Indeed.
That former Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani still has opinions on things is, I suppose, not surprising, but Fox News seems to be on a let's-listen-to-Rudy-Giuliani kick, and
what's up with that?
“I do believe that there is more interaction and more unfair interaction between police officers, white and black,” he admitted during an appearance on Fox News Sunday. “But I think just as much, if not more, responsibility is on the black community to reduce the reason why the police officers are assigned in such large numbers to the black community. It’s because blacks commit murder eight times more per capita than any other group in our society.”
This is a new episode of Rudy Giuliani explaining black people, not to be confused with
last week's entry that caused some shock among the large numbers of Americans who had forgotten that Rudy Giuliani was still alive. So to be clear, Fox News Sunday had him on last week to give his opinions on the "blacks" these days, and found it so fascinating that they needed to have him back again this week to repeat his thoughts. I don't think anyone has managed to convince him that crime statistics have considerably more to do with poverty than they do with race, either.
When you invite a political pundit onto your television show to punditize, you generally know what they're going to say. When you invite ex-Mayor Rudy Giuliani to talk about Ferguson—multiple times—it's because you want your viewers to hear what he has to say. That to me is the only interesting part here. Not that Rudy Giuliani is still alive and still has very specific opinions on what is wrong with black people these days, but that Fox News Sunday for some reason really wants their audience to hear it. Why? Is it meant as comforting salve, something to pacify their viewer base, a familiar song that your grandpa can hum to, thinking to himself Oh, I haven't heard this one in years. What's he bringing to the table here?
Deciding who gets booked on the Sunday shows and who doesn't is the most political job in all of media. Those bookers are the gatekeepers, the people who decide who is a "legitimate" voice in the national discourse for any given subject and who is not. Isn't that an interesting thought?