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Trotta’s Comment Outrage: Stand Up And Be Heard
On Fox News this weekend contributor Liz Trotta openly and laughingly wished for the assassination of US Sen. Barack Obama. In discussing Hillary’s Friday remarks referencing the assassination of RFK in June Trotta says
And now we have what, uh, some are reading as a suggestion that somebody knock off Osama, um uh, Obama, well both if we could (laughs)
Where am I living? How is this in any way acceptable in our country? This is our mainstream media, albeit with a right-wing bias, and they are publicly musing about the murder of a high ranking member of the US Government and a presidential front runner. Exactly what empowers these people to assume that a statement like this in any way or under any circumstance appropriate?
I am outraged that anyone would assume they have a significant audience for airing this type of thought on television. I cannot even imagine hearing that in someone’s living room. This is way beyond unacceptable and it’s way beyond just complaining to Fox News. I strongly urge you to file a complaint with the FCC. You can go to the form for a general media complaint here. It is a brief form and will only take a minute or two to fill out. We have to speak out and let it be known that as a people we have standards and we will not stand for this type of callous and sinister message to be perpetuated over our media channels. Also please make a complaint to Fox News here there is an email feature there and also a text box to enter news tips, their phone number is 1-888-369-4762.
Enough with this already. It’s time for us to stand up and be heard.














Comments (17)
Ms. Trotta is also an author.
After today, I suspect she is not going to like many of the comments associated with her books at sites like Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com, etc.
May 26, 2008 4:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
Can't she simply have all the commenters killed?
May 26, 2008 5:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
If it was all only that simple. If only she were so simple. That it's not - that she's not - is why I'm sure she's well aware of how fatally she has slipped up now.
http://www.nypress.com/18/32/news&columns/DavidFreeland.cfm
What I find intriguing are the similarities between her first big assignment going undercover at the Parisian Danceland for Newsday and her last big assignment at FOX: i.e., putting up with "whisky breath, smutty jokes, forced smiles, [and] cheap hair tonic" ...
She knows what it is to work "undercover" ... She's smart enough to know that she's now totally blown the cover she needed to continue her latest assignment.
That the Internets are now going to make her departure all the more imminent and imperative casts a sad light on her exchange with Quentin Hardy on O'Reilly:
HARDY: Are you telling me you want to shut down the Internet and keep people from finding out information?
TROTTA: No, I want to keep it responsible and safe for democracy instead of a garbage can for people's ridiculous fantasies.
We keep lids on our garbage cans for the same reason FOX entrusts its employees to keep the stench under the surface. Once it gets out, somebody's gonna get dumped.
May 26, 2008 6:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
Done. I complained to the FCC. Thanks Bademus!
May 26, 2008 7:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
Ditto. Thank you for the link Bademus.
May 26, 2008 9:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
Will this be the new Swift Boat campaign of 2008?
The "What if Obama gets Knocked Off? Wouldn't that be Grand" theme?
May 26, 2008 9:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
Complain to the FCC--and then turn off FoxNews. Every time you watch and are outraged, Rupert profits. Eyeballs are eyeballs--that's all he wants.
I haven't had a TV since January and I'm still up to date on the latest on-screen gaffes.
May 26, 2008 1:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
I haven't watched Faux News since 2000. I never will. I gladly filled out the form.
May 26, 2008 1:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Note that this isn't a big story, though Hillary's questionable reason for saying something vague, is.
May 26, 2008 2:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
There is also a petition at http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/fox-news-has-to-sack-liz-trotta to have Trotta taken off the air.
May 26, 2008 2:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Done- thanks for the links.
May 26, 2008 5:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
And one more link, this is to the Secret Service office of Government and Public Affairs. I also filled out a comment saying I thought Liz Trotta should be questioned and the incident should be investigated to determine whether any criminal negligence took place. Seriously, if I said the word bomb in the airport I would be questioned. We should hold our media to even higher standards because of the large audience they have and their ability to influence them.
http://www.secretservice.gov/contact_usss.shtml
May 26, 2008 5:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
I've compiled a list of links here:
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/2008/05/liz-trotta-how-to-break-the-bl.php
Don't forget to recommend if you think the list is worth reaching more people.
May 26, 2008 6:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
SIGN THIS PETITION PLEASE:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/fox-news-has-to-sack-liz-trotta
May 26, 2008 6:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
This cannot be limited to Liz.
FOX is responsible for the content of its show. The producer of that segement must be fired. FOX alowed that comment to go out on the "airways".
May 26, 2008 9:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
This was the kind of stuff you'd hear on extreme rightwing shortwave radio stations in the early '90s, right before the Oklahoma City bombing, except they'd be talking about Bill Clinton.
May 26, 2008 10:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Shouldn't we be complaining about Hillary and her surrogates this weekend trying to justify her insane comments?
I get your drift about the evil Trotta though-thanks for the link.
Here's interesting stuff from HuffPost:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-bromwich/assassination-chatter-and_b_103619.html
"...We have seen a return this year to the politics of delegitimation by the extreme Republican right. Yet what has been most surprising is the complicity, and then the open participation in that process by the Clinton campaign. Race was always going to be an element in this year's election. But the comparison of the front runner Barack Obama to the marginal candidate Jesse Jackson on the pretext that both had won South Carolina was a shocker when people heard it come out of the mouth of Bill Clinton. Again, the talk, by Hillary Clinton and her operatives after Ohio, of "the commander in chief test" which (it was said) she and John McCain had "passed" but Obama mysteriously could not pass, was a second stroke of the same kind. There was no scientific or political content to the statement. Its significance was gestural. It was an effort to delegitimate Obama, and its truth could only be shown by its success or failure.
Hillary Clinton's recent careless-careful mention of the assassination of Robert Kennedy, in answer to a question about why she would stay in the Democratic race when all the numbers are against her, raised the tactics of delegitimation to a pitch as weird as anything the Clintons can have seen in the years 1997-98.
The most disturbing element of her remark was this: that it chose to treat assassination as just one more political possibility, one of the things that happen in our politics, like hecklers, lobbyists, and forced resignations. The slovenly morale and callousness of such a released fantasy is catching. So when, a few days later, the Fox News contributor Liz Trotta was asked her opinion of Senator Clinton's statement, Trotta said: "some are reading [it] as a suggestion that somebody knock off Osama...Obama. Well...both if we could!" Liz Trotta laughed as she said that. Later, she apologized, as Senator Clinton also has apologized..."
May 27, 2008 4:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
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