A Fair and Balanced Meltdown

Oh, this is so sweet!

You gotta watch this video.

The longer this interview goes on, the more Faux News host Megyn Kelly, talking (or we should say, "freaking out") with Bill Burton of the Obama Campaign, melts down.

Megyn Kelly Loses It



As noted in the video, the fru-fru tizzy that has Kelly with, proverbially, Loony Tune steam coming out of her ears. is a Matted Sludge/Dead Campaign Express smear-of-the-week, pointing to a YouTube of a radio interview Barack Obama did over seven-years ago.

Martin Lewis, over on the HuffPo, sums it up pretty good;

You click and you link to a YouTube clip titled "Obama Bombshell Redistribution of Wealth Audio Uncovered". The clip consists of some audio - with misleading extracts of text - to a 2001 Chicago public radio interview with a very studious Barack Obama in law professor mode discussing the limitations of the court and his belief that the legislative process is the appropriate way to pursue economic justice. (Which if memory serves - accords with the conservative preference to eliminate judges who legislate from the bench.)

This clip isn't as boring as watching paint dry. It's MORE boring. It's like watching paint PERIOD.

The phrase "Clutching At Straws" does not do justice to this very limp attempt by Drudge to erect something he can put up against Barack Obama. Alas - as Drudge is all too aware - it just won't stand up any more.

Naturally, the Right Wing Freak Show has been in a lather over it, ostensibly, to point fingers at to say the Stumblin' Bumblin' Fly Boy is right, he is a Socialist, with Faux News right there, with their fire-engine-red megaphone.

Now, in fairness, you can almost understand why Megyn Kelly melted down, on camera.

It's the final week of the campaign, and, to be cautious, things aren't looking good for the dwarfs, finks, phonies and frauds.

They're getting nervous, jittery, snapping at shadows, not sleeping well, irritable, knowing the party is coming to an end.

Afterall, if the Democrat's ticket wins, they, in all likelihood, won't be getting the daily talking points from an Obama White House, they way they have from the Bush Grindhouse.

But they also may be worried for another reason.

An Obama White House may just knock Faux News off its' perch, to be nothing more than an annoying infomerical.

Destroying The Fox

During his speech at the Al Smith dinner last night, Barack Obama once again mocked Fox News, boosting an effort to destroy the power and influence of the conservative media networks, an effort that I consider to be every bit as significant as the destruction of the modern Republican party. As noted by Kos, this continues a theme for the week where Obama mocked Fox during the debate last night and then again in the upcoming New York Times Magazine in an article by Matt Bai. This is also the continuation of a recent theme for the Obama campaign: Robert Gibbs famously ambushed Sean Hannity after the last debate in Nashville, David Plouffe recently called them the "24-hour ACORN channel" and Bill Burton has been all over their network embarrassing them over and over.

Let's consider the strategy of this for a second, because it is really smart. Obama is laying the foundation of delegitimizing Fox as a respectable news network and openly making the case that Democrats and others in the news media have been afraid for so long to say out loud, that Fox News serves the sole purpose of Republican and right wing propaganda. While this may certainly sound like an obvious point to many of us on the left, it is something that has become a bit of a taboo for people to say out loud to mainstream audiences out of fear. For Democrats, the fear is that Fox will train their sights on them and further alienate them from Fox's core Bubba audience. For the rest of the media, it is a well documented fear of the Fox's heavy handed media relations machine that intimidates other journalists from writing critical stories about the network, leaving the only critical voices about the network to come from the left from filmmakers like Robert Greenwald.

The difference with Obama is that he is not afraid of Fox. Given the platform and opportunity to take them on, he is using it, unlike the Democrats on the past. In addition to the candidate and his campaign openly mocking the network, we know that Obama knows no fear of Fox because consistent with his moral code, he let Murdoch and Ailes know he didn't respect them directly to their face as Micheal Wolffe recounted in Vanity Fair.

Yes he did.

Murdoch was said to be livid that Obama didn't come in and kiss his ring.

After others intervened, Obama did, finally, go to meet Murdoch and Ailes

Tuesdays with Rupert

Then, after he said his piece, Murdoch switched places and let his special guest, Roger Ailes, sit knee to knee with Obama.

Obama lit into Ailes. He said that he didn’t want to waste his time talking to Ailes if Fox was just going to continue to abuse him and his wife, that Fox had relentlessly portrayed him as suspicious, foreign, fearsome—just short of a terrorist.

Ailes, unruffled, said it might not have been this way if Obama had more willingly come on the air instead of so often giving Fox the back of his hand.

A tentative truce, which may or may not have vast historical significance, was at that moment agreed upon.

Scroll back up and watch the video again.

It can appear that Bill Burton is having fun, getting Megyn Kelly blustering and blabbering, and watching her melt down.

Could be the first, of more to come.


Bonus Faux News Riffs

Spencer Ackerman: Sticking In My Eye

Jed L: Bill Burton Isn't Taking Any Bull From Faux News Channel

Mustang Bobby: Fact Checker on "Redistribution" Story

The Jed Report: WaPo Knocks Down The Latest McCain-FOX-Drudge Lie

Candidate Watch: Obama's Redistribution 'Bombshell'