L’Affare Megyn Kelly

By Nicholas Stix

According to Fox News, Megyn Kelly is Edward R. Murrow, Walter Cronkite, Betsy Ross and Clarence Darrow, rolled into one.

Yesterday, Fox issued the following declaration:

Donald Trump’s vitriolic attacks against Megyn Kelly and his extreme, sick obsession with her is beneath the dignity of a presidential candidate who wants to occupy the highest office in the land.

Megyn is an exemplary journalist and one of the leading anchors in America — we’re extremely proud of her phenomenal work and continue to fully support her throughout every day of Trump’s endless barrage of crude and sexist verbal assaults.

As the mother of three young children, with a successful law career and the second highest rated show in cable news, it’s especially deplorable for her to be repeatedly abused just for doing her job. [“Fox News responds to Trump's attacks on Megyn Kelly” [Original title in URL on Web page: “Fox News responds to Donald Trump’s extreme sick obsession with Megyn Kelly”], FoxNews.com, March 19, 2016.]

I don’t know if Megyn Kelly had a “successful law career,” and (at the moment) have no intention of delving into it. And unless she’s running for office, what does it have to do with the price of tea in China? As for her bona fides as a mother, I would think that that would be a private matter between her and her nannies. Note, however, that by bringing up all these seemingly private matters in its campaign literature, Fox News has made a public issue of Kelly’s private life. Unless she’s running for office, I can’t imagine why the media outlet would do that.

“An exemplary journalist”? Kelly is a popular TV personality, which is a different matter altogether. “One of the leading anchors in America”? Perhaps, but an anchorman is a news reader at best, and a political hitman, at worst. Megyn Kelly is a political hitman, which is why she’s become an issue in this campaign.

The Fox “news report” which contained the campaign press release continued,

“Trump and Kelly were reunited at the third Fox News debate, on March 3, where Trump struck a much more convivial tone. Kelly once again proved to be Trump’s toughest adversary, asking tough and well-researched questions that won her the praise of journalists and observers on both sides of the aisle.”

“Trump’s toughest adversary”? Megyn Kelly wasn’t supposed to Trump’s adversary. His adversaries were supposed to be people with names like Bush, Cruz, Rubio, Fiorina, et al. You know, his rivals for the Republican nomination for president. To borrow from a former Republican president, What are you running for, Ms. Kelly?

(If anything, it was Kelly, who "struck a much more convivial tone" at the March 3 debate, by not bear-baiting Trump.)

Let’s go back to the first debate, in August. Megyn Kelly hit Donald Trump with the following “question”:

Kelly: You've called women you don't like, “fat pigs,” “dogs,” “slobs,” and “disgusting animals…”

Trump: Only Rosie O'Donnell.

Kelly: No, it wasn't. For the record, it was well beyond Rosie O'Donnell. Your Twitter account has several disparaging comments about women's looks.

Kelly: You once told a contestant on “Celebrity Apprentice” it would be a pretty picture to see her on her knees. Does that sound to you like the temperament of a man we should elect as president?”

Trump: I don’t have time for political correctness, and to be honest you, this country doesn't have time, either. This country is in big trouble. We don't win anymore. We lose to China. We lose to Mexico, both in trade and at the border.

Trump: We lose to everybody. And frankly, what I say, and oftentimes it's fun, it's kidding, we have a good time. What I say, is what I say.

Trump: And honestly, Megyn, if you don't like it, I'm sorry. I've been very nice to you, although, I could maybe not be based on the way you've treated me — but I wouldn't do that.

Trump managed to turn a bushwhacking against him, into a victory for him!

He boycotted the next Fox GOP debate, in response to Kelly, but participated in another Fox debate, where there were no blow-ups between the two.

At the time, Kelly’s media colleagues at other outlets defended her as being “professional,” but more than that, they celebrated her in confronting Trump that way, as if she had somehow "won" the debate. But I don’t recall ever hearing or reading of her confronting “Barack Obama” by asking him whether being an over 20-year-long devotee of the genocidal ideology of Black Liberation Theology sounded “like the temperament of a man we should elect as president?” Or asking “Obama” whether being an ally of the Nation of Islam, which has slaughtered from 85-285 whites, and maimed and raped countless more, sounded “like the temperament of a man we should elect as president?”

Likewise, Kelly has never confronted Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders with their support of the black Nazi terrorists of Black Lives Matter, of the Racial Profiling Hoax, or confronted Clinton on her campaign promise to help women, which entails hurting men.

Kelly’s MSM colleagues have also refused to report on the backstory of her confrontation with Trump. Her boss, NewsCorp. Owner and Open Borders fanatic Rupert Murdoch, had ordered Fox News to destroy Trump’s candidacy. Murdoch apparently shelved said policy early this month, when he accepted that Trump could not be vanquished, and advised the Party to make peace with him.

As predicted, Trump reaching out to make peace with Republican "establishment". If he becomes inevitable party would be mad not to unify.

— Rupert Murdoch (@rupertmurdoch) March 2, 2016

Everybody should boycott the @megynkelly show. Never worth watching. Always a hit on Trump! She is sick, & the most overrated person on tv.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 18, 2016

The mystery is why Trump began waging war on Kelly again.

Kelly may have gotten under Trump’s skin, or Trump may be engaged in a proxy war with Murdoch, against whom he is still in a state of rage, over the media mogul’s earlier backstabbing. (Unless there is something else going on behind the scenes that better explains Trump’s weird behavior.)

Whatever is going on, Trump had better stop going after Kelly, because he is just making her look sympathetic, and making himself look just like the ogre she painted him to be, back in August. The best thing to do would be to completely ignore her. If he is responding to backstage maneuvers by Fox/Murdoch, he’d best say what’s going on. Otherwise, he may be handing the election to Kelly, er, Clinton.