Ripping members of the liberal media who’ve criticized press outlets for publishing photos of San Bernardino terrorist Tashfeen Malik wearing a hijab, Fox News host Megyn Kelly teamed with guest Howard Kurtz on Monday night to excoriate the “ludicrous” line of thinking by Melissa Harris-Perry and an Al Jazeera producer (among others) that even led Kelly to exclaim that “[n]o one gives a crap about that.”
Kelly prefaced the takedown by pointing out how some in the media “have decided to focus on defending the killers” only after they originally thought that the San Bernardino terror attack “was workplace violence” or “an assault on Planned Parenthood or the work of right-winged conservatives.”
The Kelly File host then explained their latest set of grievances regarding Malik:
Her family described her as a devout Muslim, you think? Who wore full covering over her face, so when the media started run thing picture of Tashfeen Malik with her face uncovered, a producer for Al Jazeera America criticized the choice, saying people were being disrespectful. He was forced to apologize, but over at MSNBC, Melissa Harris-Perry attacked The New York Times for using Tashfeen’s uncovered photo alongside images of the Koran, saying it amounted to an indictment of Muslim culture as a whole.
Following a clip of Harris-Perry from her MSNBC show on Saturday, Kelly sighed before turning to Kurtz, who shot back at Harris-Perry that Malik is indeed “what the face of terrorism looks like” especially considering the fact that:
This is a woman who abandoned her baby, slaughtered 14 innocent people and we’re supposed to worry about her delicate sensibilities? I mean, it is ludicrous and as far as picking the photos, it's not like the media had a wide choice of pictures here.
As for the transcretion of the Al Jazeera English producer, Kurtz commended him for apologizing but declared that it serves as “political correctness run amuck.” A visibly frustrated Kelly then unleashed:
He goes on to say, I didn't mean it was disrespectful to her. I meant it was disrespectful to her family. They haven't done anything. You know what? No one gives a crap about that. What they want to see is the face of the woman who killed 14 of our fellow citizens so we can figure out why she did it, who she was, and what role she played. And we have no obligation to be respectful to her or her family.
Putting these actions into a broader perspective, Kurtz ruled that “[i]t sounds like these people are just twisting themselves into pretzels where they can criticize the West, criticize the U.S. media and deflect attention from the very obvious fact that this is not — these are not two people who went off in a rage” seeing as how “[t]hey planned this” and “stockpiled pipe bombs.”
The transcript of the segment from FNC’s The Kelly File on December 7 can be found below.
FNC’s The Kelly File
December 7, 2015
9:25 p.m. Eastern[ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: Breaking Tonight; Critics Slam Media over San Bernardino]
MEGYN KELLY: Breaking tonight. In the initial 24 hours after the Christmas party massacre in San Bernardino, we saw some media outlets suggest it was workplace violence, it was an assault on Planned Parenthood or the work of right-winged conservatives. Now that we know it was terror, some outlets have decided to focus on defending the killers. First, there were complaints about the pictures being shown of Tashfeen Malik. Her family described her as a devout Muslim, you think? Who wore full covering over her face, so when the media started run thing picture of Tashfeen Malik with her face uncovered, a producer for Al Jazeera America criticized the choice, saying people were being disrespectful. He was forced to apologize, but over at MSNBC, Melissa Harris-Perry attacked The New York Times for using Tashfeen’s uncovered photo alongside images of the Koran, saying it amounted to an indictment of Muslim culture as a whole.
MELISSA HARRIS-PERRY [on MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry, 12/05/15]: Right next to it, in a hijab. The idea that this is what terrorism looks like.
KELLY [SIGHS]: Howard Kurtz is host of Fox News MediaBuzz, right here on FNC. This is what the face of terrorism looks like.
HOWARD KURTZ: Let me say this to Melissa Harris Perry. This is what the face of terrorism looks like. This is a woman who abandoned her baby, slaughtered 14 innocent people and we’re supposed to worry about her delicate sensibilities? I mean, it is ludicrous and as far as picking the photos, it's not like the media had a wide choice of pictures here. Oh, high school yearbook? Oh, here she is at the Dodgers game!
KELLY: Even if we have a wide array, nor should we stick to what the Al Jazeera America producer finds respectful when we’re showing a terrorist murderer.
KURTZ: It speaks volumes about Al Jazeera. I’m glad the guy apologized. This is political correctness run amuck. It is missing the story, which is mass murder by this woman and her husband in favor of arguing about, you know, the picture, which is just insane.
KELLY: He goes on to say, I didn't mean it was disrespectful to her. I meant it was disrespectful to her family. They haven't done anything. You know what? No one gives a crap about that. What they want to see is the face of the woman who killed 14 of our fellow citizens so we can figure out why she did it, who she was, and what role she played. And we have no obligation to be respectful to her or her family.
KURTZ: It sounds like these people are just twisting themselves into pretzels where they can criticize the West, criticize the U.S. media and deflect attention from the very obvious fact that this is not — these are not two people who went off in a rage. They planned this. They stockpiled pipe bombs. Come on. What are we talking about here?
KELLY: Then we have The Daily News’s Linda Stasi, who’s taking heat for appearing to draw some sort of moral equivalence between the killers and one of the victims, who she said one of the victims was just as bigoted as they were and 13 innocent people are dead, taking a shot at Nicholas Thalasinos, a radical born-again Christian Messianic Jew, who she calls a hate-filled bigot. Your thoughts on her?
KURTZ: Well, I understand that this employee posted some hateful stuff online, but the last time I checked, he didn't murder anybody. So I know columnists are looking for a fresh angle, but to draw some kind of an equation here where you have, on the one hand, people who very carefully plotted mass murder. On the other hand, guy who went on a Facebook rant. As offensive as it may have been, I think that's a really bad parallel to draw.
KELLY: But just as bigoted? I don’t know if you can draw that conclusion when one just wrote terrible things on the internet and one actually shot up 30 plus people.
KURTZ: Words versus actions.
KELLY: Howie, good to see you.
KURTZ: My pleasure.
