Today Studio B anchor Shepard Smith threw a rather sharp elbow at fellow FNC anchor Mike Huckabee today. During his 3 p.m. ET show, Shep dubbed today the “National Day of Intolerance.” Not lost on his round-table Fox News co-workers nor his viewers was the fact that today is the day that the eponymous host of Huckabee called for a “Chick fil-A Appreciation Day.”
Eight days ago (July 31), Mike Huckabee declared that he was “incensed at the vitriolic assaults on the Chick fil-A company” because of the CEO’s recent remarks that the “Biblical view of marriage should be upheld. Consequently, he exhorted his fans to counter the “vicious hate speech and intolerant bigotry from the left” by celebrating August 1 as “Chick fil-A Appreciation Day” by patronizing the restaurant or signalling support via Twitter or Facebook.
Apparently, Shep was not quite on board with the whilom Arkansas governor’s request. After a story on the eight expelled badminton Olympians (with FoxSports.com national senior writer Peter Schrager), Shep acerbically added, “It’s National Badminton Day”: forget the “National Day of Intolerance.” Meanwhile, Schrager and FNC chief correspondent Jonathan Hunt, both sitting with Shep, simply could not contain their snickers.
Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day or National Day of Intolerance? They report. You decide.
[Author’s aside – Chick-Fil-A is written “Chick Fil-A,” supra, when Huckabee is quoted for textual accuracy: An insertion of sic, supra, was forgone to facilitate the natural flow of the story.]
Studio B with Shepard Smith – 08/01/12 (@ 3:24 p.m. ET)
Update: Vid via Mediaite.
Carpe Diem 