Categories: OLD Media Moves

A new term: The "Buttner" question

The Comedy Channel’s Jon Stewart called certain questions a “Cavuto.” Now, Fox Hounds has borrowed the tactic and dubbed certain questions a “Buttner.”

Fox Hounds wrote, “Like the ‘Cavuto,’ a ‘Buttner’ bears some similarities to a question, but it’s not used by Cavuto. It’s used by Brenda Buttner, anchor for Fox News ‘Bulls and Bears.’

“A ‘Buttner’ is an attempt by Buttner to tie any movement on Wall Street to a political event in a way that reflects positively on George Bush or negatively on Democrats. Sometimes, the connection between the two events comes across as tenuous, to say the least.

“Regular viewers of ‘Bulls and Bears’ will recognize the genre immediately: George Bush gives a speech. Will the market soar?

“Saturday’s ‘Buttner’ was intended to diss Democrats and undercut any momentum their party might have coming off the midterm election victories. After the Dow set record highs last week, right after voters put Democrats in charge of both the House and Senate, Buttner could not very well follow her usual pattern of asking whether the Dow highs were related to that development. And George Bush hadn’t done anything to crow about except go to Vietnam. So she really had to reach for this one.

“‘A third party in the White House. Is that what Wall Street wants? Why this record run for the Dow could be forecasting a record run and win by an independent in 2008,’ proclaimed Buttner at the start of the show.”