On Friday’s broadcast of Fox News Channel’s “The Five,” co-host Greg Gutfeld took on the recently controversial issue regarding Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s health in the wake of last September’s terrorist attack at the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, saying that the media has traded in skepticism over Clinton’s medical condition for “simpering fandom.”
“So Hillary Clinton’s back and ready to go,” Gutfeld said. “Good. I hope for her sake, her family’s sake, our government’s sake that she recovers fully — especially given the shroud of mystery over all things Benghazi because it’s really about that secrecy and the media contorting itself in every way to let it happen. So why is it shameful to wonder what’s wrong with the head of our State Department when she suddenly vanishes in the wake of her department’s biggest scandal? And why is everything related to Benghazi a soup of secrecy? And what about the journalists ginning up fake hatred or outrage toward skeptics? We could do the same to those who mocked our relentless coverage of Benghazi where four Americans died, or those who rift on Trig Palin’s origins. I mean, Andrew Sullivan condemning skeptics of a concussion? What a woodland ghoul.”
Gutfeld then compared questions being raised of Clinton’s health to way former Vice President Dick Cheney had been treated over his health problems, as well as the backlash any conservative media figure faces when they take on a liberal institution or figure.
“Thankfully, Hillary’s OK,” Gutfeld said. “But skepticism — that’s on life support. Yep, the media has traded it in for simpering fandom — so much so they think it’s offensive to question the odd-timing of an illness during a scandal that neither they or their idol Obama cared to discuss. If this were Cheney, the left would cackle. There’s always this fake shock about the right’s transgressions whenever we get close to something. Take the lefty outrage over [Andrew] Breitbart poking at ACORN or Anthony Weiner. That’s why they liked Hill being ill. The scalp of contrition is all they really wanted. So I ask you, do you want this all to go away? Just answer this: Who pushed the video? Then we’ll stop the shameless exercising of the First Amendment right to ask questions. Or maybe we should be sent to would be of the left’s re-education camps. I didn’t work the first time we went through college.”
To back up his charge, Gutfeld showed a video montage of media personalities finding humor in, or raising skepticism over, Cheney’s heart transplant back in the Spring 2011, including CBS’s “The Late Show” host David Letterman, MSNBC “Morning Joe” co-host Mika Brzezinski, NBC chief medical correspondent Dr. Nancy Snyderman and “Daily Show” host Jon Stewart.