She (Migraine) is an ignoramus.
Posted on 08/07/2015 2:37:45 PM PDT by onyx
Having spent the past six weeks rhetorically slashing at his Republican rivals, it makes perfect sense that Donald Trump would eventually run out of targets and find himself in a war with the party’s media arm: Fox News. At the GOP primary debate Thursday night in Cleveland, Trump’s onstage clashes with the Fox moderators, and his postdebate complaints about the network’s treatment of him, were among the most talked-about story lines to emerge from the Quicken Loans Arena. What makes the confrontation all the more dramatic was that Fox News chairman Roger Ailes has, until this point, been a booster of the Trump candidacy, even to the chagrin of his boss, Rupert Murdoch. Whether Murdoch succeeded in turning Ailes against Trump, or not, the two-hour debate leaves little doubt that the relationship between the improbable front-runner and Fox has been upended.
It was a breakup days in the making. Over the past week, Ailes and his executives had been strategizing about how to deal with Trump. The prospect that the Donald could hijack the debate presented programming and political perils for both Ailes and his star anchors. What if Trump started insulting his GOP rivals onstage? Or broke the debate rules? During a meeting at Fox late last week, according to a source, senior Fox executives discussed a more worrisome scenario: What would happen if Trump won over the audience and moved the crowd to boo moderators Bret Baier, Megyn Kelly, and Chris Wallace on live television? What if Trump was able to direct his base of supporters to stop watching Fox? To prevent that from happening, Ailes needed a way to keep the audience firmly on the side of his moderators.
This political calculus might help explain why Baier opened the debate by asking all of the candidates to raise their hands if there was a chance they would not support the eventual Republican nominee or run as a third-party spoiler. After a beat, Trump’s hand was the only one to go up. The packed crowd inside the Quicken Loans Arena instantly started booing him. Baier then tightened the noose by laying out all the implications for the audience.
“Mr. Trump, to be clear, you’re standing on a Republican primary debate stage,” Baier said.
“I fully understand,” Trump replied.
“The place where the RNC will give the nominee the nod.”
“I fully understand.”
“And that experts say an independent run would almost certainly hand the race over to Democrats and likely another Clinton. You can’t say tonight that you can make that pledge?”
“If I’m the nominee, I will pledge I will not run as an independent. But — and I am discussing it with everybody, but I’m, you know, talking about a lot of leverage.”
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The audience howled and hissed. Trump glared back like he was negotiating a thorny contract dispute. Whether Ailes scripted this or not, it was a triumph. While Trump may see politics as a negotiation, Ailes surely knew that the thousands of Republicans packed into the stands do not. So far, Trump has succeeded by presenting himself as the anti-politician who would save the country. Tonight, he looked like a spoiler. It could be that the visual of Trump being denounced onstage will prove to be every bit as devastating as Rick Perry’s “oops” or Mitt Romney “self-deportation” gaffes from the 2012 primaries.
It continued downhill from there. A short while later, Kelly asked Trump about his history of calling women he didn’t like “fat pigs, dogs, slobs, and disgusting animals.” Baier came back at him about his onetime support for a single-payer “Canadian” health-care system. Chris Wallace invoked his multiple bankruptcies. “Why should we trust you to run the nation’s business?” Wallace asked. Trump did his best to parry the questions and fought admirably. But to Ailes’s loyal audience, the message stood out as clearly as Trump’s hair: Fox was through with Trump.
And Trump, for his part, seemed to be through with Fox. “I thought the questions were not nice,” he told a crush of reporters after the debate. “I don’t think they were appropriate, and I think Megyn behaved badly.”
It’s not like the aggressive Fox questioning should have been a surprise. In the days leading up to the debate, Trump’s advisers expected Fox to be tough, especially Kelly, whom Trump has tangled with in the past. Earlier this week I reported that Trump’s friend Rudy Giuliani reached out to Ailes to ask that Kelly be fair to Trump. (Giuliani denied this.) In a phone call with a friend the other day, Trump grumbled about Fox's on-air treatment of him. But even Trump’s campaign was taken aback by the intensity of the debate questions. Campaign lawyer Michael Cohen tweeted that it was a “total setup” designed to “lower #Trump2016 high poll numbers.” Another Trump adviser told me that the debate was “vicious” and a “hit job.”
It’s unclear what, ultimately, convinced Ailes to let his moderators go after Trump. He may have wanted to shoot first to prevent Trump from damaging Fox in a live situation, as they say in the business. Perhaps Murdoch got to Ailes. Or, perhaps, Ailes just wanted good television. (Fox did not respond to a request for comment.)
For Trump, whether this is a flesh wound or something deeper is also unclear. He’s surged to the top of the polls by winning every fight he’s picked so far. But for Trump's troubled campaign, Ailes could prove to be a tougher opponent than any he’s faced. After all, no other candidate controls the television network that reaches the biggest block of primary voters. Those are the kind of poll numbers that are tough to beat.
Bottle blonde.
If women could smarten up and fly right, I would welcome their vote. But they won’t, will they? So until then, ban them from voting. Of course, I also wish the moon was made of cheese which shows you how influential I am.
Believe it or not, it was Jimmy Kimmel on The Man Show
...although I still preferred him on Win Ben Stein's Money.
Oh, no! How pathetic. Truly. I just read somewhere that 11th graders were given 3 Little Pigs to read. We are in serious trouble, my friend.
Women are too easily cajoled into voting for vajayjay tingles, or for emotional issues, or for other people’s money.
At the VERY least go either to a flat tax, or a spending-based tax with NO loopholes, and an $5,000 or $10,000 exemption for food.
You are in fact incorrect: the country was originally set up so that only property owners could vote; to avoid the whole (often attributed to deTocqueville among others) "largesse from the public Treasury" thing.
She (Migraine) is an ignoramus.
The big lie (well, ok, there are too many to count, but this is *one* of them) that feminists told women was that men went to work all day for the sheer joy of it.
Now, instead of joyfully being a helpmeet to her husband and getting to first-hand direct the lives of her children, she is a wage slave in a cubicle and farms out her children to minimum-wage strangers and, later, Communist educrats who typically score the lowest on SAT scores of any profession.
He damn sure does not own much, then.
A wise decision.
A good decision.
You are giving out the Betty Friedan history of work! Yeah, my father walked the floors at night over his job because he really loved, loved, loved it! He died before his wife because he was so pleased with his job that he, literally, died from happiness. My mother, meanwhile, lived into her 90s on his social security benefits, complaining that he didn’t make more money to sustain her in the comfort to which she was entitled. She gave up work in 1940.
The lies that have accompanied the “Women’s Movement” may have been the single most destructive factor in society in the 20th century, a century of destruction, as we near the end.
But Christians and Christian families can counter that and live happy and healthy lives as God intended.
Last night Megan gave new meaning to the term “Lame Duck!”
You’ve basically become a cartoon here.
Trump’s numbers are excellent, and you’re the only one seemingly gnashing your teeth.
Yesterday Trump was bigger than life, and today he’s even bigger.
Everyone is pissed at Fox and Megan in particular.
Your narrative is pure fabrication.
Kelly is unfortunately becoming Bill O’Reilly clone in regards to asking honest questions and cutting off guest speakers.
She is getting “too cutesy”. I liked the original Kelly a lot more. Hard-hitting inquiries and comments.
Now she is one of the “guys” and losing her “edge”. Prime-time TV really does corrupt.
Lisa Weil and Kimberly Guilfoyle are much more honest and direct in their comments and assessments.
FOX NEWS AND FACEBOOK PARTNER TO HOST FIRST REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARY DEBATE OF 2016 ELECTION
...”Megyn went directly to Cruz with that unspeakably rude “has God contacted you” question”....
What kind of debate questions was that?...clearly it wasn’t. This wasn’t a debate and I wish they’d stop calling them debates....these are “shows” using our ‘Presidential’ candidates as “Props”.
This was not even entertainment....it was nasty and rude and out right disgusting....I say again...these Are “Presidential” Candidates. What utter disrespect does not say enough.
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