Since the White House invited rap artist Common to perform at a poetry event, Fox has been running a full-on controversy manufacturing shop. While guest hosting for Greta van Susteren, Martha MacCallum called the invitation “disturbing on a lot of levels.” Fox Nation called Common a “vile rapper,” a description entirely undermined by a 2010 interview in which Fox's own Jason Robinson told Common “your music is very positive. And you're known as the conscious rapper.” MSNBC noted Fox's hypocrisy, and Jon Stewart satirized Fox's reaction to Common, saying “it's almost impossible to express how ridiculous this and you all are.”

Earlier this week, Media Matters noted that Fox has hosted and promoted musician and conservative activist Ted Nugent, who has claimed to he once told then-Senator Obama “to suck on” his machine gun. Nugent made the claim while standing on stage holding two weapons (perhaps props, perhaps authentic). He added that Hillary Clinton “might want to ride one of these into the sunset.” Nugent also referred to Obama as a “piece of shit” and to Hilary Clinton as a “worthless bitch.”

During a 2007 episode of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes, and after showing footage of Nugent's stage comments, Sean Hannity referred to Nugent as a “friend and frequent guest on the program.” More recently, Fox News Contributor Sarah Palin has welcomed Nugent on her podcast, tweeting: “Ted Nugent will be on the SPAlaska.com podcast an hour before the TLC show airs to talk about hunting.”

All of that prompted us to ask:

[I]f Fox personalities are so upset about what musicians are saying, when will they call out Ted Nugent, a rock musician and conservative activist with a long history of inflammatory rhetoric?

Today, the answer came: Fox has no intention to renounce, or even criticize, Nugent. The conservative activist will appear on this Saturday's edition of Huckabee to discuss terror threats at home and abroad. From an ad which ran during today's edition of Happening Now:

For whatever reason, Fox doesn't see fit to admonish a loony gun advocate when he issues an outright, graphic call for a sitting senator to mouth an automatic weapon. Apparently, Fox's outrage over violent references only extends to non-stories that can be skewed, manipulated, and exaggerated to embarrass a Democratic President.