From Media Matters
Fox News and much of the conservative media slipped into messiah mode coverage this week when news broke that Carrier, the air conditioner giant, has decided to not move approximately 1,000 manufacturing jobs from Indiana to Mexico as the company had previously planned. President-elect Donald Trump took credit for having negotiated the respite.
Cheering Trump's hands-on approach and his commitment to the working class, Fox talkers portrayed the Republican's maneuver in relentlessly glowing terms. "A Big Win For Donald Trump," announced Bill O'Reilly's show last night.
Fox's Stuart Varney claimed Trump had played hardball with Carrier and won: "He strong-armed them. What's wrong with that?" (According to reports, it was likely the lure of additional tax incentives that convinced Carrier to keep the jobs in Indiana, not being "strong-armed" by Trump.)
Trump's cheerleader-in-chief Sean Hannity was just gobsmacked by the whole thing, saying on his radio program that he "can't think of a time in my lifetime where a president-elect or a president ever" did this.
Hannity loved the fact that Trump reached out to corporate America, which is fascinating because you know what Hannity didn't love in 2009? He didn't love when newly elected President Obama reached out to Detroit's auto industry in the form of an $80 billion-dollar bailout. Back then, an unhinged Hannity called Obama every name in the book as conservative pundits accused the president of trying to destroy democracy and capitalism.
Fox News and the entire right-wing noise machine relentlessly denounced Obama as he tried to rescue American manufacturing jobs, which the federal bailout eventually did. One independent study estimated the aggressive government move saved 1.5 million jobs. "This peacetime intervention in the private sector by the U.S. government will be viewed as one of the most successful interventions in U.S. economic history," the study's author wrote.
Lots of people might forget, especially in light of the bailout's stunning success, but Obama's push to help the Detroit industry once served as a defining line of GOP attack. The bailout symbolized the dangers of Obama's alleged socialist/gangster leanings. This, despite the fact it was actually President George W. Bush who unveiled the first phase of the bailout plan during the final weeks of his presidency, in order to "avoid a collapse of the U.S. auto industry."
1
1
