Fox ought to fire Bob Beckel today

By Bryan Fischer

Bob Beckel famously dropped the "F" bomb on live TV last night, on the Sean Hannity show, not realizing that the program had come back from a commercial break and was on the air. Hannity apologized on Beckel's behalf, but laughed it off, and Neal Boortz, the libertarian that he is, rushed to Beckel's defense.

Beckel was silent for the remainder of that segment, but his cycle of muteness started about 30 seconds too late.

He should be summarily fired by Fox, both as a contributor and from his role on "The Five" as a permanent member of their little chattering class.

The First Amendment, as crafted by the Founders, provides zero protection for Mr. Beckel. What the Founders were was political speech, not profanity.

They wanted to protect free and robust dialogue and debate about public policy matters, but it was never any part of their aim to protect profanity, obscenity or vulgarity, let alone pornography (taking your clothes off and having sex in front of a camera is not speech, it is behavior.)

So Beckel cannot run for shelter to the First Amendment, other than the one that has been mangled out of recognition by activist judges intent on imposing their view of morality on the rest of us.

Beckel should be fired just because he used the "F" word on live television. Fox needs no other justification.

But beyond that, Beckel also continued the liberals' war on women, since he was swearing at a woman. His language was unacceptably coarse, which even he immediately recognized, but inexcusably his crudity was directed at a woman. He should be fired for having bad manners, and providing a horrible role model of how men are to speak to women whether in private or in public, whether on air or off.

And perhaps the fact that Fox apparently allows men on their sets to speak to women in this utterly unacceptable fashion as long as the tender ears of the public are not inflamed may tell us something about the declining moral culture at Fox.

Plus, Beckel was just plain wrong on the issue about which he was so worked up. He claims that Head Start has been a roaring success but in fact it has been a miserable failure. Even government studies indicate that whatever academic benefits Head Start provides largely vanish by the end of the first grade and not a trace of their existence can be found by the end of the third grade. It has been a colossal, stupendous waste of taxpayer dollars.

So Bob Beckel was profane, verbally abusive to a woman on national TV, and spectacularly wrong on the issue he was talking about. In other words, he offered Fox absolutely no reason to keep paying this overfed blowhard. He should be summarily cashiered.

Beckel, in fact, ruefully admitted on air, "I'm going to be fired." It would be a shame to disappoint him.

Bob, perhaps you ought to head over to the Jon Stewart program. There, you can be as crude as you want in speaking to and about women and you don't have to be right about anything. You'll love it there, Bob. You'll be right at home.

(Unless otherwise noted, the opinions expressed are the author's and do not necessarily reflect the views of the American Family Association or American Family Radio.)

© Bryan Fischer