For the second time in a week, Fox News has put its collective foot in its mouth while covering Michelle Obama. The latest embarrassing gaffe from the Rupert Murdoch-owned cable network came in an onscreen caption referencing the Democratic nominee's vow to protect his wife from critics.
Outraged Liberals: Stop Picking on Obama's Baby Mama! was the message. The misogynist and racist implications of the term "baby mama" -- frequently used in rap songs and most recently in a film about a white-trash surrogate mother -- apparently offended enough female employees inside the company that Fox executives issued a quasi-apology. The choice of words was "poor judgment", the network's senior vice president says.
Coming just a few days after Fox pundit E.D. Hill bizarrely dubbed the Michelle-Barack dap a "terrorist fist jab", this mini-scandal brings up a key question: Will Obama himself challenge these deliberate slights from Fox in the same way that he has worked to destroy the more insidious online rumor mill?
