Fox News on President Obama’s Inauguration Day is like the Grumpy Exes Channel on Valentine’s Day.
Fox and Friends began the mo(u)rning by declaring that today would be “the most depressing day of the year.”
Obviously they weren’t referring to the combination of Obama’s second inaugural and the celebration of Martin Luther King’s birthday — but just something scientists figured out. “It has to do with drab weather, holiday bills, and resolutions that we have not met,” host Steve Doocy said, referring to oft-refuted pseudo-science, which was the original title for Fox News’ morning show.
Just before the president was sworn in and gave his address, Fox focused on his nominee for Secretary of Defense, who is very controversial only with the far right, because he once had the temerity to suggest he wasn’t an elected official from the state of Israel. Because any politician who isn’t complicit in an evangelical fantasy of a united Israel triggering the end times isn’t good enough for the neo-conservative movement.
But Republicans held their fire until the president gave his address, which they then quickly attacked.
The Guardian‘s Ana Marie Cox who watched the ceremony on Fox News, noted that Charles Krauthammer harrumphed, “‘There’s not a line here that will ever be repeated.’ Apparently, he missed the echo that followed Obama’s invocation of Stonewall – and the mere mention of the word “gay.”
The more sober Republicans focused on the president’s defense of Medicare, taking issue especially with the passage, “We must make the hard choices to reduce the cost of health care and the size of our deficit. But we reject the belief that America must choose between caring for the generation that built this country and investing in the generation that will build its future.”
The Washington Examiner‘s Philip Klein called it “two lines that sum up Obama’s presidency.” Klein’s rant about the president doing “little” to restrain the deficit conveniently turns a blind eye to the fact that the House GOP turned down a so-called “grand bargain” that cut the deficit by $4 trillion and was so favorable to Republicans that they nearly begged for it after Obama had been re-elected. He also neglects new projections that show the deficit is shrinking rapidly with just the cuts and tax increases we’ve already made.
In Klein’s point of view, anything that doesn’t break the promise of either “caring for the generation that built this country” or “investing in the generation that will build its future” isn’t serious.
Senate Republicans seemed unanimous in feeling that the speech didn’t have enough “outreach.”
“This is the eighth [inauguration] that I’ve been to and always there’s been a portion of the speech where [the president says], ‘I reach out my hand because we need to work together.’ That wasn’t in this speech,” Senator John McCain (R-AZ) insisted, ignoring the part where the president said, “My fellow Americans, the oath I have sworn before you today, like the one recited by others who serve in this Capitol, was an oath to God and country, not party or faction. And we must faithfully execute that pledge during the duration of our service.”
Of course, McCain is the poster boy for “working together.” Since his gracious concession speech in 2008, he’s spent nearly every available moment attacking the current president.
FoxNation.com’s headline was a message from talk radio host Mark Levin that screamed, “Fight!”
Breitbart.com — a site so tuned in to the Tea Party that its headlines are in ALL CAPS — summed up the enraged ID of the right with stories like “SECOND INAUGURAL ADDRESS: OBAMA DECLARES WAR ON LIBERTY AS WE KNOW IT” and “OBAMA’S SECOND INAUGURAL: DEFINITION OF ‘LIBERTY’ SUBJECT TO DEBATE” and “THRILL IS GONE FOR CROWDS AT OBAMA INAUGURATION.”
The estimated one million people in attendance at the inauguration were not available for comment, as they were busy celebrating.
