Denouncing death threats to AIG execs, Fox's Kelly ignored colleagues' violent rhetoric
SUMMARY: In criticizing death threats to AIG executives, Fox News' Megyn Kelly did not address Charles Krauthammer's recent comments advocating for the "hanging" of AIG executives who received bonuses or Mort Kondracke's recommendation that they be "boil[ed] in oil."
During the March 26 edition of Fox News' America's Newsroom, co-host Megyn Kelly called recently disclosed death threats to AIG executives who received bonuses "unbelievable," and later said: "Outrage is one thing; death threats are quite another." During the segment, Kelly read several threats, including one that said, "All you mother f-ers should be shot" and another that read, "The revolution is coming. Your blood will run through the streets." She did not, however, address recent comments by Fox News contributor Charles Krauthammer and Fox News host Mort Kondracke, who each used violent rhetoric while discussing AIG bonuses on Fox News, as Think Progress noted.
During the March 16 edition of Fox News' Special Report, Krauthammer said of AIG: "I'm all in favor of this heaping opprobrium. I don't -- I would -- I'd deny them the bonuses if possible. I would be for an exemplary hanging or two. Have it in Times Square, invite Madame DeFarge. You borrow a guillotine from the French so we can have a party. If that's what it takes to maintain popular support, let's do it." During the same program, Kondracke said: "I was going to recommend boiling in oil in Times Square."
From the March 16 edition of Fox News' Special Report with Bret Baier:
BRET BAIER (anchor): Charles?
KRAUTHAMMER: Well, I think the difference between AIG and the auto companies is that AIG has its tentacles and its loans and obligations in so many places, so many other financial institutions, so many countries, that there's really a threat to the world economy.
That's why it's being rescued, not because there is a virtue or goodness among the dealers and the bankers among them. And that doesn't apply to the auto companies.
But look, this is not so much an economic issue as a psychological and a political issue. Economically, if you add up all the bonuses, it's less than one-tenth of 1 percent of the bailout to AIG alone, so it's lunch money.
Psychologically, it's important because there's outrage in the country, and, as Mort indicated, unless there's an appeasement of the anger in the population who are going to have to support the next bailout, which is going to be a trillion dollars, the money won't be made available. Congress will deny it.
So that's why you get the president heaping opprobrium on these miscreants who are -- who made the bad deals, and now are getting the bonuses.
Look, I'm all in favor of this heaping opprobrium. I don't -- I would -- I'd deny them the bonuses if possible. I would be for an exemplary hanging or two. Have it in Times Square, invite Madame DeFarge. You borrow a guillotine from the French so we can have a party.
If that's what it takes to maintain popular support, let's do it. But it's not going to change anything economically.
BAIER: For the last word here, Mort.
KONDRACKE: Yeah, I was -- I was going to recommend boiling in oil in Times Square -- but, look -- because these are the people who invented these crazy credit default swaps that are leading to the whole disaster.
But I have an idea that corporate America, when all of this is over, should adopt the policy that we have over at Roll Call, and that's called profit-sharing. If you make a profit, you get to share. If you don't make a profit, you don't share.
BAIER: All right, panel. Stay with us.
From the March 26 edition of Fox News' America's Newsroom:
KELLY: Well, some AIG executives are now in fear for their lives. It has gotten to this. As you heard, CEO Edward Liddy testifying on Capitol Hill last week; he detailed some of the threats. Death threats, that is, pouring in to many of these folks who received the bonuses. Here's just a small sampling of these threats.
Look at this -- this is according to documents obtained from the Connecticut attorney general -- quote: "Get the bonus, we'll get your children." That email courtesy of, quote, "Jacob the Killer." And then there's: "All you mother f-ers should be shot." Then there's: "All the executives and their families should be executed with piano wire around their necks." This is unbelievable. And then a bit more creative: "The revolution is coming. Your blood will run through the streets."
Now, prosecutors say that some of the poisoned pens have left email addresses and phone numbers -- criminals are always stupid -- making it much easier to track them down. Outrage is one thing; death threats are quite another.
Yeah, but if you're a member in good standing on the Fox Comedy Channel it's just a joke. Just a lil bit o' that conservative humor, folks.
I completely agree, RL. Calling for a lynching (or for AIG execs to commit suicide) on national TV is not at all the same as sending an anonymous threat.
Well, except that you don't know whether you might inspire some crazy to a murderous rampage by such irresponsibly belligerent talk. In that way, I guess there's a LITTLE problem with calling for a lynching.
But seriously, there's no way the Fox commentators influenced any of the threat writers. Two TOTALLY diferent things.
Something tells me the death threats the AIG guys are receiving aren't from Fox News viewers.
Something tells me the death threats the AIG guys are receiving aren't from Fox News viewers.
something about your multiple posting suggests "stalker"... ;)
Is it the voices in your head?
"you can't make threats! unless you have some connection to the neo con smear machine, then that's ok"
this is the precept that Fixed Noise operates under.
The one thing the right is still very good at is projecting their own putrescence onto the left. I hope the country is waking up to that, but I have my doubts.
The one thing the right is still very good at is projecting their own putrescence onto the left.
...while simultaneously proclaiming the left to be a bunch of wussies with no guns.
Cognitive...dissonance...ears...bleeding...
Oh, come on. Krauthammer and Kondracke seem to be talking about the outrage aimed at AIG executives, not any actual violence. It's like "heads will roll" when talking about people getting fired. If the Madame LeFarge line doesn't clue you in that it's not anything in the same zip code as serious, I don't know what will. How does one compare this to saying people should be strangled with piano wire, their blood will run in the streets and we'll get your children?
And even if these things were comparable, Kelly's comments would apply to what Krauthammer and Kondracke said. Why would she have to highlight their comments in order to voice that opinion? Take it as someone on the network prodding others to behave better, and be happy with that.
you could pretty well tell that Krauthammer was kidding when he invoked Madame Dufarge
Probably 100% of the death threat writers were kidding, too. It's still not cool.
By which I don't at all mean to say that the commentators shouldn't be allowed to talk like this.
Nor would I ever say that sending death threats should be legal.
to me its the eqivilent of saying i wanna kick your a** for being dumb
Oh come on. MMfA has been right on the mark quite a few times this past week, but it's absolute craziness to believe that Krauthammer and Kondracke weren't speaking tongue-in-cheek or metaphorically. This is silly.
This is about Megyn Kelley's selective memory. They may well have been kidding, but it bears reporting regardless.
memory? the remarks were not even made on her program. Is she supposed to know everything said by every commentator on her network before she opines on something?
it would be a smart thing to do.
If they were kidding, why the hell would she even bear it in mind when talking about death threats?
I disagree. Kelley may have selective memory, but it didn't bear reporting because it was apples and oranges.
Is it crazy to believe that every anonymous threat outside of the talking heads at Fox News is not tongue-in-cheek or metaphorical?
I'm not trying to disprove your point, I'm just wondering, toward anyone willing to elaborate, what the difference is between a real death threats and jokes and metaphors.
Some of the death threats might have been metaphorical, but you have no way of giving them the benefit of the doubt. You have to take them seriously.
one is in the context of a political discussion on national TV by well known commentators, the other is either a bad joke, or a subsersive plot being hatched by a wacko. ask your question of the FBI or law enforcement, they would probably give you a laundry list of differences.
subversive
"one is in the context of a political discussion on national TV by well known commentators,"
Or by a musician at a rock concert patronized by gun-loving zealots?
This is why I'm wondering if it's really as simple as famous people = OK, and non-famous people = not OK.
It's all about the circumstances and the context and the seriousness. i for the life of me can't see how you think these instances are somehow comparable.
"I was going to recommend boiling in oil in Times Square."
"I would be for an exemplary hanging or two... You borrow a guillotine from the French"
"Obama, he’s a piece of ****. I told him to suck on my machine gun."
Yeah, I guess there's no comparison.
Well, hold on. See reply to Brab below.
What he said really is violent rhetoric, though. And I wouldn't give him the benefit of the doubt that he doesn't really mean it. It's hard to argue that Krauthammer or Kondracke really want to see someone beheaded or boiled in oil in Times Square.
OK, so there is one glaring difference I'll gladly admit to...
Nugent is a gun advoctate, and his threat is gun violence, made in front of an audience full of gun lovers.
Krauthammer isn't known to be an advocate of public execution by hanging and Kondracke isn't known to be an advocate of public execution by boiling in oil.
But is it still just a question of whether or not it's "out of character" for whoever said it?
It's more a question of tone. Nugent is a nut, so "out of character" is completely irrelevant there. With Nugent you get the feel that even if he's not saying he's going to pull the trigger himself, he'd be happy to see someone else do it. You don't get the same tone with Krauthammer or Kondracke. Like I said before, it's just like "heads will roll". It really can't be taken as anything other than exaggeration for effect.
You know what? I admit it. I'm all over the place because I don't really know where I stand on this...
Given that Ted Nugent revealed himself to be a coward when his fellow countrymen were being drafted to go kill people in southeast Asia, I seriously doubt he's got the ice in his veins to shoot Obama.
i think the bottom line is how would law enforcement treat these "threats"? That is really the barometer as to how serious each one is and is there a valid basis for comparing the two. there are people whose job it is to determine that and investigate appropriately, I know I am not qualified to actually know for sure, and I doubt mmfa is either. chalk it up to more useless analysis from much of Fox
A perfectly reasonable position, but I don't really see MMFA calling on the FBI to investigate violent rhetoric from Fox News talking heads. I think their beef is Fox News' hypocrisy.
point noted. Fox's hypocrisy cannot be defended, I would never do it.
I don't even get "hypocrisy" here. Are we supposed to believe that Kelly approves of death threats because she ignored this obvious hyperbole? Or that FOX approves of death threats because they didn't fire or suspend these two over this obvious hyperbole? That's what "hypocrisy" would mean.
By this standard, no newspaper columnist can ever condemn a threat of violence without mentioning the newspaper's sports reporters who use violent phrases like "clobber", "beat down", "throttle", "slice up" and "pummel" (just to list a few). If there's a significant difference between these two scenarios, I don't see it.
FOX and its employees certainly tend to be hypocritical, but this doesn't seem to be an example of it. MMfA usually does much better than this.
"Or that FOX approves of death threats because they didn't fire or suspend these two over this obvious hyperbole? That's what "hypocrisy" would mean."
The hypocrisy is calling out anonymous violent rhetoric without noting the violent rhetoric that eminates from your own "contributors." Or that Fox News only approves of death threats if they are made by their contributors as a "joke," although I don't know what the joke is when you call for hangings, beheadings or boiling people in oil.
I don't believe that MMFA is calling for a firing or a suspension, as evidenced by their choice of target: Megyn Kelly, who presumably has no authority to take such action.
It's hyperbole. It's not "calling" for anything of the sort. That's the difference between what was said on FOX and the death threats, and what makes it a comparison between apples and oranges.
I didn't say MMfA called for anyone to be fired or suspended. I'm trying to figure out exactly who is being hypocritical. Is it about FOX or Kelly? If it's about Kelly, then a)why is she supposed to know about this particular exchange, much less mention it in the context of death threats and b)why can't she genuinely be outraged about death threats even if someone else on FOX made death threats? If it's about FOX, then wouldn't MMfA expect some sort of accountability for something on the same level as a death threat from its contributors? Shouldn't there be some sort of letter to FOX from David Brock or something? And if it's not on the same level as a death threat, then it's clearly apples and oranges, and therefore not hypocrisy.
So if you're on TV regularly, you can joke about killing or executing people all you want, it's all hyperbole, and hyperbole is always OK, regardless of violent overtones. But if you're an anonymous nobody pounding your keyboard at home, there's no such thing as hyperbole because context is always unknown. I think I see the difference.
If what they said was so far beyond the pale, why aren't there other items about what they said here? And do they do this sort of thing with alarming frequency, as if to numb people to thoughts of horrific violence? They weren't joking about anyone actually being killed. Contrast that with Coulter talking about poisoning a Supreme Court Justice's creme brulee. There's nothing literal about what Krauthammer and Kondracke said at all. Coulter may have been joking, but since it's a realistic and practical way of killing someone, it's utterly inappropriate. And like with Nugent, you sort of get the idea that she'd like to see it happen, since she's so unhinged. You don't get the impression that if someone was boiled in oil in Times Square that Kondracke would give it a thumbs-up. So no, joking about killing people is not always fine and dandy. It depends on the circumstances.
With death threats you don't know if it's hyperbole or not, right. You have no way of knowing, so you have to take them seriously. You can think the FOX comments were in bad taste, but they're not death threats by any stretch of the imagination, and therefore anyone on FOX can denounce actual death threats with impunity. To really understand where I'm coming from, imagine the absurdity of Kelly's mentioning of this in this context, as MMfA seems to think she should have done:
"Look at this -- this is according to documents obtained from the Connecticut attorney general -- quote: "Get the bonus, we'll get your children." That email courtesy of, quote, "Jacob the Killer." And then there's: "All you mother f-ers should be shot." Then there's: "All the executives and their families should be executed with piano wire around their necks." This is unbelievable. And then a bit more creative: "The revolution is coming. Your blood will run through the streets."...Now, prosecutors say that some of the poisoned pens have left email addresses and phone numbers -- criminals are always stupid -- making it much easier to track them down. Outrage is one thing; death threats are quite another...And on that note I'm obligated to apologize on behalf of Charles Krauthammer and Mort Kondracke for their comments about boiling oil and beheading people in the presence of a fictional literary character...which I guess falls under the category of "outrage" instead of "death threats" and I'm not the one who made the comments in the first place but...um...I just don't want anyone accusing me of hypocrisy, you know?"
In all seriousness, I have not the least little idea what MMfA expects here. Either it's something along the lines of what I demonstrated above, or she shouldn't have denounced death threats at all because a couple of people on her network engaged in hyperbole. Either way, the position is ludicrous.
I agree with you completely. Sometimes MMFA tries too hard to find things to criticize. Maybe they are overstaffed.
The cowardly thing wasn't Nugent evading the draft, but his bragging about what he would have done had he gone over there in an interview in 1990.
"... but if I would have gone over there, I'd have been killed, or I'd have killed, or I'd killed all the hippies in the foxholes...I would have killed everybody.’” -- Detroit Free Press Magazine, July 15, 1990"
I would consider both to be acts of cowardice, the former being the most cowardly.
Pete, I don't think Krauthammer is the same as Ted Nugent.
And I elaborated on that in reply to Brab above.
there will always be sick people out there who dole out death threats like these directed at AIG. But for mmfa to demand comparing those to these Fox guys only demeans the real death threats. this thread is ridiculous.
But what makes the outside threats more "real" than those of the Fox guys? Anonymity? Lack of a media platform? Income level? An unprovable "far-left" bent?
Reality.
As other posters have rightly pointed out, Madame DeFarge for one. Also, serious death threats aren't normally made on national TV by well known commentators, anyone can easily see the difference here. Do you think they rise to the same level of seriousness as these nuts out there. As for your far left paranoia, or the other ?? in your posts, they don't deserve a dignified response.
I should have indicated that "far-left bent" was tongue-in-cheek. :-)
If you were part of some group that people were angry with, would you take "There should be some exemplary hangings, invite Madame Lefarge" from someone on TV and "We'll get your kids" from someone anonymous with equal seriousness? I hope not.
This is MRC territory.
Just remember folks, Kelly is the genius who couldn't wrap her brain around the difference between voter registration fraud and voting fraud.
"Do I have to cut your mic? Ya know what..forget it. You're gonna give answers to my questions or I'm gonna cut your mic"
I have to agree with her on this one, mostly because, criticism and outrage, yes, definitely. Actual real death threats, that's a no go territory really, and it shouldn't be registered as even remotely being OK.
Actual real death threats, that's a no go territory really
Agreed. But also, you reap what you sow.
Are they reporters or commentators?
What's the difference on cable news these days? Or any media, for that matter?
I don't find them to be either. They are obviously not reporters, and their "comments" aren't worth the breath with which they were spoken.
Believe me, Brab - I don't like this sort of crap at all. I'm not sure that the threats from Kondracke or Krauthammer were real, but they don't belong on the teevee, especially on a network that calls itself 'the news'.
Whether you appreciate their opinions or not, their role allows them to express those opinions. And whether you find them appropriate or not, they simply do not rise up to the level of death threats. My issue is much like what James said earlier. Comparing the two things trivializes the nature of the genuine threats. Even if that what they said was inappropriate, in bad taste, over-the-top, etc, this item simply does not belong here.
I will say this to you, as I do people on the right who question why this article is on MMfA: This is MMfA's website. They can post what they choose.
I am not saying that it's OK to say these sorts of things on television. I don't find that it helps anyone. If you read my previous post, you would see that I said that comparing what Kondracke and Krauthammer said, versus the threats made by the public toward AIG execs is an apples to oranges comparison. It's not the same thing. In that, we agree. I also agree with you that "threats" like those made by Kondracke and Krauthammer do trivialize real threats out there (I don't believe that trying to compare them trivializes the real threats, though). My basic point is that people don't want to see or hear this sort of nonsense. It's distasteful and to me (meaning this is MY opinion), there's no place for it on the news, even a fake "news" channel.
You might have heard this phrase: "there's a time and place for everything". IMHO, the news isn't a time or a place for threats, real or perceived.
I didn't say they can't post what they choose. They can act like the MRC if they want, but I'd prefer them to make legitimate criticism. By the same token as "MMfA can post what they choose", commentators on FOX can say what they choose, right?
"I also agree with you that "threats" like those made by Kondracke and Krauthammer do trivialize real threats out there (I don't believe that trying to compare them trivializes the real threats, though)."
Perhaps I should clarify by saying that attempts to equate the two things trivializes the real threats. By expecting Kelly to mention this, they imply that the two things are equally important or reprehensible. Because if they aren't at the same level (which we agree on), then there's no reason to expect her to mention it in this context. I'm not quite sure how hyperbole trivializes death threats.
"My basic point is that people don't want to see or hear this sort of nonsense. It's distasteful and to me (meaning this is MY opinion), there's no place for it on the news, even a fake "news" channel."
I certainly don't begrudge you that, it's not like I'm a big fan of either of them. If MMfA wanted to make a case about the original comments (on County Fair, assumedly) that's a different matter. That would be somewhat more understandable.
I don't think their comments qualify as any sort of threat, because there's no intent involved, either implicitly or explicitly.
Here's a new word for you: hypfoxrisy.
That's what happens when your phony efforts to appear "fair-and-balanced" end up making you condemn something today that you forgot you said yesterday.
I think we should all be able to agree that death threats are unacceptable.
As for "responsibility", if someone actually boils an AIG executive in oil in Times Square, then maybe you can argue that Kondracke is indirectly responsible. It seems unlikely.