Our degraded discourse: Fox News’ Eric Bolling goes flat-out racist — and the rest of the media yawn
You know that we’ve reached an important juncture in the degradation of our national discourse by the American Right when a white anchor on Fox Business can skip the company’s ample supply of dog whistles and go right for the David Duke bullhorn in a segment attacking the presence of leading black figures visiting the White House, renaming it the “White Hizzy” — and hardly anyone blinks an eye. Fortunately, Media Matters is calling it out: During the opening of Fox Business’ Follow the Money on Friday, Eric Bolling teased a segment about the White House hosting the president of Gabon by saying, “Guess who’s coming to dinner? A dictator. Mr. Obama shares a laugh with one of Africa’s kleptocrats. It’s not first time he’s had a hoodlum in the hizzouse.” As you can see, the segment went on for several agonizing minutes as the overwhelmingly white panel indulged in the most crude and noxious kind of racial stereotyping we’ve seen since cruising through the Stormfront Website. Bolling was joined by Fox’s platinum-blonde Sandra Smith in calling it “the White Hizzy” : REP. JOHN GARAMENDI (D-CA): There are good guys. There are bad guys out there. We’ve got to stay engaged. SMITH: We don’t have to have them at home, though. BOLLING: Thank you, Smitty. SMITH: We don’t have to have them in our White House and entertaining them. BOLLING: Where? Where? Where? Go ahead, say it. Where? SMITH: In the hizzy. BOLLING: In the hizzy. Thank you, Smitty. SMITH: Do we really have to have them in the White Hizzy? We’ve observed previously that Bolling appears to be trying to out-crazy Glenn Beck in an attempt to win his soon-to-be-vacated 5 pm EDT slot. Guess that means, at Fox News, doing your best George Wallace imitation. Eric Boehlert has some more thoughts on that. But most disturbing is that this isn’t raising any eyebrows anywhere else in the so-called liberal media. Guess that envelope has been pushed so far that this is now the new normal.
Our degraded discourse: Fox News’ Eric Bolling goes flat-out racist — and the rest of the media yawn
Posted by
on June 13, 2011. Filed under