The movement to legitimize casual racism in the media continues unabated in the aftermath of the Don Imus episode. Naturally, Fox is leading the way. In the space of a few days, the following statements were made on the network:
1. Bill O'Reilly: "[The Immigration Bill] would lead to, in my calculation, 40 and 50 [million] foreign nationals being absorbed into the United States, in the next 12, 13 years. That would sink the Republican Party, I believe, because we'd have a one party system. And change, pardon the pun, the whole complexion of America..." (John McCain interview, May 31, Fox On-Line Transcript)
2. Bill O'Reilly: "...what The New York Times wants and the far-left want? They want to breakdown the white Christian male power structure of which you are a part, and so am I. And they want to bring in millions of foreign nationals to basically breakdown the structure that we have. In that regard, Pat Buchanan is right. So I say that you've got to cap it with a number." (John McCain interview, May 31, Fox On-Line transcript)
3. Brit Hume: "Fred Thompson was the chairman of the [Clinton finance] investigating committee, and it went absolutely nowhere. He was effectively buffaloed in that investigation by none other than John Glenn, who was a wonderful man, but not somebody you would normally think capable of being a real partisan spearchucker who could undo an investigation." (June 3, Fox News Sunday, Taped transcript on Media Matters, not available on Fox On-Line)
4. John Gibson: "The TB Man story has me completely mesmerized. I've been doing this for a few years. It seems every time a story pops up about somebody who has suddenly contracted some strange or incurable disease, it's somebody who is either from the third world, or was traveling through some godforsaken hellhole, and somehow managed to contract ooga booga fever. (The Big Story, June 1, Fox On-Line Transcript),
O'Reilly's concern in Item one, is that the Immigration Bill will hurt the Republican Party and change (no pun) the complexion of America. Senator McCain did not chose to question those priorities and the quote passed as just more conversation. But it is important to note that the top Cable News program is hosted by a man who proudly announces his concern for the "complexion" of the country as a priority in his thinking on immigration.
Item two gets to the heart of the matter, with O'Reilly's claim that the "New York Times and the far left" want to undo the "white Christian male power structure." Again, McCain lets this statement blow by. I can't see any other way of reading this quote but as an endorsement of maintaining that same power structure. The idea that power should be open to all in a democracy seems alien to him. It suggests that women, blacks, Latinos, Jews, Muslims and many others have no place in the power structure at all. If looked at with any care, it reveals itself to be a naked statement of a dangerous kind of political insecurity. O'Reilly here, and as usual, pictures his identity as a white, male, Christian, as under attack whenever someone "alien" achieves some small share of power. It seems OK for the "other" to participate around the edges of power, and to serve as foils for his nativism on his television show, but at the first sign that someone -- a gay, a black, a Latino, a Jew -- may actually be gaining some real power, the extra long fangs come out.
Finally, Brit Hume's throwaway use of the phrase "spearchucker," like O'Reilly's past use of the term "wetback," goes virtually unremarked, including by Juan Williams who is sitting there when it happens. I suppose the next thing we'll be hearing is that John Glenn was not only a spearchucker, but a cannibal who ate Fred Thompson for breakfast. In fact, John Gibson comes pretty close to just that in Item 4.
Of course, we can turn on talk radio every day of the week and hear much, much worse. But Fox, as the Cable News ratings leader, can push this kind of thinking and language further and further into the mainstream. And while it is only a small gesture, the more politicians -- including the candidates for President -- who refuse to legitimize Fox by appearing on the network and acting like it was a real news operation as opposed to the demagogues for intolerance that they really are -- the better.