In the weeks leading up to the midterm elections, Republicans had embraced a simple, albeit foolish, explanation for violence in the Middle East: terrorists were following U.S. elections closely and were killing people in the hopes that voters would back Democrats. It was never a particularly coherent tack, but that was their story and they were sticking to it.
Of course, the elections have passed, and violence in the Middle East continues unabated. Indeed, it’s getting worse. Considering the conservative model laid out before Nov. 7, the right now has three choices:
1) The violence is an early jump on the 2008 race.
2) Terrorism was never really connected to U.S. politics in the first place.
3) Violence is increasing because terrorists are emboldened by the Dems’ gains in Congress.
Fox News viewers already know the answer to this one.
On the November 25 edition of Fox News’ The Beltway Boys, co-host and Weekly Standard executive editor Fred Barnes asserted that the voters’ “repudiat[ion]” of President Bush in the November 7 midterm elections contributed to recent violence in the Middle East. Later, Barnes asserted that “five, 10 years ago,” Americans “didn’t see dead bodies all over the front page of newspapers, whether it’s an accident or an explosion or Iraq or something.” Five years ago, there was no Iraq war.
It’s almost as if they’re trying to be parodies of themselves.
Here’s the full transcript, by way of Media Matters.
From the November 24 edition of Fox News’ The Beltway Boys:
KONDRACKE: The United States and others think that Syria is behind this week’s assassination of Lebanese cabinet member who was a vocal critic of Syria, Pierre Gemayel. He’s the fifth anti-Syrian politician to be killed over the last two years in Lebanon. Well, when the United States is weak, this is — anywhere in the world — this is, it becomes scoundrel time. This is the assassins, the fanatics, the murderers are, the bombers are out all over the place and especially in the Middle East. This is the case in Lebanon right now.
BARNES: Well, I agree with you. You know, first there’s an election in which Bush is repudiated. Then we have these studies going on that we just talked about where it is unclear what America’s policy is going to be toward Iraq, and that goes for Lebanon for that matter. And so what happens? The Syrians and Iranians are together. What do they want? They want — one, they want to destroy the elected democratic government. They want to make sure there is not a Lebanese government that approves this U.N. tribunal, which would put the Syrians on trial for the assassination — what, two years ago — of Rafik Hariri, the former prime minister, and they’d like to have Hezbollah become the biggest political player in Lebanon. And all this is possible. It really could happen. […]
BARNES: Fox keeps O.J. [Simpson] from spilling the juice. There was universal condemnation of Michael Richards after his racial tirade. Even Mel Gibson is still digging out after his meltdown. Maybe, just maybe, good taste is making a comeback.
KONDRACKE: Nah.
BARNES: Just maybe, no?
KONDRACKE: Well, look, there — what these incidents have shown is that there are, fortunately, limits to what the American people will tolerate, and the idea that somebody is going to go and sort of explain how he would have killed his wife and her friend if he had really done it, which he claims he didn’t do but everybody believes he did — you know, that’s beyond the bonds of good taste. Hurling racial epithets in the open is beyond the pale. But there’s not a lot that’s beyond the pale. And all you have to do is listen to hip-hop music or watch these violent video games and watch most of what’s on national television to see that we’ve sunk pretty low as a society. It’s nice to know that there are limits, but there aren’t — they’re not very — they’re not very high limits, that’s for sure.
BARNES: Well, I was encouraged, though, by the spontaneous national outrage — and it really was spontaneous — over this O.J. confession. And it’s off the air, which is good. I think that’s good. These other things you talked about, though, when you get to Mel Gibson and Michael Richards and so on, that’s just old-fashioned bigotry that we hear. What I would like to see are the kind of things you are talking about, you know, smut on television. And, for instance, I’ll know good taste is returning when we don’t see these dead bodies all over the front page of newspapers, whether it’s an accident or an explosion or Iraq or something. We — you know, five, 10 years ago, you didn’t see that. They were not all over the front page.
Apparently, a person really can get less informed by watching the Fox News Channel.