There is a wonderfully invective meme blazing across the Internet thanks to FOX News’ Megyn Kelly, who told Bill Reilly in an amazingly mendacious grasp at justification yesterday that pepper spray is “a food product, essentially,” in relation to the line of kneeling student protesters at UC Davis who were sprayed methodically in their faces with the fire-hot chemical “as if they were garden pests” (as described earlier by understandably frustrated Washington Post writer Philip Kennicott)
Video of Kelly on the O’Reilly Factor here.
Kelly, who is typically bloodless in her surrogacy of whatever the rightwing agenda is at the moment, almost appears to be uncomfortable enjoining this particularly ludicrous line of defense (perhaps she was glancing off camera at the rolling footage of the students, kneeling as if about to be executed), or she was simply coming down with a cold. Nevertheless, her delusional comments about pepper spray has birthed a thousand satires in the comment field at Gawker and on Twitter (hashtag MegynKellyEssentials). A few notables:
Megyn Kelly on tasers: “It’s static cling, essentially!”
Megyn Kelly on nightsticks: “It’s an olive branch, essentially!”
Megyn Kelly on Jerry Sandusky: “He was having sex, essentially”
Megyn Kelly on landmines: “It’s like a treasure hunt, essentially!”Megyn Kelly on nuclear weapons: “It’s a microwave dinner, essentially!”
Megyn Kelly on zip-tie handcuffs: “It’s a Livestrong bracelet, essentially.”
From Glenn Greenwald on Twitter: “Tomorrow on Fox: exotic recipes using ricin (made from castor beans) & mustard gas – ‘food products, essentially’”
Really, Kelly and O’Reilly say they “believe” the police were in the right because the students were breaking “the law.” If we follow that ridiculous path (which is where every rightwinger who hates the whole idea of Occupy wants to go, essentially) then there will be no place left to exercise one’s Constitutional right to free speech and assembly but in the privacy of their own basements. Seems like Kelly and O’Reilly would have been the first to advocate the imprisonment of Sam Adams ahead of the Boston Tea Party. In fact, there would be no Boston Tea Party if today’s rightwing, in collusion with government, corporations, and an anxious establishment, applied their same, arbitrary rules.
So, rather than modern day American Revolutionaries, Kelly, O’Reilly and every other so-called conservative supporting the violent crackdown of protesters all over the country were really Tories all along?
Just Sayin’
Update: I tweaked a line above regarding the Boston Tea Party, in light of exchange with Chris, in comments (below). I think it gets the point across.
Joseph R. Stromberg 
Kelley Vlahos 
Doug 
Erica Brigid 
tbraton 
Old Whig 
Thanks for the entertaining capture of a meme. But let’s check out this sentence:
“In fact, there would be no Boston Tea Party if today’s rightwing, backed by the government, corporations and the collusion of the establishment, had their way.”
Right-wing corporations? Most large corporations wish to erect barriers to entry from which discontinuous innovation might detract from their future profit streams. If they can use the government to erect those barriers, does that make them right-wing or just opportunistic? Not sure if that’s right wing – or even relevant. That sentence needs an editor.
Let’s dissect this incident for what it is: blue on blue violence. The university system, a large (liberal!) entity that receives much government funding, establishes its own security force (town v. gown!) – where a (militarized) member of that force than sprays down students (CUSTOMERS!) of that university while protesting.
And you want to call that a “right-wing” crackdown? Sorry – not buying it here. Fox News and Megyn Kelly are clearly way off here, but your conclusion is not much closer.