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Fox News dickishness: a barrel seemingly with no bottom, eh?

In the Fox News Channel pantheon of “Conservatives good, Libruls bad” dickishness, Raymond Arroyo’s childishly insulting attack on Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg was a low point, even for them.

Though we’ve come to expect misleading propaganda and incitement from Rupert Murdoch’s media equivalent of used toilet paper, Arroyo couldn’t even be bothered to get his facts straight on an insult. Does it get more childish than that? I’m not sure it does, but if it’s possible, a talking head at Fox News will find a way to do it.

Fox News has blamed U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg ― who is not the CEO of Southwest Airlines ― for the airline company’s holiday travel meltdown.

Southwest Airlines has cancelled thousands of flights over the past week after a severe winter storm catalyzed an operational crisis that left would-be passengers stranded during one of the busiest travel periods of the year. While all U.S. airlines made cancellations en masse earlier this week due to extreme weather, most were able to resume normal operations after the conditions cleared up ― while Southwest’s cancellation rate has gotten worse.

On the conservative network’s “Ingraham Angle” Wednesday, a chyron declared that Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, was to blame. It read: “Mayor Pete Leaves Southwest Customers Stranded.”

The segment criticized Buttigieg over his response to the fiasco. The transportation secretary on Wednesday pledged that his office would place intense pressure on Southwest to compensate affected customers, not just for flights but for accommodation, ground transportation, meals and other expenses incurred due to the breakdown. He said he had spoken to Southwest Airlines CEO Bob Jordan and was prepared to pursue fines against the company should it fail to meet its legal obligations.

“I made clear that our department will be holding them accountable for their responsibilities to customers, both to get them through this situation and to make sure that this can’t happen again,” he said on CNN.

Undoubtedly, what happened to Southwest Airlines passengers over the Christmas holiday was an absolute clusterfuck. The airline should’ve had a plan in place for a worst-case scenario. But, unfortunately, it didn’t, and now their entire system is FUBAR’d, with planes and crews out of position and hundreds upon hundreds of flights canceled.

For some reason, “Ingraham Angle” guest host Raymond Arroyo is convinced that Southwest’s meltdown is somehow Secretary Buttigieg’s fault, as if “Mayor Pete” is personally responsible for Southwest’s daily operations.

First of all, Secretary Buttigieg doesn’t work for Southwest Airlines. He’s the Secretary of the Department of Transportation. Southwest is one of the companies he oversees, but he’s in no way responsible for its day-to-day operations.

Except in the fevered brain of Raymond Arroyo, who’s so caught up in the “Conservative good, Librul bad” ethos that he’s lost whatever grip on reality he may once have had.

What a tool.

“Oooh, Mayor Pete’s gonna hold them accountable,” he said, as the chyron appeared on screen. “This guy’s actually bragging about making Southwest put customer service commitments in writing.”

“Yes, people want to get refunded for the chaos and have their expenses paid, as they should, but that doesn’t help them right now. To hold the airlines accountable, you have to understand the problem. And it’s not clear this administration does,” he said.

Well, guess what, Raymond? It’s unclear if you understand the problem, though you certainly have no difficulty assigning blame for it.

People want relief RIGHT NOW, and they deserve it, but that relief has to come from Southwest Airlines, not the Department of Transportation (DOT), who neither caused nor are in any way responsible for the epic f**k-up.

I don’t know where Arroyo got his journalism degree, but I’m guessing that whatever box of cereal it came from didn’t have a course on journalistic ethics or human decency.

When Arroyo says, “it’s not clear this administration” understands the problem, I can’t help but wonder to what he’s referring. Does Arroyo understand the problem? If so, then why doesn’t he tell us what he thinks it is? But, of course, it’s far easier to pass judgment than try to solve a problem, something Fox News has never attempted to do.

Arroyo wasn’t the only Fox News personality to point the finger at Buttigieg Wednesday. Hosts on “The Five” and “Hannity” also dedicated segments to criticizing the transportation secretary, arguing that he took too long to respond to the crisis and isn’t doing enough to mitigate it.

Again, Fox News has never bothered trying to participate in problem-solving, but they excel at kibbitzing and criticism. That requires no knowledge or expertise, merely the ability to sound like you know what you’re talking about, even when you don’t have a clue.

By all indications, “Mayor Pete” is doing a decent job at Transportation, which is more than can be said for some of his predecessors. That said, not even he has the power to make things all better instantly. Southwest Airlines screwed the pooch on this one, and it’s up to them to make things right. This isn’t a problem that the Department of Transportation can rush in and fix lickety-split. Their authority is primarily after the fact. They can step in and order Southwest to improve aspects of their customer service performance, but DOT can’t fix things in real-time.

No, Southwest has to fix its relationship with its customers on its own. If they don’t they’ll have to face the consequences.

Of course, a 24-karat tool like Raymond Arroyo isn’t going to care about inconvenient things like facts, not when he can run down “Mayor Pete” and score points with his audience.

If Raymond Arroyo’s a journalist, I’m a reject from the Swedish Bikini Team.