March 26, 2018: Fox News Outraged by Body-Shaming of President Trump

 

3/26/18: Monday, the latest issue of The New Yorker arrives in the mail. If you haven’t heard the hullabaloo over the cover, conservatives are furious over the “body-shaming” of the president. There is outrage at Fox News over the “repulsive” depiction of poor Mr. Trump. 

First, we should note that Fox, in a story highlighting negative “reader reaction” to the cover, seemed to cite “reader” reaction from people who never actually read the magazine. “Shame on you for doing this to anybody, not just the president,” says one reader. Fair enough. A second “reader” proclaims, “Your readers are snobs.” Apparently, he or she is tired of being a snob him- or herself. Bonus points for being self-aware? Another “reader” insists the magazine is “turning into the Mad Magazine” of “urban elitists.” A fourth goes off the deep end, citing the cover as sad evidence of “liberal deep state minds at work, only hurting the future of our country, it [sic] citizens and their own families! What goes around comes around.” 

What goes around comes around? Does that mean the artist who did the cover is going to end up bloated and repugnant?

 

Suddenly, we of a liberal bent were supposed to feel shame because we had attacked a leader incapable of shame. This is the man who insults others on a daily, even hourly, basis. We were supposed to feel sorry for Trump, who said a woman who accused him of sexual assault wasn’t pretty enough to warrant attack. We were supposed to forget he said he couldn’t imagine voting for Carly Fiorina, because, “look at that face.” We should feel bad about body-shaming the man who labeled a Miss Universe winner who gained “a massive amount of weight,” at least in his gimlet eyes, “Miss Piggy.” 

Please.

 

Fox hosts like Bill O’Reilly claimed racism was no longer an issue in America. But they never balked when one conservative called Mrs. Obama “an ape in heels” and a second said he hoped she’d go back to Africa where she belonged and “live in a cave” and maybe have sex with gorillas. 

Nor is the right concerned when Alex Jones says he’d enjoy killing a few liberals.

 

No one at Fox News expressed shock when Ted Nugent said Mr. Obama should suck on his machine gun or took umbrage when Trump invited Nugent to the White House soon after taking office. 

A “nasty” magazine cover, however? 

Cue the faux outrage.