Tag Archives: Fox News

national news

‘Two dictators’ set to meet?

There’s really not much to add to this latest tidbit from the mouth of a Fox News commentator.

Abby Huntsman referred to the upcoming summit between Donald J. Trump and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un as a meeting between “two dictators.”

Oops!

Huntsman has apologized. She just, um, “misspoke.”

Check it out here.

She wrote on Twitter: “Apologized on the show. I’ll never claim to be a perfect human being. We all have slip ups in life, I have many. Now let’s all move on to things that actually matter.”

Whatever you say, Ms. Huntsman. A lot of Americans — millions of us, actually — kind of think she spoke the truth.

media news

Krauthammer: ‘My fight is over’

Charles Krauthammer could have forged a stellar career in medicine after graduating from Harvard Medical School. He became a psychiatrist.

Then he went into public service, joining the Carter administration and serving as a policy adviser and speechwriter for Vice President Walter Mondale.

Eventually, Dr. Krauthammer gravitated rightward. He became a columnist, a pundit — and a sharp one at that.

Fox News Channel came along and hired Krauthammer as a contributor to the network, where he burnished his conservative commentary skills and where he became a stalwart of the network’s array of commentators.

Today, this brilliant essayist and pundit has announced that his doctors have given him only “weeks to live.” Krauthammer’s cancer has returned. The prognosis is as grim as it gets.

Allow me this moment to express my profound sadness at what is likely to transpire.

Back when I was working for a living as editorial page editor of the Amarillo Globe-News, Krauthammer emerged as one of my favorite columnists, whose work we published regularly.

He is a brilliant essayist. He writes with precision and is concise in stating whatever view he wants to project.

Did I agree with him? No, but that’s not the point. One need not agree with someone to appreciate and admire his or her work. I admire Krauthammer’s brilliant mind and appreciate the courage with which he speaks. He speaks without outward rancor. He doesn’t “scream” his rhetoric while presenting his view of how the world should turn.

Here is Krauthammer’s note announcing his prognosis, published in the Washington Post, where he worked as a columnist since 1984.

Krauthammer says goodbye

This news saddens me terribly.

***

You are welcome to take a look at something I wrote in October 2009 about Charles Krauthammer. My thoughts about were as strong then as they are today.

https://highplainsblogger.com/2009/10/a-word-or-two-dispelling-a-rumor/

The man can turn a phrase.

 

 

media news

Hannity needs a new gig: How about WH adviser?

Sean Hannity is crossing a serious line that is supposed to separate the media from those on whom they report and provide commentary.

The Fox News host reportedly talks regularly with Donald John Trump, as in nightly after his TV talk show. The president is a big fan of Hannity, who’s been a stalwart defender of the president throughout his entry into public life as a candidate for high office and then an occupier of it.

I have argued that Hannity isn’t a journalist in the sense of the word we normally associate with it. He isn’t trained in the craft. He dropped out of two colleges. He has been a staple of conservative media for many years, owing to his gift of gab.

I have an idea for Hannity to ponder. Give up the Fox gig and ask your pal the POTUS if he has something for you to do at the White House. He doesn’t have a communications director. The last one, Hope Hicks, quit. I figure that Hannity is at least as qualified as the previous two communications chiefs, Hicks and The Mooch — aka Anthony Scaramucci.

Hannity already has been outed as a secret “client” of one of Trump’s lawyers, Michael Cohen. Yeah, yeah, I know: Hannity says he wasn’t an actual “client” of Cohen, that they discussed real estate issues or some other nonsense. But he does have a relationship with him and he failed to disclose that relationship while he took up the cudgel in Cohen’s defense while also defending Cohen’s other client, Donald Trump.

But if the reports are true of Hannity’s cozy relationship with the president — that he might be discussing policy issues with him and perhaps even briefing the Big Man on what he ought to say about this and/or that — then quit the pretense.

Ask Trump for a job. I’d bet real American money he would find one for you. Fox won’t have any trouble finding someone to replace you on the air.

national news

Trump polls are up? We’ll never hear the end of it

CBS News is about to join Fox News as a news outlet that Donald J. Trump won’t label as a “fake news” purveyor.

A new CBS poll shows the president’s poll numbers rising. Indeed, in New Hampshire — the state that conducts the nation’s first presidential primary election every four years — Trump trounces Ohio Gov. John Kasich and Arizona U.S. Sen. Jeff Flake, two men who are thought to be considering a challenge of their fellow Republican.

As CBS News reports: Republican voters have had two years of watching Trump as a candidate and president and husband and Twitterer and embarrassing, tantrum-throwing child and—to their credit or shame—they’ve decided to stick with him. It truly is Trump’s party, and every other Republican is just renting space.

So unless Robert Mueller drags him out of the Oval Office by his artificially-golden locks, Trump will be on top of the ticket in 2020.

My hope all along has been that Democrats need to find a new face, a candidate with a new approach and ideas and someone who at this moment isn’t on most people’s radar. Democrats aren’t listening to little ol’ me, according to CBS: And what are the Democrats giving him? Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton. Oh, and Nancy Pelosi just promised “I’m not going anywhere,” while Congressional Democrats are debating what they want to do first once they take back the House: Impeach Donald Trump, or pass new gun control laws?

By every historic measure, President Trump should be the Walking Dead of American politics. But put him up against a Democratic campaign of “Pelosi, Pocahontas and Impeachment!” and he may walk right back into the White House.

I’ll concede the president’s uptick in the polls. But no one is asking me what I think.

Whatever fate awaits the president if he is able to finish his term, any effort by him to win a second term in the White House will never include a vote from yours truly.

media news

Hannity fluffs a basic tenet

Sean Hannity’s backside is in a bit of a sling for a reason that could have been dodged with a simple declaration. It would have been a painless admission.

The Fox News commentator was revealed this week to be a “secret client” of Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, the guy who’s been involved up to his armpits in a sleazy tryst that the president allegedly had with Stormy Daniels, a porn star.

The conflict? Well, Hannity has spent a lot of air time on TV and the radio defending Cohen and Donald Trump.

And … he never disclosed that he had a professional relationship with Cohen. He never told his viewers of his clear conflict of interest. Hannity never thought it was necessary to put his defense of Cohen and the president in anything resembling a proper context.

I get that Hannity isn’t a trained journalist. He does participate in a form of opinion broadcast journalism with his nightly TV commentary show and his syndicated radio show. Thus, Hannity should be forced to operate under the rules of conduct that journalists are obligated to follow when they report or comment on the news of the day.

A simple declaration at the front end of every broadcast that features a defense of Michael Cohen and Donald Trump would be a simple task to perform.

One more thing: To its great discredit, the Fox News Channel says it stands by Hannity. The network that actually does employ legitimate broadcast journalists doesn’t see where its right-wing superstar has gone wrong.

Shameful.

religious news

Behar apologizes to faith community … good for her!

You think you “know” someone based on what they say on the air … and then they surprise you.

Loudmouth comedian/TV talk show co-host Joy Behar had popped off on “The View” not long ago about how Vice President Mike Pence hears wisdom from Jesus Christ. She said Pence must suffer from some sort of “mental illness” if he hears voices from the Lord himself.

Behar’s comment at the time offended people of faith across the land. I was one of those offended and said so in an earlier blog post.

https://highplainsblogger.com/2018/02/comedian-crosses-sacred-line/

Then we hear from Pence, who told Fox News’s Sean Hannity that Behar had called him immediately after her ill-advised snarkiness and apologized to him for her remarks. Pence told Hannity that as a devout Christian, he extended God’s grace to Behar and accepted her apology, but then said he told her she ought to apologize to millions of other Americans of faith for her comment.

What do you suppose Behar did this morning? She apologized. On the air.  On a segment of “The View.” What’s more, she didn’t offer one of those phony “If I offended anyone” non-apologies. She didn’t try to explain anything. She didn’t say “That’s not who I am.” She apologized. Period.

We live in a strange time, folks.

I am not yet certain that Joy Behar quite understands how faithful individuals receive guidance from Scripture. She likely doesn’t quite get how that guidance doesn’t come in the form of audible voices. The very issue of faith is deeper than that.

The vice president is a man of deep faith and as a devoted Christian he is able and willing to extend grace as it is taught in the Bible.

That’s what he did. Joy Behar did her part, too, in telling the rest of us — through her apology — that she made a mistake.

Good for her.

media news, national news, political news

Trump continues his unpresidential presidency

Can the president of the United States stoop even lower? Is it possible for Donald Trump to go beyond the pale in speaking with vile disregard for other human beings?

Yes and yes.

Trump today decided to take on “Meet the Press” moderator Chuck Todd, calling him a “sleeping son of a bitch” at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania.

He went after the media yet again for its coverage of a planned meeting between Trump and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. He impaled several cable and broadcast networks, saving praise — of course! — for the Fox News Channel.

Yes, the president has “treated” the nation yet again to a demonstration of how little regard he has for the office he occupies.

Calling a respected news anchor a “sleeping SOB”? Is this clown — and I’m talking about Trump — for real?

Sadly, the answer is yes. He’s very much for real.

Oh, but he’s “telling it like it is.”

Despicable.

national news

Another day, another horrific tragedy

Oh, my! It has happened. Again!

What does one say about this latest spasm of senseless gun violence.

A 19-year-old man opened fire in Parkland, Fla., and killed 19 people in a local high school. Our hearts are broken. Once again!

The man was a former student at the high school. He was expelled for disciplinary cause.

As has been the practice of this blog, I won’t mention the shooter’s name. I don’t intend to give this maniac any more exposure other than to chronicle the incident for which he has been charged by Broward County officials.

I cannot yet fathom how this kind of violent explosion is allowed to continue in this country. The debate over gun control is going to commence in due course, if it hasn’t already.

Fox News’s Shepard Smith today read the list of the shootings since the tragedy that erupted at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo. “Since Columbine in 1999, there have been 25 fatal, active school shooting incidents at elementary and high schools in America,” Smith said.

Twenty-five! Since 1999!

For the time being — and as the country continues to digest and process this tale of horror — I am left only to mourn and to pray for the souls of the victims.

Sickening.

national news

‘Innocent’ men keep quitting their day jobs

I know in my head — and, yes, my heart — that usually we’re allowed the presumption of innocence when we stand accused of wrongdoing.

But why do all these “innocent” men keep quitting their day jobs when women accuse them of beating them up, sexually abusing them, sexually harassing them?

If they don’t quit, then why do their employers keep firing them?

Roger Ailes got canned as president of Fox News; Bill O’Reilly was shown the door, too, by the same network. They both denied ever doing what the women accused them of doing, even though they and their networks paid out millions of bucks to female accusers. Go figure.

Matt Lauer got canned by NBC after women accused him of improper sexual behavior. Lauer hasn’t yet acknowledged publicly doing anything wrong.

Most recently, we have watched the departure of Rob Porter as White House staff secretary after his two ex-wives and a former girlfriend accused him of beating them. Porter says the allegations are false, but he quit anyway. The president stands by his man, calling him a good guy who did “a good job” while working in the White House.

Al Franken quit the U.S. Senate after he was accused of misbehavior with a female TV journalist; Franken, though, said the allegations weren’t entirely accurate. Huh?

Holy mackerel, man! The list of these clowns quitting while not acknowledging any wrongdoing just baffles me.

The innocence presumption, as I understand it, is reserved for those accused of criminal activity. None of these individuals I’ve mentioned has faced a criminal accusation. They face political accusations, which is a different matter altogether.

Still, I cannot remember when I’ve seen so many “innocent” men pull the plugs on their careers.

Strange, yes? You bet it is!

media news

Memo to CNN: check your anger at the door

Oh, how I hate admitting this, but I feel compelled to do so.

Ari Fleischer — President George W. Bush’s first press secretary — posted a tweet overnight that makes an interesting and quite valid point about CNN’s coverage of all things political.

He said that if you’re an anti-Donald J. Trump (a Democrat) guest, you get all the time in the world to make your case; if you happen to be pro-Trump (a Republican), the CNN anchors will interrupt you constantly. Here’s what he wrote: I’ve been watching CNN’s morning show recently. It seems to have two main topics. 1) What did Trump/GOP do wrong? 2) How bad is the collusion story for Donald Trump. If you’re a Democrat guest , you’re free to speak. If you’re a Republican, you’ll always be interrupted.

I admit to watching it occur in the moment myself. And, oh yes, it annoys me, too.

Let me be clear about something else as well. Fleischer made no mention of the way Fox News on-air personalities treat their pro- and anti-Trump guests. Given that I rarely watch Fox, I am only able to presume that they flip the CNN example on its head, treating the Republicans with fairness and the Democrats with the same level of disdain that CNN shows toward the pro-Trumpers.

I want to hold up an example of how a broadcast or cable news network ought to handle these on-air confrontations: I present ABC News’ “This Week.”

That program, which airs Sunday morning, had former special prosecutor Kenneth Starr on board this past weekend explaining what might drive the investigation into Donald Trump’s alleged involvement with Russian 2016 election hackers. He appeared with ABC News legal analyst Dan Abrams. Starr — who ran the investigation that led to President Clinton’s impeachment — could be construed as someone favorable to the current president. Abrams has revealed a more critical bias toward the president.

The two men made their points without interruption. The moderator, Martha Raddatz, didn’t barge in on either man’s time. She let them argue their points to the viewers — and occasionally with each other.

This is the kind of give-and-take we rarely see on CNN — the cable network that calls itself the “leader” in cable news presentation.

I am a fairly regular CNN viewer. As one who takes the presentation of news seriously, I want to echo Ari Fleischer’s assessment of the perception that CNN creates, which is that it does not present the news fairly and without bias.

And just think: This critique comes from someone who is inclined to agree with the point of view expressed by CNN’s talking heads.

My plea is simple. Check your bias at the door, CNN “news” staff, and don’t let your anxiety over the state of play in politics and public policy get the better of you.