FOX: Pepper Spray Just a "Food Product Essentially" So get this: Pizza is now a vegetable, and pepper spray is a food product. What a week. On Monday night’s O’Reilly Factor, Bill O’Reilly and Megyn Kelly sat down for a little discussion about the recent pepper-spraying incident at UC Davis. Contrary to what you may assume, the two totally sympathized with the protesters. Just kidding, this is the Fox News echo chamber. Kelly says the non-lethal agent being deployed regularly against #OWS is a “food product essentially.” No, it’s not. We’d challenge Kelly to pour a bit on a burrito to eat if she really believes the chemical compound that irritates the eyes to cause tears, pain, and even temporary blindness is a food product. “I don’t think we have the right to Monday-morning quarterback the police,” O’Reilly says, “particularly at a place like UC Davis, which is a fairly liberal campus.” Of course not! Just as it probably doesn’t make sense to Monday-morning quarterback a Fox News discussion. Neither of them explicitly state the cops did the right thing or that the protesters were to blame, but the way in which Kelly frames her language is interesting: “I know the tape looks bad. I agree it looks bad,” Kelly says. “But from a legal standpoint, I don’t know if the cops did anything wrong.” From a legal standpoint, no, probably not. From a moral/ethical standpoint? Just watch the exchange. </noscript> It’s important to keep the above exchange in mind when considering a new PublicMind poll from Fairleigh Dickinson University that found people who regularly watch Fox News are actually less informed on major stories than people who neither watch the news on TV nor read newspapers. It’s worth pointing out that Fox News’ Sean Hannity still hasn’t been waterboarded after agreeing to because he didn’t think it was torture. We’d wager that neither Megyn Kelly nor Bill O’Reilly would agree to be blasted in the face with pepper spray either. The one bright spot? Megyn Kelly’s “essentially” remark is already a meme. That didn’t take long. And National Lampoon’s starting a new meme’s meme: Pepper Spraying Cop Meme + Food Meme: PREVIOUSLY IN PEPPER SPRAYINGS: • Watch the Infamous UC Davis Pepper Spraying Incident from Multiple Angles • Meme Watch: Here’s UC Davis’ Pepper Spraying Cop Pepper Spraying Things • You’re Doing It Right: UC Davis Students Respond with Silent, Powerful Protest of Pepper Spraying • I See Your Nonviolence and Raise You Pepper Spray • Immediately Iconic Shot from Occupy Portland • 84-Year-Old Woman Pepper Sprayed By Seattle Police at Occupy Protests • Starting to See a Pattern? Occupy Tulsa Protesters Pepper Sprayed, Arrested • Doin’ the Haka? Utah Cops Will Pepper Spray You • Buncha Bologna: Pepper-Spraying NYPD Officer Loses Just 10 Days Vacation
Chilihead 22.11.11 @ 10:21 pm Megyn Kelly is correct. Pepper spray *is* essentially a food product, which means it is made from edible substances — habanero chili peppers or similar. You can walk into any store that sells hot sauce and buy pure capsaicin extract, which is the same thing, without an aerosol propellant. You can use it as a super-concentrated hot sauce, although why anyone would want to is beyond me since it has no taste and is just *essentially* heat. But before you abuse her for making that statement, do your homework.
Gnosis 12.12.11 @ 5:52 pm Then I challenge you to take a full frontal hit with military Grade pepper spray….. after all.. it’s JUST a “food product” essentially. Wow.. and I am sure you would say that the Nazi’s were “just doing their job?
J Phillip 15.12.11 @ 5:38 am They were just doing there job! They were ordered to do what they did…Idiot