Category Archives: Republicans

The Cult Of Megyn Kelly Crumbling Thanks To Trump

Donald Trump, Media, Neoconservatism, Republicans

Just as I thought Donald J. Trump was done taking a wrecking ball to establishment politics, The Donald goes and bifurcates Fox News Channel. CNN’s Don Lemon was the only one among his dumb-as-doornail guests to notice that Trump was destabilization the media organ that shapes Republican politics. Hooray.

My WND column, tomorrow, deconstructing the “Me Myself And I Megyn Kelly Production” (a longer version will be at Unz Review, Thursday night), takes a similar tack to the one taken by Salon writer Sophia Tesfaye, focusing on megalomaniac Megyn Kelly and her enablers as culprits:

… “the network is split between Kelly’s allies like Brit Hume and conservative anchors that are furious that Kelly — who graces the cover of Vanity Fair this month — has become the face of the network.” According to Sherman, one of Kelly’s fellow anchors took her to task for hosting liberal filmmaker Michael Moore as Trump announced his boycott on Tuesday evening. “That would be like Rachel Maddow laughing along with Charles Koch as he trashed Hillary Clinton!” the anchor told Sherman.

MSNBC’s resident Republican Joe Scarborough echoed the unnamed Fox anchor’s disbelief. “Fox are really twisted up at about how this has gone down and how Megyn Kelly, has somehow, with Michael Moore, taken over the network,” Scarborough said on “Morning Joe” Wednesday, applauding Trump’s boycott.

“I would rather set myself on fire in front of the Fox News studio than go on a debate stage with that,” Scarborugh continued, blasting Kelly’s past debate moderation.

Sherman goes on to report that “one producer speculated that Fox could go ‘National Review’ on Trump and start attacking him,” and according to some early responses, Fox seems to be doing just that.

Fox News analyst and outspoken Trump critic Brit Hume immediately lashed out at Trump’s temper tantrum against the network …

On “Fox & Friends” Wednesday morning, co-host Brian Kilmeade pleaded with the Republican National Committee (RNC) to broker a peace deal to bring Trump back to the Fox debate stage:

“This thing could still be saved. Since — there’s a relationship with everybody. You could get somebody to step in or, get this, the RNC could actually do their job and make sure the people of Iowa get a full debate stage and jump in on both sides and get Donald Trump on that stage. It could still be done.”

But others in conservative media are not so quick to seek a resolution, instead applauding Trump’s diss of the media giant. Breitbart has devoted the majority of its coverage Wednesday morning to the feud, with a heavy tilt in favor of the Donald. …

Except that my upcoming column looks at the principles of journalism Kelly flouts.

Missing The Megyn Kelly Production Doesn’t Hurt Trump One Bit

Donald Trump, Journalism, Media, Republicans

I don’t believe the higher-ups at the Fox News Channel are so stupid as to put Megyn Kelly in the moderator’s chair, after the ego-activism and showy exhibitionism of her first prime-time Republican debate, in Cleveland, Ohio. I suspect, Fox’s golden goose must have henpecked the Bosses at FNC for a chance to have at it again. Kelly’s central focus is to be center-stage again. The woman is self-obsessed.


Nevertheless, it’s bloody stupid of FNC to put a snarky Millennial in charge of composing a press release in response—a release that cemented Donald Trump’s decision to do something more useful and foil the Megyn Kelly extravaganza.

“We learned from a secret back channel that the Ayatollah and Putin both intend to treat Donald Trump unfairly when they meet with him if he becomes president — a nefarious source tells us that Trump has his own secret plan to replace the Cabinet with his Twitter followers to see if he should even go to those meetings …”

Come again?

Either way, the left is going to love Kelly even more for supposedly intimidating Trump. For Kelly to love herself more than she does is impossible, so no change on that front.

STILL, TRUMP SHOULD MAKE IT CLEAR that it’s not Kelly’s turgid war-on-women, waste-of-time, sub-intelligent questions he fears. Rather, it’s the posturing and preening that goes with the Kelly Production that he would rather avoid.

Dim Dems Do A Town Hall ‘Debate’

Democrats, Elections, Hillary Clinton, Republicans

When Hillary Clinton strode onto the stage, I begged off tweeting the Democratic town-hall love fest, in Des Moines, Iowa, with CNN’s Chris Cuomo and an adulating audience. The woman is impossible to watch; ditto toady Cuomo. She may be perfectly nice in person, but Hillary is shrill and hostile in public. Every Republican aside John Kasich, who’s also an unpleasant so-and-so, is more people-oriented than Hillary.

Dumbness Might Explain National Review Mediocrities’ Missteps

Conservatism, Intelligence, Neoconservatism, Republicans

Question: Where is Chucky Krauthammer in the “Conservatives Against Trump” production? He is one self-important, neoconservative, who’s not mad about Trump. Why is Chucky nowhere to be found among the NRO Peanut Gallery standing “bravely” against the Republican base rising?

My working hypothesis: Chucky Krauthammer is smarter than the mediocrities on the “Conservatives against Trump” list.

It’s a super-duper dumb thing to come out as a collective against a candidate—Trump—who’s so wildly popular with the Republican base and beyond, and who could very well be the GOP’s nominee.

Dumbness—overall G-factor deficit—might explain the National Review mediocrities’ missteps.

Have you checked the names on the National Review list Against Trump? They’ve been anointed “prominent conservatives,” or “leading conservatives” in the Moron Media. But most are conservatives in name only—as Jack Kerwick has argued, with reference to the absence in their “work” of a hint of Edmund Burke, “the patron saint” of conservatism,” his “20th century’s American reincarnation, Russell Kirk,” or Michael Oakeshott.

And they constantly yack it up for a global, ideological American Manifest Destiny.

One might say these National Reviewnicks stand athwart historic, Old Right conservatism.

As to “thinkers. Kenneth Minogue was a “thinker.” Roger Scruton is a thinker. John O’Sullivan, boy, can he think (which is probably why he was nudged out as editor of NR, in favor of intellectual pygmy, Rich Lowery).

But these people?

Mona Charen (mediocre scribbler), Dana Loesch (gorgeous gun-toting broadcaster), Katey Pavlich (youthful nullity), Glenn Beck (irrational mystic), Michael Mukasey (government functionary/attorney and Jeb Bush cheer leader), on and on. (Thomas Sowell is an economist, that’s about it. He’s nothing like Murray Rothbard or other Austrian-school thinkers.) As for Rich Lowery; he needs your pity.