Isn’t It Against the Law to Call for the Assassination of a U.S. Senator and/or Presidential Candidate?

Absolutely hilarious: So, is FOX’s Liz Trotta cracking up?

“… and now we have what … uh … some are reading as a suggestion that somebody knock off Osama … um … uh … Obama …. Well, both, if we could (laughs).”

I expect anything from white people, particularly the ones I most suspect get some kind of ego boost, whether directly or indirectly, from racism.

So, I’m not outraged in the least by FOX News contributor Liz Trotta’s statement to co-host Eric Shawn, on Sunday, just before noon ET, that it would be good if “we” “knock off” both Osama bin Laden, alleged 9/11 mastermind, and Barack Obama, U.S. senator and candidate for President.

She was speaking about Hillary Clinton’s reference to Robert Kennedy’s assassination, last week, and the charge many made against Clinton that it was a veiled reference to Barack Obama. (That’s Trotta, former New York bureau chief of The Washington Times, above, laughing after she made her crack.)

I needn’t repeat Daily Kos‘s excellent coverage on this subject, including their affirmative answer to the question that forms my headline…though, on the other hand, a lot of DK-ers are saying that Trotta’s statement is not prosecutable.

I urge everyone to do all that they suggest, though: Sign the petition, call FOX, write letters, anything. Liz Trotta’s job needs to end today. Her desk should be emptied by the start of work, Tuesday morning. Columbia should rescind her degree.

These things should happen because she’s affirmed, by her comments, that, as a working professional, her output crouches far below grade. She doesn’t deserve to be a journalist. A free press is the only non-governmental institution enshrined within the Constitution. Jeffrey Feldman addressed this beautifully in The Huffington Post when he wrote,

What Americans want is a guarantee from the whole of the broadcast media industry that whenever we turn on our televisions and our radios we will never again be affronted with this brand of total, unadulterated disrespect in the form of a joke about assassinating our leaders.

And why do we demand this guarantee? It is not because we are sensitive. It is because the free press belongs to us–to the American people. It belongs to us and nobody has a right to debase it.

We do not care how many stations a single corporation owns, how many billions of dollars in revenue a media outlet produces–no corporation has the right to debase the free press in this country.

The reason for a free press–for our free press–is not to degrade our political institutions, undermine our elections, and threaten our politicians, but to strengthen and sustain our deliberative democracy.

Statements like the one Trotta made devalue all people, and further violate the democratic ideal. (What does democracy have to do with murdering people?) But even more, how did it become cute to joke about killing two little girls’ father, to toss off such a comment with a chuckle?

When I say I’m not outraged, what I mean is I experience no horror, shock, or offense. One feels those things when they have expectations. As for mine, see above.

I feel a little sad, mostly for Michelle Obama. One can tell she’s something of a fighter, but, even more, she’s a regular Black woman. She’s clearly very adoring and protective of her husband. I definitely get a sense of what she’d probably do to Trotta, this cheap woman, for threatening her babies, but can’t, because her husband is a Black male running a presidential campaign, and, even more, he’s doing it under the system of white supremacy.

After Trotta made her foul statement, read what this pundit had to say:

“Whether she meant it or not, she’s tone-deaf, because it’s a radioactive word, and the whole question of the first Black man becoming a candidate for presidency of the United States has all kinds of overtones, and all kinds of caveats that really have to be considered in this thing. And his security has been a real issue. He’s had bodyguards earlier than anybody else. Surely this woman had to know that was the third rail, to say “assassination.” And it’s hard to argue for her in this, because it isn’t the first time she’s made this step.

Now, guess who said this.

Take your time.

I’ll give you a hint:

Liz Trotta.

No lie. She wasn’t talking about Liz Trotta. She was talking about Clinton. Trotta said those words right after she said, “Now, we have what some are reading as a suggestion that somebody knock off Osama, uh, Obama. Well, both, if we could (laughs).” Here’s the whole 3:06 clip.

How could Trotta, with a straight face, say this about what Clinton might have meant, possibly, when Trotta’s very words fit her own utterances like skin?

What is going on here? Is Trotta crazy? Most of all, how long must we wait before she’s out of a job?

Ask her yourself. Here’s her home number: (212) 734-7543.

Tell her MEDIA ASSASSIN sent you.