Fox & Friends' post-State of the Union guest list is neither fair nor balanced
In its post-State of the Union analysis on January 28, Fox & Friends hosted more than twice as many guests who were critical of President Obama's speech and agenda than those who were supportive, many of whom used inflammatory rhetoric or false claims to attack the president. Moreover, even one of Fox & Friends' few Democratic guests -- Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-NJ) -- was invited on to "take on his own party" and talk about how he's "fed up with the arrogance" of Democratic leaders.
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Fox & Friends hosted more than twice as many critics of Obama's speech and agenda
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Supportive |
Critical |
Neutral |
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Bill Press, syndicated radio host |
Angela McGlowan, Fox News contributor |
Tom Donahue, U.S. Chamber of Commerce president |
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Landy Wade, college student in Florida |
Gary Berntsen, former CIA agent |
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Tim Kaine, chairman of the Democratic National Committee |
Dale Mallek, unemployed Florida resident |
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Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-NJ) |
Jim MacDougald, chairman of Free Enterprise Nation |
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Michelle Malkin, conservative blogger and Fox News contributor |
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Peter Johnson Jr., Fox News legal analyst |
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Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) |
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Karl Rove, Fox News contributor |
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Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) |
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Rudy Giuliani (R-NY) |
Fox & Friends provided platform for critical guests to attack Obama as "snitty," "weak," and "disconnected from reality"
Michelle Malkin: Obama's SOTU speech was "snitty" and "rife with self-contradiction, self-serving, and self-delusion." During her appearance, Malkin said Obama's speech was "rife with self-contradiction, self-serving, and self-delusion," and that his criticism of GOP obstructionism was "snitty." Malkin also said Obama's statement on his role in Washington "really reflects a lack of self awareness," that "Obama lied and transparency died," and called his speech the "Barocky Horror Picture Show."
Peter Johnson Jr.: Obama "attacked" everyone. Johnson claimed that during the speech Obama "attacked Republicans, he attacked Democrats, he attacked Congress, he attacked cable news, he attacked banks, he attacked corporations, and he attacked the Supreme Court." Johnson criticized Obama for taking a "demagogic approach" when he criticized the Supreme Court for its decision in Citizens United v. FEC, even though Obama's comments echoed ones that four of the justices made in their opinions.
Karl Rove: "At the end of the day, it really didn't have much substance to it." After co-host Brian Kilmeade asked, "Is it good politics ... to bring up your predecessor and talk about your first year office while looking back at his last year in office?" Rove replied, in part, "No, I think it makes you look weak." Rove also claimed there were "lots of contradictions" in Obama's speech and that "it was not clear what [Obama] was recommending." Rove further stated of the speech, "At the end of the day, it really didn't have much substance to it."
Rudy Giuliani attacked Obama for not focusing on national security. During his appearance, Giuliani criticized Obama for the amount of time he spent on national security during the address and falsely claimed he never used the word "war." Giuliani said: "The reality is he spent something like a page-and-a-half -- on what was a 14-, 15-page speech -- on national security, as if it's an afterthought. It was a footnote to the speech. It was in the -- when the speech was running into going over one hour and people were starting to yawn, part of the speech. National security is a lot more important than that. Part of the problem this president has had is he hasn't made national security important enough. He began with not wanting to call it a war, didn't mention the word 'war' last night, didn't mention the word 'Islamic terrorism' last night. This would be like Franklin Roosevelt giving a State of the Union speech during the Second World War and not mentioning Nazism and not mentioning the war."
Angela McGlowan: Obama "didn't give solutions." During her appearance in a panel with radio host Bill Press, McGlowan gave Obama a "C-minus" for the content of his address and said that he "didn't give solutions." She criticized Obama's job creation efforts in the stimulus package, saying: "At the end of the day, it's great to talk about it, but what are you going to do. You can say certain things, but what have you done, Mr. President?"
Gary Berntsen: "His performance has been weak in national security, and therefore, his speech was weak." Fox & Friends hosted Berntsen to discuss Obama's efforts on terrorism and whether the president had "sa[id] enough" about national security. Berntsen said "his performance has been weak in national security, and therefore, his speech was weak"; that Obama's statements on North Korea and Iran were "ridiculous"; and he criticized Obama's withdrawal plan for Afghanistan as premature. Berntsen gave Obama a "D" for national security.
Jim MacDougald: No "correlation between what he was talking about and what we think it's going to take to make the economy take off." Co-host Steve Doocy hosted MacDougald as part of a panel of Florida residents to discuss Obama's economic proposals. After Doocy asked him whether he found the address to be "business friendly," MacDougald said, "No, not at all. ... We didn't see any correlation between what he was talking about and what we think it's going to take to make the economy take off again." MacDougald gave Obama a "D" on "results and plans" because he's "disconnected from reality of the trillions of dollars of debt that he's building up."
Doocy invited Pascrell on to discuss Democratic leaders' "arrogance." Despite being generally supportive of the tone of Obama's speech, Pascrell said "there is an arrogance" in the way Democrats have legislated and that they have been "tone deaf."
I am sure they were looking for red meat, a laundry list of spending programs and tax increases they could assault, but since it was not that, they haul out adjectives on tone instead of substance.
Had Obama been less forceful and milder, they'd call him a ninny, weak, equivocating, and directionless.
Kind of like during the 2000s, when the Republican majority bent over backwards to strive for bipartisanship, even giving up concessions, only to have the Democrats turn around and vote no on everything they had to offer. Or, wait, is that now, and the Democrats bending over backward?
The majority railroaded the minority when the Republicans were in the majority.
Lets AGAIN review things that should at least be discussed in REAL reform instead of fake obama care reform.
1. charge the "country of origin" for the medical care of the 12-20 million ILLEGAL ALIENS. They go to the ER send the bill to the US government who then charges the "country of origin" and returns the money to aid those 30 million that don't have health insurance. take it out of their foreign aid if necessary...
2. tort reform
3. award caps. lets not use the old red herring liberal talking points, lets focus on the HUGE salaries and paydays the litigation lawyers get out of "medical malpractice"... maybe call this lawyer pay caps....
4. Interstate purchase of health care insurance.
ALL except #1 above have been rejected out right.
hmmm... hmmm... hmmm... pathetic....
You libs have been in control of congress since 2006, OH just before the economic meltdown hmmm a super majority since 2008 and it's still going down hill...
You folks are pathetic.... goodness what I wouldn't do to have Clinton back. (Bill).... bho make clinton look good....
1. You make it sound like the illegal immigrants just walk in the emergency rooms and then walk out on their bills. Don't think that's the real world, pardner.
2. For the 4,672nd time, tort reform has been initiated in several states and savings are at best extremely minimal.
3. Wait til your doctor amputates the wrong leg. Or disables you child. You'll be singing a different tune then, I bet. Even with limited judgements, the savings would be microscopic.
4. This is against the sovereignty of the states to set their own guidelines regarding health care and insurers.
and it's still going down hill...
Uh, no its not. Unemployment remains a problem, but stocks have rebounded and the housing market has stopped it's free fall.
G.W. sidestepped the problem by re-classifying the way we tally the unemployed. The media let him get away with it, and now that Obama's in office they're reverting to what they're calling "The Real Unemployment Rate" or "Actual Unemployment". So, of course, it looks like it got real bad real quick under Barack, when it's actually been climbing steadily for much longer.
Just like how Bush didn't include the wars in his budget, and now that Barack IS, the media are unabashedly bashing the heck out of him for his out-of-control budget.
http://makethemaccountable.com/myth/RisingCostOfMedicalMalpracticeInsurance.htm
And if you are interested in what greedy companies do when they get to go across state lines, check out south dakota and credit card companies. Since they can jack up the interest some cards actually have 89%. So greedy companies will still keep jacking up prices at YOUR expense!
(35% of people polled thought they could become rich in their lifetimes, 1/2 of 1% do. The other 99.5% of people only won the genetic lottery, they were BORN into it.)
Quit protecting usury corporations. If you aren't rich you are voting for and helping against your own best interest.
There just may be very good reasons why the amendments they want to add have been rejected. But whatever, they passed over 160 on the Senate bill and then NONE of them voted for it, so are you suggesting they bow to extortion? 'Cause that is what it sounds like to me.
Here are your winnings
Oh, thank you very much