It's bad enough that Fox News essentially imposed a blackout on Hurricane Sandy coverage once it became apparent that President Obama was receiving major kudos both in polling and from stalwart Republicans such as Chris Christie and Michael Bloomberg. Noting that all the other major networks devoted extraordinary coverage to the scope and effects of the disaster, Nick Penniman, among others, points out in Huffington Post that Fox News coverage imposed a news blackout in favor of their continuing, contrived, Benghazi garbage-fest:



Meanwhile, over on primetime Fox News, there was barely a mention of hurricane Sandy. It was a virtual editorial blackout. Not just last night, but Wednesday night, too. No mention of the president touring the ravaged regions of New Jersey and New York, and certainly not a peep about the praise Governor Chris Christie had for the president's team and its initial handling of disaster relief. It's as if Sean Hannity, Greta Van Susteren and Bill O'Reilly are living in a parallel world -- one that somehow wasn't hit by the worst natural disaster since Hurricane Katrina. Ironically, the news network's New York studios are a few blocks from the southern section of Manhattan that is still crippled.

There are three potential reasons: 1) They feel no obligation to do so because other networks are doing a good enough job. 2) They don't want to cover it because it would take away from their emphasis on Benghazi. 3) Covering it would in some way improve President Obama's chances of reelection on Tuesday. If not for the fact that people are dead, still trapped in their homes, scrambling to find lost loved ones, and struggling with the reality that entire towns have been scraped from the face of the earth, none of these reasons would seem that unusual for Fox.

"Good intention, raise some money for victims, but the timing is more than suspect," Bolling said. "Is this more political? Is this more, let's get this thing on TV before the election to help President Obama look more presidential? Or is it more to help out victims?" "It does look like they're trying to squeeze it in," said Doocy. He noted that during a Hurricane Katrina telethon in 2005, Kanye West famously said that President Bush "doesn't care about black people." "How's NBC going to control what people say?" Doocy asked.

NBC is doing a benefit concert for victims of Hurricane Sandy featuring some artists native to the areas hardest hit. Bruce Springsteen and Jon Bon Jovi of New Jersey and Billy Joel of Long Island are scheduled to appear at the concert Friday.

Bolling also offered the glaringly unique perspective that the telethon may be occurring to soon. He said that either a 9/11 or Katrina telethon -- he couldn't recall which -- was held ten days after the disaster. (The 9/11 telethon was held ten days later; the Katrina event came within a week of the storm hitting.)

Penniman rhetorically considers the possible rationale for Fox's disinterest in the Hurricane:But now that NBC has announced a special benefit concert for Hurricane relief featuring stars such as Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel, Kanye West and others, Fox News has suddenly re-discovered that yes, a Hurricane in fact did happen. And they worry that the planned concert will turn into an Obama election event. Fox Nitwit regular Steve Doocy and "guest host" Eric Bolling (a retired commodities trader and CNBC frontman whom Wikipedia delicately describes as a "television personality") expressed their deep misgivings yesterday:Doocy, evidently cast here as the "brainy" one, also wonders "where are the conservative performers?" Well, Steve, the cold truth is that NBC rightly determined that not too many people would tune in to see non-talent assholes like Hank Williams Jr. and Kid Rock, or washed-up has beens like Meat Loaf and Ted Nugent. There's a qualitative difference that may have escaped you between artists who support the Democratic Party and those who support Republicans. That's why they won't let your nominee play their music at his rallies. They don't want to be associated with him--or you, for that matter. But just for the record, one of the main reasons certain artists are performing is that they happen to be from the places where the Hurricane hit Fox's other "concern" is that the concert may be happening "too soon," even though they can't tell you exactly why:So there you have it, Americans of the mid-Atlantic and East Coast. Fox News doesn't know you exist, but if you do exist, it's too early to send you any relief.

Seriously, what a sad collection of Assclowns. You'd think they were losing an election.

Donations to the Red Cross for Hurricane Relief can be made here.