Appearing as a guest on Monday's PoliticsNation, MSNBC contributor and Lehigh University Professor Barry Peterson asserted that Fox News has been part of making "political discourse" become "more toxic." Needless to say, Peterson did not note that his own MSNBC network has been highly "toxic" in political attacks on conservatives.
Host Al Sharpton alluded to a tweet from Hillary Clinton making a crack about not having to personally be receiving "attention" from Fox News during the interview between President Barack Obama and FNC's Bill O'Reilly. Sharpton:
Now, let me brave something else here, James. You know, a tweet from Hillary Clinton got a lot of attention last night. The tweet said, and I'm quoting, "It's so much more fun to watch Fox when it's someone else being blitzed and sacked. #SuperBowl."
Now Hillary Clinton did do an interview with Bill O'Reilly in the 2008 campaign. Has the network gotten more partisan since then? Is that what her tweet indicates?
Peterson began:
Well, Fox has been fairly partisan all along. I think that our political discourse has gotten a little more toxic, and Fox sort of has been a part of that process. And so I think she's kind of commenting on that.
He continued:
Also, I think that there are other questions here. I mean, you know, she's also arguing that the President is tackling and getting physically involved as well. So his pushback is important.
And some of his strategies like not taking the bait on the question that Bill O'Reilly asked from the viewer from the letter about transforming the country. He did something smart in the interview, pushed back a little bit. But I think for Secretary Clinton, it's good for her to not be on the hot seat in terms of some of these fake scandals with respect to the Republican Party.
--Brad Wilmouth is a news analyst at the Media Research Center. Click here to follow Brad Wilmouth on Twitter.
