Another unintended consequence?

I mentioned in the post below, wondering whether National Review was crazy like a fox, in that the issue was giving their editors and content providers more airtime to espouse their thoughts on front-runner Donald Trump.

But something else may be springing up -- a closer look at the relationship between FOX news host/personalities and Trump. John Daly (no, not the golfer . . . at least I don't think so, lolz!) wrote a piece for BernardGoldberg.com wherein he speaks to points that Bernie himself had brought up previously, and I've been ranting about for a while. Which is to say that many of the hosts are so blatantly in the tank for Trump that they've lost their credibility.

The "Against Trump" issue presents essays from 22 top conservative commentators, including Glenn Beck, Thomas Sowell, Erick Erickson, Dana Loesch, Brent Bozell, and Cal Thomas. Each of them makes their case for why Donald Trump should not be the GOP nominee. Most of the essays are thoughtful and measured. Others take a sharper tone, but all should strike an objective reader as having legitimacy.

Regular columnists for National Review (including Jonah Goldberg, Charles Cooke, and Kevin Williamson), and several of those who participated in the issue, were active on Twitter at the time of the Thursday-night unveiling (and the hours that followed). They were clearly armed not only to promote the issue, but also take on the anticipated surge of Internet fury directed at them by die-hard Trump supporters who have demonstrated that they don’t take criticism of their guy lightly.

Again, Thursday night’s backlash was expected. What wasn’t expected (at least I didn’t see it coming) was the treatment that the mere concept of the issue received from many the next day on the Fox News channel, where conservative thought has long been granted not only a respectful platform, but has also contributed greatly to the network’s runaway success.

Daly went on to single out Jeanne Pirro, Harris Faulkner, Andrea Tantaros, Jesse Watters and others. Importantly to me, he also went after Eric Bolling and Sean Hannity, but inexplicably left out head cheerleader Greta van Susterin.

Watter's suggestion that principles in a candidate didn't matter, only the fact that Trump could draw 40,000 to a stadium event mattered drew this response from Daly:

Aside from the obvious point that the principles-don’t-matter attitude is precisely why National Review felt compelled to make its voice heard, it is a fallacy to suggest that Trump has demonstrated himself to be the most electable candidate in a general election match-up. National polls reveal a far different story, in fact. Beyond that, the notion that offering a conservative-based criticism of Trump is “putting pure conservatism over the country” is ridiculous on its face.

Daly goes on to point out the hypocrisy in folks like Bolling and Hannity claiming NR wants some sort of purity test for Trump, when that is exactly what Bolling and Hannity have been screaming about for the last 8 years as the party tried to purge tenured members of Congress over their lack of action on a variety of issues.

He also quotes Dana Loesch on the backlash she suffered from Trump's supporters on Twitter:

"Trump supporters have called me a whore, slut, told me I should die, said I had abortions, and attacked my marriage. I win the Internet!"

And no, Loesch was not exaggerating. I witnessed it. Others involved in the project dealt with anti-Semitic and homophobic insults.

I've read some of those comments as well. The anti-Semetic/homophobe insults were aimed at (at least) Charles C. Cooke, who did a marvelous job of deflecting everything, staying on point, and allowing those mouth breathers to expose themselves for the hateful, bumper sticker mentality fanatics they are.

Daly closes with the proper money quote on the whole thing:

What I find particularly striking is that I’ve heard very little criticism at all of the actual content of the essays. I’m not even convinced their most passionate critics have even read what’s in them. The uproar seems to be confined to the fact that the issue was published and could potentially (but not likely) do damage to the current GOP front-runner.

Make no mistake about it. There was a clear sense of betrayal that led to conservative thought being bastardized on Friday, on a supposedly conservative news network. I suspect that if the target of National Review’s criticism were a so-called establishment Republican, or really any Republican politician other than Donald Trump, we wouldn’t have seen nearly that level acrimony (if any at all).

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And speaking of staying on point, Charles C. Cooke dressed down the afore mentioned head cheerleader on Twitter as she jumped in to defend her girl-crush:

@greta  National Review says subliminally "we are irrelevant" - the polls show most Republicans want @realDonaldTrump

@charlescwcooke  @greta Are you under the impression that NR exists to parrot the transient folly of pluralities?

@greta  knowing Buckley's writings,I would think you would be more worried about a socialist / Sanders

@charlescwcooke  Because I’m able to hold more than one thought simultaneously, I can oppose both charlatans and socialists.

@charlescwcooke  Funny that nobody told me I had to blindly listen to the people when Barack Obama was re-elected with a second popular vote majority.

Accompanying this tweet with a graphic of a mesmerizing spiral, Cooke tweeted:
"We don’t think Trump should be the nominee."
"But he’s winning."
"That’s why we published."
"But he’s winning."

In response to a tweet showing Bernie Sanders leading Hillary Clinton in the polls, Cooke shot back:
@charlescwcooke  Sanders must be right. I support him fully now. To oppose him would be elitist and anti-the-People. #Sanders16

Pretty good stuff. I hope he keeps it up.