Friday Fox Follies – The Hurt Locker Room Talk

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Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 09:21 pm

While the Committee To Protect Journalists Declares Trump “Unprecedented Threat” To Free Press, Fox “News” protects Trump from threat of real journalists. What a week. No sooner had Friday Fox Follies finished last week, than all hell broke loose. It was dismissed as “Locker Room Talk” by some. Other saw it as a lurid description of sexual assault. As more women came forward with similar stories Fox “News” to go to DefCon 4 to defend Agent Orange. The week ended with a call for Lou Dobbs’ firing for doxxing one of Trump’s victims.

Tough break for a network that’s been trying to elect a president for the several election cycles. It’s already started making excuses for its severely damaged candidate. The current POTUS pointed out the basic problem:

President Obama Says Trump Came
From Years of a GOP ‘Swamp of Crazy’

“They’ve been riding this tiger for a long time,” he said. “They’ve been feeding their base all kinds of crazy for years.”

The audience cheered as he described the environment that shapes Republican views.

“This is in the swamp of crazy that has been fed over and over and over and over again,” he said. “If I watched Fox news I wouldn’t vote for me, I understand.

Too bad he’s term-limited.

RACIST ROUND-UP: Remember last week when FFF called Bill O’Reilly and his puppet Jesse Watters racist? This week he threw Watters under the bus and simultaneously played victim.

Bill O’Reilly Denies Blowback From
Jesse Watters’ Chinatown Report,
Claims Outrage Only From Far Left

“I would have edited it a little bit differently than it was edited. But, no, it wasn’t over the line. We ran that piece on Monday of last week. 5 million people, plus, saw it live-time. You know how many negative letters we got? Less than ten. You know how many phone calls came in to Fox News? Zero, as far as I know. We checked. It was 36 hours later that this outrage appeared. And where did it appear? Far-left websites, far-left precincts. I read every single one. They’re all the same.

So this is an attack on Fox News. That’s what it is. It’s happened before. I thought it was a gentle piece. There were a few things in there I felt were over the line. The old lady, I would have taken that out. I should have seen it before, but I’m so busy with the election that I didn’t. But, [Jesse] Waters is a gentle satirist. He’s worked very well for us. We’re proud of him. This is an organized campaign. This is what they do. They’ve done it before.”

Two problems: 1). Every newsroom knows complaints (& praise) is weighted, each representing more than one viewer; 2). How many racist people watching The Falafel Factor would take offense at “gentle satire” from racist Watters?

It’s not anti-Fox, Bill O’. It’s anti-racism. Or is that redundant?

THE HURT LOCKER ROOM TALK:

It doesn’t matter if Fox begs “viewers to focus on the issues“, or buries the story on its website, or even ignores a powerful speech by FLOTUS Michelle Obama, this so-called locker room talk should come as a no surprise. Trump told those Foxy Friends in 2010 that he doesn’t take “NO” for an answer:

F&F: Trump’s Advice for Seducing Women:
“Move Forward, Even if You Get Smacked“

In the on-set interview with co-hosts Gretchen Carlson, Brian Kilmeade, and Steve Doocy, Trump recounted how he met his third wife, Melania Trump. He was at a party filled with models who “looked like Gretchen, actually,” Trump said, when he saw Melania standing next to a famous supermodel. “I fought very hard. She wouldn’t give me her number. I don’t think she found me at all attractive, to be honest with you,” he added, laughing alongside the Fox and Friends hosts. “I don’t think she liked me too much, sort of like Gretchen didn’t use to like me.”

But now, Kilmeade pointed out, the two were married and had a son, so clearly, something worked out—a lesson to all the men out there. “This is what I learned though: take action. He never would have got there if you didn’t go over and put yourself out there to be rejected,” Kilmeade summarized.

Trump countered with his own lesson: “Move forward. Even if you get smacked.”

As history proved, Gretchen Carlson can recognize a sexual harasser. No wonder she didn’t like Trump.

And, is Newt Gingrich talking about Trump’s hands when he says “Little Trump”?

THE WORST OF THE TRUMP DEFENSE:

Fox Host: Sexual Assault Allegations
Against Trump Seem “A Little
Coordinated” And “A Little Too Convenient”

JON SCOTT: I talked to a guy who has prosecuted a bunch of sex crime cases, he’s a prosecutor, and he said that adults don’t tend to hold back on these stories and suggested that, as Julian [Epstein] said, that maybe the revelations from the Access Hollywood tape all of a sudden sort of caused a bunch of people to run forward with — with accounts, stories, whatever you want to call them that sort of fits the MO that they heard — suggesting that they’re basically embellishing the stories.

That’s all the proof I need. He talked to a guy!

THE CRAZIEST OF THE TRUMP DEFENSE: When Curt Schilling defends Trump by asking Fox anchor if she’s fantasized about ‘somebody else’s son’, she surprises him with ‘You’re On Your Own’: FBN Host Stunned by Curt Schilling Defending Lewd Trump Remark.

WEDNESDAY’S WEMPLE: I look forward to Erik Wenple’s daily skewering of blowhard O’Reilly. When Wenple writes The republic is relying on Fox News host Bill O’Reilly, you know he’s being tongue-in-cheek. More snarky was Monday’s Wemple:

Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly is about to expose
an unprecedented American media conspiracy

And now O’Reilly may have landed perhaps his biggest media scoop ever. Bigger than Brian Williams embellishing; bigger than his former boss’s sexual harassment scandal; bigger than the Rolling Stone rape story; bigger than Tronc-Gannett; bigger than O’Reilly’s own embellishments about his reportorial career. It’s so big that the Erik Wemple Blog fears that abridging it would do it an injustice. So let’s just leave O’Reilly’s own words as the authority on this matter. In an interview this morning with Fox News host Bill Hemmer, O’Reilly, ever the investigative reporter, said this in the context of the country’s reaction to last night’s second presidential debate:

It’s a complicated situation, but I think everyone can agree — except for the media organizations that now have ordered their employees to destroy Trump — there’s at least three of them. And, I can’t say who they are right now because I don’t have it nailed down, but I am 100 percent convinced, and these media organizations have actually put out, ‘If you support Trump, your career is done done here.’ … News organizations have sent, not officially, but through the corporate grapevine that we don’t want anybody supporting Trump. If you study it, you can see which ones they are.

Now this is the toughest form of reporting out there: There are no documents, no emails and no memos, apparently. Just “grapevine” communications, as O’Reilly terms them. Hats off to this cable news talent. In between promoting his new book, “Killing the Rising Sun: How America Vanquished World War II Japan,” hosting his industry-leading primetime show and doing all the other things that the King of Cable News must do, O’Reilly has managed to gather the necessary human intelligence — that is, real-live sources high on the command chain at major U.S. media conglomerates — to aver on live television that perhaps the most sprawling media conspiracy in U.S. history is afoot.

This sort of reporting is why Bill O’Reilly is the King of Cable News. We’ve asked Fox News when O’Reilly will disclose the results of his investigation, because we can’t afford to miss it.

This is a bigger scoop than “some guy” Jon Scott talked to. Meanwhile, O’Reilly continues to toss softballs at Trump:

Bill O’Reilly Lets Trump Off The Hook For 2005 Tape In First Post-Debate Interview • Donald Trump Tells Bill O’Reilly He’s “Better Off Without” Paul Ryan, John McCain’s Support • Bill O’Reilly’s latest Donald Trump interview is one for the ages • Bill O’Reilly Calls the Most Un-American Thing Trump Said Last Night His ‘Smartest’ • O’Reilly Approves Of Trump’s Threat To Jail Hillary Clinton: He Has To Play To A Certain Voter • O’Reilly Dismisses Allegations Against Trump: ‘Anyone Can Say Anything’ • In Unhinged Rant, Donald Trump Attacks John McCain’s Bravery: ‘I Wouldn’t Want To Be In A Foxhole’ With Him • Bill O’Reilly Dismisses Trump Admitting To Being A “Sexual Predator” Because He Said It On The Howard Stern Show.

Being milkshake buddies has its privilege.

FURTHER READING: There will be a test.

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The Wrong Person To Moderate Final Debate

Headly Westerfield can’t wait for the final Trump meltdown when the election is finally over.