Wow, what did someone put in the watercooler over at the Fox News studios?

Because, bottle it and spread it around.

Fox News personality Steve Hilton, usually a dependable backer of Donald Trump and his administration, surprised by calling out Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, for Pompeo’s shameful, profanity-laced attack on NPR journalist Mary Louise Kelly.

Hilton opened eyes by calling Pompeo a “baby” for lacing into Kelly over an interview in which she asked about Ukraine, the nation at the center of Trump’s current impeachment trial.

“For goodness sakes, Mr. Secretary, don’t be such a baby. You should be able to handle tough questions by now and don’t be such a bully,” Hilton said. “Foul-mouthed ranting at a reporter doing her job is an embarrassment to you and the administration.

“You should apologize,” Hilton continued. “And people will think much more of you if you do.”

Hilton is absolutely right, and it’s amazing that he stood up for a journalist doing her job. Because that is exactly what Mary Louise Kelly was doing.

More Fox News personalities–heck, more Trump supporters in general–ought to catch, identify and defend objective reality like this when they see it.

But, yes, Mike Pompeo must apologize.

And hopefully more people now will see the benefits of NPR-delivered news.

Meanwhile, separately, Fox News host Chris Wallace this week took conservative commentator Katie Pavlich to task for trying to spread false information on air while trying to defend Trump in his Senate trial.

“The Senate is not the House, the House did not come with a complete case, and every impeachment beforehand, the witnesses that were called had been called in the House before being brought to the Senate,” she insisted. “So there are questions here about the process.”

Wallace cut her off, by saying, “The fact of the matter was that the whistleblower information was given to the Inspector General, who gave it to the Justice Department. The Justice Department decided not to investigate and that is why it went to the House. So to say that in the Clinton investigation, that these people were interviewed by the House — one, they weren’t — and to say that it wasn’t done by the Justice — it wasn’t done by the Justice Department because the Justice Department refused to carry out the investigation. Get your facts straight.”

Imagine that, a Trump supporter fact-checked in real-time on Fox News.

Now, if this attitude really could spread, to 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Fox News would actually earn the “News” in its name.

Why should that be too much to hope for?

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