Day: 1/17/2012

When Fox News Anchor Megyn Kelly Is Right, She’s Right

Posted by on January 17, 2012 at 10:42 pm. 4 Comments :

You have to give Megyn Kelly some credit. Today she conducted a scintillating debate about the cover of Newsweek magazine that featured President Obama and the headline, “Why Are Obama’s Critics So Dumb?”

Kelly’s razor sharp intellect immediately focused in on the most relevant question that arose from that controversial title. It didn’t have anything to do with the substance of the article. Why would that be of interest to anyone watching Fox News? Kelly quickly dismissed the fact that the author, Andrew Sullivan, was criticizing Obama’s critics from both the left and the right, although only the right seemed to take any offense They apparently know themselves so well that if somebody yells “Hey stupid.” in a crowded Walmart, only the right-wingers will turn and say “What?”

The core point of interest that Kelly recognized had to do with the credentials of Sullivan and his place on the cover of a news magazine. Without hesitation she directed this probing inquiry to her guest news analysts:

“Don’t you think that most people when they go to the store and they see Newsweek there they assume it’s like a real journalist who’s actually going to report the news in an objective way?”

Exactly! And don’t you also think that when most people turn on a television network with the word “news” in its name that they assume a real journalist is actually going to be anchoring the program? If you do then you’ve obviously never watched Fox News.

In addition to Kelly’s rank hypocrisy, the very fact that she was discussing this issue with a couple of pundits that had no inside knowledge of either the Newsweek article or the process by which the cover or headline was selected, illustrated the shallowness of Fox’s reporting standards. Sullivan happened to see the segment and issued a challenge to Fox News: If you want to trash my work, have me on to defend it. Any time, Megyn. Any time. What are you afraid of?

As a final dagger in the heart of ethical journalism, during the segment Fox displayed the Newsweek cover in a graphic. But for some reason they chose to blur out Andrew Sullivan’s name.

Fox News Newsweek Cover

Why they would do this when they were using his name in the discussion is puzzling. But I wouldn’t spend too much time trying to unravel that mystery when we still haven’t figured out why Fox thinks that Megyn Kelly is a journalist who can question the credentials of other journalists.

[Update] Megyn Kelly’s Fox sister, Gretchen Carlson, joined the parade on Fox whining about the Newsweek story. Carlson, in a fit of self-delusion, challenged her guest, Jerry Springer, on the subject of bias in the media. Springer responded that it was disingenuous for Fox to be decrying bias on Newsweek’s part:

“We’re here on Fox News. Every single day, in fairness, you guys, every single day bash President Obama. […] Every single morning you are slamming Obama. You know you are.”

Carlson wasn’t going to take that lying down. She quickly retorted that…

“Jerry, you obviously don’t watch our show because you do not understand that there’s a reason – I’ll speak for myself. I sit in the middle as the independent on the panel – and quite frankly we present both sides of the story and we leave it up to our viewers to decide where they fall.”

If Carlson is sitting in the middle because she is the independent, then who on the Fox & Friends panel is she implying is the liberal? Steve Doocy? Her claim is so absurd it approaches surreal performance art.

Fox News On Mitt Romney’s Tax Returns: Who Cares?

Posted by on January 17, 2012 at 4:10 pm. 3 Comments :

The Fox News morning program, Fox & Friends, has a unique quality that differentiates it from the rest of the Fox News schedule. In addition to the lies, propaganda, and GOP PR that fills the network’s fare, Fox & Friends features a trio of hosts who are called anchors only because of how much they weigh down the network’s IQ.

On today’s episode, the three squawking heads entered into a discussion of Mitt Romney and the question of whether he would, or should, release his tax returns as just about every other candidate has done in modern times. [Video below] It went a little something like this:

Brian Kilmeade: One thing about Mitt Romney: He’s rich! And most people know it. And I guess that’s one of the reasons that he does not want to release his tax returns, because there seems to be a war on success in this country.

Gretchen Carlson: And I want to know from the viewers: Do you care about this topic? Tax returns?

Eric Bolling: Who cares if he made a lot of money. Frankly, we should all be thrilled he made a lot of money. He’s a capitalist. Don’t we want that?

Indeed, Mitt Romney is rich and most people know it. But that is not the reason that he doesn’t want to release his tax returns, and it’s not the reason that voters want him to. The practice of releasing tax returns was begun in order to establish whether the candidate is complying with the law and not receiving special treatment due to his connections in business or politics. It is also done to disclose any impropriety or relationship to special interests that might pose a conflict for a public servant.

Fox News is exploiting the controversy surrounding Romney to invent another so-called war on something they consider sacred (i.e. Christmas, junk food, religion, light bulbs, etc.) In this case it’s success. The segment was chock full of the usual complaints about “villainizing the wealthy,” “job creators,” and “class warfare.” But the ultimate goal was to trivialize those who call for accountability on the part of our representatives, and to give people like Romney (or R*Money, as his Highlife Homies call him) cover to suppress any information that they want to hide from voters.

I’ve seen a lot of tactics used by right-wingers to obfuscate and evade true transparency, but this is a new low. People have a right to know whether their leaders are honest and trustworthy. I have to wonder whether Fox’s Tea Party viewers, who purport to be fed up with government deceit, would actually approve of this effort to free candidates from the responsibility of demonstrating their fitness to serve in this simple manner.

Does Romney have something to hide? Is he embarrassed by how little he paid in taxes due to loopholes that the rest of us don’t get? Does he have investments in enterprises that might affect his judgment or independence? These are important questions, but equally important is why is Fox News running interference for Romney and any other politician who might have skeletons he wants to keep in the closet until after the election?

GOP Mocks Rachel Maddow In Support Of The Keystone XL Pipeline

Posted by on January 17, 2012 at 1:32 pm. NO Comments :

The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) just released a video that they are directing to constituents in 48 congressional districts represented by Democrats. The video is a satire of an MSNBC promo for the Rachel Maddow Show. Here is Maddow’s video:

And here is the NRCC version:

Not surprisingly, the NRCC has chosen to mislead their audience on several points.

First, there is nothing analogous between the construction of the Hoover Dam and the Keystone XL Pipeline. Hoover was a public works project that was built, and is currently run, by the government for the benefit of the American people. Keystone is a project of private, for-profit enterprise, that benefits wealthy individuals and corporations.

Secondly, the point Maddow was making about Hoover is that it was an historic achievement of ingenuity and resolve that exemplified the heights of human accomplishment that can be realized when a nation unites to pursue a noble goal. Keystone, on the other hand, is a garden-variety oil pipeline that exemplifies the greed of corporations that place profit over the safety and well being of people and their environment.

This is another example of the GOP siding with Big Business over average Americans. The NRCC falsely claims that the Keystone project will create 130,000 jobs and produce energy security. The truth is that it will only create a few thousand temporary jobs and much of the refined oil will be exported to other countries.

The press release for the NRCC’s video accuses the targeted representative of siding with “wealthy anti-energy activist donors.” It does not identify who the donors are or how they became wealthy via anti-energy activism, which is not generally considered a particularly profitable vocation. It also does not mention that House Speaker John Boehner has received a million dollars from fossil fuel enterprises and has investments in at least seven companies that stand to profit from Keystone.

However, what’s really funny about this satire is that it fails utterly in its goal. Why would the GOP produce a video satirizing a promo for a program on MSNBC? Their constituents are notoriously glued to Fox News and talk radio. Consequently, hardly any of them will have ever seen the Maddow video that the NRCC is mocking. That diminishes the comedic value pretty much entirely.

While Fox News will likely give it some free air time (it’s already posted on Fox Nation), they will just be preaching to the choir, which won’t help them to persuade the public at large that the pipeline is a good idea. But in the process they have tacitly conceded the point that Maddow was making with regard to the value of ambitious public works projects. They are telling their audience that commitments to large infrastructure ventures are beneficial and deserving of support.

So the result is that the Republicans have produced a satirical video that isn’t funny and affirms the investment philosophy of the Democrats. Thank you, NRCC.

Has The Tea Party Gone Cold?

Posted by on January 17, 2012 at 11:09 am. 1 Comments :

An article today in The Hill has collected some evidence of the fading influence of the Tea Party. The author, Josh Lederman, leads off the column with the declarative statement that “The Tea Party is falling to pieces.” He then goes on to enumerate the reasons for that assessment, including:

  • It’s hard to imagine a GOP presidential candidate Tea Partiers could dislike more than Mitt Romney.
  • Support for the Tea Party is ebbing across the country, according to a November 2011 study by the Pew Research Center.
  • Headed by Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), members of the House in 2010 formed a Tea Party caucus [that] has sat largely dormant.
  • The Republican establishment […] has discovered just how difficult it is to govern when a major part of its base places its allegiance elsewhere.
  • There were more than 83,000 mentions of the Tea Party in the news media in 2010; that number dropped to 32,000 in 2011 (Also 970,000 Tea Party mentions in social media in 2011, compared to 8.5 million for Occupy Wall Street).
  • In congressional races [the Tea Party is] struggling against establishment Republicans in 2012 primary races.

While all of that is true, I have just one little squabble with Lederman: There is no such thing as the Tea Party and there never has been!

There are no Tea Party candidates; no Tea Party voters; no Tea Party committees; no Tea Party nominating conventions. Nothing. Every poll taken on the subject reveals that nearly all of those who associate themselves with the alleged Tea Party are Republicans. Every candidate that the Tea Party has supported is a Republican. And only Republicans ever bother to solicit Tea Party support. The Tea Party is merely a fringe faction of disgruntled Republicans elevated by GOP lobbyists and conservative media. It is telling that the Tea Party spokesperson quoted in the article was Sal Russo of the Tea Party Express (TPE). Russo runs the GOP PR firm that created TPE and once told New York Magazine that “There would not have been a tea party without Fox.”

Other than that small omission, the Hill’s article was great.