March 24, 2015 7:15 AM

Better to be thought a miserable human being than to be Andrea Tantaros

THE WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD

(apologies to Keith Olbermann)

Andrea Tantaros

Fox News host Andrea Tantaros joined her fellow panelists on the show “Outnumbered” on Thursday in bashing President Obama’s suggestion that mandatory voting could change the nation…. “Do we really want everybody voting?” Tantaros said during a discussion of the issue. “I don’t think so!…. “The “Outnumbered” crew was up in arms after Obama told a Cleveland audience that “it would be transformative if everybody voted.”

It would be tempting to consider Andrea Tantaros to be stupid…which would be way wrong. An attorney, she’s smart enough to easily distinguish truth from fiction and cheap, inflammatory rhetoric. She simply chooses not to distinguish them, because she gets paid to spew Right-wing propaganda. She plays the role of intolerant trust fund baby with alacrity…almost too convincingly.

The idea that any American would believe that not everyone should vote is disturbing. Then again, while there may be an argument to be made for mandatory voting, the fact that The Black Man in the White House © mentioned it is enough to set Tantaros’ hair on fire. As with most talking heads, if the President endorsed oxygen, Tantaros would attempt to suffocate herself…which really doesn’t sound like such an awful idea when I think about it.

I’d certainly agree that there are people out there too stupid to vote…and most of them get their news from Fox News Channel…but to actually advocate for preventing people from voting should be anathema, especially to those who value freedom and liberty. Like the talking heads at Fox News, f’rinstance. Then again, when you believe that only those who vote “correctly” (i.e.- for Conservative candidates) should be allowed to exercise their franchise, you no longer believe in democracy

For someone so ostensibly intelligent and accomplished, Tantaros certainly has a penchant for making truly absurd, brain-dead arguments. Advocating for preventing some Americans from voting is one thing, but it gets even sillier:

Fox News host Andrea Tantaros and Rep. Sean Duffy (R-WI) asserted on Monday that liberals were using snow days as a plot to remove religious holidays from schools.

Over the weekend, Boston’s Fox affiliate reported that the town of Easton, which is near Boston, was forced to push the end of the school year to June 29 due to an unusual amount of snow this winter. As contingency plan for next year, the school committee decided to eliminate two Jewish holidays and one Christian holiday instead of extending the school year…. “This is what happens when liberal academic Boston meets ethnic Boston…. Take away from president’s day or go a little earlier in the summer or even a Saturday,” she advised. “There’s other options but they don’t want those options. They would rather take away the religious holidays.”

When you can argue with a straight face that snow days are a Liberal plot to take away religious holidays…how can you really expect to be taken seriously?

The lengths that Fox News goes to in order to manufacture outrage are as prodigious as they are just plain silly. It’s also an indication of just how little the nation’s #1 cable news channel cares about news. It’s tough to practice objective journalism when your prime directive revolves around pushing a Far Right-wing agenda. Though millions of Americans take virtually everything they hear on Fox News as Gospel, Tantaros and her colleagues are consistently and distressingly dishonest. They’ve succeeded in helping to create the current “us vs. them” ideological divide that currently exists in this country, making it virtually impossible to have a rational bipartisan conversation.

I find it rather sad that Tantaros, who’s no idiot, makes her living acting like one. Then again, when you’re paid handsomely and your employer expect you to push an extreme Right-wing agenda, it’s no mystery what you’re going to be doing, right?

Greetings from our new idiocracy.

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This page contains a single entry by Jack Cluth published on March 24, 2015 7:15 AM.

Memo to Republicans: "Disaster" doesn't mean what you think it means was the previous entry in this blog.

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