I’m all for Democrats going on Fox News – but not to pretend there is no partisan, bigoted elephant in the room.
Tulsi Gabbard, still a Democratic presidential candidate, announced early on in her appearance on America’s Newsroom today that she aims “to usher in a new era for our country with leadership that focuses on respect and integrity and equality for all Americans.”
Yet she repeatedly cozies up to the network that gives hate mongers like Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity a prime time platform and cheerleads Donald Trump’s “go back” tweet smearing four Congresswomen of color.
Gabbard put forth a decent argument against Trump's war mongering against Iran. She noted the Constitution gives Congress the responsibility to declare war, not Trump. But that was after we saw a clip of him thumbing his nose at Congressional oversight during a rally last night and she gave Fox a pass for falling in line right behind that anti-Americanism.
Heck, even “straight news” anchor Bill Hemmer disrespected Gabbard and anti-war Democrats right then and there. When Gabbard noted that “the reality of the situation” is that Trump has already gone to war with Iran, endangered our troops in the area and pushed that country “closer and closer” to a nuclear weapon, Hemmer lectured her with Trump-friendly talking points: “Let’s see, in the end, how this unfolds. A lot of this happens over days and weeks and sometimes months or even years. I think you would even agree to that,” he said condescendingly.
Then, without comment from her, Hemmer moved on to prod her to attack fellow presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg for tweeting a suggestion that Trump’s escalation of tensions with Iran had caused the Ukrainian plane crash in Tehran a few nights ago, allegedly shot down by Iran by mistake.
Unfortunately for Hemmer, Gabbard backed Buttigieg’s reasoning. She called the incident “one of these consequences of this escalation and this state of war that we are in.”
The interview ended soon thereafter.
My beef is not with anything that Gabbard said but with what she didn’t say. If you are going to promote yourself as a candidate of respect and equality, how on earth do you make that happen by ignoring how Fox successfully markets those very antitheses?
Gabbard’s blindness to Fox’s brand of propaganda is above, from the January 10, 2020 America’s Newsroom.
Published with permission of NewsHounds.us
