Viral rewind: Megyn Kelly enjoys rare moment of transcendence, smacking down GOP crazy person

For a brief moment in 2010, the liberal media and Megyn Kelly were high-fiving

Published July 18, 2015 3:00PM (EDT)

 Megyn Kelly, Tom Tancredo  (Fox News)
Megyn Kelly, Tom Tancredo (Fox News)

You held out for as long as you could, but one day — against your better judgment — you clicked on a viral video. A song about chocolate rain. A man going full-psycho over double rainbows. Rebecca. Effing. Black. You didn’t feel great about it, but you just couldn’t help it.

We may never have a hard-and-fast gauge on what makes something go viral — something to do with wisdom tooth extraction meds? — but we can still, retroactively, attempt to make sense of some of it. That’s why every week we’ll be taking a look back at the things that went viral exactly five years prior.

Here’s what was buzzing around the Internet for the week of July 18, 2010: 

"Alright, Congressman. That's ridiculous," Megyn Kelly opened a 2010 program of  "America Live."

Kelly was responding to former GOP Rep. Tom Tancredo's op-ed published in Washington Times which argued President Obama was "a more serious threat to America than al Qaeda" and that he had "consciously and brazenly disregarded his oath of office to protect and defend the Constitution." The proposed solution: impeachment.

That op-ed, titled "The case for impeachment," was published during a summer when "Obama Derangement Syndome" had become a full-blown epidemic in conservative media.

Here's how Media Matters defined "ODS" at the time:

"In recent weeks, conservative media have been consumed by 'Obama Derangement Syndrome,'  accusing President Obama of being insane, of colluding with Russian spies, of trying to create a civil war and implement one world government, among other things, while also claiming that his administration is trying to control everything under the sun, including the Internet and, inexplicably, your toilet."

Joining Kelly's program just days after announcing his bid for Colorado governor, the "Harley-Davidson biker and perennial headache" doubled down on his constitutional defense, telling the host: "Well you may think [it's ridiculous]. I don't."

"He is a committed idealogue," Tancredo said. "And when you have somebody like that in the White House, it is to me a scary proposition, and I think that we can muster our defenses much more easily to take care of Al Qaeda than we can to take care of the president."

In a rare moment from Kelly, the Fox News anchor became the bigger person. "How does that raise the level of debate?" she asked Tancredo.

Fast-forward four years: The extreme GOP firebrand has not cooled off at all. The New York Times caught up with the 68-year-old Tancredo in the last days of his primary campaign for governor in June 2014. "You ... should be unwilling to modify your positions, just because you fear that some people out there will be turned off by it, he said. "That’s not a reason to soft-pedal certain things.”

Though Tancredo's political career has been largely unfruitful recently, if there's one force capable of uniting the liberal media with Fox News' Megyn Kelly for a few fleeting moments, it's Tancredo. And for that, he deserves some credit.

Revisit this interview with Megyn Kelly courtesy of TPM below:


By Colin Gorenstein

Colin Gorenstein is Salon's assistant editor of internet and viral content. Follow @colingorenstein or email cgorenstein@salon.com.

MORE FROM Colin Gorenstein


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Fox News Megyn Kelly Tom Tancredo Video Viral Rewind