the Fox News Channel, host Megyn Kelly took up the shoe-throwing incident with Hillary Clinton. “That was former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, dodging a shoe that was hurled at her during a keynote speech on Thursday. But this is not, of course, the first time that a political figure sadly has been targeted with flying footwear.”
She then showed the two shoes thrown at President Bush in Iraq, and brought on MRC president Brent Bozell to explain the disparity in media coverage. “And our next guest says the media's reaction to these two incidents could not be more different.” (Video below)
KELLY: Brent Bozell is president of the Media Research Center. Hi, Brent. Explain.
BRENT BOZELL: Hi, Megyn. Well, you know, amazing. Shoe throwing really does describe media bias, I guess. But for starters, it's despicable when somebody does something like that with a public figure. Number two, thank goodness they missed. Number three, Mrs. Clinton has some great lines afterwards and should be applauded for that.
The media covered it this way, I would say one network went over the top on CBS with their accolades, but that's fine. They covered it well. But when it was George Bush and he had something thrown at him, the media went out of their way to be snarky to actually praise the person throwing it at him and to make snide remarks about the president....
This is what CBS reported about when it was done with President Bush. She saw -- Elizabeth Palmer said “by showing the kind of contempt formally reserved for Saddam Hussein to President Bush, this guy Al Zaidi became an instant hero. Al Zaidi should go to jail, have jail time said some Iraqi bloggers because he missed.” Ha-ha-ha.
When he was released, nine months later this is what Matt Lauer reported – David Shuster on MSNBC said, “as its turns out the journalist will wind up serving only nine months because of good behavior. Good for him.”
So he became a cult figure for the news media, which is a disgusting proposition. They did it right with Hillary Clinton. But they should still apologize for the president for the way they treated him.
KELLY: One example is from the Associated Press, I want it to put in the board. Here is the Associated Press when it happens to President Bush back in 2008. “On an Iraq trip shrouded in secrecy and marred by dissent, President George W. Bush on Sunday, hailed progress in the war that defines his presidency and got a size-ten reminder of his unpopularity when a man hurled two shoes at him during a news conference,” OK.
Flash forward to the AP on Hillary Clinton. “Hillary Rodham Clinton ducked a thrown shoe expressed surprise, cracked a couple jokes that drew applause, and continued her keynote speech on stage in front of a Las Vegas convention audience.” I mean, it's – it’s almost laughable.
