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OpEd News: Is FOX trawling for assassins?

by Susan Marie Kovalinsky | October 21, 2009 at 04:50 pm

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An OpEd News journalist believes FOX may be "trawling for assassins". This will be discussed on Philadelphia radio tonight, the Rob Kall show with Frank Schaeffer, author of the piece:

Invoking the name of the FDR era radio pundit and nemesis of the Depression President, Father Coughlin, Schaeffer denounces the likes of Beck, and accuses the News network of handing the inmates the keys to the asylum.
Morover, Schaeffer believes that FOX has a sinister agenda: To stir up nothing less than the assassination of President Barack Obama:

President Obama is getting criticism for going after Fox News. I fault the White House too: for not going far enough. The real issue is not Fox's right wing "bias." The real issue is that FOX News seems to be trawling for assassins. Here's the letter White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs should write. Or maybe it should come from the head of United States Secret Service.
Dear Rupert Murdoch, since you are responsible for what is on Fox News I have a question for you: Do you ever wonder how you'll be remembered by Americans and the world (not to mention your children) if someone takes a shot at President Obama, and when asked why they did it, quotes the misinformation spouted by Fox News as their "reason".
You have dozens of far right and dangerous and/or crazy seeming commentators working for you but let's just talk about one as an example of the rest. What of Glenn Beck?

Does the name Father Charles Coughlin ring a bell? Do you want to be remembered as the facilitator of today's version of that deranged radio personality and hater who hounded President Roosevelt? What if a Coughlin devotee had assassinated Roosevelt? Instead of just being a nasty footnote to American history, Coughlin would be remembered as another John Wilkes Booth. What if Coughlin had had someone with money and virtually unlimited influence backing him and amplifying his
remarks? How would we feel about his backer?

Glenn Beck is a second-rate, not terribly bright Coughlin-type demagogue with rather dimwitted followers. And you are the paymaster making his silliness dangerous by giving him a voice that would otherwise be heard only by those who happened to hear him barking at the moon on some lonely street corner.

You've given today's Coughlins -- the haters -- a national platform. And they have taken the lies of the "birthers," "deathers," "Obama-is-the-Antichristers," etc., nationwide. It was a bad day for America when you became a citizen for the sole purpose of purchasing TV stations and invading us with your far-right agenda. But you've gone way past politics, even the politics of hate. You have legitimized actual insanity by widespread repetition of extremist racist and religion-based lies to the sort of people who believe the earth is 6,000 years old, that Jesus will come back soon and send everyone not like them to Hell, that Obama is the Antichrist. In other words, you've got the keys to the national asylum, are stirring up the inmates and threatening to unlock the door!

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Karen Hatter

at 18:26 on October 21st, 2009

Mr. Schaeffer's assertion that FOX is seeking out assassins would be difficult to prove, even if it were logically feasible.

However, Mr. Schaeffer has discussed, on a number of programs, his contention that a level of mania and hysteria has been promoted and encouraged among the more extreme elements of the Religious Right, believing their cultivation of extreme emotional reaction could lead and has led to violence.

It may be, in his assessment, that those mentioned in the article, who also tend to promote extreme emotional reaction, without any measurable or noticeable indication emanating from the network to reign them in, FOX may be engaged in similar actions.

Also at NowPublic :

My Interview with Religious Right Founder's Son, Frank Schaeffer

Hugh Askew

at 18:37 on October 21st, 2009

John Hinckley could have alleged a level of mania and hysteria had been promoted and encouraged by watching Taxi Driver.

That doesn't mean it is true.

Rhonda J Mangus

at 18:46 on October 21st, 2009

"Fundamentally disturbing in [Schaeffer's] reasoning is the slippery slope logical fallacy that he tends to commit in this piece and others..."

Thanks for posting!

The_Cynic

at 22:11 on October 21st, 2009

I've said several times on NP that right-wingers, not just the religious nuts, are on the verge of doing something stupid.

I hope upon hope that I am wrong - but some who still believe in the dumb ass Beck and Co will look at it as nothing more that 'entertainment' and that the person who does whatever is simply nuts themselves - they will take no responsibility of their actions.

Karen Hatter

at 05:19 on October 23rd, 2009

TC, Frank Schaeffer sees the majority of the Right Wing as closely linked to the so called Religious Right, more or less, synonymous or interchangable ideologically, a persuasive view given the overlapping interaction among them.