Bob Beckel Returned, to Bash Trump On Fox News

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Ken Tucker
·Critic-at-Large, Yahoo Entertainment
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Photo: Fox News
Photo: Fox News

In a semi-surprise, that big olโ€™ growly, liberal bear in suspenders, Bob Beckel, reclaimed his chair on Mondayโ€™s edition of The Five. Beckel, whoโ€™d been dumped by Fox News in 2015 (and underwent, as he said on Monday, three back operations), is a sleeker grumpy olโ€™ bear now, having dropped 35 pounds. But he was still ready to be ornery, complaining about โ€œhow little [Donald] Trump knows about anythingโ€ and measuring โ€œhow much Trump is dislikedโ€ throughout America.

The other four of The Five โ€” Eric Bolling, Kimberly Guilfoyle, Greg Gutfeld and Dana Perino โ€” seemed genuinely pleased to see Beckel, whose seat had been filled most recently by Juan Williams. (Williams, a Fox statement says, will continue to appear across the network, including occasional visits to The Five.) There was a lot of reminiscing about Beckel, complete with a clip-reel of Beckelโ€™s various stunts on the show. (Bob doing yoga qualified as a stunt.) If the hour got off to a rocky start โ€” Iโ€™m not sure how much of a sign of assured support it is to be played onto the air by the Bee Gees singing โ€œStayinโ€™ Aliveโ€ โ€” Beckel settled in nicely soon enough.

But so much time was spent welcoming Beckel back to the fold, The Five barely had time to hurl insults at Congressman John Lewis โ€” which, on this Martin Luther King Day, Fox News had been doing all day. The channelโ€™s wedge into traducing the reputation of Lewis, an authentic American hero, is to have many of its anchor bobble-heads say that Lewis has โ€œgone too farโ€: Guilfoyleโ€™s version of this was to say of Lewis, โ€œThis guy attacked our democratic principles.โ€ Calling Lewis โ€œthis guyโ€ was a typical conflation of ignorance and insult, and obviously a key principle of democracy is that we can feel free to criticize anyone in โ€” or in Trumpโ€™s case, about to ascend to โ€” power.

Beckel closed out the show by looking into the camera and addressing the President-elect: โ€œIโ€™m gonna be after you,โ€ he said. โ€œYou know the old saying, you can run but you canโ€™t hide.โ€ As a threat, it carried less weight than the number of pounds Bob has lost. I preferred an earlier comment heโ€™d made, during a segment on how few celebrities are planning to serenade the new President on Friday. โ€œCanโ€™t Ethel Merman do it?โ€ asked Beckel. The great thing was, Iโ€™m not sure if he thought she was still around to do so, or was suggesting that we summon her back from the dead.

The Five airs weekdays at 5 p.m. on Fox News.