Sarah Palin Is Not Running For President And Fox News Is Lying About It

Sarah PalinThe GOP field of candidates seeking the 2012 presidential nomination is pretty settled. The only significant holdouts are the Texas evangelical, secessionist governor Rick Perry, and former half-term Alaska governor, and Fox News bobble-head, Sarah Palin.

The thing is, Palin is not running. She has no campaign staff; no organization in early primary states; no press office. Polls place her near the bottom of the pack and losing to President Obama by 20 points. She is not engaging in public appearances. In fact, her much ballyhooed national bus tour was aborted after just six days without ever making it off the east coast.

Too bad. I wish she were running. It would add another element of comic relief to supplement Newt Gingrich and Michele Bachmann. With Donald Trump out of the game the comedy factor took a serious hit.

The problem is that Fox News is still pretending that she’s a candidate and, by doing so, they are deliberately lying (so what else is new). Several months ago there were four Fox employees who were also speculative candidates for the Republican nomination: Palin, Gingrich, Santorum, and Huckabee. All four were in precisely the same position with regard to the race. They were all openly exploring campaigns and discussing it in public. At that time Fox gave two of them, Gingrich and Santorum, ultimatums insisting that they declare their intentions or be terminated. There was no apparent reason for excluding Palin and Huckabee from that edict.

Since then Gingrich and Santorum officially declared and Huckabee bowed out. This leaves Palin as the only prominent Fox employee still dangling. But with no visible manifestation of a candidacy, can she be taken seriously? The fact of the matter is that if Palin was a candidate in earnest, Fox could not keep her on the payroll. At this late date they would have to insist that she either fish or cut bait, just as they did with Gingrich and Santorum. She could not be both undecided and a Fox News contributor.

Evidence of the Palin predicament occurred yesterday as two Fox News analysts admitted on the air that they temper their criticism of Palin because she is their colleague:

Greg Gutfeld: The only problem with talking about Sarah Palin is that she works here, and it’s like a coworker. And if I say something bad and I see her in the hallway I feel really awkward and wrong.

Bob Beckel: It has nothing to do with that. It has everything to do with your paycheck. That’s why you feel awkward about it. I know exactly what you mean. I’ll be honest, I’ve pulled my punches.

These admissions are not surprising and are not limited to Gutfeld and Beckel. It is the law at Fox News as it was laid down by the boss:

Roger Ailes: For the first time in our 14 years we’ve had people apparently shooting in the tent, from within the tent…We prefer people in the tent not dumping on other people in the tent.

So how does a Fox News reporter cover Palin when he has been warned by his boss not to criticize fellow tent-dwellers? That’s the problem, and that’s why Sarah Palin is not a candidate for president. Fox knows that they can’t cover even a potential candidate who receives a Fox paycheck this late in the game. If Palin has not informed the network that she isn’t running, they would have to sideline her. Since that has not happened, it’s a safe bet that she has already told them that she’s out of the race.

If that’s the case, then Fox News knows that a prospective candidate has opted out, but they are keeping it secret. That is not acceptable behavior from a legitimate news enterprise, which of course, Fox is not. They are withholding a significant news item that journalistic ethics would require they disclose. Particularly because the only reason for them to withhold it is for their own financial benefit, and for that of Palin.

What’s worse is that they are brazenly manipulating the course of the election in a manner that has implications for the other candidates and, of course, the voters. It is long past time for Fox to come clean and reveal what they know about Palin’s alleged candidacy. And in the unlikely event that she really is undecided, then Fox should suspend her just as they did Gingrich and Santorum.

Fox Nation vs. Reality: On Palin Bus Tour

This is a prime example of why political parody has become so difficult. The subjects of satire are too good at making themselves look stupid without any help. What does that leave for those of us who satirize them? Check out Fox Nation’s article on a planned mid-August bus tour by President Obama:

Obama Bus Tour

Really? Please note the “Obama 08” poster on Fox Nation’s photo proving that Obama obviously used buses before Sarah Palin did. Seriously, it’s their own photo. Yet Fox implies that Palin invented the political bus tour? Are they daft? (Don’t answer that). Palin didn’t even come up with an original name for her road trip. She copied the name, “One Nation,” from the progressive and union movement that held a rally in Washington, D.C., last October.

I think that the Fox Nationalists are actually pretty close to the truth this time. They just left out a small detail. Palin didn’t invent the political bus tour, she invented the “aborted” political bus tour. As we know, the cross-country trip that Palin planned (and is still promoting on her SarahPac web site) lasted all of six days and never made it past New Hampshire. Then she blatantly lied when asked about why the tour came to a screeching halt:

Palin: “Imagine our surprise when reading media reports today that the ‘One Nation Tour’ has been cancelled…The coming weeks are tight because civic duty calls (like most everyone else, even former governors get called up for jury duty) and I look forward to doing my part just like every other Alaskan.”

The only problem is that, unlike every other Alaskan, she never showed up for jury duty. In fact, she wasn’t even in Alaska. A few days after making her jury excuse for quitting the bus tour, she turned up at the debut of her crockumentary, “The Undefeated,” in Pella, Iowa. Incidentally, the film was a rip-roaring failure at the boxoffice and is already heading to video and the discount bins at WalMart.

Sarah Palin is a pitiful joke. The only thing she’s running for is the bank to deposit the cash she cons out of glassy-eyed fans who somehow find something coherent in her word jumbles. And the only way Obama could be charged with copying Palin on this is if he rolls into a handful of towns and then jets back to Camp David for some R&R.

While The GOP/Tea Party Was Blackmailing The Nation…

For the past month our country has been embroiled in a contentious debate over whether to raise the debt ceiling, a routine congressional function that has been done without controversy dozens of times. The farthest right faction of the Republican Party was determined to hold the nation hostage in their yearning to dismantle the social safety net and protect the wealth of billionaires. While that carnival was in progress, Washington and the press missed something else that holds some importance to the American people and the economy:

Jobs vs Debt(Source for job loss data: private sector / public sector)

Despite the GOP’s promise to focus on jobs when they assumed the majority in the House of Representatives, they have not produced a single jobs bill. In fact, they have endeavored to kill legislation that would create new jobs. Just before they left for recess after passing the debt ceiling bill, they left unresolved a bill to fund the operations of the Federal Aviation Administration. As a result, over 90,000 workers will be sidelined until congress returns in September. Not to mention, the Treasury will lose $1.2 billion in fees that will go uncollected.

That’s the GOP’s commitment to working families and reducing the deficit. In other words, it’s a hoax. And the media is their accomplice. The Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism reports that 52% of news stories last week were related to the debt ceiling debate. Notwithstanding the fact that polls show that the American people are more concerned about jobs than debt, the media virtually ignored the issue of job creation and unemployment.

Now that the debt ceiling debate is at least temporarily resolved, it will be interesting to see what issue dominates news coverage next week. Jobs or the Obama’s dining at a fast food restaurant?

Glenn Beck’s Tea Party Youth Camp

Glenn Beck's Tea Party Youth Camp

Last week Glenn Beck hit a new low when he compared scores of murdered teenagers at a summer camp in Norway to the Hitler Youth:

Beck: “As the thing started to unfold, and then there was a shooting at a political camp, which sounds a little like the Hitler Youth, or whatever. I mean, who does a camp for kids that’s all about politics?”

As it turns out, Beck does a camp for kids that’s all about politics. It’s part of his 912 Project. Sadly, this isn’t even the first time Beck has sunk to calling kids Nazis, and his bile was not reserved for foreigners either. On February 5, 2009, Beck said this about young Americans learning about the environment:

“Some may believe we’re on the road to the Hitler youth.”

When Beck isn’t calling kids Nazis, he’s calling them terrorists:

“There are a lot of universities that are as dangerous with the indoctrination of the children as terrorists are in Iran or North Korea.”

Higher education is one of Beck’s most frequent targets. That’s consistent with his mission to promote ignorance. He strongly advises his disciples to avoid accredited schooling, and on September 1, 2010, he took another swipe saying “We have been setting up reeducation camps. We call them universities.”

Despite his open hostility to young people, Beck has expressed an interest in exerting his influence on them. In fact, it is a priority that extends far beyond a trip to summer camp. In the waning days of his Fox News program, Beck told viewers that the reason he was leaving was because he wanted to “get to the youth.” He later told a live audience in Albany, New York that he intended to build a way to “deliver news directly to the youth of America.” This targeted focus on youth contrasts sharply with his typical viewer. Beck’s audience (along with the rest of Fox News and the Tea Party crowd) skews to an older demographic (the curmudgeon community) than the average of the nation at large.

What might have triggered this sudden interest in the juvenile set? It’s not as if kids were amongst his favorite people. He has a history of demeaning and insulting them. Earlier this year he ridiculed Girl Scouts who had launched a campaign to protect endangered orangutans. Beck’s response was to mock them saying “Keep killing the orangutans, the cookies are yummy.” He also belittled high school students in Tucson, Arizona for protesting the cancellation of Mexican-American studies classes. He portrayed young environmentalists promoting a rally as thugs. And he vilifies kids in general as “useful idiots” who are being “turned into…slaves.”

As an indication of the disrespect that Beck harbors for young folks, he repeatedly lambastes Al Gore for saying that “There are some things about our world that you know that older people don’t know.” Notwithstanding the manifest truth of that statement, Beck ridiculed the notion as an assault on parental authority, something Beck interprets more like parental tyranny.

Beck simply has no regard for the intelligence or insight of youth. He believes that kids are stupid, susceptible to manipulation, and best suited for staying mum and obeying orders. With such a derogatory attitude, Beck is unlikely to have much success appealing to the young demographic. And that’s a good thing considering that he thinks most of them are Nazis anyway.

Glenn Beck does not belong on the public airwaves. His appalling insult to the memory of the slaughtered kids in Norway should be sufficient to drive him off the air for good. Here is list of his radio stations across the country. Find the one nearest you and let them know that you will not listen to the station or patronize the advertisers until Beck is gone.

Shuckin And Jivin: The Kind Of Obama Fox News Racists Like

Fox Nation - Obama RageIn a featured article today on the Fox Nation, an editorial presents a picture of President Obama that harkens back to an era when African Americans were relegated to tap-dancing, watermelon-eating, entertainers and servants. The article from a Marietta, Georgia, opinion columnist, Melvyn L. Fein, was titled: “Obama’s Rage Starting To Show.”

It’s surprising to read something so overtly racist from a modern, mainstream news source, but leave it to Fox to find it and promote it to a national audience.

The article began with feint praise of Obama as a conciliatory black man, as opposed what Fein called angry “street thugs” like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. But it just got worse from there. Fein initially described Obama in terms that portrayed him as acceptable and unthreatening to whites:

“He was not angry. Far from it, he was affable. With a smile on his face, and a lilt to his voice.”

In other words he was grinning negro, shuckin and Jivin for the folks, and never stirring up trouble like those rabble-rousers who keep clamoring for their “civil” rights.

Fein goes on to assert that all of that was a mask that Obama wore and that “the anger underneath his facade of cordiality has started to show.” As evidence of this hidden anger, Fein cited Obama’s “arrogance” for “summoning” congressional leaders to the White House to discuss the debt ceiling and for the “stipulation” that they bring viable solutions with them. That language would be admired as an expression of leadership in white politicians, but to Fein, with regard to Obama, it was “imperiousness” and “authoritarian.” In Fein’s world it’s unseemly for black men to be seen as issuing orders to white men, even if the black man is the President of the United States.

In an effort to explain what Fein theorized was Obama’s innate rage, he resorted to amateur psychology based on a fictional account of Obama’s past:

“We must remember that Obama was abandoned by his birth father, semi-abandoned by his mother, raised by contentious grandparents, exposed to virulent Indonesian racism before the age of 10 and then subjected to the ignominy of being racially marginalized in Hawaii.

How could anyone escape being irate at such an upbringing? Rage would be the normal human reaction to this sort of abuse.”

In the real world, Obama recalls his upbringing with a mother who loved him dearly and cared for him throughout most of his childhood, interrupted briefly by a period where his loving grandparents stood in for her. He never expressed any experience of racism outside of that that any minority child would encounter in a prejudiced society. Fein’s rantings closely mirror those of Glenn Beck and Mike Huckabee, who believe that Obama harbors some sort of Kenyan, Mau Mau, anti-colonialism, inspired by a father he barely knew. Beck even did his own psychoanalysis of Obama that virtually drips with dementia. Here is an excerpt of my take on Beck’s psycho-escapade:

“Beck’s conclusion is that Obama was so traumatized by abandonment issues related to his parents’ absorption in Marxism that Obama, in retaliation, did what any child would under those circumstances — He became a Marxist. It makes perfect sense. What other choice did he have other than to adopt the philosophy of the thing that allegedly tore his family apart? It is a sad, tragic story, isn’t it?

“Perhaps on tomorrow’s show Beck will tell his own sad, tragic story? The one where his mother abandoned him by killing herself. Obama’s mother went away for a while, but she came back and witnessed her son on an historic path to the presidency of the United States of America. For Beck’s mother only death was sufficient to separate her from her demon seed. What kind of scar does that leave on a boy? Well, in Beck’s case it left a scar that led to dropping out of school, to alcoholism, drug abuse, a failed marriage, a career as an AM radio shock jock, and fame as a hate-mongering conspiracy nut who contributes nothing to society but fear and division.

“Contrast that with Obama who, while scarred, worked his way through school, graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law, dedicated himself to helping the disenfranchised, taught law at the University of Chicago, entered public service and politics, and went all the way to the White House. So sad – so tragic.”

Fein’s puerile psychoanalysis surmises that Obama’s allegedly troubled past created a false persona wherein, “rather than fight back openly, [Obama] smiled and allowed the insults to roll off his back.” And remember, it’s that Obama that Fein considered to be “gracious” and “intelligent.” As soon as Obama demonstrated any determination to assert the principles in which he believes, and for which he was elected, Obama was transformed into a raving dictator with an inability to love. Fein’s closing paragraph sums up his disturbingly maniacal view:

“[A]s his policies have revealed, our president is more concerned with his own welfare than anyone else’s. This is not a man who loves others. It is a man who is angry at others, including his nation. As alarmingly, it is a man who acts on these impulses.

The rest of us had, therefore, best beware!”

That’s right. Beware, brothers and sisters. Beware the angry black man rampaging across the land with no love in his heart and no knowledge of his “place.” Didn’t y’all like him better before he talked back, when he was carrying your bags and shining your shoes with a big, toothy grin?