Fox News host Laura Ingraham attacked the credibility of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School students who have turned into gun control activists in the wake of the school shooting there two weeks ago. But we know for sure that Fox hosts would be singing a very different tune if the students were promoting conservatives' pro-gun orthodoxy.
You know that Ingraham and others at Fox must be terrified of these kids or they wouldn’t be so determined to destroy their credibility. This was Ingraham’s attack last night:
INGRAHAM: For anyone who’s been conscious since Valentine’s Day, the media has featured these kids wall-to-wall, their passion, their words and I’d argue that their pain and losses at times – yeah, being exploited by anti-gun activists, sometimes using them as proxies, even.[…]Why on earth should teenagers dictate policy on gun control or the Second Amendment, or, frankly, anything else, for that matter? Now, without diminishing their pain, their sadness – some of them are really smart, I think – or their right to express their opinion about the slaughter, of course, of their fellow classmates, why should their political or policy views – I mean, we’re talking sometimes 14, 15 or 16 year-old kids be given special consideration?
In the first place, the teens are talking about measures to prevent the kind of horror and tragedy they just lived through. So, I’d say they deserve at least the same “special consideration” Fox gave to, say, Laura Wilkerson, a mother whose son was killed by a Dreamer. Wilkerson appears to have no credentials in law or criminal justice but she was presented as an expert on Fox & Friends to criticize the acquittal of the immigrant who killed Kate Steinle. Wilkerson also called for the building of the border wall and for defunding sanctuary cities. Ingraham, herself, began a sympathetic interview with Wilkerson by saying, “You’re not a political person,” as if that gave her more cred.
As for the kids, NewsHounds’ Richard reminded us their age is no barrier to Fox News cred, either – when they’re conservative. Anybody remember 12 year-old Millie March getting lavish praise on Fox & Friends where she lauded Donald Trump for “trying to repeal Obamacare?” and claiming he has “done more good in the past six months than Obama has in the past eight years?”
Or how about nine year-old Jacob Silva? Fox described his appearance on the Watters World show as “mak[ing] case for president's policies.”
And then there was young CJ Pearson. This teen delighted Fox & Friends by calling Hillary Clinton "one of the most narcissistic, self-centered politicians to this day." He also described her as being "plagued with scandal and doesn't deserve to even be a candidate for the White House." A few months later, Pearson renounced conservatism and we have not seen him on Fox since.
Now, maybe Ingraham is not a fan of any of those young pundits either. But her commentary is surely reviewed by some Fox News executive. And there's no doubt what the network’s bellyaching about the Florida school-shooting activists is really about.
Watch the double standard above, from the February 27, 2018 The Ingraham Angle.
Originally published at Newshounds.us
