(Salon) — If you describe yourself in adjectives like “progressive,” “liberal,” “feminist,” or “repulsed by FOX News,” you probably don’t have the highest professional opinion of Megyn Kelly. You probably find yourself, in fact, regularly horrified at her unique views on issues like race relations and Planned Parenthood. But the thing about trying to be open-minded is that it means being willing to defend those who wouldn’t necessarily do the same for you. It means understanding that you don’t have to respect a person’s ideals to still be obliged to respect her humanity. And it means being willing to say, without reservation, right on, Megyn Kelly.
In the days since she dared to ask Donald Trump — the apparently not just a bad dream serious candidate for the Republican presidential nomination — about his public record of referring to women as fat pigs, Kelly has the target of some of the most vile slime the Internet has to offer. Naturally, it was Trump himself who helped get the ball rolling, excoriating her on Twitter for not being “professional” enough for his liking, and calling her a “bimbo” while insisting she only has a job because she’s “sexy.” And then just to bring it all home, he made a not so veiled insinuation that that Kelly was uppity because she probably on the rag, explaining, “You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her… wherever. You could see she was off-base.” (Trump says he meant her nose.)
