Why Fox News lets Lara Logan call Dr. Fauci a Nazi -- and get away with it

[marmar]

Why Fox News lets Lara Logan call Dr. Fauci a Nazi — and get away with it
Like Reps. Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene, Logan is a rhetorical bomb thrower who holds the GOP together

By HEATHER DIGBY PARTON
PUBLISHED DECEMBER 6, 2021 10:01AM


(Salon) It's always a fool's game trying to keep up with the latest right-wing outrage. Theirs is a profit-making enterprise — and the customer base is in a buying mood. In the last month or so, we've seen an unusually high volume of vomitous rhetorical spew coming from both elected Republican politicians and conservative media figures. I guess it's their way of celebrating the holidays.

First, we had Arizona Rep. Paul Gosar distributing a noxious anime video depicting the killing of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-NY, and attacking President Joe Biden. The Republican leadership shrugged their shoulders and it was left to the Democrats to take action, which they did by stripping Gosar of his committee assignments and censuring him.

In her floor speech on the subject, Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert attacked Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., saying "The Jihad Squad member from Minnesota has paid her husband, and not her brother husband, the other one, over a million dollars in campaign funds." A few days later Boebert was caught on camera joking around with laughing supporters about Omar being a suicide bomber. She did apologize on Twitter to "anyone in the Muslim community I offended with my comment," but then accused Omar of anti-American rhetoric in a phone call.

....(snip)....

There's no need to recapitulate the ongoing horror that is the nightly Fox News Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham insult hours. Just know that they aren't alone. Last week, we saw an act of character assassination that goes beyond even their worst. Fox Nation host Lara Logan said that people all over the world are comparing NIH scientist Anthony Fauci to the Nazi Joseph Mengele:

Link to tweet

?s=20

Actually, nothing happened to Laura Logan.

....(snip)....

Comparing Dr. Fauci to Joseph Mengele and calling Ilhan Omar a jihadist suicide bomber is now just mainstream right-wing rhetoric, rewarded with tons of money and attention from the base of the Republican party. And it's the natural consequence of allowing people like Lara Logan to shape the mainstream media narratives that have defined our politics for years. ..........(more)

https://www.salon.com/2021/12/06/why-fox-news-lets-lara-logan-call-dr-fauci-a-nazi-and-get-away-with-it/

[underpants]

1. It's a daily competition to out outrage each other

and people in their cult eat it up

[dwayneb]

4. Easy to dismiss it as a cult but

Whether this is cult-like thinking or not, it does not make it any less dangerous. In my opinion we are on the precipice here in the USA. We are fast approaching a situation where the "cult" (maybe 20% of the voting public) and the apathetic 1/3 to 1/2 that didn't bother to vote in 2016 and 2020 will combine to destroy our democracy as we know it.

[marble falls]

2. Public figure, first amendment.

[Silent3]

3. "Public figure, first amendment" is why the LAW can't go after Lara Logan

It's no excuse for Fox News allowing that shit.

Besides, if he were to bother (which I doubt he ever would) Fauci might have a viable defamation case against sick rhetoric like that. Public figures have a much higher bar to meet in proving defamation, but they don't have to take everything lying down.

[marble falls]

5. I get how you feel, but that's just not how it works. Fox has First Amendment rights, too ...

"Free Press".

[Silent3]

6. I'm not talking about a Fox News legal requirement or obligation

This is about what Fox News should (yes, I know -- HA!) do if they hadn't even the slightest hint of integrity.

[maxsolomon]

7. 1st amendment right to inject poison into the minds of Americans 24/7

It's a Propaganda Network, along with all the other components of the Right Wing Noise Machine.

Manufacturing Consent, as Chomsky said.

[Midnight Writer]

8. A week ago I'd never heard of Lara Logan. Now I have. Mission Accomplished.

[JHB]

9. Actually, you may have. She wasn't always a complete wingnut

Or maybe she was, but just hid it better in the earlier days.

[keithbvadu2]

10. from todays toons