Tuesday, January 17, 2017
He’s the most impressive- looking Presidential candidate ever, and Fox News has apparently never heard of him.
I usually watch CNN in the morning, but today I decided to try to stomach “Fox and Friends” as long as I could. Fox News, as we know (or should), is often deliberately unfair to Democrats, skimps on criticism of Republicans, and enjoyed Hillary Clinton’s loss so much that the faces of many of their alleged broadcast journalists are still frozen into Joker-like smiles. Fox News is unbalanced to the right, which means that it is intentionally trying to counter-balance the relentless leftward tilt of the rest of the mainstream media, hence the tongue in cheek “fair and balanced” slogan. Get it??? (It is constantly amazing to me how many people don’t.)
Yeah, I get it. Thus I am on notice of Fox’s biases, and indeed grateful that one network is transparent about them (MSNBC makes two.) All I ask from Fox News is that it doesn’t make me ashamed to be tuning in by being unconscionably incompetent and stupid.
This morning I was half-asleep, so the “Fox and Friends” giggling from the couch didn’t get to me as fast as it usually does. There was an interview with John McCain, who turned on the interviewer’s (I think it was Brian Kilmeade, but frankly, I don’t want to know these hacks’ names—I have baseball statistics to store) leading question about Sec. of State nominee Rex Tillerson’s friendly relationship with Russia—the question begged McCain to agree it was nothing to worry about–to slam Russia, saying, “these people are murderous thugs.” That was fun. But then the gang had an endless visit from a mindreader—yes, “Network” is no longer satire—as whatever dyed blonde woman Fox had on the couch this time squealed, “That was AWESOME!,” and—I’m not making this up—interviewed a 13-year-old “historian,” as if a 13-year old could be a historian. (I wanted to ask him to explain what was wrong with Chuck Todd’s “history.”)
Incredibly, all this didn’t make me want to flee into the street, screaming. This did: The show brought in a “special report” about Trump’s options in choosing a SCOTUS justice to replace the late Antonin Scalia. The special reporter was yet another dyed blonde—the Perky-Dyed Blonde Machine has been working overtime since it was announced that Head Blonde Megyn Kelly had jumped to NBC—and this one mentioned the possibility that Senator Ted Cruz might get the job that poor Merrick Garland waited for in vain.
“You have to wonder, though…Ted Cruz is still young; he may want to run for President again, and a Supreme Court appointment is FOR LIFE!”, she said, adding a facial expression that made it seem like she was describing the sentence handed down to Charles Manson.
No, you giddy idiot, a SCOTUS appointment is for exactly as long as the Justice wants it to be. Even with recent Justices tending to stay on the bench until they resembled Statler and Waldorf from The Muppet Show, the average tenure of a Justice is about 15 years, not “til death do you part.” Arthur Goldberg, appointed to the Court by President Kennedy, resigned to become LBJ’s Ambassador to the United Nations. Charles Evans Hughes (that’s him on the left) quit the Court to run for President against Woodrow Wilson. After he lost, Hughes became a Secretary of State, and returned to the Supreme Court in 1930 as Chief Justice.
I think Ted Cruz would be very happy to have that career arch, and could, because nothing requires him to be on the Court until he drops.
The very first Chief Justice, John Jay, ran for Governor of New York twice, finally winning, while remaining as Chief until he won. The Constitution doesn’t specify any restrictions on Supreme Court Justices running for President or any other office while sitting on the Court.
All I ask from Fox News is that it not go out of its way to make its viewers more ignorant and misinformed than they already are, and even that is too much.