Faux News Analyst Rails Against Faux News

Posted by on January 5, 2012 at 12:51 am. 1 Comments :

Gretchen Carlson, ordinarily seen peddling GOP talking points as a co-host on Fox & Friends, was filling in as an anchor on Fox’s “America’s Election Headquarters” news program this morning when she introduced her guest:

“Fox News legal analyst Peter Johnson, Jr. thinks that Republican presidential hopefuls are being portrayed as a weak field by the liberal-leaning press.”

Actually, Republican presidential hopefuls are being portrayed as a weak field by pretty much everyone – including the Republican presidential hopefuls. Gingrich called Romney a liar. Santorum called Paul disgusting. Perry tagged Romney and Gingrich as the Washington establishment. Huntsman said…well, no one knows what Huntsman said because he can’t get on TV.

Conservative pundits from Karl Rove to Charles Krauthammer have lambasted the GOP candidates repeatedly. Tea Party leaders insist that they will not support one candidate or another. Even rightist icons like Dick Morris and Ann Coulter have admitted that they will probably have to hold their tongues and support the Republican nominee despite their lack of enthusiasm.

That said, legal analyst Johnson was bent out of shape over what he viewed as a liberal cabal to diminish the stature of the Republican candidates (as if they needed help). The source of his wrath was the allegedly biased reporting he encountered from what he called the “left-wing Politico” and “some of the less successful news channels.”

“GOP candidates are not only running against each other, but they’re also running against the mainstream media.”

He doesn’t explain how these news channels can be both less successful and mainstream. But he does go into some detail about the danger of misrepresenting oneself as a journalist.

“If you’re a commentator and an analyst – and I’m a commentator and an analyst – say you’re a commentator and an analyst. If you’re an activist, say you’re an activist. But to pretend that you’re a news person, to pretend that you’re giving a fair and balanced view of things, when in fact you have no credentials to do that, and your only history is to engage in activism, is to engage in politics, is to engage in propaganda, then that’s an unfair portrayal of the news to the American people.”

Well said. That’s exactly what I would have told Gretchen Carlson, who every day pretends to be a news person while having no credentials and engaging in propaganda. In fact, that little speech would apply to almost everybody on Fox News. It’s startling that Johnson was allowed to express himself so candidly. And Carlson deserves some credit for taking this criticism with such poise. It was like she didn’t even know that she was being harshly denigrated as an unethical hack.

I’m certainly going to save Johnson’s remarks so that I can refer to them whenever someone on Fox pretends to be a news person – which is pretty much whenever they are on the air.

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The Decadence Index: How The Wealth Gap Is Hastening The Fall Of The American Empire

Posted by on January 4, 2012 at 10:48 am. 13 Comments :

If there is anything that history teaches us about empires, it is that they are temporary and often fall of their own decaying weight. Ancient Rome is notorious for a descent that was widely speculated to have been driven by a massive class disparity. The aristocratic patricians devolved into a morass of immorality and obscene opulence. Meanwhile, the other 99% of the empire’s subjects were burdened by lives of oppressive labor or slavery.

The parallels to contemporary American class division are striking. We have our own aristocracy that arisen to a place of privilege and power, while working families are working harder for less, if they’re fortunate enough to be working at all. The 400 richest Americans control more wealth than the bottom 150 million of their fellow citizens – combined. And they exploit the power that comes with that wealth to further enrich themselves. Between 1979 and 2007, average after-tax incomes for the top 1% rose by 281%, compared to a 16% rise for the bottom 20%. The Roman elites would have felt right at home.

There is one difference, however. An historical study published by the Cambridge University Press looked at the Roman economy and calculated the measurement used by the CIA to rank the wealth gap of the nations of the world. What it found was that the United States actually ranks lower on income inequality than Ancient Rome.

Let that sink in for a moment. History’s most conspicuously ostentatious society of Bacchanalian excess had a less severe chasm between its rich and poor subjects than contemporary America. That astonishing fact led me to wonder where the U.S. stands when compared to its modern counterparts. So I consulted the CIA World Factbook and ranked the twenty richest nations by the index that represents income inequality. What I found was that the U.S. ranks 18th out of twenty. I call it The Decadence Index, and countries like Iran, Russia, and India are all less decadent than the United States in terms of economic disparity.

Click to enlarge
Decadence Index

The CIA collects this sort of data because it can be useful in predicting where civil unrest might flare up in the world. So what does that say about the stability of our social structure going forward? It certainly explains the Occupy movement. The question now is what are we going to do about it?

The solutions are not all that difficult to comprehend. Those who have benefited so lavishly by exploiting the system for their own enrichment should now be required to share a fair portion of the sacrifice necessary to restore economic health and balance. It’s not rocket science. Malcolm Gladwell offers a compelling explanation as he demolishes the rightist fable that taxes on the wealthy impede economic growth:

If we want to raise our position on the Decadence Index above that of the Ancient Romans (or the Russians or the French, for that matter), we need to reject the reckless and insensitive agenda of the right-wing patricians whose sole purpose is the accumulation of wealth and power. These patrons of plutocracy unabashedly advocate cutting, even eliminating, taxes on themselves, the rich, and intensifying the tax burden on everyone else. They falsely portray themselves as “job creators,” but this InfoGraphic shows who The Real Job Creators are. They pretend to fret over a class war that they themselves are waging. And because they know that the people overwhelmingly support the principles of economic fairness and justice, these conservative elites are conspiring to suppress the votes of average Americans, particularly seniors, minorities, students, and low-income voters.

Make no mistake, this is a coordinated campaign financed and managed by shadowy, but powerful, business and political entities like the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). Their mission was aided by the Supreme Court’s odious decision in the Citizens United case that opened the floodgates of corporate money into the electoral process. And, of course, they have the propaganda power of Fox News to advance their greedy, magisterial interests. But the people are fighting back against ludicrous notions like “Corporate Personhood,” and the Upper Crusters are afraid. Even Republican strategist Frank Luntz is admitting as much:

“I’m so scared of this anti-Wall Street effort. I’m frightened to death. They’re having an impact on what the American people think of capitalism.”

So keep up the fight because Corporations Are Not People. Here are some ways to contribute and participate:

Move To Amend is organizing a national action on January 20, 2012, to oppose and reverse Citizens United: Occupy the Courts!
Public Citizen is organizing a national action on January 21, 2012 to oppose and reverse Corporate Personhood: Occupy the Corporations!

Get up. Get involved. Get mad. And get to work.


Bye Bye Iowa: A Pointless Post-Mortem

Posted by on January 3, 2012 at 11:33 pm. 2 Comments :

Well that was fun. But now that the Iowa caucuses are over, can someone remind why we were supposed to care? Iowa is wholly unrepresentative state that comprises less than 1% of the country’s voters. The run-up to the caucuses allowed almost every clown in the circus to play the center ring for a while. And this nonsense got blanket coverage from all three national cable news networks as if the results actually mattered.

Rick Santorum will get a few days of press for having been the last clown in line, but he will never be the Republican nominee. Michele Bachmann gave a non-concession speech wherein the woman who has been in political office for ten years said that she was not a politician. We got to see Rick Perry calling himself a great man, in the words of a supporter whose letter he read aloud. He also took the stage in Iowa to thank all of his supporters from 30 other states. And Newt Gingrich expressed his appreciation for all of the Iowans he met whom he said were all positive. He must have forgotten this guy.

So we move on to New Hampshire. But before we go, one Iowan wants to make sure that you have not gotten the wrong impression of the state over the past few months of almost exclusively Republican media.


Getting Ugly: Down To The Wire For The Iowa Caucus

Posted by on January 3, 2012 at 11:26 am. 1 Comments :

I’ve been saying all along that Willard Mitt Romney will be the GOP nominee for president. I said it when Bachmann was the frontrunner; when Trump was the frontrunner; when Perry was the frontrunner; when Cain was the frontrunner; when Gingrich was the frontrunner; when Santorum was the frontrunner. I stand by my prediction.

However, the roller-coaster ride that the Republicans have provided has been enormous fun. And it has also provided a truck-load full of material for the Democrats to use during the general election. Including these headlines from Fox Nation this morning:

Fox Nation Disgusting Liars

Here we have the four current leaders of the Republican primary campaign slamming one another mercilessly. Gingrich calls Romney a liar. Santorum calls Paul disgusting. Perhaps it would be easier if we just called the whole bunch of them disgusting liars.

The problem for the GOP is that they are looking for a vestal conservative, but can’t find one that was immaculately conceived. And the Tea Party right is adamant about not tolerating the flip-flopping moderate, Romney. In the end they will surrender and accept the inevitable: Romney will be their nominee. Then look for the commencement of a half-hearted campaign featuring their new rallying cry: Settle For Mitt, 2012.


Fox News Miscues: Rupert Murdoch And Rick Santorum Send Mixed Messages

Posted by on January 2, 2012 at 8:47 pm. NO Comments :

The campaign trail is fraught with hazards. Sometimes you’re moving so fast you miss important turns and signals. That must be the explanation for the disconnect that just occurred between Rick Santorum and the News Corp CEO, Rupert Murdoch.

Murdoch recently joined Twitter (Interestingly, just a few days after his pal and business partner Saudi Prince Alwaleed invested $300 million dollars). Among his first few tweets are two that reference Rick Santorum approvingly:

January 1: Good to see santorum surging in Iowa. Regardless of policies, all debates showed principles, consistency and humility like no other.

January 2: Can’t resist this tweet, but all Iowans think about Rick Santorum. Only candidate with genuine big vision for country.

That was nice of him. I wonder how he’ll feel after he hears what Santorum said about his Fox News Channel:

“The media has just completely tried to shape this race. And not just the liberal media. It’s even Fox News. You know, Bill O’Reilly has refused to put me on his program. As far as he was concerned I wasn’t a worthy enough candidate to earn a spot to sit across from him and be on his program. Here you have folks supposedly in the conservative media who are saying, “You know, we’re gonna choose who are gonna win.” And then complain that the mainstream media does the same thing.”

Santorum is raising the curtain on Fox’s carefully maintained deceit that they are a fair and balanced news enterprise. He acknowledges that Fox is “the conservative media” from whom he expects special treatment distinct from the other so-called liberal press. I can’t believe that Murdoch will like that. I suspect O’Reilly won’t particularly like this either. Santorum paints O’Reilly as part of a biased cabal with an agenda to harm those he views as outside the approved cast of characters.

But, for once, Santorum has said something that is undeniably true. Fox News wants to pick the electoral winner. They wanted to in 2008 as well, but that didn’t work out too well for them. They will certainly try again this year with a relentlessly negative assault on President Obama. But they may have to work a little harder at getting their stories straight.

Something Santorum neglected to mention about the conservative media that he says is trying to shape the race, is that Fox News has had him on 54 times since June. That’s about twice as many bookings as Mitt Romney or Rick Perry. For the record, the most frequent guest was Herman Cain, with 73 appearances. Talk about a wasted investment.


Fox News: The Most Powerful Propagandist Since Goebbels

Posted by on January 1, 2012 at 10:33 am. 9 Comments :

Fox News waited until the last day of 2011 to publish the most absurdly hyperbolic piece of journalistic comedy/trash of the year. And that’s a high bar for Fox.

Dan Gainor is a VP for the Media Research Center, an ultra-conservative operation that exists to bash Democrats and advance the myth that the media is liberal. In an op-ed for Fox, Gainor breaks all records for overstatement and ironic tunnel-blindness. He begins the unintentionally hilarious article by declaring that the…

“Huffington Post, HuffPo, as it is sometimes called, has evolved from a simple news aggregator into one of the most sophisticated propaganda operations the world has ever seen. […and that Arianna Huffington is…] the most powerful propagandist since a guy named Goebbels.”

That’s the kickoff to Gainor’s Fox News article that castigates Arianna Huffington and the Huffingtong Post as left-wing missionaries of fascism. [This just in: The CEO of Huffington Post/AOL, Tim Armstrong, has contributed the maximum donation this year to the presidential campaign of Mitt Romney.]

It doesn’t get much better after that. Gainor carelessly contradicts one of the primary edicts of conservative free marketing: that Fox News and talk radio are so abundantly successful because the media consuming public prefers the conservative message. He says of Huffington that…

“The site was started by political chameleon Arianna Huffington, who used to be conservative before she discovered it was far more lucrative to be liberal.”

There you have it. Apparently the people do want liberal media. From there Gainor goes into a diatribe against HuffPo that would make a much better tirade were it directed at Fox’s own Fox Nation. It’s astonishing how oblivious he is to the twisted irony of his words. For instance, he wonders aghast that “Everywhere you look on the site, Republicans and conservatives are doing something bad.” Replace “Republicans and conservatives” with “Democrats and liberals” and you have a perfect description of Fox Nation. Then he continues his HuffPo rant…

“The few stories that mention Democrats at all are such puff pieces that most journalists would be embarrassed to be associated with them. One shows a baby putting his hand in Obama’s mouth: ‘Obama Gets A Mouthful,’ readers are told in this thoroughly silly story.”

Fox Nation - Obama Eats Baby HandIndeed. A thoroughly silly story that most journalists would be embarrassed to be associated with. Which must be why Fox Nation featured it for six days running as their “Pic of the Day.” And their version was adorned by a mocking headline that evokes child abuse and cannibalism. Would they have chosen that imagery for a white president?

But Gainor is clearly unaware that he is insulting the journalistic integrity of his pals at Fox. Just as he is unaware of the similarity of the following invective aimed at HuffPo to the Fox Nation business model:

“Of course, they don’t write it all themselves. The HuffPo staff is masterful at combing the internet for stories and digging through them for one nugget that makes their point. They write a couple graphs about the nugget, package it with a sometimes huge headline and a stock photo and, voila, their work is done.”

That’s Fox Nation in a wing-nutshell. Except that they write none of it themselves. Every single article on Fox Nation is merely a reference and a link to some other (usually brazenly biased) source. And often its presentation is overtly dishonest as demonstrated here. And Gainor isn’t through yet.

“But the site doesn’t work if it doesn’t generate traffic. After all, Americans aren’t forced to read Arianna’s propaganda. So it’s filled with sex, more sex, comedy and enough other trash to keep people visiting.”

You mean like this? I took a look at Fox Nation’s “Pic of the Day” for just this year and found an abundance of evidence that they are obsessed with naked women, particularly their breasts.

Fox Nation - Sex

And being a young blonde in a short skirt appears to be a prerequisite to be a female reporter on Fox News. Just ask Megyn Kelly, Martha MacCallum, Shannon Bream, Gretchen Carlson, Monica Crowley, Ainsley Earhardt, Courtney Friel, Alisyn Camerota, Molly Line, Molly Henneberg, Julie Banderas, and Steve Doocy. [Oops. I have to scratch one of those. Julie Banderas is not a blonde].

For Gainor to use an editorial on Fox News as a platform to gripe about the Huffington Post being a liberally-slanted web site is an Olympian feat of hypocrisy. But for him to venture off into Nazi references is offensive in the extreme. Arianna Huffington is not responsible for the slaughter of millions of innocents and the comparison to Hitler’s regime trivializes the horror that was the Holocaust. Furthermore, his assessment of HuffPo as biased is an affirmation of acute self-delusion. He is so altogether unaware of his perversion of reality that he can utter this phrase about HuffPo without meaning it sarcastically: “It’s also unmatched on the right.”

Unmatched on the right? Certainly Gainor has read Fox Nation. He is also presumably aware of The Daily Caller, The Blaze, BigGovernment, Townhall, National Review, Weekly Standard, Drudge Report, RedState, WorldNetDaily, Washington Times, NewsMax, and many more.

Gainor’s editorial is typical of the ignorance-inducing disinformation that is the hallmark of Fox News and his own Media Research Center (publisher of the reprehensible net newsrag, NewsBusters). He launches odious insults, accuses his targets of improprieties that he engages in himself, and ignores obvious information if it contradicts his predetermined conclusions. And all of this intellectual mendacity comes together at the start of a new year as if to christen 2012 for a journey to new and more loathsome states of dishonesty and thought control.

Happy New Year, America.

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Fox Nation Posts Creepy Article: Win A Night With Mitt Romney

Posted by on December 31, 2011 at 12:24 pm. 2 Comments :

Get out your checkbooks, America. An unprecedented opportunity has just presented itself and, trust me, you do not want to miss it. This is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to rub shoulders (and who knows what else) with the Grand Old Party’s grandest candidate, former Massachusetts governor, quarter-billionaire, and champion job killer in both the public and private sector, Willard Mitt Romney.

Fox Nation is promoting an exciting new contest sponsored by the Romney campaign. The winner of the contest gets to “Spend the Night With Mitt for Just $1.”

Wow, really? The whole night? Will his wife be there? What will he be wearing? I know there won’t be any alcohol (he’s a Mormon, you know), but who supplies the Viagra? Can I bring my video camera?

The comedic and disturbing inferences that spring to mind upon reading this news write themselves. But the Fox Nationalists published it with a straight face and no mention of the inherently creepy nature of the contest. What, you might ask, makes it inherently creepy? Well, that’s exactly what Fox Nation called it when they reported that the Obama campaign did precisely the same thing.

Fox Nation Creepy Contest

Just a reminder: The Fox Nation “Statement of Purpose” says…

“The Fox Nation is committed to the core principles of tolerance, open debate, civil discourse, and fair and balanced coverage of the news.”

Yet somehow, when Obama has a contest to join him and Michelle for dinner it’s creepy, but no such derogatory editorializing for Romney. Furthermore, they make no comparison between the contests themselves. Obama offered any donor who contributed $3.00 or more an equal chance at the prize dinner. Romney’s contest offers donors an entry for each dollar they donate. Therefore, if you donate $1.00 you get one entry. If you donate $1,000 you get a thousand entries. Consequently, wealthy donors will have far more chances to win. That should help Romney avoid having to spend the night with the unclean lower and middle class Republicans who might enter the contest.

Perhaps a corporation will win the night with Romney, since he says that they are people too.


Occupy The Media: Progressives Rule – Republicans Drool

Posted by on December 30, 2011 at 12:31 pm. 11 Comments :

A new study by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press explores the public’s attitude toward their elected representatives and the ideological viewpoints that divide our culture. The results reveal a surprising discordance between what the people want and what our representatives think we want.

If a neutral foreigner were to be deposited in America and asked to describe the aspirations of the American people based on his observations of politicians and the press, he might describe a populace consumed with conservative values, evangelical fervor, and personal greed. It’s an appraisal colored by the inordinately excessive volume of congressional Tea Partiers, moralistic spokespeople, and Republican anti-tax crusaders.

However, the true character of the American people has only recently been demonstrated via the actions of Wall Street Occupiers and their protests against the undemocratic usurpation of power by wealthy corporations and individuals, and their benefactors in government. We are a far more tolerant, charitable, and forward thinking people than we are portrayed to be.

Pew Survey - Political TermsThe first, and perhaps most notable, revelation in the Pew survey is that, contrary to the conventional so-called wisdom, when Americans are asked for which term they have a more positive impression, “progressive” ranks highest (at 67%) and significantly higher than “conservative” (62%).

This reverence for progressivism will come as a surprise to many in the media who seem to have bought the persistent complaints of conservatives that Americans lean to the right. That has never been true. There has just been a concerted effort to demonize the liberal label, which has been successful to some degree. Glenn Beck tried to do the same thing to “progressive,” but obviously that didn’t work at all. He must be scarfing down Prozac by the handful right about now. And even with the decades-long bashing of liberals, the term still ties with “capitalism” at 50%. Meanwhile, socialism fares pretty well at 31% for a nation that once blacklisted anyone who expressed sympathy for workers or the poor – a nation to which today’s GOP would like to return.

In addition to the disconnect on ideology, the media has presented a pitifully shallow analysis of the public’s affinity (or lack thereof) for Congress. It has been widely reported that the approval rating for Congress is at historic lows (11%). However, that number has not been broken down to reflect the specific object of the public’s disaffection – until now.

The Pew survey reveals that the nation’s mind is firmly made up as to who is responsible for our national woes. When asked who is to blame for the “do-nothing” congress, respondents chose Republicans over Democrats by almost 2-to-1 (40% to 23%). Republicans were also seen as more extreme in their positions (55% to 33%), and less willing to work with the other side (25% to 51%). Meanwhile, Democrats were viewed as better able to manage government (41% to 35%) and more honest and ethical (45% to 28%).

Fox Nation - CongressThis places media reports of low congressional approval ratings in context. What people hate about Washington are its GOP inhabitants. November 2012 can’t come soon enough for Democrats. And, as can be expected, Fox News leads the pack of truth-distorters by publishing an article on low congressional approval with an accompanying graphic that features Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, but no sign of the Republican Speaker of the House, John Boehner, or his cadre of lieutenants and committee chairmen who presided over the least productive congress in 60 years.

A similar contextual perspective can be applied to reporting on the Occupy Wall Street movement. While right-wing propagandists have gone to great lengths to insult the protesters as unfocused, unclean, and un-American, the Pew poll paints a very different picture. A plurality of 44% support the movement. Even more (48%) agree with its goals. An overwhelming majority (77%) believe that there is too much power in the hands of a few rich people and large corporations. That includes majorities of Democrats (91%), Independents (80%), and even Republicans (53%).

This information ought to be a part of every story broadcast or published about the nation’s moods and preferences. The low opinions expressed in media polls do not exist in a vacuum. Those numbers have no meaning without digging further to understand why they are what they are. If you were to put Gandhi in a room with a coven of neo-Nazis and poll the public as to their opinion of the people in that room, it would certainly yield a poor result. The inscrutable press would then report that America hates Gandhi. Of course, a more detailed survey would show that it was only the Nazis that brought the polling down.

That’s precisely the sort of deception that the media is engaging in with regard to Occupy Wall Street and Congress. And it’s why we have to be continually vigilant in monitoring the media and correcting it when necessary. In the meantime, we, as progressives, can be proud that the people are on our side, and we can keep reminding the world that it’s the other guys in the room who are stinking it up.


Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Non-Poor Non-Tax

Posted by on December 29, 2011 at 4:02 pm. NO Comments :

After just publishing my year-end Fox Nation retrospective of their stupidest posts, they come out with a new one that definitely would have made the list.

Fox Nation

The assertion that President Obama has okayed a tax on the poor is blatantly false. Not only is this not a tax on the poor, it isn’t even a tax. It requires a special kind of audacity for Fox to manufacture a story alleging that Obama wants to tax the poor when his administration has been fighting right-wingers for three years to enact tax relief for the poor and middle classes, and a small increase on upper income earners. Even worse, it is the right who actually have advocated for raising taxes on the poor.

What the Fox Nationalists are talking about is simply a legal opinion issued by the Justice Department that “allows states to authorize Web-based, non-sports gambling within their borders.”

This would seem to be the sort of free market, libertarian initiative that Fox and their right-wing audience would support. It grants authority to the states to decide their own course. It relies on the personal responsibility of citizens to make choices for themselves. It benefits businesses seeking to expand and create jobs. It raises revenues without raising taxes. So what’s the problem?

The problem is that President Obama’s administration implemented it. If Obama advocated a flat tax of 9% for every person and enterprise, Republicans would immediately oppose it and call for tax increases. If Obama announced that he re-registered as a Republican, the GOP would become Democrats overnight. These radical contrarians might as well stop pretending and just adopt this as their theme song:


Fox News Ratings Fall Off A Cliff In 2011

Posted by on December 29, 2011 at 12:03 pm. 28 Comments :

In another example of the declining fortunes of the right-wing extremism propagated by conservative media and displayed so prominently by the GOP family of clowns competing for the Republican nomination for president, Nielsen has reported that the ratings for Fox News have taken a steep dive in 2011.

Fox News Ratings 2011

Of the three main cable news networks, Fox News is the only one that went down compared to their ratings in 2010. And a double-digit decline at that. FoxPods will, as usual, point out that Fox is still the top cable news network, but that is beside the point. Its audience is peeling away at a rapid rate and over time they will be unable to sustain their leading position. It is also important to put those numbers in context. While Fox is the #1 cable news network, they lag far behind the broadcast nets. In fact, the highest rated program on Fox (O’Reilly Factor) has about half the viewers of the lowest rated broadcast news program (CBS Evening news).

All three cable networks were impacted by extraordinary events that affected their ratings performance. CNN was helped by breaking news stories like the death of Osama Bin Laden and the Japanese earthquake/tsunami/nuclear crisis. Because CNN has the best developed network of international bureaus, viewers frequently turn to CNN for major breaking news events.

MSNBC was hurt by the loss of Keith Olbermann and numerous schedule shakeups, but still managed to land in positive territory. Fox, of course, lost a notorious personality in Glenn Beck, but that likely kept Fox from declining even more than they did. Beck’s ratings were in free fall and dropped 37% between January and his sign-off in June. His replacement, “The Five,” has held pretty steady since its debut.

The fall of Fox News is striking evidence of the shift in the nation’s attitudes toward the ultra-conservative philosophy advanced by Fox and their brazenly biased facilitators. For Fox to be alone in decline in a year that includes a Republican-only primary campaign is a devastating indictment of the network and the propaganda tactics they employ.

2012 will provide a more diverse range of electoral news as the general election takes shape and Democrats are included in the story arc. That is not likely to boost Fox’s ratings position, but it will probably inflame their rhetoric and result in even more divisive attacks and demonstrations of derangement. Hold on to your hats, America.