Fox News personalities' pattern of violent rhetoric
On February 3, Fox Business host John Stossel told New York magazine that he has "Barney Frank in effigy" hanging above his sofa. Stossel is just the latest in a long line of Fox News personalities using violent rhetoric.
John Stossel
Stossel said he has "Barney Frank in effigy" hanging above his sofa. In a February 3 interview with New York magazine, when Stossel was asked, "What's hanging above your sofa?" he responded: "Barney Frank in effigy." [New York, 2/3/10]
Glenn Beck
Beck portrays Obama, Democrats as vampires, suggests "driv[ing] a stake through the heart of the bloodsuckers." Beck aired a graphic portraying Obama and Democrats as vampires and said: "The government is full of vampires, and they are trying to suck the lifeblood out of the economy." Beck then suggested "driv[ing] a stake through the heart of the bloodsuckers." [Fox News' Glenn Beck, 3/30/09]
Beck talks about "put[ting] poison" in Pelosi's wine. On the August 6, 2009, edition of this Fox News show, Beck stated:
BECK: So, Speaker Pelosi, I just wanted to -- you gonna drink your wine? Are you blind? Do those eyes not work? There you -- I want you to drink it now. Drink it. Drink it. Drink it.
I really just wanted to thank you for having me over here to wine country. You know, to be invited, I thought I had to be a major Democratic donor or a longtime friend of yours, which I'm not.
By the way, I put poison in your -- no, I -- I look forward to all the policy discussions that we're supposed to have -- you know, on health care, energy reform, and the economy. [Glenn Beck 8/6/09]
Beck: "To the day I die, I am going to be a progressive hunter." Telling his listeners that they "are going to learn so much on Friday," Beck compared himself to "Israeli Nazi hunters" and commented: "I'm going to find these big progressives and, to the day I die, I'm going to be a progressive hunter." He added:
BECK: I'm going to find these people that have done this to our -- you know, to our country, and expose them. I don't care where -- I don't care if they're in nursing homes. I'm going to expose what they have done and make sure that the people understand, because our Constitution, our republic -- if it survives -- it will only survive because the people are waking up and through the grace of God, because we are that close to losing our republic. [Premiere Radio Networks' The Glenn Beck Program, 1/20/10]
Beck: "Grab a torch." Asserting that politicians are addicted to spending, Beck stated: "When do we ever run those who are bankrupting our country and literally stealing our children's future out of town? Grab a torch." [Glenn Beck, 1/6/10]
Bill O'Reilly
O'Reilly: "[I]f I could get my hands on Tiller -- well, you know. Can't be vigilantes. Can't do that. It's just a figure of speech." On the November 6, 2006, broadcast of his radio show, Bill O'Reilly said of the late Dr. George Tiller: "[I]f I could get my hands on Tiller -- well, you know. Can't be vigilantes. Can't do that. It's just a figure of speech." [Westwood One's The Factor with Bill O'Reilly, 11/6/06]
Dick Morris
Morris: "Those crazies in Montana who say, 'We're going to kill ATF agents because the UN's going to take over' -- well, they're beginning to have a case." During a long conspiracy theory about a "super-national authority" that will oversee U.S. financial institutions, Morris asserted that because Obama's policies are "internationalist ... [t]hose crazies in Montana who say, 'We're going to kill ATF agents because the UN's going to take over' -- well, they're beginning to have a case." [Fox News' Your World with Neil Cavuto, 3/31/09]
Ralph Peters
Peters stated that if a Taliban-held soldier is a deserter, "the Taliban can save us a lot of legal hassles and legal bills." Peters, who repeatedly appeared on Fox News to discuss the attempted bombing, asserted of Pfc. Bowe Bergdahl, who was captured by the Taliban in June 2009 and appeared in two Taliban propaganda videos: "[W]e know this private is a liar; we're not sure if he's a deserter." Peters added that if he is a deserter, "the Taliban can save us a lot of legal hassles and legal bills." NBC's Jim Miklaszewski subsequently reported that the Pentagon said Peters' comments "could endanger" the captured soldier. [Fox News' America's News HQ, 7/19/09]
Michael Scheuer
Scheuer: "The only chance we have as a country right now is" for bin Laden to "detonate a major weapon" in U.S. Scheuer, who has frequently appeared on Fox News as a terrorism expert, said during an appearance on Glenn Beck, "The only chance we have as a country right now is for Osama bin Laden to deploy and detonate a major weapon in the United States." [Glenn Beck, 6/30/09]
Who's side (right or left) threw oreo cookies at Michael Steele? Which side wrote books about assasinating GW Bush? Which side defends those who burn our flag? Whose candidate for Pres. came back from Viet Nam and LIED about our soldiers to his own country? Which sides civil rights hero refers to NYC as "hymietown"? And I need to get out more?!?
A small number of generous, preachy, liberal billionaires could have paid off a lot of mortgages, why didn't they?
You've twisted the meaning of the word hypocrisy such that you'll hgave a BS sematic argument ready everytime your called out.
But they are nowhere near the same thing. According to your logic, one would have to be "tolerant" of RACISTS in order to not be a HYPOCRTIE.
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That's patently absurd.
Hypocrit!!
The discussion is about the pattern of violent rhetoric by "news" personalities, particularly on FOX.
If you care to point out parallel examples of violent rhetoric by those in the "liberal media" directed at those calling themselves conservative, then you might have a case.
Meanwhile, your defending in the name of Jesus people like O'Reilly whose call for violence against Dr Tiller is laughable. Ask yourself: What Would Jesus Do? Advocate murdering a doctor?
He was basically this loopy, cyclical logic that in order to be safe, we must be unsafe. And the best way to boost US's security, extremists must be allowed to show everyone how much US security sucks.
It takes a special kind of filth to say something like that.
Putting aside the violent imagery, this shows you how disjointed the logic of the Right is.
Stossel is a LIBERATRIAN. His whole thing is that he doesn't think the gov't should do ANYTHING, EVER. So if he's burning Frank in effigy, it would be becuase he'd done TOO MUCH. He interfered.
But what do we always hear from the RW'ers who want to balme Frank (and Dodd) for this mess? That they didn't do ENOUGH, or ANYTHING! That they didn't FIX THE PROBLEM or PREVENT THE MELTDOWN!
So they're all over the place! Which is it? Not enough or too much? It can't be both. And it can't be "too much of the wrong thing" either because nobady can make a case for anything they DID that cause this. If you want to claim that, you'd better be able to point to some specific actions.
CRA was their best shot at this, and it got shot down to an EMBARASSING degree. Going after the CRA was just... absurd. And it revealed nothing but their own ingnorance and a desire on their part to CYA.
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Trying to have it both ways is the surest sign that you don't have a clue what to do or where to go next.
In case anybody forgot, before Magcynic and righton went off into their irrelevant discussion of imagined "hatred" and general criticism, this item is about the violent imagery used so often by right wingers.
As outlined by MMfA "Fox News personalities' pattern of violent rhetoric". Can you please provide examples that support the claim that the aforementioned television commentators also have a pattern of "violent rhetoric"
You call what they say incendiary, that is way different than the "violent rhetoric" MMfA is describing.
I mean I get it, you don't agree with MSNBC's message. I just don;t see the correlation that their commentators also have a history of "violent rhetoric" like FNC commentators have displayed.
Feel free to post all those examples of those "incendiary remarks". Better yet, go create a conservative website where you can post all those examples of the left doing it. You won't have much business, compared to the business the right generates daily, but hey, go for it.
We'll also be waiting in breathless anticipation of folks like yourself agreeing that the right is acting like a bunch of two faced hipocrites. Calling for Rahm's head while refusing to lambast Limbaugh for saying "retard" over and over and over again pretty much kills y'alls credibility on this subject. I've come up with a new term to describe your heroes of hipocricy. I call it "race rating"....
I find Limbaugh, Beck, O'Reilly, Coulter et al. objectionable not because they are conservative but because of the nasty perjoratives and factually baseless statements ("lies") they fling about so carelessly. I would hope that I would also condemn a Matthews, Shults, Olbermann, or Maddow if they crossed the same line into dishonesty, indecency, or hypocrisy.
Would you like to engage in dueling quotes?
Well. . . duh. The incendiary remark I write on MMfA is totally different than what somebody like Glenn Beck says on television. Do you really think there is no distinction between these two scenarios?
And the things that MMFA quoted above? None of them were jokes. Not one of them.
O'REILLY: OK, so that's how they reacted and then they printed it. You know, look, if I could strangle these people and not go to hell and get executed --
WIEHL: You're not going to do that.
O'REILLY: I would -- but I can't.
I say we put them all up before a military tribunal. Clear and present danger.
It's called SEDITION and it is still punishable under the US Constitution! The same document that they claim to love and follow as "TRUE" Americans.
ARREST THEM ALL for trying to start acts of violence against the President and insite other unlawful acts against the government!
However, the repeated comments by O'Reilly concerning Dr. Tiller are the worst.
He and Newscorp should absolutely be held liable in civil court for inciting Roeder to action.
At minimum.
This is simply just desserts for a blood thirsty wingnut.
You are either with us or against us Stossel.