PolitiFact Proves Fox News Bias On ISIL Hearings – Also That Greg Gutfeld Is An Ass

On Tuesday Media Matters published their analysis of Fox News bias during coverage of a Senate hearing on President Obama’s plans for dealing with ISIL. Media Matters showed that during Fox’s broadcast they would air remarks by Republicans on the committee and then cut away when Democrats began to speak. The result was that Republicans were given twice as much airtime as Democrats on the allegedly “fair and balanced” network. This is an old tactic by Fox which News Corpse documented last year in another Senate hearing.

Today PolitiFact weighed in with an article seeking to confirm the data that Media Matters reported. They found that…

“Media Matters said that Fox News gave Republican senators twice as much air time as Democratic ones during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing. They said Republicans got 16 minutes compared to the Democrats’ eight. That matches our count.

“We also found that other networks provided more time and more evenly divided time to members of both parties.

“We rate the claim True.”

Fox News Greg Gutfeld

This is not exactly breaking news. Media Matters is a reliably consistent source for accurate information about the biases and partisan excesses of right-wing media. What makes this interesting at this time is that it occurred almost simultaneously to a feverish rant by Fox’s Greg Gutfeld, co-host of The Five. Gutfeld was perturbed by reports that cited Media Matters research showing the obsession that Fox News has for the Benghazi hoax. The study revealed that Fox aired nearly 1,100 reports on the subject, most of which were decidedly slanted to the right. For instance, 97% of the congressional interviews on Fox relating to Benghazi were with Republicans.

The accuracy of Media Matters’ reporting, however, was immaterial to Gutfeld’s rightist indignation. He let loose on Media Matters saying that…

“…the left-wing hacks would just work from Media Matters’ press releases […] It’s much easier than doing original research to just read from a press release.”

That’s true. And it’s also hilariously ironic coming from a Fox News flunky. The reporting that Gutfeld was complaining about just happened to be unarguably correct, as noted by PolitiFact. But his griping over journalists using research from Media Matters is just plain stupid. Every media organization uses research from independent sources to augment their reporting. Often they latch onto providers with viewpoints that are aligned to their own. And, of course, Fox News is one of those media enterprises that does this. In fact, Fox’s Brit Hume gave a slobbering endorsement to one of the most blatantly partisan research outfits, the Media Research Center. Hume praised them saying…

“I want to say a word, however, of thanks to Brent and the team at the Media Research Center […] for the tremendous amount of material that the Media Research Center provided me for so many years when I was anchoring Special Report, I don’t know what we would’ve done without them. It was a daily buffet of material to work from, and we certainly made tremendous use of it.”

So according to Gutfeld, Hume is a “lazy hack sitting with his laptop, covered in Cheetos.” And if that weren’t bad enough. Gutfeld must have entirely missed the scandal when Fox News was caught red-handed reporting verbatim from a Republican Senate press release as if it were their own reporting, complete with a typo that appeared on the original. And then there was the time that Fox’s Megyn Kelly did the same thing with a press release issued by the Republican National Committee, pretending it was authored by the Fox news staff.

Clearly Gutfeld doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He’s too focused on being the comic relief for the network, but instead comes off like the boneheaded sitcom neighbor who mistakenly thinks he is either funny or suave. In the end he is little more than a troll working for a network that has once again been proven to be an unrepentant purveyor of lies. And their practice of airing Democrat-free Senate hearing just insures that their audience of misinformed dimwits will remain ignorant.

And speaking of Fox News lies…
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Rush Limbaugh’s Defense For His Justification Of Rape Makes Matters Worse

When Rush Limbaugh took to the air to vindicate every rapist who ever claimed that the woman “really wanted it,” he found himself the subject of widespread revulsion and ridicule – again. His comment that “No means yes, if you know how to spot it,” gives permission to assault women after they’ve explicitly asked to be left alone. According to Limbaugh, those with advance perception skills know what women actually want and to deny these male mind-readers satisfaction “takes all the romance out of everything.”

Rush Limbaugh

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee was one of thousands of critics blasting Limbaugh for his boorish advocacy of violence against women. As a part of their campaign to publicize Limbaugh’s comments, they sent emails to supporters that included a petition to persuade advertisers to shun Limbaugh. It also included a request for donations, as do all DCCC emails. Not surprisingly, this produced a response from the Limbaugh camp complaining that he had been taken out of context and that…

“The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee emails about Rush Limbaugh are an intentional lie, using 10 words carefully selected from his full comments to imply the opposite of what he actually said.”

Nowhere in the response did Limbaugh’s spokesman indicate what the alleged lie was. Nor did he bother to put Limbaugh’s remarks in what he considered to be the proper context. And as to whether a full reading of Limbaugh’s remarks would reveal that he was saying the opposite of what was implied, well, you can listen to 346 words and decide for yourself:

The actual context of these statements was with regard to a policy at Ohio State University aimed at reducing the incidence of sexual assault and date rape. Limbaugh was criticizing the policy and arguing that consent is not a prerequisite for sexual activity. He further mocked it by claiming that it would only lead to frivolous lawsuits. What’s more, Limbaugh believes that it’s absurd to expect men to be respectful of women because their compulsion for sex overpowers their capacity for rational decision making.

“I don’t know how men can be held to that Ohio State agreement, policy, anyway, because everybody knows in sex men don’t think with their brains. Not the one in their heads, anyway. It’s just so silly.”

So in his argument that women are so dumb that they can be ignored when they express their wishes, Limbaugh actually asserts that men are too dumb to make responsible decisions. This tells us something about Limbaugh’s experiences with women and his own ability to conduct himself civilly. He is advancing a concept of gender relations that is more aligned with our prehistoric ancestors than with modern society.

Given his perverse view of sexuality and the welfare of women, it explains why he is on his fourth wife and has had to acquire massive quantities of Viagra on the black market.

Shameless self-promotion…
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