Last updated on February 7th, 2013 at 04:34 pm
Fox News put their racist dog whistle on high today as they claimed that it would be arrogant for President Obama to nominate Susan Rice to be secretary of state.
Here is the video:
Transcript from Fox News Sunday:
WALLACE: Kirsten, do you think the president is going to name her?
POWERS: I don’t know, though, I think if he does, that could be — that kind of arrogance, which is what I think it would be, could be his undoing, because if she’s put under oath and forced to go through and answer all of these questions about Benghazi, I think it is going to put the administration in a really bad position and I don’t think she was the front-runner. I don’t understand where this came out of, everything I had heard was, she was in the running, that it was really leaning more towards John Kerry and then we have this press conference with the president, just kind of, you know, went off about Susan Rice, and, it has now become almost a sense of pride. So, you know, if you want …
WALLACE: Do you think he cornered himself in that press conference?
POWERS: I do.
WALLACE: Saying what he said now, if he doesn’t name her …
POWERS: Exactly.
WALLACE: It’s going to look like he is caving.
POWERS: I feel that he did, and I don’t know that it was intentional, and I think he went a little overboard. You know, his defense of her was fine to a point and then it kind of went into an area that didn’t — wasn’t — didn’t really make sense. And, I think that, like I said, if you want to send her up on the Hill and put her under oath and have her start answering every single questions, this administration will not ask or answer over Benghazi, go for it.
Fox News is playing into one of their favorite stereotypes about our first African American president. Everything that this president has done has been viewed by Fox as either incompetent or arrogant. (The potential nomination of Rice is being played for both. In Fox Land, the arrogant Obama is nominating Rice, who will then turn around and expose his incompetence on Benghazi.)
If it is arrogant for Obama to nominate the highly qualified Susan Rice to be Secretary of State, how did Fox News personalities react when George W. Bush nominated the completely unqualified Harriet Miers for the Supreme Court?
Bill O’Reilly wrote that Miers was being demonized for being an evangelical Christian, “Mark my words, in the weeks to come you will hear all kinds anti-Christian stuff in the media when Harriet Miers is being discussed. Some of it will be subtle, but not all. This is a clip-and-save moment. The secular media knows Ms. Miers will be confirmed to the Supreme Court, but they will get their anti-Christian digs in during the process. As a Christian, I have already forgiven my misguided peers for what they will inevitably do. Also, after 12 years of Catholic school, I know a thing or two about demons. The demonization of Harriet Miers will be very instructive to watch. And she looks like such a nice woman.”
Here is what Sean Hannity said on his Fox News program when the Miers nomination was announced, “But I trust the president, if he believes he appointed an originalist like Thomas and Scalia. I believe he believes that. The only question I think a lot of conservatives are having is, why an unknown? Why not a known entity, a Luttig, a Janice Rogers Brown, a Priscilla Owens, that people could get behind and support, with a track record, a conservative track record that’s worth defending?”
(As the Miers nomination began to crash and burn, O’Reilly and Hannity changed their tune and eventually called for the nomination to be withdrawn.)
When a white Republican president nominated a political crony to the Supreme Court who was obviously unqualified, there were no cries of arrogance coming from Fox News. It is only when an African American Democratic president suggests that he may nominate a woman of color to be secretary of state that cries of arrogance bellow across the right wing media landscape.
Fox News isn’t a racist network. It is doing something even more insidious. They are intentionally manipulating racial tensions as a political strategy. In an attempt to create a scandal where none exists, Fox News is despicably fanning the flames of racism.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
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