Juan Cole at Informed Comment writes about Fox Republican propaganda analyst Liz Trotta's malicious statement, punctuated by laughter, that Barack Obama should be killed.  Trotta was the former New York bureau chief of Sun Myung Moon's right wing conservative Washington Times. People like Trotta are sick and reprehensible and would be fired immediately by any reputable news organization.

Cole wrote: "Liz Trotta, a veteran journalist who helped pioneer a place for women at the front as war correspondents, was being interviewed on Fox News on Sunday by Eric Shawn, when she commented on Hillary's Clinton's reference to RFK's assassination:

' "And now we have what some are reading as a suggestion that somebody knock off Osama, uh Obama. Well, both, if we could." She laughed.'

"And Mr. Shawn did not stop her, did not say "Surely you do not mean that," and just went on with the interview:

"Is this what Rupert Murdoch's petty, spiteful, poisonous media have brought us to in this country, jokes about killing our presidential candidates and pairing their names with those of mass murderers? Under the rules of the Federal Communications Commission as they existed before the Supreme Court gutted the Fairness Doctrine in 1987, Fox would have been hugely fined or closed as a thinly disguised Republican Party House organ. (As for the argument that there are lots of news points of view to choose from now, I'm still waiting for the Socialist Party to have its cable station available in almost all US markets.)

"Some are petitioning for Trotta to be banned from Fox, but it seems to me what is actually appropriate is an apology, from Rupert Murdoch himself, for all the false and vicious things he has purveyed to the American people through his phony bought and paid for "journalism." And if he won't apologize and reform, maybe it is time for a consumer boycott of Fox's major advertisers. In our corrupt corporate media system, Shawn's interview of Lotta was actually rented out to advertisers; so who paid for that piece of excrement to be on the air? Should we be buying that product?

"Journalists Shawn and Trotta have just brought the US presidential campaign to a new low of innuendo, viciousness, cavalier disregard for the sanctity of life, and peculiar lack of self-reflection. But in most ways, they are just continuing the Fox and Murdoch house traditions.

"Update: Trotta apologized, sort of, on Monday morning. But Fox cleverly put the apology very deep into an interview on the same subject, suggesting that Trotta retained the ability to function as a dispassionate analyst on this subject! In her apology she talked about 'falling all over herself' to make it appear as though she wished Obama "or any other candidate" harm. To fall all over yourself to do something is not to behave awkwardly but rather to be eager to do something. Was this a Freudian slip? And, why bring up other candidates. It was only Obama she wanted offed.

"This 'apology' is completely unacceptable and people should keep the pressure on Fox. Shawn must apologize for not interrupting her and demanding she explain herself right there.

"Or maybe it is all right electronically to lynch some people, with impunity.

"Here is the site of the petition to Fox to have her sacked."