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News Brand to Watch: Fox News’ Megyn Kelly Obliterates Erickson and Dobbs on Remarks on Women

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Fox News’ Megyn Kelly had already started to carve out a refreshing news brand for herself. Tune in MSNBC and you almost know what many of the hosts and anchors will say before they say it. Tune in Fox News and you almost know what each of them will say or whether they’ll let a guest who shares the Fox viewpoint make assertions that would be challenged elsewhere. This predictability and lack of nuance, in fact, is what many people in polarized 21st century American crave.

But sometimes someone who insists on professional news standards throws this kind of narrative a curve.

Kelly proved on election night that she was one anchor with a law background who had no intention of playing it that way when she challenged GOP political maven Karl Rove. Rove was trying to verbally whip Fox News into line into holding off on projecting Barack Obama’s win over Mitt Romney. Rove’s image was forever tarnished in that segment which has garnered more than 2 million views on You Tube — he epitomized hyper-partisanship and spin unhinged and in panic mode — and Kelly began to get the reputation of someone to watch.

And, oh is she, because she has again proven that she isn’t about to just make nice for people who are on Rupert Murdoch’s payroll if they make assertions that don’t jibe with what in other parts of the earth is called “reality.”

Mediaite gives this recap:

In response to Erick Erickson and Lou Dobbs making controversial comments this week about a Pew study finding that 40% of American households have a mother as breadwinner, Kelly brought the two of them onto her show and proceeded to tear into them.

To recap: during a Wednesday evening segment of FBN’s Lou Dobbs Tonight, Erickson, Dobbs, and other Fox male contributors lamented the Pew study’s “troubling” findings, claiming it signaled a disintegration of the American family. Erickson went the farthest with his analysis, claiming it is “anti-science” to not believe that men are supposed to play the dominant role in the household. The group collectively bemoaned the increase of female breadwinners.

In response, this afternoon, Kelly asked: “What makes you dominant and me submissive and who died and made you scientist-in-chief?”

“It doesn’t have anything to do with submissive, per se, and it was poorly constructed how I said it,” Erickson responded before reiterating his point that, in nature, male animals “tend” to be the “dominant one” and that “feminists” have taken society to the point where “male and female roles are completely interchangeable.” He then claimed: “No one is saying women can’t be a breadwinner or even the primary breadwinner.”

Kelly was not convinced, calling Erickson out for his backpedaling.

Here’s the full segment as it aired on Fox so you can judge for yourself:

Read The Week’s Kevin Wagstaff’s post where he includes some must-read Tweets from liberals about Kelly. He writes, in part:

Not only did she deny being an “emo liberal” (as Erickson labeled his detractors), she also ripped apart his claim that science was on his side, lifting a piece of paper and saying, “This is a list of studies saying your science is wrong and your facts are wrong.” She pointed to past policies in which pseudoscience was used to prop up the status quo…

Yes, that is conservative Kelly invoking Barack Obama in a positive context. Her lambasting of Erickson earned her the admiration of women and emo liberals on Twitter and elsewhere..

Indeed, if I do a quick search under Kelly’s name on You Tube, here are a few of the MANY Tweets still being sent. A cross section: