During the opening of Fox Business' Follow the Money on Friday, Eric Bolling teased a segment about the White House hosting the president of Gabon by saying, “Guess who's coming to dinner? A dictator. Mr. Obama shares a laugh with one of Africa's kleptocrats. It's not the first time he's had a hoodlum in the hizzouse.”
During the tease, an image appeared of Obama meeting with the Gabonese president, Ali Bongo, at the White House:
As Bolling said that Obama had previously hosted “a hoodlum in the hizzouse,” footage of the rapper Common aired:
The inclusion of Common may not make much sense to people who aren't regular viewers of Fox News -- it's a reference to the right-wing media's ginned-up smear of him as a "'cop killer' rapper" in the days before his recent performance at the White House.
Later in the show, Bolling teased the segment again: “Smile for the birdie. Our president's sitting with one of Africa's most wanted. It's not the first time he's had a hood in the big crib.”
This time, an image of Bongo with a flashing tooth showed up as Bolling said, “Smile for the birdie”:
Bolling began the segment itself by saying, in part, “So what's with all the hoods in the hizzy? A month after the White House hosted the rapper Common, who glorifies violence on cops, the president opened his doors to one of Africa's most evil dictators. Here's Ali Bongo, the Gabonese president, who's been accused of human rights violations and plundering billions of his country's dollars.”
(For the record, it is true that Gabon and Bongo have a troubling human rights record, and Obama pressured Bongo on the issue during their meeting.)
During the segment, Human Events editor Jason Mattera declared that “Barack Obama likes to defecate on American allies,” and Bolling had this exchange with Fox Business reporter Sandra Smith:
REP. JOHN GARAMENDI (D-CA): There are good guys. There are bad guys out there. We've got to stay engaged.
SMITH: We don't have to have them at home, though.
BOLLING: Thank you, Smitty.
SMITH: We don't have to have them in our White House and entertaining them.
BOLLING: Where? Where? Where? Go ahead, say it. Where?
SMITH: In the hizzy.
BOLLING: In the hizzy. Thank you, Smitty.
SMITH: Do we really have to have them in the White Hizzy?
Another guest, Columbia University professor Marc Lamont Hill, told Bolling: “The president's not inviting [Bongo] over to the White House to eat s'mores and watch movies. They're talking, they're meeting.” Bolling replied, “How do you know what they did, Hill? How do you know what they did? Maybe they did have s'mores and watch movies. Maybe they watched a basketball game.”
This is familiar territory for Bolling. Last month, Bolling put a post on his Facebook and Twitter accounts saying that Obama was “chugging 40's in IRE while tornadoes ravage MO.” He repeated the line on Follow the Money later that night, and then tried to amend his attack by saying that he “took some heat for saying Obama should have delayed his bar crawl, or whatever he's doing over there.”