I just spent an idyllic week in Aruba where I lounged on pristine beaches under palm-frond-lined tiki huts, sipped beverages with fresh cuts of tropical fruits attached, and floated blissfully in a calm, turquoise, watery heaven called the Caribbean while the balmy constant trade winds soothed my soul. I decided to leave my laptop home so that I was not compelled to continue my Facebook addiction, which is a very real problem for me. I spend an inordinate amount of time perusing my news feed, as I have “liked” so many sites , especially political ones, that it takes me hours to read through all of them. I make pithy and smart-aleky comments on my friends status’, write impassioned petition letters covering various causes via certain hippie, left-wing, radical sites (stop cow-tipping and save the endangered three-toed sloths are biggies), and watch adorable videos of hysterically laughing babies and parrots that sing heavy metal tunes. However, my daughter did bring her Mac, which I was “allowed” to use for a couple of minutes so that I could check my email. Here’s the exchange:
Me: “Honey, can I borrow your laptop for a few minutes to check my email?”
17 year-old daughter: {Heavy, long-winded, almost disgusted sigh}…” I guess…if you have to…” {inaudible murmuring and some gnashing of teeth}.
Ok, I lied. I wanted to look at my email but I couldn’t help myself. I quickly “checked” my Facebook page. I knew I would never have enough time to do a proper Facebook flyover, with my daughter visibly panting while tapping her slender fingers impatiently on the table. However, I had enough time to see one news story from a favorite site called “Republicans are evil” or some such thing, about Megyn Kelly, one of the 237 young, blond, attractive, slim, white women that FOX trots out throughout the day and night to “anchor” their “news” shows. What caught my eye were the words “Family Leave Act”. I figured if it involved FOX News and any social program enacted since the Roosevelt administration that it would be a story I needed to read. The Roger Ailes, right-wing propaganda, mis-information fear machine at FOX despises all government social programs. Their philosophy is kowtow to the rich and powerful and raise the middle-digit to the dregs of society, but don’t get me started.
In case you haven’t seen the whole story, I’ll try to be brief. Mike Gallagher, a conservative radio talk-show host who often appears on FOX bemoaned the fact that Kelly was taking three months maternity leave after the birth of her baby. Here is the exchange between himself and Chris Wallace, another FOX lackey:
WALLACE: I saw you earlier this week, you were on, I guess, Wednesday with Martha MacCallum in New York.
GALLAGHER: Yes. I was in New York the other day, thank you —
WALLACE: She’s an attractive woman, don’t you think?
GALLAGHER: She’s ni — and she does a good job. She really -when is – and Megyn’s on, still on maternity leave, right?
WALLACE: Yeah.
[CROSS-TALK]
WALLACE: What do you mean, you complaining she’s, she’s bonding with her baby.
GALLAGHER: What a racket that is. I mean, men don’t get to bond —
WALLACE: What a racket?
GALLAGHER: Well, how much time does she get off to have to —
WALLACE: Probably three months.
GALLAGHER: That’s unbelievable. Do you think you’d get three months off when – how much time did you get off when your kids were —
WALLACE: Let me tell you. When my children were born, one week was all I could stand. Then I wanted to come back, and that wasn’t even very happy about that —
GALLAGHER: Nice, that’s great.
WALLACE: And it was like, ‘Let’s go – let’s get out of here.’
GALLAGHER: Yeah, honey, I have to leave —
WALLACE: I’d go to the White House to hide from my children.
[LAUGHTER]
GALLAGHER: Alright.
WALLACE: It’s only the truth, and now about every man in the audience is sitting there saying, ‘Damn right.’
GALLAGHER: ‘He’s right, he’s right on the money’ and every woman hates you right now.
WALLACE: Well, that’s [inaudible].
Well, well, well. Looky there. Two conservative “newsmen” showing off their “family values” platforms. Let’s dissect. Gallagher thinks this idea of taking off for three months to care for your child is a “racket”. Wallace says he could stand about a week of hanging with his baby, but then he needed to bolt to the friendly confines of the newsroom to have some real fun covering war and pestilence before bearing the thought of changing one more dirty diaper. I guess the idea of a fetus is much tidier than the reality of actually caring for the child after birth. Ok, maybe that’s a bit harsh and cynical, but it is interesting that all of this family values talk that you hear out the right-wingers seems to end at birth. Gallagher hates the fact that government is actually mandating to businesses that they must protect the jobs of those covered under the Family and Medical Leave Act. Passed in 1993 under Bill Clinton, the FMLA allows certain employees up to 12 weeks unpaid leave to care for their children, sick family members, or even themselves if medically applicable. Megyn Kelly got her dander up over Gallagher’s comments and Gallagher retreated like a turtle head upon spotting a feared predator. What became apparent was that people who decry social programs the most when they help “others”, i.e., the poor, middle-class, elderly, disabled, minority, single women, students, etc., get all misty-eyed about them when they find one to their liking and their benefit. Gather ’round the boob tube folks, Megyn Kelly found a government program she really, really likes (I guess because she took advantage of it), and she is gonna take Mr. Conservative smarty-pants to the wood-shed on this one!
Here is the debate between the two. Notice how self-righteous and indignant Kelly gets when discussing the idea that the United States is downright backwards when compared with the rest of the civilized world when it comes to maternity leave. Notice how Gallagher squirms and tries to play off his remarks as if he wasn’t really serious about his hatred for this social program that promotes family health and well-being. Notice how Gallagher highlights his ignorance when he whines ‘how come men can’t get this cushy gig too?’ Notice how this fits neatly into the template of the right-wing spin machine which is completely biased against something of which it knows nothing about. Typical for FOX, and sorry to say, typical of a great segment of our populace. Don’t believe me? Try listening to call-in shows. The scarcity of facts and promotion of downright lies will make your ears bleed.
Isn’t it astonishing how fiscal and social conservatives spend their lives trying to denigrate and destroy government social programs that help the undesirables, while thinking up surreptitious ways to benefit by government programs and insisting that they are important only to promote business and a strong economy, yet completely cover-up the fact that its only use is to line their own pockets? Megyn Kelly has spent a lot of air time on FOX bashing government “tentacles” that invade our lives. Stand on your own two feet, man! Huzzah! Government intervention bad. Unrestrained capitalism good. Social programs evil. Corporate welfare virtuous. Healthcare for all is socialist. Subsidies for agribusiness and oil are somehow not.
I’m really trying to get the lay of the land here Megyn. Why exactly do you so passionately believe in the FMLA when you think the government gets involved in business and people’s lives way too much? Why do you mock the culture of the United States who, in your own words is, “living in the dark ages” compared to the rest of the world when it comes to paid maternity leave? Doesn’t that fall under the “tentacles” category, government intervention-wise speaking? What up dawg?
Obviously, Megyn Kelly is a hypocrite while Mike Gallagher is an unenlightened caveman. Sorry to break this to you Megyn, but you can’t have it both ways. You can’t front for an outfit like FOX whose goal is to elect every scary Republican they can find to office and fearmonger every social program or mandate that the democrats propose and yet become wholly indignant when another conservative hack attacks you for “using the system” to your advantage. I guess if someone else uses the system, they are a socialist, if you use it, it’s really cool. Promoting the general health and welfare of children, families, and society in general is anti-capitalist and anti-American and anti-Founding Fatherly when other people gain, but because you were able to bond with your baby and take some time to recover from the rigors of childbirth, that social government mandate is totally the right and decent thing. Ah-huh. Thank a democrat for that privilege, Megyn.
Blithering Idiot 
and how much do you want to bet that megyn and the other faux news bobbleheads are all union members? they hate unions, but little meggie would be the first to call her union rep if she had been denied maternity leave.