Won't Someone Please Help this Poor Woman?

[paft.livejournal.com]

As an incurable bleeding-heart, I’m always on the lookout for someone suffering, and that includes people with whom I disagree. The sight of human pain should cause us all to put aside our differences. Megyn Kelly is suffering right here, on national television.

She’s thrown this Fox News Alert about presumably explosive remarks from Attorney General Eric Holder. “About the Boston bombings – which are already – making news,” she says haltingly, either reading from a teleprompter or repeating what’s coming through her earphone. “This is just coming in, we’re trying to turn the tape from you so you can hear it from the man himself,” she adds, rather hopefully.

Alas, the tape just can’t be “turned,” so Kelly is forced to tell us herself what Holder said.

“He promised to hold accountable those responsible for the bombing, but went on to say, ‘Just as we will pursue relentlessly anyone who would target our people or attempt to terrorize our cities, the Justice Department is firmly committed to protecting innocent people against misguided attempts at retaliation.’ And there’s more, let me bring in our panel.” She introduces Julian Epstein and Jay Sekulow, then continues looking down and slowly reading. “He went on – to say –

(Pause as she reads and the horrible realization dawns about the hay she’s expected to weave into righteously outraged gold)

– uh – to talk about – he didn’t mention the fact that these two are Muslim who have been killed or arrested in connection with Boston. But he went on to talk about how in the dozen years since 911 they’ve investigated more than 800 incidents involving threats, assaults, and acts of vandalism and violence targeting Muslims, Arabs, Sikhs, South Asians and others who are perceived to be members of these groups. ‘As Americans we must not allow any group to be stigmatized or alienated. We must not tolerate acts of hatred.’ And then he goes on to say, ‘Let us resolve once more to let our fellow citizens, meet fear with reason. This is how we will honor the victims of the Boston Marathon bombings. Let us strive to confront ignorance with information. Promote understanding, encourage open dialogue, divert suspicious or prejudiced gazes with outstretched hands.

Uh…

I do have to give the lady credit. She regains her equilibrium pretty quickly, brushes aside the fact that Holder just made a heartfelt, patriotic, and simple plea for tolerance, and starts pushing the idea that the “context” of the remarks makes them somehow inappropriate. By the time Julian Epstein opens his mouth to inject a little sanity into the discussion, she’s on the ball enough to talk over him and feign ignorance about the anti-Muslim backlash in the wake of the bombing.

But really, is it fair to force a human being to go through these motions before millions of viewers? Is it humane? Is Fox News becoming a reality show akin to Chopped, where professional cooks are given bizarre ingredients like Smuckers jam, fish sauce, and rancid calamari and forced – on camera – to turn them into allegedly delicious three course meals? It’s bad enough seeing some thirty-something food professional’s eyes go dead as he runs it all through a blender and dumps it on soba noodles topped with sprigs of cilantro. Can we look forward to seeing Fox Anchorwomen getting tossed the Niemoller Statement without warning, and being forced spin it as an apologia for Nazism?

It’s just not a pleasant thing to watch.

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Comments

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

Never let a good crisis go to waste

Yes, totally unique to this administration - not like 9/11 was used to implement draconian privacy invasions or the unrelated invasion of Iraq.