Fox & Friends ' Kilmeade called G8 protesters “morons without jobs,” insisted new Goldberg attack book not skewed

Written by Media Matters Staff

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Fox News' Fox & Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade dismissed protesters at the Group of Eight (G8) economic summit as “morons without jobs.” Later in the same program, Kilmeade said former CBS correspondent Bernard Goldberg's newest book, 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America (And Al Franken is #37) (HarperCollins, 2005) is not ideologically skewed, even though Goldberg's list includes numerous people who are Democrats, liberals, progressives, and feminist activists, and only a handful of known conservative figures.

On the July 6 edition of Fox & Friends, Kilmeade and professional football player and guest host Tiki Barber spoke with former U.S. ambassador to NATO Robert Hunter about the G8 summit in Edinburgh, Scotland:

BARBER: There have been a lot of protests out there. Has that disrupted any of the ongoings [sic] so far?

HUNTER: Well, it can't be disruptive because they make sure the people doing the shouting are a long way away. But I think this is a campaign for media attention. The leaders are, kind of, just a bunch of suits, versus the people who are just trying to get things done.

KILMEADE: And these people are just a bunch of morons without jobs. That's another thing.

Later in the program, Kilmeade, Barber, and co-host E.D. Hill spoke with Goldberg about his book. Goldberg insisted that “you have to reach a certain level of indecency” to be included on his list and that “nobody's on this list because of their liberal politics.” But a July 5 Seattle Times article lists Goldberg's top 10 -- none of whom are conservatives. Additionally, Goldberg's discussion of the book on Fox & Friends focused almost entirely on “trial lawyers,” comedian and radio host Al Franken, and New York Times columnists Frank Rich and Paul Krugman.

Nevertheless, at the end of the segment, Kilmeade echoed Goldberg's assertion that the book is ideologically neutral and suggested that those who made Goldberg's list did so because they are “anti-American.” Kilmeade said: “We can go through the whole book, but it really galvanizes a lot of people. It's not right or left, it is just anti-American.”