Day: 3/25/2011

Who Says Glenn Beck Isn’t Funny?

Posted by on March 25, 2011 at 3:38 pm. 2 Comments :

Glenn BeckOn his TV program yesterday, Glenn Beck launched into a hilarious routine that simply has to be shared with the world. It concerned his paranoid perception that an army of George Soros soldiers are advancing on him and his motley crew.

Beck: And please, enough, George Soros. He’s got 86 people now on staff at Media Matters. Eighty-six! And the CEO of Media Matters said, “Oh, we need to hire some more.” He was fundraising. “We need to hire some more because it takes a lot of people to correct Glenn Beck’s nonsense.” There are ten people. Ten that work on this program. Ten that put it together. TEN! It takes 86 to try to tear us down.

That’s hilarious. I could hardly…oh wait. He was serious. Beck actually thinks that every employee at Media Matters is assigned to watching and fact-checking his program. That includes the accountants and receptionists. And who does that leave to monitor Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly and Megyn Kelly and, well, everybody else at Fox? Not to mention Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin and Andrew Breitbart and everybody at every other television or radio station, or newspaper or Internet site.

Nope. Beck believes that all of Media Matters is wholly dedicated to bringing him, and only him, to ruin, and that George Soros is personally staked out in front of a wall of TVs directing the effort.

I don’t know how many people are actually monitoring Beck’s program, but I can safely assume that it takes at least a few focused researchers to run down the actual facts associated with his wild proclamations, because I do it myself with some frequency.

The advantage Beck has over those of us who rely on facts is that it takes considerable time and effort to confirm or negate information with documentary evidence of your conclusions. However, all it takes is a good imagination if you’re going to make stuff up.

For instance, it takes only a few seconds for me to claim that Beck once hired Monica Lewinsky as an intern on his old Morning Zoo radio show, and that the show’s producer admitted that they sent Lewinsky to Washington as a prank. It would take a legitimate researcher much longer to look into this assertion, acquire documents, compare dates, seek statements from witnesses, etc.

That’s why it only takes ten people to put together Beck’s show. They really don’t have much to do other than keeping the blackboard clean. And they aren’t distracted with pesky little concerns about honesty or proof. In fact, ten people seems a little high to produce the garbage that Beck puts on the air every day. I could probably do myself with an intern and a box of chalk.

Jon Stewart Skewers Bret Baier Of Fox News

Posted by on March 25, 2011 at 12:41 pm. 8 Comments :

In a rollicking discussion of Fox News and its obvious agenda-driven editorial slant, Jon Stewart leaves anchor Bret Baier literally speechless on a number of occasions. Baier is frequently held up as the example (or “human shield” as Stewart quips) of straight-forward reporting on the network. But that just makes him the proverbial “thinnest kid at fat camp.” Any honest appraisal of Fox has to concede that there is an inherent institutional bias. Stewart tries valiantly to elicit such an appraisal from Baier with little success, but much hilarity.

Stewart: I would not say that Fox’s main thrust is objective news gathering. I would say that their main thrust is…it is somewhat of a cover for a more political operation that exists underneath.
Baier: Come on Jon, really?
Stewart: I don’t think I’m alone in that, by the way. I think that there are other people.
Baier: Why then are we, Jon, the best rated news show?
Stewart: That’s a very interesting point. I wasn’t aware that ratings equals quality. But now that I know that I’m gonna reassess my feelings about the show Three’s Company. But you know that the two are not related. I’m suggesting not that it’s not popular or powerful, so is crack.

Baier is regurgitating what his boss, Rupert Murdoch says, on this subject:

“If we weren’t fair and balanced, we wouldn’t have the number one network in news – by a very wide margin. People believe we’re fair and balanced, and they love us.”

Actually, people watch Fox because it validates their preconceptions. If Fox were balanced their partisan viewers would change the channel. For years I have been making the point that ratings only measure viewership, not content. After all, McDonald’s is the #1 restaurant in America. I don’t think that anyone interprets that to mean that they have the best food. What they have is the cheapest crap that is loaded with filler and seasoning to appeal to the largest number of consumers with the least sophisticated taste. And that’s a pretty good description of Fox.

Stewart continues to search for some sliver of integrity from Baier, noting that even Fox’s hard news is “framed through a prism of this more conservative ideology.” When Stewart points out that by watching Fox “you would think the greatest threat to the country is ACORN, the Black Panthers, and Fannie Mae,” all that Baeir can must is a whimpering
“That’s not fair.” But later Stewart lands a blow that staples Baeir’s lips shut completely:

Stewart: A guy gets fired from NPR for being taped undercover saying “I think the Tea Baggers are,” blah, blah, blah. He said a bunch of terrible things. Roger Ailes said, on the record, NPR are Nazis. Doesn’t that strike you as odd?
Baier: {crickets}

Exactly! The hypocrisy at Fox is legendary. Baeir responded the only way he could. He certainly couldn’t defend the retention of an executive who called his peers Nazis. But neither could he criticize his tyrannical employer and expect to live through the night.

More often than not the interview segment on the Daily Show is my least favorite. Stewart has a tendency to be exceedingly deferential to conservative guests in order to ensure that they continue to take his calls (IMHO). But this segment was classic. Stewart was aggressive yet respectful, and importantly, funny. That’s a tricky routine with a high degree of difficulty.

Fox News And Glenn Beck: Pro Genocide?

Posted by on March 25, 2011 at 1:48 am. 8 Comments :

The latest demonstration of right-wing dementia is actually just a variation on an old theme: Whatever Obama does, they’re against it. In this instance they are coupling that with a perennial conservative favorite: Whatever it is, George Soros is behind it.

From the moment the crisis in Libya began there was an outcry from rightists that the President should intervene on behalf of the rebellious citizens whom Qaddafi was slaughtering. That is until the President did just that, at which point they were outraged by his reckless imperialism.

Now the attacks on the administration are escalating to accuse Obama of conspiring with a shadowy organization that they allege is tied to terrorists and aspires to invade Israel. The organization is the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect. This ghastly, UN-backed backed group lists barbarians like former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Bishop Desmond Tutu amongst their patrons. Their mission is to enlist the international community’s cooperation to prevent genocide, crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing, and war crimes. What a dastardly plot!

Glenn Beck took up this argument this morning on his radio program. He was alerted to it by a caller and could barely contain his glee. For him it was another piece of the conspiratorial stew that mashed together many of his favorite demons including Soros, Muslims, and Cass Sunstein whom he calls “the most dangerous man in America.”. And somehow by becoming even more conspiratorial he insisted that this puts an end to criticism of him as a conspiracy theorist. Apparently the conspiracy theory that he is a conspiracy theorist is a conspiracy theory itself. And least that’s Beck’s theory.

It’s clear, however, that Beck’s caller got his information from either WorldNetDaily, who published an item claiming to have found “Soros’ Fingerprints on Libya Bombing,” or from one of their many conservative repeaters, including Fox Nation. The WND article was written by notorious Birther Aaron Klein and declared that…

“Philanthropist billionaire George Soros is a primary funder and key proponent of the global organization that promotes the military doctrine used by the Obama administration to justify the recent airstrikes targeting the regime of Moammar Gadhafi in Libya.”

Klein is a long-time Obama basher who wrote a book titled, “The Manchurian President,” that questioned Obama’s citizenship and patriotism. He has been working tirelessly to taint the President’s policy toward Libya. Just two days ago he posted an article on WND that asked…

“Could President Obama’s decision to sidestep Congress and strike Libya as part of an international coalition put the U.S. on a military collision course with Israel?”

There’s that Israel invasion thing again. You have to wonder whether these guys actually believe what they are spewing or are they just so infected with Obama Derangement Syndrome that they’ve lost the ability to process coherent thoughts?

The policy they are so feverishly flagellating is known as “Responsibility to Protect” (R2P). It was adapted from the 1948 United Nations “Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide,” which was a response to the atrocities witnessed during the Holocaust. There was worldwide condemnation of genocide and war crimes, and agreement that it must never be permitted to happen again – even if that meant using force to defend civilians being victimized by their own government. In 2001, the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS) published a report that refined the policy and it was formally adopted by the UN in 2005.

That’s the policy cited by the right as justification for restraining Qaddafi. And that’s the policy that Fox News and Glenn Beck are opposing. By extension, it must be concluded that they are in favor of ethnic cleansing and other crimes against humanity that the policy prohibits. Beck even conceded that the mission of R2P sounded good until he discovered its wicked roots. He began by expanding on the U.S. plot to invade Israel on his television show today. Not surprisingly he got everything wrong. He attributed the policy to a National Security aide, explicitly asserting that it “came from Samantha Power,” not the UN.

No it didn’t. It came from the UN commissioned ICISS report while John Bolton was ambassador, and it was supported by conservatives in the Bush administration including Secretary of State, Colin Powell. Beck asserted that the UN got the idea from Soros who got it from Power’s book, “A Problem from Hell.” The only problem with that theory is that Power’s book (which, by the way, won the Pulitzer Prize) came out the year following the publication of the ICISS report so could not possibly have been the inspiration for it. Typical Beckian disinformation that can’t even make the ends meet. But that doesn’t stop him from filling his gullible disciples weakened brains with hogwash.

Now Beck and the right is closing ranks to attack this humane policy that is illustrated by sentiments like this:

“True sovereignty belongs to the people, who in turn delegate it to their governments. If governments abuse the authority entrusted to them and citizens have no opportunity to correct such abuses, outside interference is justified.”

While that sounds like it could have been uttered by anyone from Reagan to Clinton, or even to Beck, that quote was in fact from (you Tea Baggers may want to sit down), George Soros. It epitomizes the Open Society philosophy of people-powered democracy that Beck distorts as being a version of a New World Order.

I find it more and more depressing that there are people who actually buy into the fiction that Beck and Fox News promote. Granted those numbers are in decline, but it’s still a concern. It is the most delusional faction that still adheres to these lies and they can be a dangerous lot. That’s why it remains so important to continue to counter the disinformation with the truth. At least it may be possible to mitigate the damage they do.