Fox News’ “The Five” co-host Greg Gutfeld on Monday evening could not help but crack a birther joke about Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), who just announced his run for president in 2016.
“Aren’t we tired of having a president who wasn’t born here?” Gutfeld asked, referencing Cruz’s Canadian birthplace and those that believe President Obama was born in Kenya.
“I mean, Cruz was born in Canada. He renounced citizenship in 2013,” Gutfeld continued. “You know he lost the Canada vote in this election. They’re not going to come out and vote for him.”
After working in his joke, Gutfeld circled back to discuss whether Cruz really wants to be president.
“The only person who didn’t know Ted Cruz was running was Ted Cruz. We’ve known about this. He has been running for years. The problem I have is, is he running for himself or is he running for the country?” Gutfeld asked. “Republicans have had their fill of attention-seeking vessels who are looking for a talk show or looking for something else. The problem with the Republican candidates is that we want vision, and they want television.”
Co-host Kimberly Guilfoyle jumped in to ask Gutfeld if he thinks Cruz wants a “contributorship.”
“I think that’s the case,” Gutfeld responded.
¨The problem I have is, is he running for himself or is he running for the country?" Gutfeld asked. "Republicans have had their fill of attention-seeking vessels who are looking for a talk show or looking for something else. The problem with the Republican candidates is that we want vision, and they want television.¨
Umm, Gary, have you checked out the Republican field recently? As they say, ¨looking for a talk show¨ is a feature, not a bug, there.
Allow me to put the Fox folks on the couch for a moment:
The easier comment here is that this is a veiled jab at Sarah Palin and, perhaps, Mike Huckabee. But these folks don’t see in the remark “The problem with the Republican candidates is that we want vision, and they want television”–which really is a nice line–that Fox has more than a little to do with the creation of that dilemma. The medium is indeed the message, as we’ve known now in American politics ever since we saw Nixon’s 5-o’clock-shadow in 1960, but Fox’s particular approach to the medium actively discourages discussions of vision that extend beyond that which can be covered in five-minute segments consisting of people yelling ad hominems at straw men.
But Cruz has (persuaded himself that he has) a vision, and his actions over the past two years in the Senate show clearly that he doesn’t care how those actions play among his colleagues as he acts in accordance with that vision. He’s no Sarah Palin, which means that we can’t just laugh at him.
Joke or not, I’m genuinely surprised the Cruz Birther stuff is bubbling up on Fox News. I thought for sure they kept that in reserve just for candidates of color.
How long will it be until these very people are angrily discussing how “The Left” is guilty of “birtherism”? (With a “no candidate in the history of the republic has ever been subjected to such abuse” thrown in for good measure?)
That is the purpose of this particular propaganda gambit.