Sep 15th, 2008 at 10:41 am
Even Fox News
All of us at the office were agape at this Fox News segment this morning. McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds was on, one-on-one, with host Megyn Kelly for what looked like it ought to be a softball. But it seems that McCain’s habit of constantly lying about everything under the sun has gotten so out of control that even Fox News can’t entirely ignore it. Check it out — Kelly gives Bounds the sort of grilling you thought you’d never see on Fox:
51 Responses to “Even Fox News”
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September 15th, 2008 at 10:46 am
Gotta love Bounds claiming that “if we believed everything Barack Obama says he’ll do, the oceans will part, the sick will be healed.” Because he keeps saying that!
September 15th, 2008 at 10:51 am
That is pretty incredible. If even Fox can’t ignore the fundamental dishonesty of the McCain campaign anymore then that will become the driving narrative, that McCain will say anything, absolutely anything and sink to any level to win.
September 15th, 2008 at 10:54 am
Gotta love Bounds claiming that “if we believed everything Barack Obama says he’ll do, the oceans will part, the sick will be healed.” Because he keeps saying that!
Well, some of the sick no doubt will be healed if we get some fucking health insurance. And, I believe, Obama’s had a few things to say about that.
September 15th, 2008 at 10:55 am
I have to believe that the movers and shakers are dismayed over the possibility of President Palin and have decided to deep-six McCain. First Rove, now Fox.
It’s one thing to have an ex-beauty queen as the governor of a small state, but it’s insanity to put her into the position of leader of the free world. And I don’t mean rhetorical insanity. Real, screaming, Snake Pit stuff. McCain went way overboard with this one.
September 15th, 2008 at 10:56 am
In defending the lie Bounds just tacks on more lies. The real question is why would anybody give time air time?
And to answer Megyn Kelly’s question why don’t they tell the truth, it’s because most voters know we have already given tax breaks to the wealthy and the only thing that trickled down felt wet, warm and smelled like piss.
September 15th, 2008 at 10:58 am
Just to echo Jeffrey – Karl Rove is sleazy, mercenary, and completely without standards or character. Also, he doesn’t want to die in a nuclear exchange with Russia or China – he may be getting to the point of preferring a president Obama. Probably not, but maybe.
September 15th, 2008 at 10:59 am
Look, Bill Kristol was the one who saw Palin’s genius for what it was on the Weekly Standard’s summer cruise to Juneau in 2007. From that moment on, Palin was the neo-Khans’ special project!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/uselection2008/sarahpalin/2827217/Neoconservatives-plan-Project-Sarah-Pain-to-shape-future-American-foreign-policy.html
Now, really, when has Bill Kristol been about anything?
Me, I’m more excited about 4 more years of Successful Hoover Administration Policies To Help Our Economy!
September 15th, 2008 at 11:00 am
give time air time?
Sorry that should be give him air time?
September 15th, 2008 at 11:04 am
I doubt Rove is worried about a President Palin. That’s a hand puppet he just might enjoy using.
September 15th, 2008 at 11:06 am
Tucker needn’t worry. After seeing this clip (which can only be explained by divine intervention, I convinced), I’m also confident that in fact, waters have parted and the sick have been healed.
September 15th, 2008 at 11:07 am
Rove may have good reasons for wanting to see McCain lose. For one thing, it sets Rove up for managing Jeb Bush’s presidential run in 2012. On the other hand, if McCain wins, Rove is out for the next 8 years.
September 15th, 2008 at 11:10 am
Megyn Kelly is really hot.
September 15th, 2008 at 11:12 am
I have no audio but thoroughly enjoyed watching that “aw, crap” facial expression @ :38.
September 15th, 2008 at 11:18 am
Newspeople are ambitious,too. She’s seen all the attention Campbell Brown got for going after Bounds and she wants a piece of it.
September 15th, 2008 at 11:20 am
Um, wow.
I wonder if this is turning into a Harriet Miers moment for the Republicans.
September 15th, 2008 at 11:20 am
A new poll todays states that McCain is within 5 points of overtaking Obama in New York. NEW YORK, NEW YORK!!!
New York is in play, folks!
I wonder what the numbers for New Jersey will look like!
Wow, this is incredible!
Let’s see if the Jewish vote in NYC can be swung around on the whole “My Muslim faith” stuff…I think they will.
September 15th, 2008 at 11:25 am
Tucker Bounds is such a lying sack of sh*t, I can’t imagine why any news organization puts him on and gives him airtime for McCain.
September 15th, 2008 at 11:27 am
Ringo, even if you received orders to turn every posting on economics and lying to fervid speculations about how Obama is like so totally secretly a Muslim Manchurian candidate….well, there are ways to do that with flair and subtlety.
Losing Fox seems almost too good to be true.
September 15th, 2008 at 11:29 am
I encourage McCain to spend lots of money in pursuit of winning New York.
September 15th, 2008 at 11:29 am
It’s one thing to have an ex-beauty queen as the governor of a small state, but it’s insanity to put her into the position of leader of the free world.
The problem isn’t that she’s an ex-beauty queen, it’s that she’s completely ignorant about foreign policy and little more clued in about domestic policy, and that her management style seems to be based on elevating cronies and ass-kissers and pursuing jihad against everyone else. Georgina W. Bush with a deeper commitment to the most reactionary kind of Christianity.
September 15th, 2008 at 11:30 am
Still, I have to agree with 55.
September 15th, 2008 at 11:33 am
Does FNC have any non-blonde women?
September 15th, 2008 at 11:41 am
Look, this is insane. Yesterday, my head exploded when Rove said McCain might be taking his lying a bit too far. I only just now got all the pieces back together and reassembled, and now you tell me FOX is subjecting McCain’s spokesman to a genuine grilling.
My head can only take so many explosions. Jeez, guys, go easy on me!
September 15th, 2008 at 11:41 am
You know what the funny thing is? That even though our political and media elites are deciding that they need to take this election seriously, it might not matter. For years, these people either did nothing or actually helped the conservative movement irrationally polarize the country and poison our political discourse.
They spent the 2000 election talking about the color of Al Gore’s suits. They spent 2004 calling John Kerry a flip-flopper, even though every single one of them knew Kerry was no different than any other politician. They spent most of the last 8 years waiting like nervous children for Daddy Bush to pat them on the head.
But now that they suddenly think stuff like telling the truth and being as least vaguely prepared for the Presidency matters, it might not make a difference.
Mike
September 15th, 2008 at 11:42 am
Thanks Deborah! You’re a star!
Why is Obama keeping his medical records secret? Is he hiding something in there? I’d venture a wild guess: it would say that he was circumsized by an Islamic imam!
September 15th, 2008 at 11:46 am
nbt,
Do you mean besides Bill Hemmer?
More seriously, the “ethnic” ones (black, Hispanic, Asian) don’t have to die their hair blonde.
September 15th, 2008 at 11:53 am
Fox engaing in actual journalism. That’s interesting.
In a television interview in May, Rupert Murdoch predicted that Obama would win and said that “McCain has lots of problems”.
Maybe he sat down to have a chat with Roger Ailes recently.
September 15th, 2008 at 12:14 pm
55, have you seen this?
September 15th, 2008 at 12:26 pm
I’d venture a wild guess: it would say that he was circumsized by an Islamic imam!
Oooh, oooh! Are we playing the Wild-Assed Guess game, but with no regard for basic shame or decency?
[Offensive analogy withheld - barely.]
Seriously, are you really on the boards trying to start rumors about the guy’s d–k?
September 15th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
Ringo, your racism is just adorable, but a few points for your consideration: (1) a great many male infants in America are circumcized regardless of religious tradition, including simply to mose closely resemble their fathers (2) I doubt medical records describing a 40-some year old man even bother to note whether he’s circumcized, and even if they did they wouldn’t be able to tell whether it was done by an imam (3) despite what your fevered imagination may tell you, “release of your medical records” does not equal “pose nude so the winger media can examine your privates”.
But thanks for playing! As a consolation prize, you win this lovely Home Version of the Internet, consisting of you ranting and babbling without us reading you! Be sure to practice up before you come back!
P.S. Petey, is that you behind the Ringo mask?
September 15th, 2008 at 12:42 pm
Tucker Bounds is really just a character in a miniseries being played by Peter Krause. It’s OK to question him.
September 15th, 2008 at 1:11 pm
Matt, I had not. Thanks!
September 15th, 2008 at 3:32 pm
I think if you listen to that exchange, what you come away with is that a specific Fox person is grilling a McCain spokesman about one McCain claim, while the spokesman is managing to get on the air the (alleged) claim that Obama has voted for higher taxes 93 times.
That isn’t going to help Obama. The Fox news person is citing “independent analysts” claiming the Obama plan will not raise higher taxes on the middle class, which means nothing to the average listener, while “93 votes for higher taxes” will.
In other words, the bottom line is that the McCain camp wins this exchange, and Fox gets to look like it’s somehow a real source of “journalism”, which is still a joke.
This was Kabuki theater, and Matt fell for it.
September 15th, 2008 at 3:40 pm
Ummm … wait a sec!
Raising payroll taxes WILL affect the middle-class DIRECTLY. Many small business owners are lucky to take home a living wage from their businesses … any what about the 1099 economy? Are free-lancers suddenly wealth?
Obama’s plan to raise payroll taxes is BAD news! Let’s stick to the facts and forget the culture war.
September 15th, 2008 at 4:05 pm
Wow. Deja vu.
Tucker Bounds makes an excellent punching bag.
September 15th, 2008 at 4:37 pm
Why We’re Not 100% Doomed:
INSANE BILLIONAIRES: Let’s kill everyone and take their money!
SANE BILLIONAIRES: I like the way you think. I really do. But if we keep everyone alive, and working for us, we’ll make even more money, in the long term.
INSANE BILLIONAIRES: You communist!!!
and more relevantly (but less quotably) here
(actually saw the cross post at This Modern World, but what the hell)
September 15th, 2008 at 6:02 pm
Besides the head-exploding factor, it’s also astounding to hear Bounds’ only defense of McCain’s and his assertion is that Barack Obama just can’t be trusted– this, from a candidate and a campaign that are both being called out on a lie right then and there.
Now that’s award-worthy shamelessness.
September 15th, 2008 at 7:44 pm
I’m also reminded of this, from Kevin:
“Say what you will about Huckabee, but he’s got their number on this. Liberals, at least, just honestly disagree with evangelical social fervor. Republican elites, by contrast, are willing to pander endlessly for evangelical votes, evangelical money, and evangelical organizing zeal, but once the elections are won they think of them, in Peggy Noonan’s recent words, as “the idiot vote.” Unless evangelical interests coincide with the moneycon wing of the party (as they do with judges, for example), they get little more than a few symbolic bones tossed their way.”
September 16th, 2008 at 3:00 am
This couldn’t have anything to do with that meeting that Obama had with Rupert Murdoch a couple of months ago, could it? Murdoch has a history of switching to the likely winner’s side and, by all accounts had been chasing a meeting with Obama for some time.
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