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Fox News co-host and contributor Bob Beckel has called for the assassination of WikiLeaks spokesperson Julian Assange (A dead man cant leak stuffFollow the Money, 12/6/10), for furnishing guns to school children (If you give your kid a gun, no bullyingFive, 1/5/12) and for militant opposition to the War on Christmas, which is completely out of hand (Five, 12/9/11).

These views are anything but out of place on Fox News, where hosts and commentators are known for fantasizing about murdering progressives (FAIR Blog, 11/10/10), deifying gun ownership (Beck, 6/29/11) and courageously confronting those who would wish them happy holidays (OReilly Factor, 11/17/11).

Bob BeckelPhoto Credit: Wikimedia Commons

But Beckel is presented as a left-leaning voice on Fox, a counterweight to the networks army of right-leaning talkers. And hes far from an atypical specimen there.

As one of five co-hosts on Foxs new program the Five, Beckel is supposed to serve as foil to four conservative co-hosts. Thats the theory. In reality, Beckel more than occasionally joins his conservative counterparts. (Typically, Five panelists include former George W. Bush aide Dana Perino, Fox News Red Eye anchor Greg Gutfield, Fox legal commentator Kimberly Guilfoyle and Fox Business Network host Eric Bolling.)

For instance, when Beckels colleague Bolling (Five, 12/14/11) recounted how hed kicked a representative from the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) off his Fox Business show (Follow the Money,12/12/11) for opposing the display of a nativity scene at a Texas courthouse, Beckel bluntly approved: Good. When Five co-host Greg Gutfield (12/9/11) compared FFRF to a woman whod once demanded that he put out his cigarette, Beckels only response was, Did you deck her?

Discussing charges that GOP Rep. Mark Foley (Fla.) had exchanged inappropriate messages with male congressional pages (Hannity & Colmes, 10/2/06), Beckel suggested that Foley, because hes gay, should have been kept away from pages to begin with, likening him to a notorious bank robber: If Willie Sutton is around some place where a bank is robbed, then youre probably going to say, Willie, stay away from the robbery.

In the USA Today column in which Beckel likewise plays the left, regularly exchanging views with former Moral Majority executive and fellow Fox commentator Cal Thomas, Beckel (3/24/11) agreed with his right-wing counterpart that nuclear power is a necessary component of our quest for energy independence, and it should not be abandoned no matter how horrific the scenes are coming out of Japan.

Fox knew what it was getting with Beckel, whose reputation for faking left and going right goes back years. In July 1998, Extra! described Beckel as

a corporate lobbyist whose firm represents phone companies, the insurance industry and other corporate clients. Beckel frequently urges the Democratic Party to move to the right; he supported Clintons push for government downsizing, noting that the unions will grumble, the left will scream (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 9/14/93). During the Gulf War, he denounced protesters as punks (Foxs Off the Record, 1/26/91).

See more here:
With Fox News Liberals, Who Needs Conservatives? FAIR