After Fox News’ Megyn Kelly mocked victims of a pepper-spray assault on the air this week (again), supporters of the students that suffered the attack challenged the conservative correspondent to find out first-hand what it’s like to be maced.
As of Friday morning, nearly 40,000 people have gotten behind that cause.
On Monday, Kelly told fellow Fox host Bill O’Reilly that pepper spray was “essentially” just a food product and that the hubbub over a University of California at Davis cop that fired the condiment (essentially) onto the faces of peacefully protesting students was unwarranted.
“I don’t know if from a legal standpoint the cops did anything wrong,” Kelly said, while at the same time admitting that Lt John Pike’s now infamous assault was still kind of “abrasive and intrusive.” The footage of the campus cop firing the dangerous chemical onto students that sat quietly at UC Davis spawned an Internet meme, international outrage and eventually administrative leave for the officer. Opponents of Kelly aren’t asking exactly the same for her, but they do think that she should see how tasty that food product can really be.
“To back up your claim that pepper spray is a food product, please consume as much of it as was sprayed on each protestor’s face, in one sitting, on camera at Fox News,” Nick Douglas of New York City wrote on a petition he created on the Change.org website. “You may mix the spray with one serving of food or drink, as I am not a sadist. Then, please relate the effects to your audience.”
Since creating the petition earlier this week, over 37,000 signatures have been added; Douglas is aiming for 50,000 and it doesn’t look that too far off.
“I’m signing because I’m sick of people lying or being purposefully misleading to people who depend on them for facts,” Tyler Peterson adds along with his name on Douglas’ petition. “This is applicable to almost all of the staff at Fox News and I would love to see one of them literally eat their words.”
Christian Guevara, another signee, adds, “As a member of the US Military, nothing would make up for me being away from my family on my birthday/ Thanksgiving more than this. If you don’t do this Megyn Kelly, you don’t support the troops or love America.”
You hear the man, Kelly. Those are fighting words. Clearly you hate your country. Now prove the naysayers wrong and take a blast to the face. It’s really not all that bad and probably pretty tasty too. Essentially.