My Wednesday column begins like so:
Fox News Channel amplified its crusade against the president yesterday, implying that the same administration that killed Bin Laden and much of al-Qaida’s leadership, and the same administration that boasts a considerable record of killing terrorist operatives with targeted attacks using an escalating number of drone strikes is composed of terrorist sympathizers who are only concerned with enabling and sympathizing with the “jihadis.”
The network’s mission on this front is to engage in a Southern Strategy-style campaign to exploit conspiracy theories around president’s name and background in order to confirm the paranoia of Fox News’ viewers who believe the president is connected to al-Qaida and the Muslim Brotherhood while spearheading the effort to usurp the Constitution with Sharia law. Actually, the Fox News approach is more or less the “lite” version of unmitigated cage-crapping on the extreme right: Alex Jones and his cult recently accused the president of being the official leader of al-Qaida.
In its most recent manic episode, however, Fox News suggested that the president and his attorney general, Eric Holder, care more about preemptively thwarting hate crimes against Muslims than condemning perpetrators of the Boston Marathon bombing. [continue reading here]