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.
Fox & Friends' post-State of the Union guest list is neither fair nor balanced
Written by Dianna Parker
Published
Fox & Friends hosted more than twice as many critics of Obama's speech and agenda
Supportive
Critical
Neutral
Bill Press, syndicated radio host
Angela McGlowan, Fox News contributor
Tom Donahue, U.S. Chamber of Commerce president
Landy Wade, college student in Florida
Gary Berntsen, former CIA agent
Tim Kaine, chairman of the Democratic National Committee
Dale Mallek, unemployed Florida resident
Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-NJ)
Jim MacDougald, chairman of Free Enterprise Nation
Michelle Malkin, conservative blogger and Fox News contributor
Peter Johnson Jr., Fox News legal analyst
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ)
Karl Rove, Fox News contributor
Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI)
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.”