If you follow me on Twitter, you already know how I felt about the trainwreck that was the Duggars’ Fox News interview. It was so bad, I have to wonder who thought it was a good idea, because Michelle and Jim-Bob Duggar were so obviously coached and so obviously had their talking points, so someone, somewhere, thought it was a great idea for them to this interview. I’m sure there were several dog-whistles just for the evangelical crowd (all of the Jesus talk, of course), but most of the time, whenever the Duggars tried to deflect to their faith, Megyn Kelly jumped in with a question about specific acts by Josh Duggar or specific inaction by Michelle or Jim-Bob. Note: I’m going to cover the Jessa and Jill Duggar information in a separate post. This post is just for Michelle and Jim-Bob. Some interesting moments from the interview plus my thoughts, in no particular order.

Megyn Kelly was a Duggar water-carrier. There were some moments where Megyn really forced a certain issue or really dug for an answer on a specific question, but she still allowed Jim-Bob and Michelle to make Josh Duggar’s systematic and escalating child molestation all about THEM. It was all about how THEY felt. There was little concern for Josh’s victims from Michelle and Jim-Bob. Kelly also carried water for them as they tried to deflect to the bigger issue, which in their mind was the vast left-wing conspiracy to get Josh Duggar to admit that he molested five little girls.

What we know about Josh’s crimes is all Josh’s story. All Michelle and Jim-Bob know about Josh’s crimes is from his own self-reporting to them. Jim-Bob and Michelle bent over backwards to give Josh credit for telling them that he molested his sisters. But all I can think is… how many incidents and victims did he not disclose to his parents? We’re just taking his word for how many victims he had and how many times he molested over the course of more than a year.

Jim-Bob confirms. He said that Josh molested four sisters and a babysitter. Jim-Bob also said he made Josh call the babysitter and apologize to her after he molested her and I guess Josh demanded that she forgive him.

Josh is M.I.A. Why didn’t Josh speak in his own defense? He’s a 27 year old man and his mommy and daddy are still bending over backwards to excuse his crimes.

No harm, no foul. The Duggars kept emphasizing how Josh’s crimes were “mostly” on sleeping girls. The emphasis was so extreme, it ended up being MORE disturbing. Not only did they end up painting their son as the kind of predator who preyed on unconscious victims, the fact that his victims didn’t understand what happened to them – and that the Duggars at no point explained what happened to them – made it all somehow worse. Jim-Bob even made the argument of “hey, it’s not like Josh raped one of them.”

The Duggars are terrible liars, or dumb, or both. Within minutes of the Duggar interview, Jim-Bob’s story had already changed about five times. Did Josh “only” molest sleeping girls or were some of his victims awake? How many times did Josh molest? How many girls did Josh molest? How many months or years was he preying on girls? We don’t know the answers to any of those questions because Jim-Bob and Michelle couldn’t keep their stories straight.

Were all of the incidents of molestation over-the-clothes? Jim-Bob was in the middle of saying that not every incident involved over-the-clothes molestation when Michelle interrupted him and shut him down.

Teaching girls not to get molested. Rather than teaching Josh not to molest. The Duggars insisted that they set up “safeguards” at some point to insure the safety of their daughters. Those safeguards worked so well that Josh kept molesting, incidentally. The Duggars also emphasized that they changed the “rules” for brothers and sisters’ interactions, like Josh wasn’t allowed to babysit his sisters. Basically, instead of dealing with Josh’s behavior head on, the Duggars blamed their daughters for being too molest-baity.

Josh was kicked out of the house temporarily after molesting a five-year-old. Probably because it was difficult for Jim-Bob and Michelle to figure out a way that a five-year-old was responsible for her own molestation.

The receipts. I’m going to need the receipts on all of the “professional counseling” that Josh and his victims received.

Slander. The Duggars don’t know the meaning of the word. They confirmed all of In Touch Weekly’s reporting – based off a completely legal FOIA request – and then some. If In Touch’s sourcing was impeccable and the Duggars confirmed everything in In Touch’s reporting, how is it slander? Still, Jim-Bob and Michelle are talking to some lawyers because they’re thinking about suing. Sure.

Gawker did a comprehensive list of all of the excuses the Duggars made for Josh during the interview – go here to read. It was all profoundly disturbing.

PS… Remember, I’ll be covering the Jessa and Jill stuff in another post. Please don’t threadjack!

Photos courtesy of WENN, Duggars’ social media.