Fox News: The Race to Hate

By Dan Hagen

In April 2008, Fox News presented a graphic showing that the Lincoln-Douglas Debates were between Abraham Lincoln and the black abolitionist Frederick Douglass. Hard to tell if that was a deliberate lie or just a complete contempt for history and accuracy. Better file that one under "Fox News Lies" and cross-reference it with "Fox News Thundering Ignorance."

The Lincoln incident itself, bizarre as it was, may not have been a mistake, but an attempt to convince the “folks” who watch Fox News that Lincoln's "opponent" was a BLACK MAN. Frederick Douglass was probably the 19th century founder of the Fox News bête noire ACORN, don't you think? Some say so.

Stupidity and racism had another collision on Fox News on the July 8, 2009, edition of Fox & Friends, during a discussion of a Swedish study showing that married people are less likely to get Alzheimer's, when co-host Kilmeade said that Americans don't have "pure genes" like Swedes because "we keep marrying other species and other ethnics."

He said, “Swedes have pure genes, because they marry other Swedes, because that’s the rule. Finland — Finns marry other Finns, so they have a pure society. In America, we marry everybody. So we’ll marry Italians and Irish.”

Kilmeade was forced to apologize for his "inappropriate" remarks on July 20. I'm sure he wasn't lying in this case, though. Kilmeade is just dumb enough to believe such racist claptrap.

The uglier the remarks get on Fox News, the less likely it is that the hosts are lying.

When then-Sen. Obama secured enough delegates to clinch the Democratic nomination for president, he and his wife Michelle exchanged a fist pound greeting before he gave his speech. Pitching an upcoming "body language expert" segment, Fox News host E.D. Hill referred to the exchange as a possible "terrorist fist jab."

On Feb. 26, 2012, unarmed 17-year-old African-American Trayvon Martin, a good student with no criminal record, was shot to death by “neighborhood watch volunteer” George Zimmerman.

Against police orders, Zimmerman pursued Martin, bravely pitting his 9 mm handgun against Martin’s bag of Skittles and can of iced tea.

Zimmerman was not initially charged by police, shielded as he was by a GOP- and NRA-backed “Stand Your Ground” law encouraging citizens to fire if they “feel threatened,” and the vicious race killing provoked national outrage and coverage.

But not, of course, on Fox News.

While CNN aired 41 segments on the case, and MSNBC 13, Fox News aired … one.

It took a while, but Fox News finally found their spin to shield the killer. Funny that Fox News was so reluctant to talk about the Trayvon Martin murder when it’s the logical culmination of everything Fox has been working toward for years.

There’s at least one time when you can be certain a right winger is being completely sincere, and that’s when he’s defending some guy who stalked and gunned down an unarmed black kid. That does reflect an American right winger’s true values.