E.D. Hill Blazes Back

Former Fox & Friends co-host E.D. Hill reappears today as “the face of TheBlaze TVs [sic] coverage at the RNC.”* The erstwhile FNC anchor who was shown the door not long after her ill-conceived allusion to a fist bump between the President Obama and his First Lady as a possible “terrorist fist jab” has infrequently been seen since in television news (save for appearances such as a guest co-host on ABC’s The View and a regular on CNN’s short-lived In the Arena). Perhaps, E.D. has finally found her real second chance and a new conservative home at TheBlaze, the house built by Glenn Beck, who himself seemed to be unceremoniously ushered out of the FNC family.

Congratulations, E.D.!

*Quote from Glenn Beck e-mail (08/28/12) in “On Today’s Program” section.

“Weird Cal”: Just Repeat It

A possible successor to embattled RNC Chair Michael Steele? According to FNC contributor Cal Thomas, another African American, Ken Blackwell, who is “very, very intelligent, and articulate, and smart, and as Joe Biden would say, ‘clean.'”

During an America’s News HQ segment Saturday, co-anchor Rick Folbaum  asked the conservative columnist whether Steele should stay at his GOP post after his controversial comments about the Afghan war. After saying that he “was an early supporter of  Michael Steele…because he represented a different face for the party” and had a compelling life story, Thomas answered, “But, he’s not the only African-American in the party. One of those who ran against him for the chairmanship, Ken Blackwell, former Secretary of  state of Ohio, very, very intelligent, articulate, and smart, and as Joe Biden would say, ‘clean’ candidate.”* After smiling at his peculiar homage to the Veep, he continued, “If he’s still out there and still wants the job, I think…he might be a good candidate for it.”

As the reader may recall, Biden apologized for similar remarks about then Senator Barack Obama, his then Democratic primary opponent during the 2008 election season. (Biden characterized Obama as “the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.”) To the author, it seemed strange at best that Thomas would intentionally happily echo what many consider to be a racially-charged “compliment” for another charismatic black candidate. Perhaps, he was tippling before his holiday weekend appearance on the America’s News HQ: It might help explain his racially rasping remark but it certainly does not excuse it.

*America’s News HQ – 07/03/10 (@6:06 p.m. ET