While guest hosting Fox News’ Hannity Monday night, Katie Pavlich said during a panel discussion that President Obama “has a track record of being anti-police” without providing any concrete proof of that being the case. She also stated during the segment that Attorney General Eric Holder’s “track record with the police is not a good one.” Besides making unsubstantiated claims about Holder and the president, Pavlich also used Rev. Al Sharpton as a dog whistle, portraying him an a cop-hating radical who has a close association with the White House.
It appears that the whole point of the short, two-minute long segment was to demonize Obama and allow Pavlich to make the case that his views, and that of his administration, are in lock-step with Sharpton, who she sees as a race-baiting hatemonger. On Monday, prior to the show going on the air, Pavlich wrote an opinion piece for The Hill in which she made the case that Sharpton is one of Obama’s top advisers and it is concerning that someone who spews so much hate regarding race has as much access to the president as Sharpton does.
Considering Al Sharpton has taught his followers and young men in the black community to judge and hate those born with a different skin color, it’s alarming how much access he’s had to the most powerful offices in the country. Sharpton is a liar, conman and professional manipulator. Throughout his years on the public stage, which have been many, the majority on the left have embraced his ideas and upheld him as a go-to source on problems plaguing the black community. Sharpton has been performing this act for years, and he’s finally made it to the A-list on the White House visitor’s log.
When “peaceful” protesters took to the streets of New York City for Al Sharpton’s Million Marchers earlier this month, many of them chanted, “What do we want? Dead cops! When do want them? Now!”
Did Sharpton rightly condemn them? No. Instead, he offered soft rhetoric and tried to distance himself from his own supporters in order to evade responsibility for their actions. When NYPD officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu were executed, Sharpton had the audacity to turn himself into the victim and tried to gain sympathy from the press by playing an alleged death threat voicemail.
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Will President Obama ever condemn Sharpton? Will Holder? No, and it’s because they truly agree with his ideas and believe in his positions, regardless of whether those ideas and positions are based in fact or help the country move forward.
Having already written a hit piece on Sharpton and the White House, Pavlich essentially used the Hannity segment not to moderate an actual discussion about the issues between the NYPD and political leaders on the left, but instead to continue her narrative that Obama is influenced by the hate-filled rhetoric of Sharpton and, because of that, has a natural inclination to hate police. It really didn’t matter that she couldn’t prove POTUS or Holder have poor track records when it comes to law enforcement, or they’ve ever made policy decisions or statements that would reflect poorly on police, it just matters that she believes it is the case, so it must be so.
A former Obama delegate, Brian A. Benjamin, did try to push back on Pavlich’s remarks. However, after pointing out Sharpton had condemned the killings of two NYPD police officers and had donated money to their families, Pavlich cut him off and said he only did that after the deaths. (Because, I guess, Sharpton is supposed to speak out against NYPD killings BEFORE they happen.) Pavlich then wrapped up the segment by making the following comments.
“President Obama’s track record with police is not a good one. Eric Holder’s track record with police is not a good one. This administration certainly backs up what Al Sharpton thinks. But we have to go.”
Period. End of story. We’re all done here. Time to move on.
Below is video of the segment, courtesy of Mediaite:
Obviously, this is just par for the course for Fox News and the right-wing media as a whole. Pavlich followed the Fox script perfectly by ending the segment with a fact-free statement and not allowing any bit of a retort as she tossed it to commercial, thus leaving that final thought with the viewer. Benjamin’s reaction as they went to break says it all.
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