Donna Brazile, one of the preeminent political strategist in the Democratic Party and twice interim head of the DNC, is jumping on the Fox News ship, becoming a contributing writer for the right-wing cable news network. In an interview with Isaac Chotiner of The New Yorker, Brazile was asked how she could reconcile her strong progressive politics with working for a network that often functions like the propaganda wing of the Republican party and is sometimes openly racist.
Although Chotiner is a famously tough interviewer with a gift for tripping up his subjects, Brazile held her own in terms of staying on message. Yet, ultimately her message amounts to little more than whataboutism (noting, accurately, that other media outlets have problems) and offering the vain hope that she’ll be able to offer a corrective to the toxic content on Fox.
Here’s a key part of the conversation:
I just want to return to this: you have, over your career, talked a lot about bigotry. Are you concerned about the amount of bigotry and racism in our society, and do you have any concern about the network you are working for propagating those things on a nightly and daily basis?
I have a concern about society in general.
O.K., and?
And I hope whenever I see it, I am going to call it out.
You will be seeing it a lot now, so that will be good.
I hope you understand that you are having a conversation with me because I chose to call you back. I chose to get your digits, and I chose to call you. I understood that when I made this decision to call you that you probably wanted to get up in my crap about going on Fox. I made my position known. I wrote a column and I put out a statement. I knew people were going to call and say, “Don’t you know the house might stink up?” “Yeah, but is that the only house that is stinky?”
Matthew Gertz of Media Matters, a veteran Fox critic, offered some pointed comments:
It takes a special kind of arrogance to think you are such a powerful communicator that your guest spot on Sean Hannity's show is going to change viewer minds.
— Matthew Gertz (@MattGertz) March 20, 2019