Has Rupert Murdoch’s right-wing propaganda channel had a flash of sanity and a change of heart on the tea party demonstrations and the secession talk? Like Fox News, I report, you decide.
1. “[Why have] we listened to [this] movement? The same protesters back then as the ones today — the world [isn't] a safer place. Why do they even have any credibility based on their failure after failure, historically speaking?” […]
“They do organize this thing with very anti-American ideas.”
– Sean Hannity on his Fox News show.
2. “I think there are some sincere demonstrators. I just think they haven’t thought it through. Because for every cause there’s an effect, all right? And then what happens? Are you responsible for that?”
– Bill O’Reilly on The O’Reilly Factor.
3. “You know, I was struck by how uninformed and morally empty these demonstrations were. These demonstrators are morally vacuous, they’re stupid, they’re disingenuous.”
– Fred Barnes on Fox News’ Special Report.
4. “You saw the protests. Some of the placards on display: ‘The idiot is going to start World War III.’ ‘Stop your terror.’ ‘Baby killer.’ ‘Spoiled fascist.’ You get the idea. And there’s a lot of anti-Americanism and, frankly, there are a lot of anti-Semitic statements in some of the different protests.”
– Sean Hannity on his Fox News show.
5. “It was the activists, who were the ones who are the extremists, who were the ones advocating militant ethnic separatism [at these protests]. You had folks with T-shirts mugging for the cameras in front of city hall. These are people who do nothing more than try to sabotage our sovereignty.” […]
“The kind of quote-unquote ‘pride’ that a lot of these activists are touting now goes much further than just being proud about one’s heritage and one’s roots.”
– Michelle Malkin on The O’Reilly Factor.
6. “These kids don’t know anything. A lot of these are poor kids, struggling along in those schools and struggling to gain some sense of identity, so they’re going to wave the flag because they feel somehow they are fighting for the United States. And they’re even going to get into crazy arguments — all kinds of stupidity. I mean, they use kids as demonstrators. The kids know nothing, but at their heart, they feel like they’re giving a voice to what their uncles, their aunties, you know — the Minutemen and the far right wing that wants to throw everybody out.”
– Juan Williams on The O’Reilly Factor.
7. “Here’s what I don’t like. I didn’t like a lot of these signs: racist or anti-immigrant, [and these] people holding the flag up. It seemed to be, in many, many ways, outrages, some of the things that were said and done.”
– Sean Hannity on his Fox News show.
8. “Especially, Chris, because reasonable Americans are probably having a difficult time finding anybody to root for. On the one hand, you have, you know, tens of thousands of people demonstrating, waving flags, against the idea [of] America. What a repellent spectacle.”
– Brit Hume on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace.
9. “There seems to be an antagonistic edge to these protestors that is just making matters worse.”
– David Asman, guest hosting Fox News’ Your World.
10. ASMAN: “But Ron, let me just ask you, are they going to secede from the Union, these states in the Southwest?”
MAXWELL: “Well, the mere fact that we’re talking about this, why should we have this as a possibility? Why are we creating the conditions where 15 and 20 years from now, who knows what’ll happen? Do we want a separatist movement like what’s going on in Canada with Quebec or a separatist movement like the Basques?”
– David Asman, guest hosting Fox News’ Your World, talking to film director Ronald F. Maxwell.
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