After devoting virtually no time at all to the Josh Duggar scandal, Fox News Channel seems to have taken on the role of the PR agency for America’s famous babymakers. Megyn Kelly, for instance, echoed the Duggars’ blistering critique of the decision to release the police reports that not only showed Josh fondled five girls, but that Jim Bob and Michelle waited 16 months to report it to anyone.
Well, it seems that psychiatrist Keith Ablow, a member of Fox’s “Medical A-Team,” must have missed the memo. On Friday night’s edition of “Hannity,” Ablow offered a scathing analysis of Jim Bob and Michelle’s worse-than-inadequate response to Josh’s actions, as well as their attempts to minimize them since the scandal broke in full last week. Watch here.
Ablow answered Jill and Jessa’s claims that the video shouldn’t have been released because it amounted to “re-victimization.” He rightly pointed out that Jill and Jessa “don’t have the only voices here.” Jim Bob and Michelle, he said, haven’t given nearly enough assurances about Josh’s treatment to alleviate any concerns that others may have been molested. Ablow wasn’t at all pleased that Jim Bob and Michelle didn’t ask any of their friends whether Josh had done this to any of their daughters. To Ablow’s mind, the Duggars either don’t know or don’t understand that this isn’t just about their girls. Jim Bob and Michelle, he said, “didn’t safeguard the community” and may not have safeguarded their kids either.
Robert Jeffress, pastor of First Baptist Church of Dallas and a close confidant of the Duggars, was also on hand. He was dumbfounded at those who didn’t understand that the girls had long since forgiven Josh for what he did. “The Gospel message,” Jeffress said, makes it possible for you not to be a victim forever. He echoed the Duggars’ complaints about how the release of the report was like “ripping a scab” off a wound that had been healed 12 years ago.
Ablow was having none of it, and condemned the Duggars for their decision to “turn their family into a sideshow” in the first place. That set Jeffress off, and he started screaming about the “hypocrisy of the left”–overlooking that Ablow is not just a conservative, but a tea partier. Jeffress tried to say that Ablow had no right to question the Duggars’ choice to create a reality show, or even their decision to have 19 kids. Ablow replied that any parent who has that many kids ought to at least try to supervise them so situations like what happened with Josh don’t happen.
While Jeffress was still screaming over him, Ablow made a calm, but blistering, attack on the Duggars’ practice of not letting their kids hold hands until they’re officially engaged. “Can’t we just call it what it is?” he asked. “It’s bizarre, controlling, manipulative. It’s bizarre.” Jeffress continued to yell that Ablow had no right to run the Duggars’ lives. But Ablow didn’t back down an inch, even going as far as to wonder if Josh’s behavior was a sign he was sexually repressed. I don’t know if I’d go that far. This looks more like a case of a kid who was making desperate cries for help–which his parents ignored.
Granted, Ablow is a stopped clock. This is, remember, a guy who once suggested that President Obama was reluctant to impose a travel ban on countries where Ebola was particularly rampant because his “affinities” were with the people of those countries. But let’s give credit where credit is due. He illustrated the very reason why this is something worth covering–child endangerment isn’t something that can be kept in house.
Sadly, it seems that to many of those defending the Duggars, those who are calling out Jim Bob and Michelle for failing not just their girls, but Josh as well, have an “agenda.” Ablow’s finding that out first-hand; his Facebook page is full of comments blistering him for attacking the Duggars. When calling for parents to be held to account for child endangerment is a sign that you have an “agenda,” something’s wrong. Very wrong.
Jim Bob and Michelle should be very afraid if they’ve lost Ablow. After all, Ablow seems to be the stereotype of the fair and balanced network’s more well-heeled viewers. If Ablow was able to take the conservative blinders off and see this situation for what it was, the Duggars may be approaching the 59th second of their 15th minute of fame.
