National/local news: Megyn Kelly, blackface

Fox News Says Megyn Kelly’s Blackface Comments Not Racist Enough to Get Old Job Back.

Megyn KellyIf you’re in the United States, you might be familiar with Megyn Kelly. She was a news personality for Fox News from 2004 to 2017. She was a panelist at one of the Republican “debates”, where she had a bit of a row with one of the candidates, the one who ended up getting the nomination.

I imagine it’s why she was hired by NBC to be their “conservative female journalist.” On her short-lived Sunday evening show, she interviewed conspiracy nut Alex Jones, which was not a popular move.

Then she was given the third hour of the four-hour block of the TODAY show, but she never fit in thematically, or, apparently, personally. Her rating were disastrous.

When she was in a discussion about Halloween and described that using blackface had been considered acceptable when she was growing up, a couple things happened. One was that she was heavily criticized, especially by her NBC colleagues.

She gave up an apology, acknowledging the painful legacy, but diminishing her statement by mentioning how she tended not being “politically correct.” She lost her post as host of the 9 a.m. hour of the “Today” show.

I wish there had been a bit more of that explanation, not merely that it was “offensive.” CBS News Sunday Morning provided Blackface: A cultural history of a racist art form.

Borowitz of the New Yorker, wrote, satirically, Fox News Says Megyn Kelly’s Blackface Comments Not Racist Enough to Get Old Job Back.

The other reaction was from where she grew up, which happens to be Delmar, Albany County, NY. Students from her high school alma mater condemned Kelly’s comments, saying she was not accurately describing their town.

One prominent Albany Law School grad complained that, largely based on her race-baiting arguments on Fox, the law school shamefully put Kelly, class of 1995, on the cover of its alumni magazine, hosted her book signing, and had her speak at a graduation.

Ivan Rodat, who went to high school with Megyn Kelly wrote a measured response in Blackface in the ’Burbs.

A good friend of mine told me that the family now lives in the house Megyn Kelly grew up in. I only recently learned that when NBC first signed Kelly, the network wanted the current owners to “meet cute” the former resident. That was, to say the least, a non-starter.

The conventional wisdom: Syria, Alex Jones

The man should be held accountable for every ACTUAL falsehood he’s perpetrated, and they are SO many.

Scott Ritter, 2006
ITEM: Mark Evanier wrote:

“Once upon a time, weapons inspector Scott Ritter warned us that Saddam Hussein did not possess Weapons of Mass Destruction and we should not go to war there on the belief that he did. Ritter was widely denounced as foolish and gullible, and his warnings were ignored.

He is now warning that Trump’s claims of chemical weapons in Syria are a lie that could be used to justify another war build on a false premise. Maybe someone oughta at least consider that this man could be right again.”

There are people who will dismiss what Scott Ritter says, based on issues having nothing to do with his expertise. But I heard him speak in June 2002 at an Albany United Methodist Society dinner. He said what was going to happen in the lead-up to the Iraq war in March 2003, and he was 100% correct.

ITEM: States refuse Trump commission request for U.S. voter data, as well they should. But it was the conservative Red State who writes that it is “simply another conspiracy theory that he’s bound and determined to use his office to pursue.”

ITEM: One of my good buds blasted NBC for the Megyn Kelly interview with the vile Alex Jones, “almost certainly the most prolific conspiracy theorist in contemporary America,” calling it “noxious behavior in service of the dollar.” And I didn’t see it that way at all.

I thought she pressed him on his bs. I’m not sure whether she “vivisected the bloated conspiracy hog”, but she gave it a go.

Does Alex Jones merit an interview? I like to know the enemy, so I say yes. And perhaps only Kelly, among the MSM folk, could have gotten it, a “Nixon goes to China” scenario.

Part of the problem was the tease from the previous week, which gave some the impression that the former FOX “News” personality was going to be buddy-buddy with this schmuck. I understand that, as a result of the backlash before the piece even aired, NBC re-edited it to be “tougher.”

ITEM: When a certain orange person said, “Comey better hope there are no tapes,” and then said there were no tapes, that is not a lie. (Unless there ARE tapes, in which case…) It was merely him saying words. It was an empty threat that, by itself, won’t reach the level of obstruction of justice.

The man should be held accountable for every ACTUAL falsehood he’s perpetrated, and they are SO many. But let’s pick the real prevarications.

ITEM: I was SO oversaturated with email, from both sides, regarding the expensive House race in Georgia’s 6th CD. And as If Jon Ossoff Wins… or Loses notes, the response to the outcome was predictable.

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