Fox "jokes" about murdering Senator Obama

Many liberals and progressives have long regarded Fox News as a "blast from either the McCarthyite (at best) or Hitlerite (at worst) past, but the "joke" by a Fox News commentator that Senator Obama (whose name she scrambled with Osama) should be "knocked off" (she then smiled that both of them should be) is a lot closer to Adolf than to Joe. Or, if it doesn't offend Fox white supremacy mentality, the Japanese militarists who in the 1930s when Japan still had elections and a civilian government, assassinated officials whose policies they didn't like.

Is this statement racist? Sure. Is it an appeal or at the very best a smug wink at terrorism directed against a U.S. Senator and Democratic presidential nominee? Sure. If a private citizen made such a statment in a letter or before the Democratic convention would he or she not be arrested? Of course. If the commentator had said "Murdoch, McCain" instead of "Osama Obama" would she now be fired and also unemployable in the media that the rightwing calls "liberal?"

You bet.

I doubt that the commentator will be arrested under the Patriot Act and put into preventive detention at Guantanamo (I would not support that although if the shoe were on the other foot I am sure Fox would). I doubt there will be an FCC investigation, given the composition of the FCC. I also doubt that the INS will launch a deportation case against Murdoch for using his media empire to foment terrorism (the present government in Australia anyway would not be to his liking). But what the Democatic Party and all progressive and anti-racist groups should do is call upon advertisers to end their advertising on Fox and call for a boycott of the products of those who don't. That Murdoch would understand.