Stephen Moore Regularly Objectified Female Journalists at Fox News: ‘Fair, Balanced and Blonde’

The sexism of Federal Reserve nominee Stephen Moore was not limited to his old National Review columns.

Days after CNN dug up some old writings in which Moore expressed his opposition to women being involved in playing basketball at any level, Media Matters dug up some speeches in which the former Fox News commentator bragged that one of the “fringe benefits” of working at the network was meeting beautiful women.

In fact, Moore was so proud of his joke referring to Fox News as “fair, balanced and blonde” that he repeated it on multiple occasions – at least five in an 18-month period. Matt Gertz of Media Matters called it Moore’s “stump speech.”

Those women were journalists and other employees of Fox, but Moore on multiple occasions reduced them to one sole character trait: they are all blonde. Megyn Kelly? “Fair, balanced and blonde,” Moore told an audience at the Freedom Foundation. Greta Van Sustern? “Fair, balanced and blonde,” he said in a speech to the Citizens’ Council for Health Freedom.

Moore’s comments indicate just how toxic the atmosphere at Fox News must have been for its female journalists and employees for years, before revelations of a workplace soaked in misogyny and sexual harassment forced out founder Roger Ailes and other high-level executives three years ago. Here you have a prominent male Fox commentator who in speeches would name-check the male journalists he loved working with while reducing all the females to their component parts:

“You know the theme of Fox News, right? Fair, balanced, and blonde. I’ve met so many, you know, beautiful women at Fox and it’s a lot of fun to work there.” pic.twitter.com/OUe4Sv4dXj

— Eric Hananoki (@ehananoki) April 24, 2019

Moore defended himself on to a North Dakota talk radio show this week by calling the surfacing of these comments “a character assassination” and claiming his opponents are “pulling a Kavanaugh against me,” referring to the sexual assault allegations against Brett Kavanaugh that almost derailed his nomination to the Supreme Court last year.

The key word there, of course, is “almost.” It seems unlikely these allegations against Moore will knock him out of contention for the Federal Reserve Board seat to which he has been nominated.

Listen to Moore’s defense of himself in the clip up top, via CNN.