Fox News Is Scared Of Ron Paul

Posted by on January 1, 2008 at 1:04 pm. 3 Comments :

Fox canceledA Republican presidential primary forum in New Hampshire is set to proceed on January 8, two days before the New Hampshire primary, without the participation of Ron Paul. Paul’s exclusion has understandably infuriated his supporters but it has also revealed a(nother) gaping hypocrisy at Fox News.

Never mind for the moment that Paul is polling ahead of Fred Thompson, who has been invited to participate. And set aside the fact that Paul has broken fund raising records, accumulating over $19 million dollars in the last quarter.

The part of this story that I find noteworthy is that Fox News, who has lambasted Democrats for declining to appear in Fox-sponsored debates, is now using questionable criteria to decide whom they will permit to grace their debate stage. Fox thinks it’s inexcusable for Democrats to voluntarily refuse to subject themselves to the abuse of a network that has been overtly hostile to them, but that it’s perfectly swell for the network to involuntarily refuse to allow viable candidates to take part in their supposedly public forums.

Fox News, and their disciples, has said that Democrats are just scared to appear on the network. Now Paul has accused the network of being scared of him:

“They are scared of me and don’t want my message to get out, but it will. They are propagandists for this war and I challenge them on the notion that they are conservative.”

Chris Wallace, the host of Fox News Sunday, will be the moderator of the New Hampshire forum. But he and Fox News have declined to comment on the Paul controversy. Wallace didn’t have any such hesitation when called upon to comment on the Democrats:

“I think the Democrats are damn fools [for] not coming on Fox News.”

Well, Ron Paul wants to come on Fox News but Fox won’t let him. This is a thorough vindication of the Democrat’s decision to shun Fox. Now it’s the Republicans turn to suffer the prejudices practiced by Murdoch, Ailes, Wallace, etc. It serves them right. Perhaps now they will realize that a network that traffics in propaganda and bias is not beneficial even it is slanted your favor. If Republicans were interested in doing the right thing (for once), they would join the Democrats’ embargo on Fox and steer their candidates away. [For more on why all Democrats and progressives should stay the Hell off of Fox, read Starve The Beast]

Now, I’m no disciple of Ron Paul. In fact, I regard him as a dangerous political anachronism who would roll back gains in civil rights, foreign affairs, economic justice, and more. He advocates a deregulation agenda that would permit corporations to run roughshod over public interests including abandoning Net Neutrality. But Republican voters have made him a contender in their primary process and it isn’t up to Fox News to weed him out.

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The War On New Years Day

Posted by on December 31, 2007 at 3:05 pm. NO Comments :

Now that Bill O’Reilly has declared Mission Accomplished in the War on Christmas™, it may be a good time to redeploy our forces to the battle for New Years Day.

What? You say you’ve never heard of the War On New Years? Well, the New Years War is indeed less well known than the Christmas conflagration. It could be characterized as the Afghanistan of the Holiday Hostilities. But like Afghanistan, it is fully engaged and may have even more significance than other Season’s Grievings.

The battle, as always, is centered on a religious dispute. The celebration commemorating the passing of the year is based on a calendar that presumes time began with the birth of Christ. However, according to heathens like Secular Progressives and, let’s say, Jews, it is not the dawning of 2008 at all. The Jewish calendar is already up to 5768, having been based on a Biblical triviality that no one cares about anymore – the year G-d created the Earth and everything else. And Rosh Hashanah rings in the new year sometime around September.

It’s fair to say that the enemies of New Years have not been as successful as the enemies of Christmas. There are no major department stores that prohibit their employees from wishing their customers a Happy New Year, and New Years decorations can be displayed even in government facilities. Although there have been scattered reports of pagan retailers compelling greetings to be confined to “Happy Gregorian Day.”

Women’s groups are also up in arms due to the traditional characterization of time as an old man, as in “Father Time.” Mother Time is nowhere to be found. This is particularly disturbing because the New Year is often depicted as an infant who was seemingly conceived by its father.

While the ACLU has yet to take any War on New Years cases, it is just a matter of … um … time. It would be better to prepare for battle than to be caught off guard and find ourselves reduced to wishing each other a Happy New Orbit Around the Sun.

Actually, that doesn’t sound half bad. Happy Orbit Day everybody!



William Kristol Fails Upward

Posted by on December 30, 2007 at 1:19 pm. 1 Comments :

Another member of the PEP Squad (Perpetually Erroneous Pundits) has been promoted despite his consistent failures as an observer and analyst. The New York Times just announced that William Kristol, Fox News personality and editor of Rupert Murdoch’s Weekly Standard, has been hired as an opinion columnist.

Attempting to speculate as to the Times’ justification for this is bewildering, to say the least. In their own announcement they point out Kristol’s disdain for the paper and that he believes that “The Times is irredeemable.” They also note his statement that the Times should have been prosecuted for disclosing government programs to spy on the international banking transactions of American citizens. On that score he seems to agree with Ann Coulter who went so far as to advocate a firing squad for the Times’ treasonous editors. The very same editors who just hired Kristol.

The Times’ editorial page chief, Andy Rosenthal, is defending his new personnel move by calling his critics (i.e. readers) “intolerant” for not accepting Kristol as a “serious, respected conservative intellectual.” But why someone who has been so consistently wrong deserves to be regarded as serious, respected, or even intellectual, is not addressed in the defense. Rosenthal furthers his dissembled argument saying…

“We have views on our op-ed page that are as hawkish or more so than Bill. The whole point of the op-ed page is to air a variety of opinions.”

Precisely! If you already have views that are as hawkish or more so than Bill, then what does his hiring do to promote a variety of opinions?

Kristol, who is also a founder of the neo-conservative think tank, Project for a New American Century, has an abundance of pride for the influence of the Weekly Standard. Despite losing a million dollars a year, Kristol brags that “Dick Cheney does send over someone to pick up 30 copies of the magazine every Monday.”

Just a few weeks ago, that other bastion of liberalism, the Washington Post, hired Karl Rove to pontificate at their Newsweek subsidiary. So now, while the Times’ editor complains that his critics are intolerant, and conservatives continue to whine about the so-called liberal media, Bill Kristol, one of the most profound failures of punditry assumes his new perch at America’s Paper of Record. And don’t forget that Rupert Murdoch just completed his purchase of the Wall Street Journal with which he has vowed to bury the Times. Now he has his own man on the inside.


John Bolton Blames America First

Posted by on December 29, 2007 at 2:58 am. 3 Comments :

nullThere is a Society of Conservative Demagogues (SCD) who specialize in spewing a sort of Patriopathic™ zeal that is really not much more than low grade sanctimony. They are descended from Crusaders and Witch Burners and the defective souls who have convinced themselves of their own infallibility. Their contemporary Cardinals are TelePundits preaching from their TelePulpits of the heathens (i.e. Liberals) whom they dismiss as traitors. They rally the faithful (i.e. fearful) with liturgies expounding on the Infidels whom they say always blame America first.

Yesterday, a charter member of the SCD helped to prove the old saying, “If you hate something enough, you become it.”

Former UN Ambassador John Bolton made the rounds at Fox News to offer his assessment of the assassination of Benazir Bhutto and to point his accusatory finger at the U.S. of A.

On Hannity & Not Hannity (video): “I think by acceding to Benazir Bhutto’s desire to get back into the game in Pakistan, seeing her as somebody who is an alternative to Musharraf we, in effect, helped precipitate this dynamic which has led to her tragic assassination.”

On Fox News (video): “I think that in part the United States is responsible for this by pushing Musharraf, trying to cut a deal with Benazir Bhutto, by encouraging her to go back in the country, by trying to act like we could have a democratic election campaign in a situation of great instability”

I never heard Bolton express such an aversion to democracy with regard to Iraq where there is a fair measure of instability as well. While Bolton blamed America, Bhutto blamed Bolton’s pal, Musharraf. He continued his analysis by recommending a “timeout” that would “require a period of martial law.” What a great way for the U.S. to promote freedom throughout the world.

The conservative taunt of “Blame America First” appears to have originated with Ronald Reagan’s UN Ambassador, Jeane Kirkpatrick, in a speech before the Republican nominating convention for Reagan’s second term:

“…the San Francisco Democrats didn’t blame Soviet intransigence. They blamed the United States. But then, they always blame America first.”

Four years later Reagan himself used it at the RNC’s anointment of George H. W. Bush to tarnish Democrats for…

“…policies of tax and spend, economic stagnation, international weakness and accommodation, and always, always, always, blame America first.”

In the interim it has been employed by everyone from House Minority Leader John Boehner to Culture Warrior Bill O’Reilly. O’Reilly even adopted Kirkpatrick’s swipe at “San Francisco Democrats”, which at the time was a reference to where the Democratic National Convention was held the same year, not a regional insult as is intoned by O’Reilly.

However, you never hear rightists complain when one of their own resorts to blaming America. For example, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson wasted no time in assigning the blame for 9/11 to a broad swath of American citizens and institutions:

Falwell: I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays, and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way…I point the finger in their face and say, ‘You helped this happen.’

Robertson: Well, I totally concur, and the problem is we have adopted that agenda at the highest levels of our government. And so we’re responsible as a free society for what the top people do. And, the top people, of course, is the court system.

But I’m sure this will all be rectified when O’Reilly returns from vacation and lets John Bolton know that such irresponsible rhetoric will not be tolerated and that America-haters like Bolton should either straighten up or shut up. That’s right…I’m as sure of that as I am that O’Reilly will kiss Keith Olbermann full on the mouth the next time he runs into him at Sylvia’s restaurant in Harlem.

The pseudo-rectitude of the “Absolve America Always” crowd flies in the face of our nation’s traditional values. This country was founded by rebels who felt so passionately about the right to dissent that they enshrined it in the very first amendment to the Constitution. And true Americans will always prefer to align themselves with those who condemn torture and tyranny, as opposed to those who condone it in the name of patriotism.


John Edwards Not Playing Rupert Murdoch’s Monopoly

Posted by on December 27, 2007 at 1:20 pm. NO Comments :

John Edwards isn’t shy about letting Rupert Murdoch know how he feels. When asked a question about media consolidation at a recent campaign stop, Edwards said:

“I am not particularly interested in seeing Rupert Murdoch own every newspaper in America.”

Nicely done, John. This answer responds directly to the heart of the question and points an incriminating finger at the industry’s worst offender.

Edwards continues to solidify his position as the candidate most committed to media reform and supportive of efforts to rollback consolidation. He has spoken out on many occasions on the need for independence and diversity in the press and he has been a leading voice of opposition to the FCC’s policy of weakening regulations on ownership caps. He was also the first candidate to refuse to participate in Fox News-sponsored primary debates.

But every time Edwards takes a principled stand, the pundidiots can’t help but crack-wise at Edwards expense. In the item linked above, James Pindell of the Boston Globe follows the Edwards quote with this bit of irrelevancy:

“It should be noted that Edwards received nearly $800,000 in a book contract from one of Murdoch’s companies, HarperCollins.”

Why, pray tell, should that be noted? It is not a political contribution or evidence of electoral support. It is a payment for publishing rights to an author from a book publisher. It is the free market at work. And if anything is notable about it, it is that Edwards will act on his principles even if it is contrary to the interests of corporations who lay out big bucks to do business with him. In other words, they can’t buy him.

This isn’t the first time this canard has been raised. Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post felt it necessary to note the same book deal after Edwards called on his opponents to refuse donations from Murdoch. Never mind that he was not admonishing them to refrain from doing business with News Corp., just from accepting the sort political funding that can be seen as buying influence. And lest anyone think that the book advance in itself has purchased any slice of Edwards’ soul, just look to these statements for proof that his independence and integrity is in tact:

“High levels of media consolidation threaten free speech, they tilt the public dialogue towards corporate priorities and away from local concerns, and they make it increasingly difficult for women and people of color to own meaningful stakes in our nation’s media.”

“It’s time for all Democrats, including those running for president, to stand up and speak out against this [News Corp./Dow Jones] merger and other forms of media consolidation.”

“The basis of a strong democracy begins and ends with a strong, unbiased and fair media – all qualities which are pretty hard to subscribe to Fox News and News Corp.”

Contrast that with Hillary Clinton’s qualifying remarks following a rather commendable statement against media consolidation:

“I’m not saying anything against any company in particular. I just want to see more competition, especially in the same markets.”

While Clinton takes pains to soften the blow against her Foxic benefactor, Edwards comes right out and says what he thinks. For this he is often tagged in the press as a phony. That is the same characterization they make of him when he advocates for the poor – something the media apparently believes rich folks should never do. And for his trouble he is ganged up on by sanctimonious pundits that would rather point a finger at targets of their imagined hypocrisy than left a finger to help those less fortunate.

If you’re paying attention it’s easy to see who the phonies really are.

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L. A. Times Promotes Tim Rutten

Posted by on December 26, 2007 at 2:09 pm. 1 Comments :

The Los Angeles Times is moving Tim Rutten from the Calendar section to the Op-Ed pages beginning in the new year. This is a promotion that is long overdue for one of the paper’s best columnists. While I’ve had a disagreement of two with Rutten, he is the most consistently honest and insightful writer the paper employs – particularly since they traded the brilliant Robert Scheer for the brain-dead Jonah Goldberg.

Rutten is unafraid of taking on the powerful, even if that means his own bosses. His last “Regarding Media” column for Calendar is a good example of this. While he has a much more optimistic view of the Times’ future under new owner Sam Zell than I do, he is also unambiguous in his contempt for corporate media:

“The era of corporate accumulation has been an unmitigated disaster for American journalism. Money has flowed like a fiscal Mississippi into the pockets of investors and fund managers, draining one newspaper and TV station after another of the resources necessary to serve their communities’ common good.”

There are a couple of unanswered questions surrounding Rutten’s promotion. Is some other progressive opinion columnist being let go to make room for Rutten’s op-eds? Will a less courageous writer, or a worse, a Big Media apologist, replace Rutten as author of “Regarding Media”? Time will tell. But all in all, I will be looking forward to Rutten’s work in the section of the paper where it really belongs. Two years ago I wrote an article praising Rutten’s criticism of a speech by Dick Cheney. I closed by noting the difference between Rutten’s substantive analysis and the relative intellectual vacancy of the Times’ Opinion writers:

“Perhaps I should turn first to the Calendar for insight into the news, then pick up the opinion pages for entertainment, where their newest columnist, Jonah Goldberg, is best known for his fiction.”

Beginning next year, it may be safe to read the Opinion section again.


Christmas In Iraq

Posted by on December 25, 2007 at 11:32 am. NO Comments :

Here are a couple of perspectives of America at war during the holiday season. The first is brought to you by the propagandists of Fox News. The second is courtesy of Reality.

So for the deluded viewers of Fox News, you don’t need to worry about our soldiers in harm’s way. The are actually enjoying themselves. You don’t have to be concerned about the risks they face, and don’t trouble yourselves with their families who are missing them.

The front lines in Iraq are not an assignment fraught with danger as the “liberal” media would have you believe. They are just another joyful destination for the Crusade of Freedom that our caretakers in Washington are bestowing on the world.

Relax and rejoice and enjoy your Christmas dinner. As you can see, if you stay tuned to Fox News, our troops are doing the same.

For another perspective, here is Cass Dillon singing a new song by Billy Joel, Christmas in Fallujah.


Fox Pews: The Right Before Christmas

Posted by on December 24, 2007 at 7:46 pm. NO Comments :

The Right Before Christmas

Twas the day before Christmas
And all through the news
The networks were vying
To peddle their views

The Secular Media
Pretending to care
Broadcast their services
Over the air

CNN’s query for
Me and for you
Was what would Lord Jesus
Himself really do

MSNBC
Wants to share with us all
The party from Radio
City Music Hall

But one network more
Than the others declares
Its devotion to
Christianity’s prayers

From 24 hours
Its schedule was sliced
To give almost half
To the glory of Christ

Which compels one to wonder
Regarding Fox News
T’would be better to hail
The net as Fox Pews

On this holiday eve, I thought it would be interesting to take a look at the programming served up by the big three cable news networks. Not surprisingly, they all offered specials related to Christmas. It is, of course, entirely appropriate to produce programs that will be of interest to such a prominent percentage of TV consumers on a day of great national significance. But it was nonetheless a little jarring to discover the extent of Fox News’ sermonizing.

Christian content consumed nearly half (11 hours) of the 24 hour period pre-Christmas. The programs included an airing of “Miracles: Facts, Fictions, and Faith,” two airings of “One Nation Under God” hosted by Newt Gingrich, three airings of “The Birth of Jesus,” and five airings of “The Rick Warren Christmas Special.”

Despite the declaration of victory issued by General Bill O’Reilly, the War on Christmas is still raging and Fox doesn’t appear ready to stand down. After all, both Rupert Murdoch and the White House sent out “holiday” greetings this year. So as an extra measure of security, Fox is implementing its own surge strategy by scheduling nine straight hours of Gen. O’Reilly himself on Christmas day. Who better to spend the Lord’s birthday with than the man who proclaimed that:

“Every company in America should be on its knees thanking Jesus for being born. Without Christmas, most American businesses would be far less profitable.”

Now that’s Christmas spirit! I wasn’t even aware that companies had knees. But it is uplifting to know that Jesus was born to increase profit margins. Never mind those moneychangers in the temple.


Rudy Giuliani: American Fascist

Posted by on December 24, 2007 at 12:11 am. 1 Comments :

Rudy Giuliani is blazing a trail for himself in Republican circles as he vies for the nomination of his party for president. The former mayor who marched in gay pride parades and supported abortion is now reinventing himself as Mr. Conservative. Unfortunately for him, some conservatives aren’t waiting to welcome him into their ranks. The American Conservative magazine, co-founded by uber-rightist Pat Buchanan, is featuring America’s Player on the cover of its current issue. Their characterization of him as a fascist 9/11 monger isn’t particularly flattering. And neither are the articles accompanying the illustration.

In Declaring Forever War, Michael C. Desch writes that “Giuliani has surrounded himself with advisors who think the Bush Doctrine didn’t go nearly far enough.” Desch is no wild-eyed liberal. He is a professor at the George Bush School of Government at Texas A&M. His article reminds readers of Giuliani’s national security failures as mayor such as:

“…his decision to locate the city’s counterterrorism center in the World Trade Center, which had already been the target of an al-Qaeda terrorist attack in 1993; his failure to integrate the fire and police communications systems; his penchant for surrounding himself with sketchy characters like Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik […] He dropped out of the blue-ribbon Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group because it cut into his paid speechmaking.”

Tom Piatak is the author of GOP Loses Its Life. Piatak warns that a Giuliani victory would spell defeat for the social conservatives that have propped up Republicans since the Reagan years:

“If Giuliani becomes the party’s standard-bearer and is then elected, the informal prohibition against pro-choice candidates within the GOP will be shattered, and the power of social conservatives within the party will inevitably decline.”

Surprisingly, Glenn Greenwald, a well-respected progressive, was accorded the space to opine that “…it is hard to imagine a more toxic combination than Rudy Giuliani and the Oval Office.” His column, Authoritarian Temptation, is a frightening account of how Giuliani’s dictatorial style would translate should he ascend to a White House that has been altered by eight years of Bush era precendents:

“Giuliani, when he was merely in charge of New York’s garbage collection, zoning rules, and a municipal police force, developed a reputation as a power-hungry, dissent-intolerant authoritarian, obsessed with secrecy and expanding his own power.”

The fact that a magazine called American Conservative is taking shots at the Republican front-runner is worthy of notice. But even more noteworthy is the theme that Giuliani is viewed by conservatives as a tyrant in the making. This is consistent with the conclusions of Rachel Morris’ Washington Monthly article, Rudy Awakening, that claims that “As president, Giuliani would grab even more executive power than Bush and Cheney.” It is also consistent with Giuliani’s own perverse vision of freedom:

“Freedom is about authority. Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do.”

Freedom is about submission. And Orwell is spinning in his grave.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.