Day: 3/2/2012

Fox Nation’s Acrobatic Smear Fest: A Triple Putz

Posted by on March 2, 2012 at 3:39 pm. 4 Comments :

Sometimes, in the right-wing noise machine, you really need to stretch to spread your smears across as many targets as possible. It calls for a strategy that aims to cast your juvenile insults so broadly that they ensnare any of your perceived enemies within a certain proximity. In a way, it’s a conservative approach that allows you to use less tar to tarnish more opponents in one wide swipe.

To that end, the Fox Nationalists went after Matt Taibbi of the Rolling Stone for his remembrances of Andrew Breitbart. Taibbi took a particularly Breitbartian tone in saying…

“So Andrew Breitbart is dead. Here’s what I have to say to that, and I’m sure Breitbart himself would have respected this reaction: Good! Fuck him. I couldn’t be happier that he’s dead.

I say this in the nicest possible way. I actually kind of liked Andrew Breitbart. Not in the sense that I would ever have wanted to hang out with him, or even be caught within a hundred yards of him without a Haz-Mat suit on, but I respected the shamelessness. Breitbart didn’t do anything by halves, and even his most ardent detractors had to admit that he had a highly developed, if not always funny, sense of humor.”

That’s the sort of hyperbolic, attention-seeking comment that epitomized Breitbart’s existence. And that is exactly the point that Taibbi was making. It was a fitting tribute, not just to the man, but to his inner being and what he stood for; what he was most proud of. Breitbart defiantly rejected calls for civility, and when he was challenged to apologize for outrageous statements, he famously responded by barking back, “Apologize for what!” So how did Fox Nation report this news?

Fox Nation

Presumably the Fox Nationalists don’t think that Matt Taibbi is well enough known to carry a hit piece on his own. So they dressed it up with one of their favorite, and most childish insults – to refer to comedian Bill Maher as “Pig” Maher. But some pimply-faced editor still didn’t think that was enough, so they added a reference to the evil home of Donald Trump’s The Apprentice, NBC. Neither Maher nor NBC had anything to do with this story. Even the source article to which Fox Nation linked, from the uber-conservative NewsBusters, made no mention of these innocent bystanders. In fact the NewsBusters, while still incensed by Taibbi’s language, acknowledged a certain appropriateness. In their opening paragraph they say…

“I almost hate to draw attention to this incredibly sad example of the intolerant left over at Rolling Stone, but quite frankly, Andrew Breitbart probably would have eaten this up, and tweeted it back out.”

That’s absolutely true. Breitbart even tweeted back out a criticism of him that I sent just last week:

As I, and many others have noted, Breitbart would have been the first to proudly speak ill of the dead. On the day that Sen. Ted Kennedy died. Breitbart tweeted “Rest in Chappaquiddick.” He followed that up with several other disgraceful remarks that, unlike Taibbi, he could not frame as being tributes to the decedent.

Which brings us back to Fox Nation’s utterly unrelated assaults in their story’s headline. The inclusion of Maher and NBC was wholly the idea of Fox, and it really demonstrates how embarrassingly infantile the Fox Nationalists are. It’s bad enough that Fox is a netowrk that has no regard for the truth, but do they also have to embrace such brazenly immature rhetoric while they are lying?

Fox News’ Neil Cavuto Exposes GOP Camapign Ad Lie

Posted by on March 2, 2012 at 12:33 pm. 9 Comments :

A new campaign ad for Rhode Island congressional hopeful Barry Hinckley employs Hinckley’s adorable five year old son, Hudson, delivering a lecture on America’s debt crisis.

As it turns out, Hudson is just another GOP hack fronting for the ultra-wealthy power brokers of the right. There is obviously something unsavory in Hudson’s past because his Google history prior to 2006 has been completely scrubbed from the Internet.

Thank goodness for Fox News and Neil Cavuto. In a contentious interview, Cavuto got the devious toddler to admit that the positions he took in the ad were nothing but political hokum designed expressly for the purpose of advancing the electoral prospects of a member of his family (his father).

It remains to be seen what the impact will be to Hinckley’s campaign now that his primary spokesman has confessed publicly that he does not believe the debt crisis assertions in his fathers ad. Equally damaging to the campaign may be Hinckley’s answer to Cavuto asking whether or not Hudson knew what he was doing. Hinckley responded that “He sure did. We talked about it for a long time.” This suggests that Hinckley’s budget policy is so simplistic that a five year old can understand it. No one wonder Hinckley is running as a Republican.

Further evidence of Hinkley’s strong GOP credentials is that, when asked what he wants to do when he grows up, Hudson said that he “wants to be in a war and save the country.” What better answer for a future representative of the hawkish GOP that is presently trying to make little Hudson’s dream come true by inciting a new with Iran? Here’s hoping, for Hudson’s sake, that they fail.

Rush Limbaugh Calls Out The Bomb Squad

Posted by on March 2, 2012 at 9:44 am. 2 Comments :

Reporting from the deepest trenches of elitist One-Percent-Land, local news sources have disclosed that the bomb squad was dispatched to rescue Rush Limbaugh from a lighted plaque of Abraham Lincoln.

Threats against public figures really ought not to be made light of. There are very real and troubling risks very dangerous and disturbed individuals. However, the interesting part of this story was not so much that a suspicious box was delivered to the Limbaugh lair as this revelation:

“After being delivered Thursday afternoon it was X-rayed by staff at Limbaugh’s home — as is procedure for all mail delivered to the residence.”

So Rush has an X-ray machine at his home and uses it to scan all the mail he receives. That’s funny because there has been some attention paid lately to the alleged paranoia of Democrats and progressive citizens. Apparently that is a mockable character flaw when the left is accused of it, but nobody on the right thinks twice when one of their own is found to be scanning everything the mailman delivers.

I don’t really have a problem with Rush taking every precaution to insure his safety. After all, his rhetorical bomb-throwing often incites harsh responses from the innocent people he vilifies. For instance, in the past few days Rush has been castigating a student, Sandra Fluke, for speaking out about the Republican attempts to deny women necessary health care coverage. He has referred to her as a “slut” and a “prostitute” just because she was exercising her First Amendment rights. When she took offense to his remarks, on behalf of all women, Rush went ballistic, as did his pals at Fox News who posted this article on the Fox Nation web site with a recording of Rush’s harangue: Limbaugh Takes Blowtorch To Fluke ‘Slut’ Controversy.

Rush’s retort was a spittle-flecked tirade that affirmed his original insults and repeatedly misrepresented Fluke’s position on the issue. He deliberately lied to his listeners saying that Fluke was advocating that the government pay for her contraceptives. In fact, she is only asking that private insurance companies offer coverage, pretty much the same way they do for Limbaugh’s Viagra.

The tone that the debate has taken on the right is decidedly hostile. Yet conservatives are the ones making a big deal out of phony threats and calling out the actual bomb squads. These rightist chicken-littles should adjust their attitudes. And they should also lay off of people like David Brock of Media Matters for hiring a security guard. No doubt he has received his share of threats from people who object to documenting the actual repulsive things they say – like this latest screed from El Rushbo.