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Item one: Imagining all the things that never would have happened if Fox News didn’t exist

James Comer, that caged monkey with a cocaine drip, just can’t stop. He wants President Biden to come to his House committee to testify. At the end of a hearing on Wednesday that was just an abject humiliation for his party and for him personally, Comer actually said with a straight face: "In the coming days I will invite President Biden to the Oversight Committee to provide his testimony and explain why his family received tens of millions of dollars.… We need to hear from the president himself."

The White House reacted with an appropriate "LOL," and there’s no sign I’ve seen that Comer is planning on issuing the president a subpoena, which would be insane. But who’s to say he won’t one day? 

Ah, interesting question. Because there is a precise answer to who’s to say he won’t: Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch, Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott, Sean Hannity, and everyone else at Fox who runs the Republican Party. This whole thing happened because Fox wanted it to happen. And therein lies a lesson for all of us about how a morally corrupt entity, which settled a lawsuit for three-quarters of a billion dollars because its executives were mortified about what the country was likely to learn about how they do business, has perverted American democracy.

As Media Matters’s Matt Gertz wrote at MSNBC.com this week, "The House Republican impeachment inquiry satisfied Fox stars’ long-standing demands for a Biden impeachment, which began before he was even elected." Fox and the New York Post and other right-wing outlets tried to make Hunter Biden an issue in the 2020 campaign. They claimed a great victory over the snaring of Hunter’s laptop, although we still don’t know what was on it that was supposedly so incriminating. 

Then, after the GOP captured the House in the 2022 midterms, Fox shoved it into overdrive. Hannity, Gertz notes, did 325 segments on Hunter in 2023. Think of that. There are only 260 weekdays in a year. So that’s many shows with two segments. Which of course the story deserved, because the Biden crime family was the biggest scandal in American history!

Except there is no story, and no Biden crime family. Everything Comer and Jim Jordan have charged has collapsed. Everything. The Democrats on Comer’s committee drew attention Wednesday to the parade of schmegegges the Republicans have marched up to the Hill. Tony Bobulinski’s testimony has been riddled with inconsistencies, and he has his own alleged Russian connections, The Daily Beast reported. Jason Galanis has said nothing of importance that we know of that’s been substantiated. Alexander Smirnov was a great key witness; then he was indicted, and suddenly Comer said he "wasn’t an important part" of the probe. But my favorite is Gal Luft, whom Comer once described as "very credible." Luft alleged that the Bidens received payments from China—then was indicted on allegations that he himself was an agent for China (he denies this). 

But Comer kept it going, and he kept it going for one simple reason: Fox News, and the rest of the right-wing media following its lead, set up a very clear reward system. Comer and Jordan, and anyone else who cared to, make allegations; they get invited on Fox to talk them up; the small-dollar donations come in from the suckers who believe this spittle; and lies get filtered out into the discourse by a non-right-wing media that wants scoops and clicks but also fears in the back of its collective mind that it’s just possible that the Republicans are onto something and that if they dismiss that possibility, they’re guilty of liberal bias.

It’s the right-wing propaganda equivalent of Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s famous stages of grief. The five stages of right-wing propaganda: Assert, repeat, raise money, repeat again, blame the deep state when it falls apart. But now there is a sixth stage, which is when even Fox taps on the brakes and tells stooges like Comer, OK, you idiot, you have failed, it’s time to move on. This gives Fox the richly undeserved opportunity to look "responsible," after five years of suggesting that Joe Biden was the most corrupt person in America since Boss Tweed.

None of it would have happened without the existence of this Fox doom loop. A lot of things wouldn’t have happened. Donald Trump’s march to the 2016 nomination wouldn’t have happened without Fox. Once Rupert saw that the enraged base he and Roger Ailes had spent two decades creating was demanding nothing less than an openly racist demagogue who talked smack on everyone Fox and Rush Limbaugh had taught them to despise, he decided to pave Trump’s way. Fox could have ended Trump’s rise at any point it wanted to in 2015 or 2016, but Trump was too good for business, and besides, he was the network’s unchecked id.

This is what happens to a democracy when a "news" organization becomes the command headquarters of a political party. And it is that—the command headquarters. It is not an "arm" of the GOP, as is often said; it is the brain, which sounds like a big statement but isn’t, really, since the GOP auto-lobotomized years ago. 

Remember, that other lawsuit is coming—a judge ruled in January that the Smartmatic suit could proceed, rejecting Fox’s arguments. Smartmatic says Fox aired lies about the voting company as it repeated its false story line about the 2020 election. Fox says the suit is a baseless attempt to infringe upon its free speech rights.

People are reportedly being deposed now. There’s reason to think that, someday, we’ll see those depositions. They’ll tell us, again, what the Dominion lawsuit depositions told us. With any luck, this one will go to trial and Scott and others will have to place their hands on a Bible and swear to tell the truth, assuming their flesh doesn’t catch fire once it touches the good book. Then, maybe, America will finally see. 

The April Issue Is Available Now

Team Trump is doing something this time around that it didn’t think to do in 2016: It’s planning. And wait until you see what those plans include.

Item two: An interview with Joanna Chen

Joanna Chen, as you may know, is the Israeli journalist, writer, and translator who recently published a piece in the literary quarterly Guernica that set off a firestorm at the journal, leading to several resignations and an official retraction of the article, which was denounced by various staffers as an apologia for settler colonialism and the mark of Guernica’s descent into being nothing more than "a pillar of eugenicist white colonialism masquerading as goodness."

The essay, which The Washington Monthly republished, is in fact a heartfelt and nuanced reflection on the ongoing tragedy by a woman who spent her time volunteering (and continues to, after a brief post–October 7 hiatus) driving Palestinian children to hospitals. The essay’s sin seems to be that it acknowledges Israeli suffering as well as Palestinian suffering. As Sasha Abramsky put it last week in a bracing piece in The Nation: "If Chen were defending the Netanyahu government’s ghastly and indiscriminate slaughter in Gaza, I could understand the hostility. If she were defending right-wing West Bank settlers and their gun-toting supremacism, I could understand the hostility. If she were defending the fascistic words and actions of Israeli cabinet ministers such as Itamar Ben-Gvir, I could understand the hostility. But Chen, who is a lifelong anti-militarist and spends her days shuttling sick Palestinian children to healthcare facilities in Israel, is none of those things. She’s a voice for peace and reconciliation in a country that has gone mad. Yet, by virtue of her showing sympathy for slaughtered and kidnapped Israelis and recognizing the shared humanity of all victims in this conflict, she seems to have been deemed illegitimate by Guernica’s holier-than-thou staff."

Shared humanity of all victims. If a liberal, humanist politics loses sight of that, it is lost. And if journals and magazines can’t make room for an essay like this, which is not a political polemic and which attempts to look at a tragic and complex reality through a different and less crisply ordered lens, then that is sad too.

I conducted an interview with Chen via email Thursday.

Michael Tomasky: What made you want to write the piece?

Joanna Chen: I’ve been listening intently to voices on all sides since this ongoing horrific conflict began. I knew my essay would be uncomfortable and inconvenient to readers, but for me it is a necessary voice in this broken world.     

M.T.: Describe in a little more detail this work you did driving Palestinian children. How long had you done it?

J.C.: I’ve been volunteering with Road to Recovery for a few years, driving Palestinian children from the Tarkumia checkpoint to Israeli hospitals. Some of the criticism I’ve received over the past week and a half suggests I ought to think exactly why there are inadequate medical facilities in the occupied territories and that I should do something about that. So what do you want me to do? Go demonstrate on street corners or sign petitions? These kids don’t have time for that. They need medical attention now. Any parent who has had to care for a sick child will understand this. I’m not going to stop driving them, I’m going to hold on to my humanity the best I can, person to person.      

M.T.: Your own politics seem certainly somewhere left of center, is that fair to say? Could you talk a little about your political awakening and growth?

J.C.: I was 16 years old when my parents sent me to Israel. I had just lost my only brother, Andrew, in a traffic accident, and I was very much alone. I had no awareness of politics for years; I was struggling to survive. 

I worked for Newsweek for 15 years, and during that time I met people on both sides of the conflict. I met politicians, but it was always the people who interested me, the faces behind the slick slogans and quick takes. I met Palestinians in refugee camps, I met Jewish settlers on hilltops, I met bereaved mothers on both sides. I accompanied a senior journalist to Gaza to meet Abu Mazen; I went with the same journalist to interview Ariel Sharon on his farm in southern Israel. I covered demonstrations, but I was always on the sidelines; I was always watching and listening. 

I’m not a peace activist. I don’t go to demonstrations, and I’m not affiliated with any left-wing movements. On the other hand, I don’t shy away from the reality. It’s easy to get caught up in your own (real) troubles, your own pain. The Israeli press rarely reports on the dire situation in Gaza of the civilian population, for example.           

M.T.: When the editors read the draft, what did they say initially?

J.C.: Only one editor worked with me on my essay. There’s nothing unusual about this, and I had no reason to be suspicious—this was my second essay for Guernica, and the process was the same. I was given the distinct impression that my words were appreciated.  

M.T.: How did you first hear about these staff reactions?

J.C.: On Saturday night, a friend texted me that a staffer had resigned. I had no indication before then that something was up. When I publish essays, I let go of them, I let them out into the world, I don’t check obsessively to see what’s happening, whether there are reactions. I move on.    

M.T.: Toward the end of the piece, you write, "We learned the importance of acknowledging both the Israeli and Palestinian narratives and the importance of understanding the pain of each side." Do you think, at bottom, that this was why the piece was attacked, because it acknowledged Jewish as well as Palestinian suffering? And if so, what does that say about discourse around this issue?

J.C.: My essay is uncomfortable and inconvenient to readers because it considers the incredible suffering of both Israelis and Palestinians. Some people complained that I stopped my volunteer work with Road to Recovery after October 7, when in fact I temporarily paused: I was scared, I needed time to digest what had happened. Three weeks later, I signed up again.  

Discourse demands a conversation, a give and take. It’s a lot easier to listen to the sound of your own voice, but conversation is a necessary step in order to break away from the vicious circle of violence and hate. 

M.T.: What, then, is the conversation that you were hoping to provoke? And I’m curious—given the reaction, do you feel you might have presented anything a little differently? The reaction was intolerant, but has it made you think, well, maybe I could have said this in some different way and communicated my point better?

J.C.: The essay considers how to remain human in a situation where each side in the conflict dehumanizes the other and refuses to see others and their needs and aspirations. I think the reaction demonstrates how difficult it is to see the others’ multifaceted humanity.

As a translator, I know there are several ways to say the same thing, and every way will highlight or showcase a different facet of the narrative. It depends on the context, it depends on the underground life of words and phrases. I choose my words carefully. The incredible reaction to "Broken World" has moved me to write a new essay, because there is always something more to say.     

M.T.: Experiences like yours often shake people and move them to the right, because they’ve seen an intolerant left firsthand. How are you working to remain true to your principles?

J.C.: I do not think in terms of left and right, although I acknowledge their existence. I’m certainly grappling with the current situation, but staying on track is not a problem for me. I’m determined to retain my humanity.       

M.T.: With everyone bracing for carnage in Rafah, with Netanyahu not budging, with Trump saying if he gets back in, Israel gets a blank check, and with Hamas not budging on hostages … do you see any basis for hope?

J.C.: The situation is dire. My words are a drop in an ocean of discontent and hatred, but I believe the heart is capable of grieving for two peoples at once. This is what being human demands of us.

M.T.: A final thought on literature and cancel culture? 

J.C.: Literature and art certainly possess a political dimension, but reducing literature to politics creates dogmatic, monolithic writing without the nuances that make literature a tool for reviewing ourselves and the reality we live in. 

History has taught us that attempts to censor and suppress literary works only serve to expand readership. The message, rather than being erased, is heard all the more loudly. I see what happened as a way forward. The conversation has begun. 

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Quiz time!

Last week’s quiz: Cometh the Ides. It’s March 15, so this quiz is about the Ides of March, Julius Caesar, and related ephemera.

1. Why is the Ides of March called the Ides of March, anyway?

A. It’s a corruption of the Latin phrase id est, which means "that is," which we use in common writing today whenever we use the abbreviation i.e.

B. An "Ides" was a day of celebration when ships were scheduled to return from war.

C. The "Ides" was a specified day on the Roman calendar, which did not number every day; the Ides was one of three days each month by which the Romans kept track of the passage of time.

D. Shakespeare made it up as a winking tribute to Lady Ides of Aylesbury, with whom he was sleeping at the time.

Answer: C. It’s all rather complicated, you can read about it here.

2. If you’ve traveled to Rome, you have perhaps tripped across the very spot where they say Caesar was assassinated in 44 BCE. Then, it was the Curia of Pompey, a large meeting hall. Today, the spot is a sunken garden with ruins and dozens of cats prowling around and goes by what name?

A. Largo di Torre Argentina

B. Piazza Grazioli

C. Giardini di Montecavallo

D. Il Palatino

Answer: A, Largo di Torre Argentina. I stayed in a hotel near there and tripped across it and read the tourist sign. Whoa! It looks like this. Amazing.

3. What is the last line spoken in Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Julius Caesar before Caesar’s famous last words, "Et tu, Brute"?

A. "Doth not Brutus bootless kneel?"

B. "Wilt thou lift up Olympus?"

C. "He is addressed. Press near and second him."

D. "Speak, hands, for me!"

Answer: D, "Speaks, hands!" Spoken by Casca, who is the first to stab Caesar. What a great line.

4. Marc Antony’s famous funeral oration of course begins, "Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears!" But how does it end? 

A. "You all did love him once, not without cause/What cause withholds you, then to mourn for him?"

B."The evil that men do lives after them/The good is oft interrèd with their bones."

C. "My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar/And I must pause till it come back to me."

D. "I should do Brutus wrong and Cassius wrong/Who, you all know, are honorable men." 

Answer: C, "My heart is in the coffin." The other lines are all from the oration, or actually, D is from the part after the plebeians interrupt him, which I gather is not officially the oration.

5. The Ides of March was the title of a 2011 political thriller that starred and was directed by whom?

A. Warren Beatty

B. George Clooney

C. Angelina Jolie

D. Ben Affleck

Answer: B, Clooney. I remember it coming out, but I’ve never seen it. Looks not bad.

6. The Ides of March was the name of an early 1970s one-hit-wonder band. What was the name of their hit, which still gets some airplay on classic rock stations?

A. "Black Is Black"

B. "Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes)"

C. "Ride Captain Ride"

D. "Vehicle"

Answer: D, "Vehicle." "Great God in heaven, you know I lo-o-o-o-ve you," as the horns go baaaa, ba da bap ba dah.… The others, respectively, are by Los Bravos, Edison Lighthouse, and Blues Image.

This week’s quiz: "It might as well be.…" A quiz about spring in history, literature, culture, and song.

1. Who wrote these lines: 

Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers to-day;

And give us not to think so far away.

As the uncertain harvest; keep us here

All simply in the springing of year.

A. John Dryden

B. Edna St. Vincent Millay

C. Heinrich Heine

D. Robert Frost

2. They like spring all over the world, unsurprisingly. Match the spring holiday or festival to the country in which it’s celebrated.

3. Place the following spring sporting events in the correct chronological order: the Kentucky Derby, the NCAA men’s final, the Masters golf tournament, the Indianapolis 500, the Preakness Stakes.

4. "Spring" is surely the most famous movement of Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons. What famous philosopher, interestingly, published a version of it for flute in 1775?

A. John Stuart Mill

B. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

C. Jean-Jacques Rousseau

D. Benedetto Croce

5. According to Ranker.com, what song won a 2023 poll as the best song about spring of all time?

A. "April in Paris," by Count Basie

B. "It Might as Well Be Spring," by Frank Sinatra

C. "Some Other Spring," by Billie Holiday

D. "April Come She Will," by Simon and Garfunkel

6. What’s the most hated day in the restaurant business?

A. Easter

B. Passover

C. Valentine’s Day

D. Mother’s Day

Remember, the category is spring. Answers next week. Feedback to fightingwords@tnr.com.

—Michael Tomasky, editor 

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