CNN Host Fareed Zakaria Trash-Talks About Rupert Murdoch and 'Quasi-Fascist' Hosts at Fox News

January 22nd, 2015 7:30 AM

Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch was widely attacked by the left when he tweeted after the Charlie Hebdo massacre in Paris that “Maybe most Moslems peaceful, but until they recognize and destroy their growing jihadist cancer they must be held responsible.” Days later, he walked that back, saying he didn’t mean to suggest all Muslims were responsible for that shooting.

CNN host (and serial plagiarist) Fareed Zakaria trash-talked about Murdoch and Fox during a Huffington Post video interview on Wednesday at the swanky Davos conference in Switzerland. "I think it was outrageous to claim that moderate Muslims, or Muslims in general, are responsible for the attacks."

Then came the trash talk: “We don’t hold Rupert Murdoch responsible for every crazy, radical, you know, quasi-fascist statement made by a television host. Oh, wait a minute, I guess we do in the case of Rupert Murdoch, since he hires most of them.”

After hailing the Jon Stewart jokes about how Murdoch couldn't take responsibility for the British phone-hacking scandal at one of his tabloids, Zakaria embraced the sentiment of Murodch's tweet, although he wanted to deny polls of Muslims supporting violence against infidels:

I do think it’s fair to say that Muslim moderates have a responsibility to reform the culture, because let’s be honest, this is coming out of a culture of too much acceptance of reactionary views toward women, towards non-believers, toward people who have less faith than they do. And that culture – you can talk about blasphemy, you can talk about apostasy – that has got to go, and only Muslims can do it, and moderate Muslims have to take the lead.