Obama-Baiting: Fox News' 5 Worst Slurs

Fox News has been accused of being a house organ of the Republican party, though that's not entirely accurate. It follows the mostly conservative "what can you do for ME" ideology of its owner, Rupert Murdoch, with a bit of the faux-populist anti-elite Nixonian media strategy of Roger Ailes, its initial guiding force. But lately, cracks and strains have become evident. The network doesn't particularly like John McCain, the Republican nominee. And Rupert Murdoch seems to have developed a little crush on Barack Obama, the Democrat. But the network's airheaded personalities just aren't comfortable embracing the black guy with the funny name. The cognitive dissonance leads, over and over again, to terribly offensive slurs followed by half-hearted apologies. Let us examine the worst of their crimes!

1. Baby Mama.

Obama-Baiting: Fox News' 5 Worst Slurs

Hateful fear-mongering neo-fascist moron Michelle Malkin-who we thought had given up on Fox after her beef with Geraldo?-popped up the other day to abuse Michelle Obama. The on-screen chyron, inexplicably, referred to the candidate's wife as "Obama's Baby Mama." Because he's black, and that is a term black people use, you see. Because they have so many children out of wedlock... unlike the Obamas.... Really, it makes absolutely no fucking sense. Whatever.

Result: A producer admitted to exercising poor judgment. See, he accidentally judged black black people to be irresponsible and all-the-same. Whoops!

Obama-Baiting: Fox News' 5 Worst Slurs

2. Madrassa!

So you know those racist crazy emails the relatives you don't like that much send you? Those emails ended up at Fox, and they did a whole news story on it! Fox reported that Barack Obama secretly attended a Muslim Madrassa, which is secret Islam-talk for "terrorist school for Islamo-fascist tots." In fact he went to a secular public school, but it was in Indonesia, where, as we all know, people speak funny crazy terrorist talk instead of Christian English.

Result: As seen in the clip above, CNN took Fox to task in a heartening segment correcting all the rumors. Steve Doocy, though, just acted like an ass when it came time to "apologize."

3. Assassinate Osama!

Former Washington Times editor Liz Trotta: ""And now we have what some are reading as a suggestion that somebody knock off Osama, uh Obama. Well, both, if we could." Ok, Liz! You fucking nutcase.

Result: She apologized. That was about it.

4. Lynching Party USA

Obama-Baiting: Fox News' 5 Worst Slurs

This one's actually a little tricky. Shouty mad-man Bill "FUCKING THING SUCKS" O'Reilly suggested to a caller that we (we?) should not organize a lynching party and go after Michelle Obama. It is actually on odd case, because Bill-who was astounded to learn recently that some black people use silverware just like grown-ups-used incredibly racially-charged language in what was actually an utterly uncharacteristic defense of Michelle Obama. But Jesus, Bill, "lynching party"? Maybe you shouldn't have done it live.

Result: The requisite apology, complete with the typical failure to take responsibility for his own goddamn words (he blames Clarence Thomas! So many high-tech lynchings, these days, what with the internet not having been taken back yet and all).

Obama-Baiting: Fox News' 5 Worst Slurs

5. Terrorist fist-jab. Interchangeable blonde hostess E.D. Hill (right) opened a segment on the meaning of the "body language" behind Barack Obama's affectionate fist-bump with his wife by calling it a "terrorist fist-bump," an insane characterization comparable only to the craziest of anonymous online commenter discourse.

Result: E.D. Hill gave a disingenuous half-apology. Then, oddly, her show was canceled. This particular slur, while idiotic and disgusting, was not much worse than the rest of the ones presented here. So... sea change on the way? We've been wrong before, of course.