Quotes of the day

Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar spoke with Fox News’s Megyn Kelly on Wednesday evening, confirming many of the allegations against Josh in their recounting of events to the “Kelly File” host. The Duggar parents also said that they believe some of the media coverage was agenda-driven against them. “There are people that are purposing to try to bring things out and twisting them to hurt and slander,” Michelle Duggar told Kelly. “I think people on the outside say Christians are supposed to live this perfect life,” Jim Bob said. “No. All of us as Christians, we struggle every day.”

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Kelly, along with the Duggars, also questioned why In Touch Weekly was able to obtain a police report detailing an investigation of a teenage Josh Duggar. “This information was released illegally, so I wonder why all this press isn’t going after the system for releasing juvenile records,” Jim Bob said.

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Jim Bob recalled taking Josh with him to work and punishing him at home. He said they were “keeping an eye on Josh … all the time and watching his behaviors, watching his attitudes.”  

But after two more incidents, “we felt we had to get help,” Jim Bob said. Josh was sent to a man in Little Rock for counseling – an experience his father described as “the turning point of his life.”

“As parents we were trying to do the best thing we knew how,” Michelle said. Jim Bob agreed, “Looking back, we did the best we could under the circumstances.” 

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Reality TV star Jessa Duggar told Fox News Channel on Wednesday that she was a victim of her older brother Josh Duggar, who fondled five girls when he was a teenager.

Jessa Duggar, featured like her brother in the family’s TLC series, “19 Kids and Counting,” told Fox in an interview conducted in Arkansas on Wednesday that she wanted to defend him. She said allegations he’s a child molester or pedophile are “so overboard and a lie,” Fox reported

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“I would do anything to go back to those teen years and take different actions,” [Josh] Duggar wrote online. “In my life today, I am so very thankful for God’s grace, mercy and redemption.”

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Endorsements from Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar, of TLC’s “19 Kids and Counting,” have disappeared from former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee’s (R) presidential campaign website

Jim Bob, a former Arkansas state representative, and Michelle Duggar endorsed Huckabee both for his 2008 and 2016 presidential campaigns. Their endorsements did not appear in the “I Like Mike” section of the site Thursday morning. Archived versions of the campaign site show that the endorsements were removed sometime Monday night.

When a reporter on Tuesday asked Huckabee whether the Duggars would be joining him on the campaign trail, the former governor responded “I don’t know, it’ll be up to them. Ask them, I don’t know,” according to video captured by BuzzFeed.

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Montel Williams continued his online tirade against the ‘hypocritical’ 19 Kids and Counting stars following their interview Wednesday on Fox News’ The Kelly File…

‘They are in denial,’ the Daytime Emmy winner – who turns 59 next month – wrote on Facebook. ‘There is something very sinister beneath the surface.’…

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The Baltimore-born presenter accused the Arkansas parents of ‘sweeping it under the rug’ and ‘essentially sending a message to their daughters to smile, nod, and forgive.’

‘Nothing about these people is real. Nothing about these people isn’t hypocritical,’ Montel wrote of the congressman-turned-realtor.  

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When I talked about the Josh Duggar scandal the other night, I said it was pretty disgusting that some liberal commentators are using what is obviously a family tragedy for political point-scoring.

I also told Megyn Kelly there were important questions to be raised about the conservative family that starred in the now-sidelined TLC show: Why did local officials allow Duggar’s juvenile police record, something that is usually sealed and sacrosanct, to be given to two media outlets? Why didn’t Duggar’s parents go to their authorities when they learned that their son was engaged in sexual abuse in 2002? And why would they sign up for the scrutiny that comes with a reality show, knowing they were hiding this dark secret?…

I just wish some on the left wouldn’t take such joy in attacking the family for hypocrisy–just as I hate when some on the right do that when a liberal icon falls. All these stories are fair game, but there ought to be a place in our media and political culture for a modicum of compassion.

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I can’t believe how crazy the media is going over the Duggar family compared to the big fat yawn they gave Lena Dunham when she wrote in her book that she sexually experimented with her sister

The liberal media darling Dunham was praised for her “honest and witty” book.

The double standards make me sick. Josh Duggar touched a sleeping girls breast – a terrible thing to go. But now their ENTIRE family is punished and their hit show is canceled? He’s labeled as a pedophile? His family is crucified!

Liberals in today’s media can do no wrong, while conservatives can do no right.

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The intolerant left’s destructive personal intrusions and narrow-mindedness applied to their chosen targets are bad enough, but their double standards are beyond the pale…

The Duggar debate needs to shift from solely the boy’s obvious wrongdoing when he was 14 years old to now include:

1) The shocking, unethical leak of a private, legally protected counseling document by a politically motivated law enforcement official. Media – time to go after her or him for illegalities and for destroying the public’s trust in law enforcement.

2) The media’s hell-bent mission to go after the entire Duggar family for one member’s wrongdoing, while giving a total pass to perverted actions of someone like Lena Dunham – or any other leftwinger celeb caught doing awful things. Remember reports of the pedophile billionaire our former democrat president has been friends with and hung out with on the pedophile’s “orgy island” full of underage girls?

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Such obvious double standards applied to equally relevant stories underestimate the wisdom of the public, discredit the press, and spit on the graves of every American who fought and died for the press’s freedom.

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Ed Morrissey 12:40 PM | November 21, 2024
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