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"A Star Is Born": Fox Swoons Over Mitch Daniels

January 25, 2012 1:06 pm ET — 32 Comments

Fox figures gushed over Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels' Republican response to the State of the Union, with Chris Wallace claiming that "a star is born." Others praised Daniels' address as "poetic," "funny," "strong," and "quite impressive."

Fox Figures React To Daniels' SOTU Response: "A Star Is Born"

Chris Wallace: "A Star Is Born." During Fox Broadcasting's State of the Union coverage, Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace said that Daniels' response was a "strong speech" and that "some of these responses from Republicans and Democrats fall flat; some of them, like [Daniels'], you'd say a star is born." Wallace concluded: "I think some people are going to be looking at that speech and saying, 'Why isn't he running for president?'" [Fox Broadacasting Co.'s State of the Union coverage, 1/24/12, via Media Matters]

Charles Krauthammer: "That Was One Of The Best Speeches I've Heard As A Response To The State Of The Union." During Fox News' State of the Union coverage, Fox News contributor Charles Krauthammer said of Daniels' speech:

KRAUTHAMMER: I could hear sighs all over the country from Republicans, what might have been. That was one of the most - that was one of the best speeches I've heard as a response to the State of the Union. And I think it was one of the best presentations of the conservative idea against the larger government of Obama. [Fox News' State of the Union coverage, 1/24/12, via Media Matters]

Fox Panelist AB Stoddard: "It Was Very Well Written. It Was Funny. It Was Direct." During Fox's State of the Union coverage, panelist AB Stoddard said of Daniels' speech:

STODDARD: I thought it was quite impressive as well. I think that he obviously has the best bona fides on the issue of debt, known to balance the budget in the state of Indiana and is very popular there in both parties. And I think that he was - was - he has better bona fides than the rest of the contenders in the field. That's why he is yearned for by Republicans now. It was very well written. It was funny. It was direct. [Fox News' State of the Union coverage, 1/24/12, via Media Matters]

Fox Nation: Daniels "Delivers Poetic Pro-American Response To Obama SOTU." From Fox Nation:

[Fox Nation, 1/24/12]

Brian Kilmeade: Daniels' Response Was "Very Strong," "Very Crisp." On the January 25 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends, co-host Brian Kilmeade said: "I thought Mitch Daniels [would] have a really hard time yesterday, a la Bobby Jindal. I thought he was very strong, very crisp, and not personal." [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 1/25/12, via Media Matters]

Fox Has Similarly Swooned Over Other GOP Politicians

Fox "Fell Hard" For Chris Christie. As New York magazine reported in May 2011, Fox News CEO Roger Ailes "fell hard" for Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ) and "encouraged him to jump into" the Republican presidential race. Fox News figures similarly "fell hard" for Christie, with on-air figures lavishing praise on him, asking him about a presidential bid, and giving him ample airtime in the run-up to his 2009 election. [Media Matters, 5/23/11]

Fox On Marco Rubio "A Political Star Is Born." Following then-GOP Senate candidate Marco Rubio's February 2010 speech at CPAC, Fox News declared that "A Political Star [Was] Born." Fox News personalities also described him as a "rising star" and an "amazing leader" who "knocked it out of the park during his speech." [Media Matters, 2/19/10]

Fox Figures Gushed Over Scott Brown. Following GOP Sen. Scott Brown's election win, America Live host Megyn Kelly said that Brown "brought the sexy back to Washington." Fox News has also asked, "Is Scott Brown the new Ronald Reagan?" and declared that his election was "the birth of potentially a presidential or vice presidential candidate." [Fox News, America Live, 2/3/10, via Media Matters; Fox News, Your World, 2/18/10, via Media Matters; Fox News, Fox & Friends, 1/21/10, via Media Matters]

— E.S.S.

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- by Johaely (January 25, 2012 1:21 pm ET)
  3
  
  I wish they at least faked objectivity. They don't have to be unbiased or anything, but at least if they were more subtle about it wouldn't be as big of a problem.
  
  Reply Report Abuse
- by Imbecile (January 25, 2012 1:23 pm ET)
  3
  
  Wasn't Mitch Daniels in the early running for the GOP nomination? Didn't Fox News mostly ignore him then?
  
  Reply Report Abuse
  - by rtwmd1230 (January 25, 2012 2:00 pm ET)
    5
    
    Not wacko enough for them.
    
    Fox and the teabaggers ran away all the half-sane candidates early on, and now they don't like what they're stuck with. It's like going shopping on Christmas Eve, complaining all the good stuff is gone, and bad-mouthing the picked-over junk that nobody else wanted.
    
    Reply Report Abuse
  - by foghornleghorn (January 25, 2012 5:09 pm ET)
    2
    
    Mitch sold off the Indiana Turnpike for quick cash and now tolls are higher and maintenance is suffering.
    
    Reply Report Abuse
- by nerzog (January 25, 2012 1:27 pm ET)
  3
  
  They just desperately want somebody other than Romneybot, but Newt is such a toad that even the Troglodytes find him repulsive.
  
  Reply Report Abuse
- by News Corpse (January 25, 2012 1:56 pm ET)
  6
  
  FUNNY? Could someone point me to punch lines in Daniels' speech?
  
  Maybe it was when he said that America is a nation of Haves and Soon-To-Haves? The former Have-Nots must be so relieved.
  
  Or perhaps it was the part when he said that Steve Jobs had a fitting name? That made me wonder: Is "Steve" mean "Chinese" in Mandarin? Because then his name being fitting would make sense (Chinese Jobs).
  
  Reply Report Abuse
  - by Chameo (January 25, 2012 2:06 pm ET)
    4
    
    Maybe it was when he said that America is a nation of Haves and Soon-To-Haves? The former Have-Nots must be so relieved.
    That line struck me. If that's how they think of the country, their years of rule are a mega-fail because what we've got is a nation of Haves and Used-to-Haves.
    
    Reply Report Abuse
  - by Chameo (January 25, 2012 2:06 pm ET)
    2
    
    Maybe it was when he said that America is a nation of Haves and Soon-To-Haves? The former Have-Nots must be so relieved.
    That line struck me. If that's how they think of the country, their years of rule are a mega-fail because what we've got is a nation of Haves and Used-to-Haves.
    
    Reply Report Abuse
- by rtwmd1230 (January 25, 2012 1:57 pm ET)
  8
  
  So the talking point is how bad Romney and Gingrich look in comparison to Daniels? Go for it!
  
  Reply Report Abuse
- by Chameo (January 25, 2012 2:03 pm ET)
  1
  
  You have to remember that their standard for comparison is Bobby Jindal and Michelle Bachmann. When you look at it from that perspective, it all makes sense.
  
  Reply Report Abuse
- by RavenRog (January 25, 2012 2:28 pm ET)
  1 12
  
  MMfA mysteriously omits the overwhelmingly negative reaction the "right-wing media" gave to Bobby Jindal's SOTU response in 2009...
  
  HuffPo article...
  
  Mitch Daniels' response was red meat on a stick (after the first 90 seconds of Obama fanny-kissing)...of course it got a positive reaction, as it should.
  
  Reply Report Abuse
  - by rtwmd1230 (January 25, 2012 2:41 pm ET)
    7 1
    
    Translation:
    
    mysteriously: syn. for "because absolutely irrelevant to the discussion at hand"
    
    Reply Report Abuse
    - by RavenRog (January 25, 2012 2:56 pm ET)
      1 9
      
      That's because perspective is a foreign-word to you.
      
      Reply Report Abuse
    - by RavenRog (January 25, 2012 3:02 pm ET)
      10
      
      Not enough perspective? What about Chris "thrill up my leg" Matthews? Wasn't it Obama's 2004 convention speech that the MSM gushed about for YEARS? It's ok for the MSM to go batpoo crazy for a liberal's speech, but it's not ok for Fox to crow about a conservative?
      
      Reply Report Abuse
      - by jamesB (January 25, 2012 3:07 pm ET)
        1 7
        
        exactly. fox is as crappy gushing over the gop as msnbc is with democrats. both crappy channels cancel each other out.
        
        Reply Report Abuse
      - by rtwmd1230 (January 25, 2012 3:16 pm ET)
        2
        
        "It's ok for the MSM to go batpoo crazy for a liberal's speech, but it's not ok for Fox to crow about a conservative?"
        
        Read the mission statement.
        
        Reply Report Abuse
      - by Johaely (January 25, 2012 5:43 pm ET)
        4
        
        Wasn't it Obama's 2004 convention speech that the MSM gushed about for YEARS?
        
        No, it wasn't. Obama was a relative unknown in 2004. The speech went off the news before the end of the week and was only brought back up during the election. Open your god damn mind and stop this imbecilic victim mentality.
        
        Reply Report Abuse
- by terrapin53 (January 25, 2012 2:40 pm ET)
  5
  
  as long as Fox wants to carry the fair and balanced mantra, they deserve all this criticism.
  
  Reply Report Abuse
  - by papajohn (January 25, 2012 2:54 pm ET)
    5 3
    
    As usual the Mainstream Media gets a free pass from MMFA:
    
    One example:
    
    http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1201/24/se.01.html
    
    CNN's DAVID GERGEN (part of the "best political team on television"):
    .....
    I must also tell you that I thought Mitch Daniels just gave one of the best rebuttals I've ever heard. You can understand now why so many sort of leading conservatives really wanted Mitch Daniels in the race. A sensible voice. A principled conservative, sensible voice, and didn't engage in the hyper-rhetoric we've been hearing in these debates.
    
    PAUL BEGALA (Democratic Strategist).....For me, his speech was so pessimistic, and this is hard to do. It was like a glass of warm milk with a fly in it. It was both boring and depressing at the same time.
    
    GLORIA BORGER (Part of the "Best Political Team on Television"): Well, I don't think it was that bad, Paul. What I think Mitch Daniels was trying to do was kind of shift the agenda away from what Barack Obama was talking about and to talk about those deficit issues.
    
    And in addition to talking about Obama's policy, pro-poverty, as Roland points out, he also said it is extremism, he calls it, that stifles the development of home-grown energy, or cancels a perfectly safe pipeline that would create jobs. And obviously, he's referring to Keystone there.
    
    John
    
    Reply Report Abuse
    - by RavenRog (January 25, 2012 2:58 pm ET)
      3 7
      
      MMfA doesn't watch CNN, silly. It's all Fox, all the time.
      
      Reply Report Abuse
      - by Johaely (January 25, 2012 5:43 pm ET)
        5
        
        Except when they mention CNN. The thing is, Fox is the biggest culprit.
        
        Reply Report Abuse
      - by PurpleState (January 25, 2012 9:09 pm ET)
        1
        
        Pants on Fire.
        
        Reply Report Abuse
- by Bob Stanley (January 25, 2012 3:02 pm ET)
  5
  
  I'm sure they mentioned that he was budget director for Bush.
  
  Reply Report Abuse
  - by papajohn (January 25, 2012 3:21 pm ET)
    3 2
    
    I'm sure they mentioned that he was budget director for Bush.
    
    No they did not:
    
    BLITZER: All right, guys, hold on for a second, because we're about to get the Republican response.
    
    Mitch Daniels is the governor of Indiana. He is going to be delivering the Republican response right now. It's always much more difficult to deliver an effective response, because it's usually not before an audience. There won't be any applause.
    
    Let's listen.
    
    John
    
    Reply Report Abuse
    - by notsure5 (January 26, 2012 10:13 am ET)
      
      There won't be any applause.
      
      Thank goodness for that.
      
      Reply Report Abuse
  - by n'est-ce pas (January 25, 2012 4:40 pm ET)
    4 2
    
    The guy who helped orchestrate the Bush tax cuts that eviscerated our country? Yeah, no way that's going to come up.
    
    Reply Report Abuse
- by Egbert Souse (January 25, 2012 6:21 pm ET)
  6
  
  A huckster is born. From Polifact
  :Daniels: "Nearly half of all persons under 30 did not go to work today."
  ....
  For December 2011, the most recent month available, we found that 44.4 percent of the 16-to-29 age group was not employed. So, Daniels is in the ballpark.
  
  But there's a problem: This is a ridiculous statistic to use. It includes Americans aged 16 to 18 (who are supposed to be in high school) and those 18 to 22 (many of whom are in college). If you leave high schoolers out of the equation and look only at ages 18 to 29, then the percentage who are not working declines to 37.5 percent. If you look only at ages 25 to 29, an age when most people are out of school altogether, it declines further, to 27.1 percent.
  
  But even this is beside the point if you are trying to craft a credible statistic.
  
  A more appropriate measure for Daniels would have been the tried-and-true unemployment rate.
  
  The unemployment rate takes the number of unemployed people and divides it by those who are "in the labor force," which means that they are either employed or are jobless but looking for work. This measurement ignores people who are not seeking work, such as students or individuals who are raising children full-time or are unable to work for whatever reason.
  
  These statistics offer a significantly different picture. In the broadest age range -- 16 to 29 -- the unemployment rate is 13.6 percent. For those between 18 and 29, it’s 12.9 percent. For those between 20 and 29, it's 11.9 percent. And for those between 25 and 29, it’s 9.7 percent.
  
  None of these measures gets Daniels any higher than 13.6 percent of the population -- far lower than the nearly 50 percent figure he cited.
  
  Reply Report Abuse
  - by PurpleState (January 25, 2012 9:08 pm ET)
    2
    
    When Daniels stated this in his response, I knew he was lying through his teeth. Good to see PolitiFact caught it too.
    
    Apparently Fox News did not.
    
    Reply Report Abuse
  - by kamrom (January 26, 2012 7:05 am ET)
    1
    
    Ah, yes, he must be referring to me then. Im so sorry I didnt go into work today. It seems that, despite my best efforts, I'm still sick. I tried to pull myself up by my own hair, but turns out that just makes neurological disorders even worse!
    
    I guess i should just suck it up and pretend that I dont have destructive sensory processing disorders. Im probably just faking it when all sensory information is processed as extreme pain, and the psychological devestation that comes with it.
    
    God these are disturbed people. Because of my problems im reallyy $*(#d inside, and even I have a better worldview than them.
    
    (Note: if its not clear, I wasnt responding directly to Egbert, but to the insane words of Daniels he linked.)
    
    Reply Report Abuse
  - by notsure5 (January 26, 2012 10:18 am ET)
    
    He should have gone all out and included the 0-16 year olds too. That probably would have gotten the number up well over 75%, while still being technically accurate, since his classification was simply "persons under 30".
    
    Reply Report Abuse
- by kamrom (January 26, 2012 7:01 am ET)
  
  My favorite part is how completely and totally obvious it was that this speech was written well before he actually heard Obama say anything. No matter what Obama had said, they would have given the same speech, just with different variables in the "Fill in the blank" portions.
  
  Reply Report Abuse
- by notsure5 (January 26, 2012 9:12 am ET)
  
  Well, Brian Kilmeade got one thing right, it was "not personal". It seems strange that he thinks that is a strength.
  
  I also thought it was funny, but not in the same way that they do. It seemed like he was doing a parody of the right.
  
  Reply Report Abuse

"A Star Is Born": Fox Swoons Over Mitch Daniels

Fox Figures React To Daniels' SOTU Response: "A Star Is Born"

Fox Has Similarly Swooned Over Other GOP Politicians

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"A Star Is Born": Fox Swoons Over Mitch Daniels

Fox Figures React To Daniels' SOTU Response: "A Star Is Born"

Fox Has Similarly Swooned Over Other GOP Politicians

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