Megyn, we hardly knew ye
Once a strong supporter of Israel, Megyn Kelly seems to have now cast her lot with the Carlson/Owens/Fuentes crowd on the topic, at least potentially. She apparently has done little looking into the issue previously, if you can believe what she says in this clip. I’m just a lowly blogger, but I can assure you I’m quite familiar with both sides of the story; why isn’t she?:
What have I thought of Kelly over they years? When she first started with Fox, she seemed like one of the smarter newspeople and was unafraid to ask pointed questions of her guests. When Trump started his first campaign, she seemed very anti-Trump in the debates, and although I wasn’t keen at all on Trump at the time I didn’t think much of her question (see this). Then lately she’s seemed to veer more to the right.
After she left Fox, I noticed (the few times I watched her show) that she started covering more tabloid-type issues, and suddenly there was a lot of cursing from her, a kind of “tough-girl” persona.
And now this.
AWFLs. *sigh* Worse than Durin’s bane. Can’t live with them, can’t kill them.
Why is “Men’s Health” magazine promoting Tucker Carlson? (This extensive interview and profile includes some wedged-in criticism, but it mostly seems designed to make him — and his line of gross but profitable chewing-tobacco products — sound cool. Frankly, it seems as if the writer loves the guy.)
https://www.menshealth.com/health/a69730859/tucker-carlson-nicotine-interview/
I have always had mixed feelings about Megyn Kelly. Haven’t watched her show; but thought from commentary that she was on the side of reason and common sense. Mildly disappointing if she is off the rails.
As to language. When I discern that anyone, but especially someone with a public microphone, is cursing for effect, I tune them out. Call me Sexist, but I find it much worse when a woman does it. Of course my attitude was developed from the teachings by my Mother and Grandmother as to what ‘ladylike’ behavior should be.
To continue. My wife likes Gutfeld. I don’t. I suspect that all of the bleeps are to create some sort of effect, but I can’t know for certain that they are not throwing around obscenities just to prove their sophistication. Either way, it is a put off.
Hasten to add, that after 25 years in the Navy I never have an attack of vapors over language, and confess that I have used a word or two out of frustration. But context does matter.
@TD:Why is “Men’s Health” magazine promoting Tucker Carlson?
Because there’s no longer any line between marketing and journalism. They make money by promoting products and passing it off as news or opinion. Been going on for a long time but since the web it’s been getting worse and worse.
She seems not to have a firm grasp on anything. Drifts around from “belief” to “belief”
Don’t watch her, not interested.
I believe she is a click-miner, pure opportunist, always eager for the most eyes. She changes her views on things on a regular basis and is not averse to being seen as a hypocrite. I don’t think she actually is one, incidentally. I don’t think her actual beliefs run deep enough to allow her to rise to being a hypocrite. She’s purely a media creature, one that uses journalism as a vehicle. I stopped paying attention to her when she reversed course on Donald Trump.
I would caution anybody from calling Megyn “one of them”. This implies (to me) either you march lockstep with “us” or you’re one of them. This can be seen as very demanding and that’s not a good look. All sides have their faults whether you want to believe it or not. Again, please be careful. I say this with the best of intentions.
I have watched Isarel and the Muslim world’s attempts to crush it from the beginning. Yeah, I’m that old.
I think it was a noble and right thing to create a place where Jews could feel safe and at home.
Here we are all these years later and too many Muslims still want to destroy Israel. If Islam could reform and get rid of the tenets of the Muslim Brotherhood, we could see peace. I’m not going to live to see that, but I hope it’s possible – eventually.
The people who have turned agaisnt Israel since Oct. 7th just aren’t looking at the history and how Israel has had to fight tooth and nail to continue to exist.
In rooting out Hamas from Gaza, they have had no good choices. It’s been a horror show, but Hamas has used it cleverly for propaganda purposes. CAIR’s influence in our country has also been amazingly effective.
The best antidote against anti-Israel opinion is the history. I’m flabbergasted that Kelly, Carlson, and Owens seem to have forgotten or want to turn a blind eye.
Not exactly on the main topic here:
But that look Tucker Carlson has in the thumbnail is why I have never liked him – it is a fake “Oh, my God, I am shocked look” which comes across as disingenuous to me.
It is along the same lines with the new Mayor of NYC, Mamdani, with that fake smile of his.
Both Carlson and Mamdani are acting in a sense and their acting tells me that I should not trust them.
Used to watch Kelly when she was with Fox. Not worth trying to track her down since she left, so I’m not entirely clued in.
Howsomever, seems to me that a switch like this–presuming it is a switch and not a matter of what she believed but couldn’t say on Fox–is either entirely commercial or maybe a cerebral trauma or something.
Noticed even more so since Oct 7 that those supporting the anti-Israel side say things which are more and more divorced from reality. They can’t be that dumb. “Open air concentration camp”. With hospitals, schools, billions in foreign aid, munitions factories and rocket-launching sites.
Further examples will no doubt occur to you.
They can’t be that stupid. That ill-informed. They know better. Maybe they hope the people they’re talking to can be convinced…. Or maybe it’s a thing they all say to each other as a kind of code…we’re all on the same side here….
So they are lying. They know they’re lying. But why? I don’t refer solely to the big types on the ‘net, but to the folks you hear going o about this every day. Why bother saying things that you know everybody else, too, knows are false?
One answer might be to get normal people to waste time trying to explain, to no end, the reality.
That clip started in such a repulsive, slanted way: “Megyn Kelly is looking up Candace Owens skirt” — that I thought it wise to look for more context.
Here’s Kelly and Charlie Kirk agreeing on what they see as a problem with “super pro-Israel” supporters a little over a month before Charlie Kirk was assassinated.
–Megyn Kelly, “Megyn Kelly and Charlie Kirk Push Back Against Israel Supporters Demanding Their 100% Israel Support”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2qn0mvSCig
huxley:
I watched quite a bit of the video you posted although not all. But Kelly has gone far away from what she (or Kirk, for that matter) expressed in that video – she’s more extreme now.
I see some of her positions in that video as somewhat of a strawman argument; for example, she gives as an example that there are pro-Israel people who criticize her for saying Israel is losing the propaganda war. But I would say that nearly 100% of pro-Israel people agree that Israel is losing the propaganda war. I have never seen anyone on the pro-Israel side say that one must agree 100% with everything Israel does. In fact, they very explicitly say the opposite of that. Of course, there are no doubt some people who criticized certain positions Kelly and/or Kirk took on Israel – an example she gives in the clip is criticism of emphasis on the Epstein case and the idea that Epstein was a Mossad agent. I, too, would criticize anyone who would harp on that, because the evidence for it is very very weak. Please see this.
Seems to me that it’s Kelly and Kirk in that video who consider that, because of their strong support of Israel (which Kirk kept to the day he died and which Kelly has seemingly abandoned or is in the process of abandoning at present), it is they who are immune from criticism by pro-Israel supporters. Kirk makes it clear it’s a minority who criticize him; so what’s the big deal?
Kirk also seems to be talking about a Twitter storm of criticism of him for something-or-other involving Israel. I’m not sure what it was; it was obviously something topical at the time. But what was really going on? Were these bona-fide Israel-supporters, bots, or groypers who hated Charlie and Israel and wanted him to turn against Israel? I haven’t a clue.
I did find this interesting article that characterizes as anti-Semitic some of the things he said about Jews. Certainly he was not above criticism.
Here’s an X thread that goes into some of the same points. Here’s a quote:
I think that’s correct. But if a person makes “some troubling comments that are consistent with statements antisemites regularly spread,” expect some accusations of antisemitism. It’s not so outrageous.
From what I’ve gathered, Charlie Kirk never wavered from his Israel support and in fact condemned conspiracy theories (for example, those who said the Liberty attack was intentional). He did complain about some donors requiring that he agree with this or that about Israel, but donors really do have the right to withdraw their money if they don’t think a person is advocating the views with which they agree. No one has a right to a donor’s money.
@neo:I have never seen anyone on the pro-Israel side say that one must agree 100% with everything Israel does. In fact, they very explicitly say the opposite of that.
But if a person makes “some troubling comments that are consistent with statements antisemites regularly spread,” expect some accusations of antisemitism. It’s not so outrageous.
True and negative comments about Israel will be spread by antisemites, as well as false and negative things. I do think that if someone were to say something true and negative about Israel that an antisemite might also say, then it IS outrageous to accuse them of antisemitism if that’s the only thing being used to justify the accusation. This DOES happen, and you can see it in blog comments all the time, even if a Jew or Israeli said it.
Never followed Charlie Kirk and don’t know what he’s supposed to have said, and don’t particularly care, but the principle is general. That an antisemite says the sun rises in the east over Israel doesn’t necessarily mean a different person who says that is also an antisemite.
In exactly the same way it is outrageous to call someone “racist” who merely says something true and negative about black people. Racists will say true and negative things about black people too in addition to the false things they say.
People who are pro-Israel are not all alike, and some of them do allow good faith criticism of Israel without accusing anyone of antisemitism, but many, many others are much quicker on the draw even if they give lip service to “criticizing Israel doesn’t make you an antisemite”. Even Jews and Israelis who criticize Israel will get called antisemitic. I don’t think this is an Israel thing so much as an online tribalism thing that we see as well in topics that don’t directly involve Israel.
An antisemite is not going to say one negative thing about Israel neither will he stick to things that are true. Determining if a critic of Israel is indeed antisemitic requires looking at many things they have done and said, and that’s more work than most people who sling accusations care to put in, but that’s not limited to Israel of course.