“If we’re not safe in our own churches, then where are we safe?” Pop quiz: Was the preceding sentence uttered by, a. One of the grieving congregants at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina? Or b. Elizabeth Hasselbeck of Fox and Friends, making the Charleston shooting into “an attack on faith” rather than a hate crime against a black church?


Congratulations! You have correctly guessed Elizabeth Hasselbeck. You are awarded nothing, and as a terrible anti-bonus, here’s her co-host Steve Doocy:

[E]xtraordinarily, they called it a hate crime, and some look at it as well, because it was a white guy, apparently, and a black church, but you made a great point just a moment ago about the hostility toward Christians — and it was a church — so maybe that’s what they’re talking about. They haven’t explained it to us.


Yes. Apparently a white guy.

Fox has grown incrementally smarter over the years about having stuff like this come out of the mouths of African Americans too, and so they also brought on Bishop E.W. Jackson, black Republican and frequent Fox guest, who observed, “There does seem to be a rising hostility against Christians in this country because of our Biblical views.”

Here’s the video, captured by Media Matters and which we saw via Wonkette:


This is increasingly taking shape as the Right-Wing Charleston Talking Point; appearing on The View later in the morning, Senator Lindsey Graham observed, “There are real people who are organized out there to kill people in religion and based on race, this guy’s just whacked out. But it’s 2015. There are people out there looking for Christians to kill them.”

As always, though — does Fox create the terrible talking points, or do they merely search #tcot and go with whatever they find?




What a great time to stop paying attention to the television for the remainder of the day/week/until the end of time.

Correction: An earlier version of this post incorrectly identified Fox and Friends’ resident blonde lady as Gretchen Carlson. That was the other one. This one is Elizabeth Hasselbeck. Oops.


Contact the author at anna.merlan@jezebel.com .

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