During a segment on Monday night’s broadcast of The Kelly File, Fox News strategic analyst Ralph Peters spent three-plus minutes tearing into President Obama while simultaneously praising Russian President Vladimir Putin. Peters was on to ostensibly talk about the shooting down of Malaysian Flight MH17 and what actions the United States and President Obama should make in the coming days. While Peters did make some hardline neocon recommendations, his real purpose in this interview seemed to be to personally insult POTUS while lauding Putin. He claimed that Putin has shown himself to be a “real leader” who, unlike Obama, “believes in his country.”
Below is video of the segment, courtesy of Media Matters:
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This is apparently what passes as legitimate political discourse on Fox News. The amount of venom directed at President Obama was not only uncalled for, it was nonsensical. Peters took numerous personal potshots at Obama, calling him a “deer in the headlights of history,” a “frightened man” and “scared of Vladimir Putin.” Meanwhile, Peters framed Putin as a smart and confident leader who has a sense of patriotism and belief in his own country that is sorely lacking with President Obama. You would think after watching this segment that the MH17 tragedy was a positive for Russia and Putin based on how Peters discussed the whole thing.
Host Megyn Kelly didn’t exactly stop Peters from his unhinged tirade. In fact, she exacerbated it by pointing out that Obama has already proven himself ineffectual on the world stage by setting a “redline” with Syria that he didn’t follow through on, thus “losing him credibility with most pundits.” First off, I’m sure that Kelly was only talking about most pundits at Fox News. Second, who cares what most pundits thought at the time? Finally, President Obama only backed away from the redline warning with Syria due to intense public opinion in America in regards to military action in Syria. Due to overwhelming negative reaction from the American public, Congress was not willing to give Obama authority to strike Syria. In the end, a diplomatic solution was found, negating the need for military action.
Of course, none of this matters at Fox. If you have an opportunity to roundly criticize the President of the United States, you take it. Therefore, Kelly made sure to throw some more fuel on the fire. This only assisted Peters with his crazed anti-Obama rant. Peters channeled Sen. John McCain and Sen. Lindsey Graham when it came to what he wants to see from Obama regarding Russia. Basically, Peters wants the United States to strategically position troops in Poland, provide lots of weapons to Ukrainian troops and use stronger language towards Putin. In other words, we need to set ourselves up for a dangerous game of chicken while simultaneously making the situation in Ukraine more violent.
Only on Fox News would someone like Peters be treated as a serious voice. Since Obama was first elected in ’08, Peters has been loud and obsessive critic of the President. His criticism of Obama and his administration is usually tinged with personal insults and unfounded statements. At the same time, Peters has been one of Putin’s biggest fanboys. In 2011, he wrote an op-ed for the Washington Post titled ‘The Genius of Vladimir Putin.’ (Subtle, real subtle.) This past March, Peters said that Russia ”has a real leader, while our President is incapable and unwilling to lead.” He also stated at that time that the biggest difference between Obama and Putin is that Putin “believes in his country,” which is the same crap he spewed on Monday.
Over at Fox News, they will embrace a thuggish, dictatorial egomaniac responsible for 300 civilian deaths in order to prove their hatred of President Obama.
Justin Baragona is the Managing Editor at Politicus Sports as well as Senior Editor at PoliticusUSA. He was a political writer for 411Mania.com before joining PoliticusUSA. Politically, Justin considers himself a liberal but also a realist and pragmatist. Currently, Justin lives in St. Louis, MO and is married. Besides writing, he also runs his own business after spending a number of years in the corporate world. You can follow Justin on Twitter either with his personal handle (@justinbaragona) or the Sports site’s (@PoliticusSports).
