Chris Wallace, Fox News, and two hours of Obama-bashing

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I never thought it would ever come to this, but: Way to go, Chris Wallace!

Appearing on the typically inane and insane Fox & Friends yesterday morning, Wallace, host of Fox News Sunday, criticized hosts Steve Doocy, Brian Kilmeade, and Gretchen Carlson for spending a full two hours bashing Obama for referring to his grandmother as "a typical white person" on a Philadelphia sports radio morning show. Wallace:

[I]t seems to me that two hours of Obama bashing on this typical white person remark is somewhat excessive and frankly I think you’re somewhat distorting what Obama had to say.

TP, C&L, TPM, DKos, and HuffPo have the video (along with some commentary).

(UPDATE: I've added the YouTube clip -- see below.)

And it wasn't just Wallace. Kilmeade criticized Doocy and Carlson for taking Obama's comment out of context and for ignoring Obama's intention. Kilmeade actually walked off the set, but only when Doocy called him "a typical sports guy". HuffPo called this "a dispute," and the whole episode as "mayhem," and TP, which has has the video here, stated that Kilmeade was just "so fed up with his co-hosts" that he stormed off the set, but, watching the video, it doesn't seem like it was such a dramatic event. Yes, there was disagreement, yes, Kilmeade seemed genuinely frustrated with his co-hosts, but the walking off looks to me like a bit of a joke. If Kilmeade was serious, he was only mildly so, and only because Doocy offended him. There is hardly a crack-up at Fox News.

Still, if I may make a gross yet completely accurate generalization, Doocy and Carlson, like most of their colleagues at that awful network, are idiots. Carlson wants to have a meaningful discussion about race? She's so offended by what Obama said? Please. What does she know about race, or about race and politics, or about race and religion, or about the history of race relations in the U.S.? This was just an opportunity to bash Obama and, for Carlson, to express some good ol' white righteousness.

Thankfully, a couple of their own called them out on it. Which, at the very least, was a refreshing change.