USA Today (and other newspapers on the USA Today Network) are running an editorial by Salon.com and Huffington Post contributor Steven Strauss whacking away at Fox News. The headline: “Fox News a bully that just can’t take it.” The network loves spreading “sick right-wing obsessions,” but draws the line when Donald Trump attacks Megyn Kelly.
Fox News is shocked, utterly shocked, that its favorite billionaire is fixated on one of its anchors and calling for a boycott of her show.
“Donald Trump’s vitriolic attacks against Megyn Kelly and his extreme, sick obsession with her is beneath the dignity of a presidential candidate,” the network huffed. “As the mother of three young children … it’s especially deplorable for her to be repeatedly abused just for doing her job.”
Someone’s got to say it: Sick right wing obsessions were just fine with Fox until Trump became consumed with his grudge against Kelly and told his nearly 7.3 million Twitter followers to boycott The Kelly File.
Strauss argues that Fox News spent plenty of air time discussing Trump’s push to question Obama’s birth in Hawaii in 1961, as well as Trump’s views that Mexico is sending its worst criminals to America as a plot, and his proposal for a temporary ban on Muslim immigration. By that standard, all the other networks have given Trump a platform for these ideas -- it's not an endorsement, but it's definitely national air time.
Strauss also felt the pain of feminist activist/celebrity Sandra Fluke, who demanded subsidized birth control and became famous after Rush Limbaugh mocked her as sexually loose:
Fox has also been chief enabler for other right-wing obsessions, such as the vitriolic and sick attacks on law student Sandra Fluke, who dared to champion a view on reproductive rights that didn’t fit the right wing political agenda. At various times on Fox, Fluke was called stupid, a slut and worse. Even Kelly joined in the attacks, saying Fluke “doesn’t know what she’s talking about.” The public shaming was a warning to others who spoke up instead of bowing down to the Fox political propaganda machine.
Kelly criticized Fluke over the Supreme Court's Hobby Lobby decision. Fluke wasn't enough of a celebrity to win a state Senate seat in West Hollywood.
So don’t cry for FoxNews, Strauss concluded. They are the "schoolyard bully of the American media landscape," often found "trashing innocent Americans."
Fox was perfectly happy all these years to give Trump and others a platform to rant about their weird and unfounded obsessions, which often involved the trashing of innocent Americans. None of this (according to Fox) was unbecoming for a presidential candidate. Trump’s criticism of Fox, however, is unacceptable. Really, Fox? After all the hateful innuendo you’ve broadcast, including character attacks on all sorts of Americans, can you truly expect us to sympathize because Trump had the audacity to train his fire on you?
I don’t know whether we should laugh at Fox for its sudden self-righteousness, or cry for the state of our republic.
I feel for Megyn Kelly, but Fox News — you are the schoolyard bully of the American media landscape. And like all other puffed-up bullies, you can dish it out, but you just can’t take it.
