Jimmy Buffet held a free concert in Alabama last night for the victims of the BP oil eruption in the Gulf. This is what the clowns at Fox & Friends had to say:
News Hounds - Aunty Em
The Three Stooges on the Curvy Couch, also known as Fox & Friends, set out against a brand new target Friday (7/9/10), one I never thought I’d see attacked on a news show. It was a case of changes in latitude, no changes in attitude as the Couch Crew went after Jimmy Buffett for daring to say that the BP oil spill disaster was the fault of the Bush administration’s energy policies.
Gretchen Carlson: Okay. Jimmy Buffett. Here we have another celebrity—alright, he’s a great musician, right? Well, guess who he’s blaming for [starts chuckling like she can’t believe her ears] the oil spill now?
Steve Doocy: Who do anybody blame?
GC: Who’s the favorite target? I give you 3 seconds to give me a guess. [After zero seconds have passed.] Yep! George Bush.
SD: LeBron James? [Because Doocy’s silly guess covered over the answer, Carlson had to repeat herself.]
GC: George Bush. Here’s what—here’s what Jimmy Buffett said at a concert. “To me it was more about 8 years of bad policy, before [Obama] got there, that let this happen. It was Dracula running the blood bank in terms of oil and leases.”
So didn’t Hugo Chavez, or was it Ahmadinejad, who called Bush the Devil on the U.N. floor?
Brian Kilmeade: Uh, it was Hugo Chavez.
GC: Chavez. So now Jimmy Buffet’s—
BK: But Ahmadinejad would have seconded it—
GC: —calling him a Dracula.
BK: Yeah, but this has a lot of people in the area upset. And they’re—it looks like his sister could be paying the price. She’s got a restaurant in the area. People say, “Let’s boycott his sister.”
Hey, it’s great to have a concert for 35,000 people expecting to go and bring some money to the area. That’s fantastic. July 4th was bad because of the oil spill, but can you just keep your opinions to yourself?
SD: Sure. If they just want a little entertainment—take their minds off the fact that there’s so much trouble. And, given he has supported Obama in the past, but Margaritaville? To a lot of people it sounded like Koolaidville.
GC: [Meme complete, the topic changed dramatically, or what we used to call a “hard turn” in the tee vee news game] How about the [soccer predicting] octopus?
What’s wrong with all of this? Let me count the ways, which will take a lot more than the 1 minute and 15 seconds it took Carlson and Company to recite their talking points and trash Buffett:
1). Other people, perhaps even smarter than Jimmy Buffett, have blamed the greatest ecological disaster the world has ever seen on the Bush/Cheney/Halliburton oil policies.
2). If there’s one thing Jimmy Buffett is known for, aside from his music and string of popular restaurants, is that he cares deeply about ecology. His Save the Manatee Club, co-founded in 1981 with former-Florida governor Bob Graham, is now approaching its 30th anniversay. What have The Friends been doing for the environment the past 30 years?
3). Buffett is personally underwriting the cost of brand new boats to rescue the wildlife harmed by the oil spill. These are specially designed to have shallow bottoms to better get into the shallow marshlands.
4). Carlson and Co. surely know that making the comparison of Buffett to Hugo Chavez and Ahmadinejad, is a dog whistle to the Fox News audience.
5). After an exhaustive search I could find no other criticism of Buffett’s remarks anywhere on the net. No one but these three seem to be “upset.”
6). Nor could I find anyone suggesting “Let’s boycott his sister.” However, isn’t it cute how they slip in the little suggestion that people should start boycotting his sister’s restaurant?
7). Ted Nugent, the draft-dodger, who has been mentioned here at News Hounds 110 times for his overblown, over the top, rhetoric on FNC. Nugent has used his concerts to call Obama “a piece of shit” and suggested that the then-candidate should “suck on my machine gun.” Yet, we’ve never heard anyone at Fox say about Nugent, “But can you just keep your opinions to yourself?” In fact, just a week prior to this Buffett hit piece from The Curvy Couch, Nugent was welcomed on Hannity with, “How are you my brother? Good to see you!” Of course Nugent used his time wisely. He said Obama “is spitting on the U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the 10 Commandments, the golden rule.”
And, don’t even get me started on Janine Turner.
It would seem only those who agree with conservative memes are allowed their First Amendment Rights. Everybody else should sit down and shut up.
8). Fox News has never been known to keep its opinions to itself.
The supreme irony in all of this is the fact that Jimmy Buffett fans call themselves “Parrotheads.” Yet, the only ones who are parroting the company line are the The Three Stooges on the Curvy Couch.
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This is why the Dems are so screwed. The GOPers walk in lockstep (with an exception here or there) while the Dems have three factions, Blue Dogs, Progressives and Liberals. The GOP messaging is consistent. The Dems are all over the place!
