Day: 7/9/2014

The O’Reilly Fester: Fox’s Super-Pundit Criticizes Media He Never Watches

Posted by on July 9, 2014 at 4:09 pm. 4 Comments :

Last night on Bill O’Reilly’s show, the Fester aired a segment on whether or not the media can be trusted. You have to wonder whether O’Reilly was looking in a mirror when he came up with this subject.

Fox News - Bill O'Reilly

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However, it wasn’t O’Reilly who went completely off the rails this time. His guest was Charles Krauthammer, widely considered to be the “brainy” Fox fact distorter. Krauthammer was brought in specifically to offer his expertise in media analysis culled from decades of observation and study. Even O’Reilly realized that in order to make informed judgments about something you need to be immersed in it and continually reinforcing your knowledge. It was in that vein that O’Reilly asked Krauthammer…

O’Reilly: You as a commentator…you have to watch the media reports come in. You have to be well informed. You have to be up to date, as do I. Is there anybody that you trust?
Kruathammer: Well, again, apart from Fox, no, of course not.

So the only media outlet that Krauthammer regards as trustworthy is Fox News. That’s a pretty limited range of media sources. Surely he must have reasons for why no other source has any credibility in his view. O’Reilly pressed him (softly) on this to ascertain what he finds lacking at other networks like, for instance, CNN. O’Reilly presumed that “You must watch it.” To which Krauthammer replied…

“I don’t watch it. The only place I watch it is when I’m waiting for an airplane in some lounge somewhere. […] I have not watched a network newscast on any of the three networks in 20 years.”

Well then. No wonder he is considered an expert in media. His opinion is informed by having never seen any of it since Clinton was in his first term in the White House. Krauthammer is the model of the Fox News pundit. He has absolutely no knowledge of, or expertise in, the subjects he is called upon to pontificate about. What’s more, he has no interest in becoming knowledgeable. That’s how we get people like Sean Hannity talking about military operations; or Neil Cavuto talking about climate change; or Steve Doocy talking about the economy; or Sarah Palin talking about anything. It is also how we get O’Reilly talking about race and poverty.

This does, however, explain why Fox News viewers are less informed than viewers of other media – or even people who watch no news media at all. It is a network devoted to mis/disinformation and ignorance. And to their credit, they are quite good at it.

Sean Hannity Hosts Sarah Palin’s Impeach-a-Thon: Third Time’s The Chum

Posted by on July 9, 2014 at 11:04 am. 16 Comments :

Sarah Palin achieved her main objective yesterday with an article on the Zombie Breitbart News website that declared that “It’s Time To Impeach President Obama.” Her objective, of course, was to garner media attention for herself. But aside from the litany of Obama-phobic nonsense that made up the bulk of her rancid rant, the notion that Palin was just awakened by a revelation to discover the imminent need to file Articles of Impeachment against President Obama is another lie perpetrated by Palin and the fawning media stooges that trail after her and lap up the slime left by her immaculate footsteps.

Sarah Palin

The truth is that Palin has previously called for Obama’s impeachment at least twice. It is a common theme among her Tea Party contingent that has never regarded Obama’s presidency as legitimate. Even without resorting to the extremist latitudes of impeachment, the unfiltered accusations that cast Obama as an anti-American socialist, who is deliberately working to destroy the country, are evidence of the depth of the delusion by the paranoid right. Then add in the impeachment mantra and what you have is a manic agitator throwing chum into the water to feed the cravings of the baby barracudas.

Palin’s previous entreaties for impeachment were just as devoid of any factual basis as her latest one. But they were no less ludicrous and lacking substance:

6/13/2014: I sense not enough guts in D.C. to file impeachment charges against Team Obama for their countless documented illegalities.

This was just last month (how soon the feeble-minded forget) and it also cited immigration as the justification for removing the President from office. Never mind that Obama has supported a comprehensive immigration bill that was passed in a rare bipartisan vote in the senate last year, but that GOP Speaker John Boehner has refused to allow it come to the House floor for a vote because he knows it would pass.

10/13/2013: Defaulting on our national debt is an impeachable offense, and any attempt by President Obama to unilaterally raise the debt limit without Congress is also an impeachable offense.

This is a laughably incoherent remark stemming from the disastrous government shutdown last year wherein Palin is asserting that Obama should be impeached if he defaults on the national debt (which he was trying to prevent the GOP Congress from doing), but also threatens impeachment if he takes steps to pay the debt. A damned if you do, damned if you don’t – ah just damn you to hell for whatever – proposition.

Palin took her Impeach-a-Thon to Fox News last night in a visit to the Sean Hannity show. As usual, her patented brand of word-salad ramblings offered nothing more than frothing hatred of all things Obama. And she also admitted that her motivation for impeachment is based on policy differences, not law, when she said that Obama intended…

“…to fraud the American people on these programs, these policies that he has promised will work or will not impact debts or deficit. These have been lies by our President. Yes, those are impeachable offenses.”

No, they are not. And the Obama administration has actually cut the deficit in half, just as he promised to do in his campaign. But reason never plays a part in Palin’s world. For instance, she also told Hannity that “You don’t bring a lawsuit to a gunfight.” What she is referring to here is, to say the least, obscure. Impeachment is a legal proceeding. So is she now abandoning her call for impeachment and escalating it to a call for armed rebellion? She clearly sees her solicitations as a movement and even said so explicitly:

“If people care about the future of this country and defense of our republic, they will join this cause of Articles of Impeachment against Barack Obama because enough is enough.”

If you have the stomach for it, here is the video of Palin on Hannity. It is the perfect representation of her mental disorder, with a manner of articulation that seems to have been styled by political satirist. Only she is one hundred percent serious. Which makes it both funnier and scarier.

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