Fox News Pundits Blame Eric Holder, Obama For Ferguson Cop Shootings

Fox News pundits are going after Eric Holder, and to a lesser extent President Obama, for the shooting of two police officers in Ferguson, Missouri. Eric Holder denounced the assault as “heinous and cowardly attacks,” echoing sentiments from protesters who are trying to maintain nonviolent demonstrations. Still, some on the Fox cable news channel believe Holder owes the police officers an apology.

According to the New York Times, two officers working security for a new round of protests in Ferguson were shot in what the police chief called “an ambush.” The police department has started a manhunt to find out who was responsible. They haven’t made any arrests, although they did use SWAT to search a house and took others in for questioning.

The AP reports that police, political leaders, protesters, and others have called for calm in Ferguson, and vigils and nonviolent protests prevailed only one night after the shooting. On Fox News, on the other hand, frictions boiled over as a number of pundits called for Eric Holder to accept responsibility.

It started fairly hesitantly, with Martha MacCallum on Fox News‘ America’s Newsroom.

“From the beginning the Department of Justice has contributed to the feeling of tension on the streets there, and in some cases, some might say, fueled the flames of it.”

By the time it came to Fox News‘ Lou Dobbs, the president was implicated as well.

“There are so many forces at play here and so many people who deserve considerable blame for fomenting an environment like this in which this can occur, chief among those in my opinion is the President of the United States and the Attorney General, and the way in which they have handled this community’s crisis.”

Dobbs opinion started a fierce debate on Outnumbered(see below).

The theory on Fox News is that the harsh language used by President Obama and Eric Holder in describing Ferguson PD’s many offenses sparked the violence.

As previously reported by the Inquisitr, Eric Holder held a press conference where he went into detail about how Ferguson’s police officers had engaged in police brutality, violated constitutional rights, and used financial extortion against the African American community. He later added that the Department of Justice can dismantle the entire police force to fix the structural problems, if necessary.

Although Fox News might have plenty of pundits making vague accusations against Holder and the President, Rudy Giuliani is once again taking the spotlight. According to the Daily News, he knew exactly who to blame.

“It all starts at the top. It’s the tone that’s set by the President.”

Then Giuliani took it to a place Fox News probably couldn’t go.

“If an African American president stood up and said–I hate to mention it because of what happened afterwards–the kind of stuff that Bill Cosby used to say the first guy to applaud him would be me. If he does that, I’m telling you, whatever he does right or wrong he gets a place in history.”

Giuliani is referring to when Cosby would lecture the African American community on things like pulling up your pants, nothing to do with the dozens of rape allegations, or as Giuliani calls it “what happened afterwards.”

In Ferguson, the manhunt continues and the protesters now include vigils for the hospitalized officers, but at Fox News they’ve already found at least two of the culprits.

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