Whenever Fox News encounters a progressive concept that they have difficulty refuting, they resort to redefining the terms of the debate. This was illustrated recently when they took to calling the government shutdown a “government slimdown,” as if it was a benign weight-loss program rather than a $24 billion boondoggle. It’s what turns free-market health insurance reform into socialized medicine. It’s tactic that is inbred into their political playbook, even going so far as to hire a “word doctor” to create an alternative language for their propaganda.

Now Fox News is pitching a new phrase to replace “income inequality,” which describes the gap between America’s ultra-wealthy and the average citizen. The current gap is greater than it has ever been, and the consequences are starkly negative for the nation’s economic health. The public is acutely aware of this problem and supports reforms aimed at resolving it. Therefore, unable to come up with a rational counter argument, Fox has introduced a new way of dressing up the problem that makes it seem all warm and fuzzy. They now call it “income opportunity.”

The new phrase debuted today when Fox News reporter, Doug McKelway, filed a story on the subject and noted that some amorphous congregation of anonymous critics are seeing the bright side of the loss of America’s middle class:

McKelway: Some critics say there is another side to income inequality. That’s income opportunity. For instance, as economic inequality between rich and poor has grown, women’s economic status has increased.

Really? So Fox News is now spinning this as a women’s rights issue. That makes sense because Fox has been such a stalwart defender of women’s rights. Like the right to be subjected to involuntary vaginal probes, or the right to be forced to carry a pregnancy to term, even if the father was a rapist. McKelway then deferred to an academic from Chicago (one of those rare times when Fox regards academics as credible sources), who took this reasoning even further saying that…

“Inequality, in terms of the gap between low and high wage people was creating opportunities for everyone, but women were especially able to leverage them. And that’s why you have so many women breaking the glass ceiling in recent years.”

Indeed. Opportunities for everyone have been gushing from the severe division between the rich and the poor. Never mind that this assertion was not supported by any facts, it must be obvious because, well, he said so. And who could have failed to notice that women have been crashing through the glass ceiling in unprecedented numbers. That’s why today “women currently hold 4.2 percent of Fortune 500 CEO roles.” And it also explains why, as of 2012, women are still paid only about 76.5 percent of what men are paid. And that’s actually a decline from 2010.

Finally, when McKelway completed his report, Fox anchor Jenna Lee injected another angle of inquiry to refute the fact that income inequality is necessarily to blame for any ill effects on the economy. Once again the anonymous specter of “some argue” entered the discussion when Lee posited to McKelway that…

“Some argue that the issue is less about the economy and more, really, about family.”

Of course it is. McKelway took the baton and ran down a series of reasons why the lack of opportunity is all due to poor people often being single mothers with less than college educations. And that state affairs couldn’t possibly be because they are poor to begin with, could it? No, they all started off well-to-do, then dropped out of Stanford and had babies, and that led to their eventual poverty. But don’t bring any of this up because, if you do, you’ll be accused of waging a class war.

These are the sort of theories that go over well with the deceitful Fox News editors and their dimwitted viewers. And it’s all made possible by inventing language that is deliberately meant to mislead. Remember that the next time you find yourself in the midst of a government slimdown and some socialist tries to sell you health insurance that infringes on the income opportunity of being one of the 99% of Americans who isn’t a billionaire.