May 22, 2018

MY CORNER by Boyd Cathey

What is Going on at Fox News? Or, Ideas Have Consequences

Friends,

Since I began this series in April 2017 one of the major goals of MY CORNER has been to examine the major fissures and increasingly divisive—perhaps dysfunctional is a better word—character of what is termed “the conservative movement.” In particular, I have been at pains to describe and analyze both the history of the “movement” and how, intellectually, over the past half century it has gone from being a vehicle for opposition to the rampant, constantly-advancing progressivism and cultural Marxism which inundates and is transforming our society, to, in far too many cases, become a compliant handmaid, intent on justifying (if at times begrudgingly) each progressivist success, each Leftist legislative and judicial conquest, that somehow what was anathema and contrary to the longstanding and traditional beliefs of our Western Christian culture yesterday, is now today acceptable, even admirable.

The two major templates in this continuing criticism in MY CORNER have been “race” and “gender,” and the indisputable fact that the dominant voices in what passes for conservatism today are the Neoconservatives. Like their first cousins over on the “farther Left,” the Neocons bought into an ideological fixation on race and gender as the historical and cultural determinants for nearly everything in American life. Although their professed focus is to see those templates as steadily “getting better” because of the fulfilling of “the original egalitarian promise of America,” which they erroneously assert is found in the Declaration of Independence and in the unfolding “progress” of American democracy, and because of the labors of such newly-minted “conservatives” as Martin Luther King and the epigones of the “civil rights” and early feminist movements, their origin on the Marxist Left and the continued influence of its principles binds them inextricably to results that at best defeat their often stated opposition to the radical left and at worst, lead them into accepting and rationalizing its latest victories.

In numerous columns I have detailed their ideological ancestry over on the Trotskyite Marxist left and their torturous history culminating in their virtual take-over of the entire “conservative movement,” its journals and magazines [e.g., National Review, Modern Age, etc.], its think tanks and foundations [e.g., Heritage Foundation, Intercollegiate Studies Institute, Young America Foundation, etc.], and its nearly unchallenged capacity to formulate policy for Republican Party leaders and candidates.

In specific essays I have examined more closely specific prominent Neocon pundits, political figures, and authors, including: National Review senior columnist and Fox News pundit Jonah Goldberg [see MY CORNER, April 26, 2018:  http://boydcatheyreviewofbooks.blogspot.com/2018/04/april-26-2018-my-corner-by-boydcathey.html], the garrulous Ben Shapiro [see MY CORNER,, September 27, 2017: http://boydcatheyreviewofbooks.blogspot.com/2017/09/september-27-2017-my-corner-by-boyd.html], the inane Glenn Beck [see MY CORNER,  February 9, 2018: http://boydcatheyreviewofbooks.blogspot.com/2018/02/february-9-2019-my-corner-coming.html], former Waffle House waitress-turned-UN-ambassador Nikki Haley [see MY CORNER,  January 5, 2018: http://boydcatheyreviewofbooks.blogspot.com/2018/01/january-5-2018-my-corner-bannon.html], historian and virulent South-hater Victor Davis Hanson [see MY CORNER, October 19, 2017: https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/blog/demonizing-the-south-to-purify-the-nation/], former John McCain foreign policy adviser Max Boot [see MY CORNER, June 2, 2017], and National Review luminaries Kevin Williamson and David French [see MY CORNER, June 7, 2017].

Additionally, I have written in some detail about how the venerable quarterly, Modern Age, once the apex of conservative intellectual thought, founded by the late Dr. Russell Kirk, has succumbed to the same trends philosophically, publishing the most puerile left-leaning (and NeverTrumper) gruel, disguised as “conservative thought.” [see “Freedom of Speech, the Conservative Movement, and ISI: A Response to Christopher Long,” March 22, 2015: https://www.unz.com/article/freedom-of-speech-the-brain-robbery-of-conservativism-and-isi/]; and MY CORNER, June 28, 2017 and July 23, 2018].

And Fox News has not escaped this criticism either, with repeated examples cited of how its defense, so-called, of “conservative principles” has often subtly, sometimes not so subtly, integrated those essentially leftwing templates into what ostensibly is presented as conservative opposition to the ongoing culturally Marxist revolution.

Most recently, just a couple of days ago [see MY CORNER, May 20,2018: http://boydcatheyreviewofbooks.blogspot.com/2018/05/may-20-2018-my-corner-by-boydcathey.html] in commenting on the royal wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, I wrote about the gushing, over-the-top and unrestrained enthusiasm of Fox commentators Shepard Smith and Ainsley Earhardt for American Episcopal bishop and social gospel Leftist Michael Curry. And on Monday [May 21] night’s Fox All-Stars host Bret Baier continued the narrative with more admiring and glowing praise for that Leftist churchman who epitomizes the near utter decay and conversion of the American Episcopal Church into little more than a cultural Leftist pressure group.

And that brings me to the latest news about Fox and its corporate direction. I will pass on the entire, but brief news account. Like all such accounts it remains to be seen what will happen as a result of the administrative shake-up at the top of the Fox News organization; but the signs do not augur well. 

Again, the rule is ironclad, if you begin your intellectual odyssey accepting progressivist and Leftist principles, it is extremely difficult, if not impossible to “get outside” or beyond them. The signs demand close watching:

Report: Fox News Installs Meditation Room with Muslim Prayer Rugs

http://www.breitbart.com/big-journalism/2018/05/18/report-fox-news-installs-meditation-room-with-muslim-prayer-rugs/

18 May 2018

With Suzanne Scott as the new CEO of Fox News, comes a meditation room complete with Muslim prayer rugs, reports the far-left  Vanity Fair.

“Fox News recently installed a “meditation room” complete with Muslim prayer rugs in Ollie North’s office, Vanity Fair says. On top of that, “Staffers now attend mandatory sexual harassment training, and the employee intranet includes a section for gender-transition policies and guidelines.”

“People are terrified. They kicked Ollie North out and put in a prayer room. We’ve got a new trans[gender]policy. You’re not allowed to be ‘trans’phobic,” one source told Vanity Fair, although North left to join the NRA as its president.

In what might be related news, Sean Hannity, who is not only the biggest star at Fox but in all of cable news, is reportedly being heavily courted by Sinclair News. Sinclair owns some 200 television stations and is looking to launch a satellite channel that will compete with Fox News, which will become a lot easier if Fox sells out to the establishment and becomes as politically correct as a meditation room with prayer rugs.

Hannity has been a powerhouse at Fox for 22-years and is currently the most plugged-in, informed, accurate, and cutting edge journalist on television. On top of having the ear of President Trump, Hannity’s endless supply of sources have allowed him to accurately report (oftentimes first) on the numerous scandals exploding out of the FBI and other Deep State institutions, especially with respect to the unethical and possibly criminal behavior of those behind the Russian collusion hoax.

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Of course, in prime time there is still Tucker Carlson, really almost the only Fox pundit willing to go outside the “Neocon box,” whether on Syria and our nation’s woefully stupid intervention against President Bashar al-Assad, or on Russia and its supposed influence on the 2016 election, or on a host of other issues. But, then, his ratings are quite high…and the almighty dollar and viewership still count for something.

Yet, Carlson did call Nikki Haley a liberal recently—he got that right.  I can just imagine that there are those at Fox who are not happy with his looming presence at 8 p.m. every week night.