The division over talk show host Chris Wallace between the powers that be at Fox News and the people who watch the network is deepening. Much to the dismay of conservatives who watch Fox, network executives keep trotting Wallace out there for political analysis, tone-deaf to an audience more than a little fatigued of listening to him spew Democratic talking points.
On the first day of Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination hearings, Wallace bled blue live on Fox News – railing at every member of the network’s commentary panel. His display was so astonishing it caught the attention of Daily Beast, which wrote an article practically lauding the Fox host’s performance.
Never one for original thinking, the “newsman” parroted the argument made by Democrats ad nauseam that President Barack Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland was never brought before the Senate Judiciary Committee. When it was constitutional scholar Jonathan Turley’s turn to speak, the Fox TV showman could not abide the academic’s response and interrupted with “if I may, if I may.” Then when Turley tried to continue his point, Wallace had the temerity to shout him down with “if I may just finish.”
Unable to rein in his inner Democratic voice, Wallace then went on to hammer Fox News anchor Shannon Bream, who opined that the spectacle of bringing up the Affordable Care Act at the Barrett hearings was a “reach.” Wallace vociferously disagreed with Bream, adding that the Barrett nomination hearings are “an exercise in pure political power.”
Fox contributor and former congressman Trey Gowdy was next on Wallace’s hit list:
“Congressman Gowdy suggested, ‘How did we get from almost unanimous votes for Ruth Bader Ginsburg and a unanimous vote for Antonin Scalia to the hyper-partisan situation we’re in now?’ There is not one step. You have to look back at 2016 when Antonin Scalia died suddenly and with, I think, 269 days to go, President Obama named Merrick Garland as his nominee to the court.”
Suggesting that Republicans were the ones who polarized and politicized the hearings was too much for Gowdy to take. So, he presented the anchorman-turned-Democratic operative with the following facts:
“I would like to make one point. I pointed out that Scalia had zero ‘No’ votes and Amy Coney Barrett will get zero ‘Yes’ votes from Democrats. And Mr. Wallace said what happened was Merrick Garland. That can’t possibly be what happened because Samuel Alito got 40 ‘No’ Democrat votes a decade before there was somebody named Merrick Garland!”
To this, Wallace had no response. Facts can be troubling when they get in the way of a good political narrative. Once again, Wallace has put on another breathtaking display of smarmy behavior that revealed his not-so-closely-held left-leaning views.
It was nothing short of shameful for someone often referred to as a “newsman”; he is either blue through and through or auditioning for a nice juicy paycheck from NBC News. There Wallace can experience the comfortable environs of a leftist echo chamber where he might fit in perfectly. Fox viewers can only hope he jumps ship and does not talk to Megyn Kelly to see how the move to NBC worked out for her.
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Read more from Leesa K. Donner.
