Megyn Kelly
Megyn Marie Kelly (born November 18, 1970) is a reporterette for Fox News who became notorious during the 2016 U.S. Presidential campaign when her style of "reporting" clashed with Donald Trump's style of campaigning by insulting women.
Early life[edit]
Ms. Kelly was born in Syracuse, New York. She is of Italian descent on her mother's side and Irish descent on her father's, and thus with natural double-genes for street-fighting without even waiting to be insulted. "Megyn" is a common Welsh given name, with a women's-lib spelling to suggest gynecology. The accent is on the Me. Her father died when she was 15, but she was never charged with a crime.
Career[edit]
It will not surprise the reader that Ms. Kelly is a lawyer. She received her J.D. from Albany Law School in 1995 and worked as an associate in the Chicago law firm Bicker & Brawler.
In 2003, Ms. Kelly abruptly left the bar and switched careers to journalism, switching cities to Washington, D.C. She was hired by a local television station, and oddly never had to "earn her stripes" by interviewing gunshot victims while waiting for the paramedics, standing in blizzards and reporting that it is snowing, and doing sappy man-on-the-street interviews. Instead, she went straight to covering U.S. Senate confirmation hearings for Supreme Court justices, but only because Womyn are denied their fair share of careers in business.
Ms. Kelly went to Fox News in 2004. CNN president Jonathan Klein would regret not hiring her while she was cheap, before concluding that it was just as well never to risk polluting CNN's orthodoxy with new blood from outside. Ms. Kelly did stints on Bill O'Reilly and Special Report with Brit Hume, and going on to host her own two-hour program, America Lively. But she gained a name for herself in 2012 when, in the face of Karl Rove's preposterous prediction that Mitt Romney was going to defeat Barack Obama's re-election, she asked Rove: "With all due respect, you're lying, aren't you?"
This placed Ms. Kelly in the forefront of the profession of "journalists" who, by asking questions that no viewer really wants the answer to, traps one politician after another in an embarrassing contradiction and reduces them to stuttering lumps of goo. Ms. Kelly hopes someday to be the "reporter" whose probing questions induce a candidate to leave politics entirely and thus change American history. Yes!
In December 2013, Ms. Kelly attracted controversy by commenting on an article in Slate. "For all you kids at home, everyone knows Santa Claus is white. We are only talking about a Black Santa because some goof-ball wrote an article." Ms. Kelly briefly became the butt of jokes from respected journalist Stephen Colbert and Washington funny gal Rachel Maddow. But she "walked back" her remarks within days, conceding that Santa Claus can be black if Jesse Jackson wants him to be, and was accepted back into the herd.
Encounter with Trump[edit]
Ms. Kelly's most notorious dust-up occurred in the debates leading to the 2016 Presidential election. The Republican Party had been chastened in 2012 by having "moderator" Candy Crowley declare that President Obama was right and challenger Mitt Romney was wrong about the Benghazi thing. Romney's retort — "Okay. Whatever." — began his campaign's downward spiral. But the one constant in U.S. politics is that the Republican Party never learns any lesson, and it was eager to have the debates in its next primary campaign moderated again by an adversarial left-wing ex-lawyer intent on shaming everyone else on stage.
True to form, Ms. Kelly began the August 6, 2015 debate by reminding Donald Trump that he had referred to women as "fat pigs," "dogs," and "disgusting animals." She asked him, "With all due respect, Sir, aren't you too much of a churl to be President?" Trump twisted his way out of that one. ("I love women. Women are swell. You wouldn't believe how much I love women. Vote for me and you'll see how much. It's sad that you think I don't. Just sad.") After the debate, off-camera, and certain that no one would ever know what she said, Ms. Kelly referred to Trump as "Voldemort," surely the impetus when John Boehner would later refer to Ted Cruz as "Lucifer."
For his part, Trump remarked to the media that Ms. Kelly must have been "on the rag" for that debate, giving a graphic and gory description of blood gushing out her "whatever" which was surely the key to his victory in New York and Pennsylvania, where they like that sort of talk. Trump also remarked that Ms. Kelly was "third-rate," "washed up," and "no one watches her." Nielsen was not available for comment. But the Washington press corps closed ranks, Bill Maher stating that "I think Kelly should be the candidate and Trump should be setting out the hors d'oeuvres in the Green Room or maybe washing dishes afterward," this last an obvious dig at Trump's germophobia. Ms. Kelly said she would not "apologize for doing good journalism" [sic]. She said American viewers do not want journalists to ask questions that the viewer cannot, so much as to dish abuse toward celebrities that the viewer cannot.
Trump boycotted the next debate that Ms. Kelly "moderated," hosting a benefit for veterans across town that, oddly, did not benefit veterans but did benefit Trump. Fox News went to a split-screen format to cover both events. Ms. Kelly had it out with the network bosses, as a woman of her stature clearly deserved more than 50% of the pixels. The network mollified her by promising her a handsome Christmas bonus and extra kittens that she would be able to eat live.
Rematch with Trump[edit]
In April 2016, the large Trump was being felt across the nation, and Kelly requested a face-to-face meeting to "clear the air." With the Fox News cameras rolling for a special edition of Megyn Kelly Pretends, Trump conceded that his rudeness — which he can drop like an alcoholic's Martini whenever the campaign requires it — was merely the obvious survival reaction to a predator's attack. He apologized for calling this predator a "bimbo," though she has gotten much worse.
This softened Kelly, and after some initial probing (Are you a bad role model for the children? Is there any personal shame you want to share with me? Any felonies, anything that would spell the end of your campaign?), Kelly turned pussycat, shifting to a style the coastal newspapers would call fawning, except that they were all busy calling Fox News a bunch of haters.
After the show, Trump conceded that it will all be a waste of time unless he wins the Presidency — and he is such a shrewd businessman that he never wastes time, except maybe sending his family to vote for him in the primary although they cannot because they are all still registered Democrats. For her part, Kelly tweeted that, "It really isn't all about me."
Viewers got the heartwarming sight of two arch-enemies kissing and making up — well, making up, as Trump didn't even shake hands. Like Obama and Christie hugging over storm relief funds, like Boehner and Pelosi sharing a chuckle over a bill that will not really repeal Obamacare, Trump and Kelly showed viewers it was all a big act, that both could live forever in the Beltway drama machine, and there was no need to reach outside politics and find an independent reformer. And did you know she has a new book out?
Personal life[edit]
Wikipedia tells us that, "Politically, Kelly identifies as an independent, and has voted for both Democrats and Republicans." However, the normally citation-happy online encyclopedia does not list a single person who was inside the voting booth with Kelly, watching her cast her ballot.
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