Election

Andrew Breitbart’s Imaginary Republican Primary

Posted by on December 27, 2011 at 3:37 pm. 2 Comments :

Last week Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment published an unintentionally hilarious column that sought to offer Democratic alternatives to President Obama. The choices included non-Democrats like Fox News anchor Chris Wallace and Independent senator Joe Lieberman.

Not content to embarrass himself with his incoherent analysis of Democratic politics, the author and editor of Breitbart.com, Joel Pollak, followed up the story this week with even less plausible suggestions for his own Republican Party. Pollak advocates for a brokered convention that would nominate a candidate not currently in the field. He runs down the GOP wish list of familiar names like Mitch Daniels and Chris Christie, and threw in some of the most unpopular characters the Republicans have ever hatched like Eric Cantor, Jim DeMint, and Paul Ryan. These folks might get the Tea Party extremists sweaty, but they would alienate the general public to an unprecedented degree. However, Pollak saved his top recommendations for last, and they are doozies.

Pollak’s number two choice for president is one of the nation’s most ridiculed and disrespected politicians, Sarah Palin. Despite starring in a documentary bomb, ironically titled “The Undefeated,” Palin has a resume chock full of defeat. She bailed out of her governorship half way through her first term. She lost the 2008 vice-presidential campaign and is credited with having been responsible for the fall of the ticket. Her book sales have been declining with each new release. Her canceled Alaska tourism program on TLC lost viewers almost every week it aired. She is currently trying to pitch a new TV show featuring her husband’s snowmobile exploits, but no one is biting. When Republicans are polled as to whether they want her to run for president, majorities say unequivocally NO! So of course, she’s the perfect candidate.

Well, almost perfect. Palin was, after all, Pollak’s second choice. So who could Pollak come up with that would surpass Palin’s extraordinary credentials? He would have to dig deep to uncover someone even more ludicrous than Palin. And Pollak does not disappoint when he reveals his first choice, the governor of Wisconsin, Scott Walker.

There may be no politician in America who is more reviled by average citizens and working families. Scott Walker is renowned for his arrogant attempts to roll back collective bargaining rights that were in effect for decades. He managed to anger nurses and firefighters, and even his own police departments, as he battled for lower wages, pensions, and budgets that would mandate extensive and dangerous layoffs. His state has lost jobs for five consecutive months as job creation grew nationally. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics place Wisconsin last in the nation.

But the biggest obstacle to Walker being drafted for a presidential run is that he is about to be recalled. The organizers of the campaign to recall Walker have already announced that in less than half the allotted time they have over 500,000 of the 540,000 signatures required for a recall election. Walker’s popularity in the state is abysmal and his prospects for fending off the recall are, let’s say challenging. Earlier this year Democrats successfully recalled two of Walker’s Republican legislative allies.

The notion of a brokered GOP convention is music to the ears of Democrats. It’s an admission that the candidates put forth so far are inadequate to the job. Should one of them prevail in such an environment they would emerge greatly weakened. Should a new name emerge, it would be someone that did not endure the primary process of vetting that is so critical to assessing the viability of a candidate. Imagine if any of the previous Republican frontrunners (Bachmann, Cain, Perry, Trump) had been selected by acclamation in a brokered convention. They would have been quickly dispensed with in the general election because their obvious flaws would not have been revealed until it was too late. That will surely be the fate of any of the candidates that Pollak is setting up now.

So I wish him well. I completely agree with his choices. It would bring me great pleasure if Walker or Palin or Christie or DeMint were thrust to the head of the line and were chosen to face Obama in the general election. Obama has some very real hurdles to overcome in his quest for another term. The economy has to continue to show signs of improvement. Unemployment has to keep going down. And any number of international hotspots need to be carefully managed in order to avoid tragic flareups. But the most consistently positive advantage that Barack Obama has over his prospective opponents is that he is running against the sort of contemporary Republicans that have lost all semblance of sanity. How lucky can a guy get?

Merry Christmas Karl Rove, From Fox News

Posted by on December 24, 2011 at 10:18 am. 1 Comments :

In the spirit of the holiday season, Fox News has given a Christmas gift to former George W. Bush political strategist, and current Fox employee, Karl Rove. The gift was a generous one that is worth tens of thousands of dollars, and it is exactly what Rove asked Santa Claus for: Free Advertising.

Rove’s latest attack ad bashing President Obama has received free air time on a variety of Fox News programs including Hannity, The Five and others. And the ad was not merely shown in the context of a news report, it received high praise from Fox pundits and presenters. Also, in most cases Fox never bothered to mention that the ad, which was produced by the American Crossroads PAC, was in fact Rove’s vehicle for raising millions of dollars from secret corporate donors.

This is blatant electioneering by Fox on behalf of the Republican Party. They should be required by law to report it as an in-kind contribution. It is additional evidence (as if any were necessary) that Fox’s claim to be “fair and balanced” is transparently dishonest. Can anyone imagine Fox giving the same sort of treatment to this ad by Priorities USA, a rival Democratic PAC (that coincidentally features Fox’s own Karl Rove)?

Yeah, that’ll be the day.

Andrew Breitbart’s Imaginary Democratic Primary

Posted by on December 23, 2011 at 12:38 pm. 4 Comments :

The chronically choleric Andrew Breitbart has published an amusing speculation as to who the Democratic Party could field for president instead of Obama. This is really just an attempt by BigGovernment to sow new discord among the unusually united Democrats.

The article was written by Joel Pollak, the editor-in-chief of Breitbart.com, and features a roster of barely Democratic names who are arguably more conservative than many Republicans (i.e. Harold Ford and Joe Manchin). It also includes a couple of Democrats that would be bitterly opposed by the BigGovernment crowd if there were any real chance of them running (i.e. Hillary Clinton and Andrew Cuomo). However, two names stand out for their surreal presence on any list of of reputed Democrats.

First is the anchor of Fox News Sunday, Chris Wallace. Pollak’s basis for including Wallace on a list of Democrats is a five year old article in the Washington Post that reported that Wallace was a registered Democrat. Unfortunately, Pollak didn’t read the whole article that quoted Wallace as saying…

“The reason I’m a registered Democrat is that in Washington, D.C., there is really only one party,” Wallace told us yesterday. “If you want a say in who’s going to be the next mayor or councilman, you have to vote in the Democratic primary.”

So Wallace’s registration is just his way of being able to influence the outcome of primary elections for a party that he opposes. We know that he opposes the Democrats because of the way speaks about them publicly and slants his reporting. For instance…

  • Asking the Weekly Standard’s Stephen Hayes “is it unfair to say that this is a president whose heart doesn’t seem to be into winning the war on terror?”
  • Asking Rush Limbaugh what Obama has done TO the country.
  • Awarding ACORN pimp, James O’Keefe, the “Power Player of the Week.”
  • Calling Democrats “damn fools” for declining to appear on Fox News.
  • [My favorite] Admitting that he “generally agrees” with Sean Hannity.
  • Jumping to the defense of George W. Bush after director Ron Howard suggested comparisons to Richard Nixon.
  • Declaring Sarah Palin to be a “new star in the political galaxy.”
  • Asking George Bush if he was “puzzled by all of the concern in this country about protecting [the] rights of people who want to kill us.”
  • In a criticism of Democratic health care plans, making the absurd observation that “people don’t even contemplate end of life until they’re in an irreversible coma.”

Never mind that Wallace has no experience in politics or government, and has never run any enterprise that might prepare him to be the manager of an Olive Garden, much less the presidency.

But the number one Democratic choice by the BigGovernment editor to replace Barack Obama is —-> Sen. Joe Lieberman – who is NOT a Democrat. Lieberman was run out of the Democratic Party by the voters of his own state who chose Ned Lamont in a senate primary. Lieberman’s ego refused to step aside, so he ran as an independent and was returned to the senate by a majority of Republican voters who abandoned their own nominee in favor of Lieberman.

Pollak’s article is a joke that has failed to inject a sense of humor. It is his effort to distract Breitbart’s flock so that they don’t focus on the hilarity of their own cast of characters running for the GOP nomination. I don’t blame him. If Democrats were running a pack clowns like those in the GOP, I’d want a distraction too.

Judge Not: Newt Gingrich Adds Another Zany Plank To His Platform

Posted by on December 19, 2011 at 9:30 am. 5 Comments :

GOP frontrunner Newt Gingrich continues to adopt some of the most lunatic positions from the right-wing fringe. First it was calling child labor laws “truly stupid.” Then it was calling Palestinians an “invented people.” Now Gingrich wants to go after judges he doesn’t like.

Newt Gingrich

Gingrich was questioned about his prior comments that he would, as president, eliminate judges and courts that he regarded as overstepping their authority. As an example he suggested that the entire Ninth Circuit could be done away with. On Face the Nation, host Bob Schieffer noted that Gingrich’s proposal would violate the Constitution, and asked the former Speaker how he would enforce this. Would he send the Capitol police to arrest such judges? Gingrich replied…

“If you had to. Or you’d instruct the Justice Department to send a U.S. marshal.”

This may go down in history as one of the stupidest, and most dangerous, statements from a presidential contender. The notion that a president could unilaterally punish judges for decisions with which the president disagrees is fundamentally unconstitutional and anti-American. Such power would mean that judges would have to live in fear of losing their job if they displeased the White House. It would mean that they could not decide cases on the merits, but would have to decide based on the political repercussions of their ruling. That would, in effect, make the judiciary an irrelevant appendage of the White House, rather than an independent and impartial administrator of the law.

It will be interesting to see how Gingrich’s Tea Party supporters respond to this repulsive stance. The Tea Party has always tried to portray itself as opposed to big government and the encroachment of power by government institutions. There is nothing more representative of a power grab than one branch of government asserting that it has the authority to eliminate another branch. And that’s exactly what Gingrich is proposing.

But I wonder if Gingrich has thought this through. If President Obama were to adopt Gingrich’s view today, he could have Justices Thomas and Scalia arrested and thrown off the bench. Then he could appoint two new judges to take their place. Somehow I don’t think that’s what Gingrich had in mind? In fact, were Obama to try that he would be swooped on by outraged Republicans and Tea Partiers and castigated as a traitor.

And if it wasn’t disgusting enough that Gingrich would propose something so contrary to American values, Fox Nation characterizes this as Gingrich criticizing “Anti-American Judges.” That’s a loaded term that implies that any judge that makes a ruling that a president doesn’t like is anti-American and, therefore, subject to impeachment. Of course, it’s the policy advanced by Gingrich, as well as the spin given to it by Fox, that is anti-American, not the judges that Gingrich yearns to impeach.

[Update] Fox Nation doubles down with a second column on Gingrich’s dictatorial aspirations. This one sports a curious headline that lamely tries to tar Bob Schieffer of Face the Nation as having been “jacked up” by Gingrich and calls the program “Slay the Nation.”

Fox Nation

Also note that on the morning following the death of Kim Jong Il, the Fox Nationalists place this rehashed story at the top of their web site above a much smaller link to a story on the deceased leader of North Korea.

Republicans Reveal Their Top Priority For America In Iowa Debate

Posted by on December 17, 2011 at 12:38 pm. 5 Comments :

At a time when the nation faces some formidable challenges on critical matters of economics, employment, national defense, health care, etc., the Republican candidates for president met in Iowa to debate the issues that they regard as most important to voters and the country.

Leading off the Fox News sponsored debate, Fox anchor Bret Baier summarized just what issues the GOP held as their highest priority, and it wasn’t any of those enumerated in the paragraph above.

Bret Baier: We have received thousands of tweets, Facebook messages and emails with suggested questions. And the overall majority of them had one theme: Electability. People want to know which one of you on this stage is able to be in the best position to beat President Obama in the general election. And that’s the number one goal for Republican voters, obviously.

So there you have it. The number one goal is not restoring the nation’s economic health. It is not creating jobs or strengthening the middle-class. It is not Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Al Qaeda, or any other source of international hostility. It isn’t even Republican pet causes of guns, gays, God, or repealing ObamaCare. The number on issue is electability. Republicans are focused squarely on the singular issue of evicting the Kenyan socialist from the White House, to the exclusion of all other principles or positions. Just like Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said shortly after Obama was inaugurated.

Taking this theme to heart, the debate continued with a series of question that addressed nothing substantive other than the candidate’s prospects for beating President Obama next November. Here are the first seven questions asked at Thursday’s debate:

Bret Baier: Speaker Gingrich, since our last debate your position in this race has changed dramatically. You are now physically in the center of the stage, which means that you are at the top of the polls, yet many Republicans seem conflicted about you, They say that you’re smart, that you’re a big thinker. At the same time many of those same Republicans worry deeply about your electability in a general election saying perhaps Gov. Romney is a safer bet. Can you put to rest, once and for all, the persistent doubts that you are indeed the right candidate on this stage to go up and beat President Obama?

Megyn Kelly: Cong. Paul, you have some bold ideas, some very fervent supporters, and probably the most organized ground campaign here in Iowa, but there are many Republicans, inside and outside of this state, who openly doubt whether you can be elected president. How can you convince them otherwise, and if you don’t wind up winning this nomination, will you pledge here tonight that you will support the ultimate nominee?

Megyn Kelly: Sen. Santorum, no one has spent more time in Iowa than you. You have visited every county in the state. And yet, while we have seen no fewer than four Republican candidates surge in the polls, sometimes in extraordinary ways, so far you and your campaign have failed to catch fire with the voters. Why?

Chris Wallace: Gov. Romney, I want to follow up on Bret’s line of questioning to the Speaker because many of our viewers tell us that they are supporting Newt Gingrich because they think that he will be tougher than you in taking the fight to Barack Obama in next fall’s debates. Why would you be able to make the Republican’s case against the President more effectively than the Speaker?

Chris Wallace: Cong. Bachmann, no one questions your conservative credentials, but what about your appeal to Independents who are so crucial in a general election? If you are fortunate enough to become the Republican nominee, how would you counter the efforts by the Barack Obama campaign to paint you as too conservative to moderate voters?

Neil Cavuto: Gov. Perry, by your own admission you are not a great debater. You have said as much and downplayed debating skills in general. But if you were to become your party’s nominee you would be going up against an accomplished debater in Barack Obama. There are many in this audience tonight, sir, who fear that possibility and don’t think you’re up for the fight. Allay them of their concerns.

Neil Cavuto: Gov. Huntsman, your campaign has been praised by moderates, but many question your ability to galvanize the Republicans, energize the conservative base of the party. They’re especially leery of your refusal to sign on to a “no tax hike” pledge. How can you reassure them tonight.

Nothing is more revealing of a party’s intentions than what they themselves place at the forefront of their campaigns. And nothing could be more clear than the fact that Republicans simply do not care about issues or the welfare of the American people as much as they do about their own selfish quest for power.

What’s more, the debate sponsor, Fox News, and other right-wing spokesmodels concur with the GOP’s directive on beating Obama above all else. That’s why the questions were littered with words like “worry,” “doubt,” “fear,” and “leery,” to describe the electorate’s mood toward the GOP frontrunners. And the debate amongst Republican elites is raging at an unprecedented pace. Rush Limbaugh thinks Romney is a milquetoast candidate. Glenn Beck called Gingrich a progressive (a pejorative for Beck) and the one candidate he would not vote for. Even Fox’s Chris Wallace slammed Ron Paul saying that a win by Paul in Iowa would discredit the state’s caucuses.

So what we have here is both the candidates and the media fixated on electability. All they talk about is the horse race and not the underlying issues. And of course, the reason for that is that they don’t care about the issues, only the power that comes from political control. And now they have confessed this obsession unabashedly.

Unfortunately for these polito-Narcissists, they aren’t quite smart enough to craft accurate predictions of who is or isn’t electable. They will undoubtedly make the wrong choice and their anointed candidate will suffer an embarrassing defeat. But to be honest, that’s an easy call for me to make because any of the current GOP candidates would be the wrong choice. They are all presently losing to Obama in national polls, and that’s quite a feat considering Obama’s low favorability ratings. The best thing that’s happened for Obama’s reelection prospects is that he’s running against this batch of pathetic Republicans.

Fox News Faux Pas: What’s Wrong With This Picture?

Posted by on December 14, 2011 at 2:48 pm. 7 Comments :

This graphic illustrating the results of a poll for the Iowa Republican primary appeared this morning on the Fox News program America Live with Megyn Kelly.

Fox News

So what is Fox trying to say here? Is it that Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are interchangeable? Is this an effort to make their viewers think that Obama is losing to Newt Gingrich? Or are they just trying to confuse their dimwitted viewers so that they stumble around with vacant stares and do whatever the voices on their television tell them to do?

As I’ve said on the other many occasions when Fox News screws up: These amateurish flubs are typical of Fox’s sloppy brand of pseudo-journalism. It demonstrates their lack of seriousness with regard to reporting and informing the public. What’s more, they are aware of the problem. A couple of years ago they distributed a memo to their newsroom warning of the consequences of continued blunders:

“Mistakes by any member of the show team that end up on air may result in immediate disciplinary action against those who played significant roles in the ‘mistake chain,’ and those who supervise them. That may include warning letters to personnel files, suspensions, and other possible actions up to and including termination.”

So will heads be rolling at Fox News? Don’t count on it. Fox doesn’t regard these incidents as mistakes. In fact, they are an integral part of their mandate. A mistake would be if they inadvertently allowed something truthful to get on the air. That would be cause for termination at Fox News.

Donald Trump: I’m Fired!

Posted by on December 13, 2011 at 6:38 pm. NO Comments :

When Donald Trump announced that he would be hosting a Republican presidential primary debate, the news was met mostly with mockery and from Democrats and dread from Republicans. The only person who ever took it seriously was Trump himself. And Trump was typically bombastic in describing it as the most important debate ever, and insisting that it would be watched by more people than any other debate.

Today Trump realized what most of the knowledgeable observers have known all along. This debate was a cockeyed notion that interested only people who wanted to laugh along with his comedia. So he released a statement that he would not be hosting a debate after all. And his reasons for canceling are just as funny as his reasons for signing on in the first place.

“The Republican Party candidates are very concerned that sometime after the final episode of The Apprentice, on May 20th, when the equal time provisions are no longer applicable to me, I will announce my candidacy for President of the United States as an Independent and that, unless I conclusively agree not to run as an Independent, they will not agree to attend or be a part of the Newsmax debate scheduled for December 27, 2011. It is very important to me that the right Republican candidate be chosen to defeat the failed and very destructive Obama Administration, but if that Republican, in my opinion, is not the right candidate, I am not willing to give up my right to run as an Independent candidate. Therefore, so that there is no conflict of interest within the Republican Party, I have decided not to be the moderator of the Newsmax debate.”

The only candidate who said anything about the prospect of Trump running for president as an Independent was Michele Bachmann. The overwhelming majority of the criticisms of Trump’s event were focused on the circus atmosphere over which he was certain to preside. Nevertheless, Trump used as his excuse for pulling a Palin (withdrawing prematurely) was his determination to keep his options open for an Independent candidacy.

Let’s be perfectly clear about this. Donald Trump canceled the debate because he didn’t have the stature to pull it off. Not even with the help of his third rate partners at NewsMax and ION-TV. What’s more, he is not going to run for president as an Independent or anything else. To suggest that he canceled the debate to keep that open as an option is absurd in the extreme. He might as well have said that he wants to keep open the option of traveling to Venus for a conference of mermaids and minotaurs.

Personally, I’m disappointed. There isn’t much on television in the days between Christmas and News Year’s but cheesy holiday specials and old movies I’ve seen a hundred times. The Trump debate would have been a welcome comic relief. I guess I’ll have to be satisfied with reruns of yuletide episodes of sitcoms and NetFlix.

The Donald Trump/NewsMax Debate: What No One Is Talking About

Posted by on December 9, 2011 at 9:30 am. 2 Comments :

Donald Trump

Ever since it was announced that Donald Trump would be moderating a debate between the Republican presidential primary candidates, the focus of the press and pundits was centered on the absurdity of a clown like Trump being taken seriously in that role. After all, he is charlatan who pretends to be a successful businessman, but in reality he is fraud who has presided over four bankrupt enterprises and rescued his floundering career by becoming a TV game show host.

GOP luminaries from George Will to Karl Rove to RNC Chairman Reince Priebus, have all dismissed Trump a distraction, a joke, or worse. And consistent with his pugilistic personality, Trump fired back with a barrage of petulant insults. More importantly, the candidates themselves have shunned Trump and his Narcissistic endeavor. Huntsman, Paul, Romney, Perry, and Bachmann are all officially out. When Bachmann gave notice on Fox News she complained to Gretchen Carlson that…

“…[Trump] was also on television saying that he was leaning toward one candidate. Even if he was leaning towards me it suggests the idea of bias and I just don’t know if that’s necessarily the right format.”

And just to illustrate how clueless the characters on Fox News are, Carlson responded to Bachmann saying…

“That’s interesting, because I had not thought about the latter part of what you just said as being possibly a conflict of interest if he actually is leaning towards one candidate.”

Yes, Gretchen, that is interesting (I mean the part about you having thoughts). And while Huntsman and Paul spoke candidly about their reasons for sitting out the debate, Romney, Bachmann, and Perry all polished their snub by lavishing the Donald with flagrant flattery and shameless adulation. Nevertheless, it has become glaringly apparent that Trump holds no sway with either the public or the political players. The roster for the much ballyhooed debate (mostly ballyhooed by Trump himself) is now set with only Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum participating. That should make for some compelling TV drama. However, it is unlikely to result in the fulfillment of his prediction that “We will get, probably, the highest ratings of any debate.” Such grandiose hyperbole can only come from the ego of Trump.

But lost in the sublime comic relief of all of this Trumpling is any substantive review of his partner in this debasement of debate. NewsMax is a popular conservative magazine and web site. Popular among the curmudgeon crowd of over-65 conspiracy nuts, that is. Its editor, Chris Ruddy, is the author of a book that advanced the scurrilous lie that Bill Clinton’s aide, Vince Foster, did not commit suicide as all available evidence proved, but was – murdered! When Ruddy could not get his employer, Rupert Murdoch of the New York Post, to go along with this fable, Ruddy struck out on his own with the help of another right-wing media baron: Richard Mellon Scaife. It ought to be a warning sign if Murdoch is uncomfortable with your lunatic ravings.

Scaife is a stalwart anti-communist who seems to believe that anyone to the left of Barry Goldwater is a Trotskyite. His largesse extends to a who’s who of rightist foundations like the American Enterprise Institute, David Horowitz’s Freedom Center, and the Heritage Foundation. He is similarly generous to organizations that oppose public education, unions, and global warming science. But he is best known for bankrolling the investigations of sex scandals and drug-running plots that he was convinced Clinton was engaged in back in Arkansas.

So in addition to the embarrassment of being associated with Donald Trump, the two remaining participants in his debate must also account for their connection to NewsMax and Scaife. This is about more than just Trump’s ego and Birtherism. It also extends to extremist delusions about murdered White House staffers and drug traffickers. Even worse, NewsMax once published an article that was a thinly veiled call for a military coup against the Obama administration. Or as it is referred to legal circles – treason.

Santorum doesn’t have much to worry about because he isn’t going anywhere anyway. But Gingrich is the current GOP frontrunner (and the likely beneficiary/victim of a Trump endorsement), and he should be asked to comment on the appropriateness of aligning himself with these controversial figures. Sadly, it may be too much to expect the media to hold Gingrich’s feet to the fire when they haven’t even bothered to report that there is a fire. While it may be tempting to fill the airwaves with the Tales of Trump, that is only half the story. NewsMax and Scaife are as much a part of this ludicrous debate as Trump and deserve a little attention as well.

[Update] Trump spoke with Don Imus on the Fox Business Network this morning and delivered some deeply depressing news. Imus asked Trump if the debate would be going forward with only Gingrich and Santorum participating. Trump said, “I don’t know. I have to look into it.” Aside from being an enormous insult to Gingrich and Santorum, canceling the debate would eliminate one of the most eagerly anticipated comedy events of the holiday season. Come on, Donald…stick with it.

The Phony Fox News Course Correction

Posted by on December 7, 2011 at 1:32 pm. 1 Comments :

A couple of months ago Fox News CEO Roger Ailes told the Daily Beast that his network was undergoing an editorial realignment that he called a “course correction.” The implication was that Fox would cease to be the fiercely partisan propaganda outlet for which it has become so well known.

Well, that didn’t last long.

This morning Fox Business Network anchor Stuart Varney appeared on Sean Hannity’s radio program and candidly announced his political biases while discussing the upcoming presidential election:

“We must win. I say ‘We’ – I’m a conservative, I’m a Republican. I say we must win”

Varney went on to declare that if Obama is reelected the country will be bankrupt in four years. Of course, Hannity agreed with everything Varney said. This is a pretty good example of the actual course that Fox intends to pursue. And the political beneficiaries of Fox’s agenda know full well what they can expect from their favorite network. Mitt Romney was interviewed by Neil Cavuto yesterday and testified on behalf of the network saying…

“I’ll be on Fox a lot, because you guys matter when it comes to Republican primary voters.”

Indeed they do. In just the past two months since the alleged course correction, Fox News has hosted Liz Cheney to accuse Obama of wanting the economy to fail. They invited Victoria Jackson to present her shrill theory that Obama is a communist. They have relentlessly broadcast numerous phony stories in an effort to tarnish the administration (i.e. fast and furious, climate researcher’s emails, a Christmas tree tax, etc.) And they have gone out of their way to misrepresent Obama’s public remarks, such as the fuss they made out of his using the word “lazy.” This week Fox didn’t even bother to broadcast all of Obama’s major economic speech in Kansas. They cut away from the speech about half way through in order to air an interview with GOP loser Michele Bachmann.

So if anyone has fallen for the fairy tale that Fox is moderating their extremist right-wing activism, they clearly are not paying attention to the barrage of hostility that continues to emanate from Murdoch’s media. The Fox empire has never been more offensive and unethical, even when they still had Glenn Beck’s ravings blasting the airwaves. If they have made any course correction at all, it is further to the right and in support of the GOP primary candidates. And given the sorry nature of that bunch, you would think that they’ve suffered enough embarrassment for the remainder of this year and next.

Obama’s Kansas Speech Owes A Debt To #Occupy Wall Street

Posted by on December 6, 2011 at 3:26 pm. 3 Comments :

President Obama traveled to the site of Teddy Roosevelt’s “New Nationalism” speech in order to deliver an address on the economy. The most striking thing about the President’s remarks was the extent to which they appear to have been influenced by the Occupy movement. Obama segued from one assertion of economic inequality to another as he insisted that “in America, we are greater together – when everyone engages in fair play, everyone gets a fair shot, everyone does their fair share.”

That is the call of the Occupiers in a nutshell. It is a campaign to restore fairness and justice and to take back control of the government from the wealthy special interests it has come to serve. If you missed the speech, I’ll save you twenty minutes by posting the one paragraph that summarizes the core of the message:

“Now, in the midst of this debate, there are some who seem to be suffering from a kind of collective amnesia. After all that’s happened, after the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, they want to return to the same practices that got us into this mess. In fact, they want to go back to the same policies that have stacked the deck against middle-class Americans for too many years. Their philosophy is simple: we are better off when everyone is left to fend for themselves and play by their own rules.”

Indeed, the Collective Amnesia Ward is overflowing with patients who not only are suffering from the malady, they want to infect every American with the disease. In fact, the only way that they can prevail next November is to spread the amnesiac virus beyond the community of conservative Republicans who are most susceptible to it. And if that one message is effectively communicated by the Obama reelection committee, the President will serve a second term.

On the other hand, the paragraph following the one above reiterated one of Obama’s most severe flaws. He still believes that there is a commonality of interest between his principles of inclusion and the Republican obsession with power. He believes that that by embracing a universal American togetherness the GOP will cease to demonize him and join the effort to rebuild the nation. It starts off well enough, but crashes and burns at the end.

“I’m here to reaffirm my deep conviction that we are greater together than we are on our own. I believe that this country succeeds when everyone gets a fair shot, when everyone does their fair share, and when everyone plays by the same rules. Those aren’t Democratic or Republican values; 1% values or 99% values. They’re American values, and we have to reclaim them.”

To argue that the 1% and the 99% share common American values is evidence of a dangerous blind spot. What Obama is missing here, and what he has missed for the past three years, is that there is a massive chasm between Democratic and Republican values. Whereas Democrats aspire (at least rhetorically) to empower the middle-class, the Republicans freely admit that their top objective is destroy Obama. That simple truth ought to be enough to convince the President that he is not going to recruit any allies in the fight for fairness and economic renewal from the ranks of the establishment GOP.

To illustrate the determination of the right-wing to throw every available obstacle into Obama’s path, Fox News cut away from the speech about half way through. Apparently they wanted to protect their fragile viewers from this subversive philosophy. By tonight Fox will be castigating the speech as a paean to socialism owing to its praise for working together. And the pressing news that demanded the interruption of the President was that Megyn Kelly had an interview with Michele Bachmann, who has about as much chance of becoming the Republican nominee as Miss Piggy.

On the whole the speech was another validation of the Occupy movement. This speech would not have been written a year ago. The public debate has been utterly transformed in the two and a half months since an unruly rabble encamped in a park in Lower Manhattan. Today the Republicans are “frightened to death” of the prospect of average Americans ascending to the top of the political food chain. And the President of the United States of America gave a speech honoring the notion that “We still have a stake in each other’s success.”