Sarah Palin

Fox News Fabricating A Story About Media Fabricating Stories

Posted by on October 31, 2010 at 4:14 pm. 4 Comments :

All morning long Fox News has been broadcasting a story out of Alaska concerning a recording of reporters from KTVA whom Fox News alleges were conspiring to sabotage Joe Miller’s senate campaign. There is only one problem with this story: There is no evidence to support it.

The only thing that Fox News has to back up their claim is a recording that was made from an open phone line. The recording is of poor quality with much that is unintelligible. But what makes this utterly unreliable is that Andrew Breitbart is the source of the recording. Breitbart is best known for promoting tapes and video that were proven to be either fake or deliberately edited to give a false impression of what actually occurred.

A statement from KTVA affirms that the reporters had called Miller but deny that they ever discussed any plot to harm his campaign. They were merely speculating on what others may do and how they would cover an upcoming event.

Leave it to Fox News to broadcast materials they received from a known producer of lies and disinformation. When they first began airing the story even their chief correspondent, Carl Cameron, confessed on air that he could not confirm the allegations from the Miller camp. You have to wonder why any reputable news organization would go to air with a story that they admittedly can’t confirm. But you don’t have to wonder why Fox would do so.

As part of their coverage Fox interviewed both Joe Miller and Sarah Palin. Both were outraged at the assertions that even they could not prove. Palin called the KTVA crew “corrupt bastards” on Fox News Sunday. They both castigated the media for fabricating stories. But going on Fox News to complain about the media fabricating stories is kind of like Dracula complaining about vampires drinking blood.

It’s almost too ludicrous to comprehend that, while in the midst of fabricating a story they scold others for fabricating stories. But I suppose it’s all that we can expect from Fox News.

Fox News: Architects Of The Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy

Posted by on October 20, 2010 at 1:54 pm. 3 Comments :

When Hillary Clinton coined the term “Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy” twelve years ago, many members of the VRWC ridiculed her and denied their own existence. Now Think Progress is in receipt of a private memo from the billionaire Koch brothers inviting some of the country’s wealthiest and most powerful individuals and companies to a clandestine meeting last summer where they would strategize for the upcoming midterm elections. It’s a fascinating story that includes in-depth research on the participants in this cabal and their connections to political players and institutions.

The part I’m most interested in is the presence of the media in the group. Take a look through the list of participants and you can’t help but notice one name that keeps repeating: Fox News. Here is a list of the Fox News affiliated members of the Koch Klan:

  • Michael Barone
  • Glenn Beck
  • Charles Krauthammer
  • Steven Moore
  • Nancy Pfotenhauer

What’s striking about this is that these people are not attending the secret meetings as journalists. They are participating in the brazenly partisan campaign planning conducted by the biggest business special interests in the world. These media players are not bystanders. They are the architects of the conservative agenda. They join their boss, Rupert Murdoch, in this endeavor. Murdoch, it was recently revealed, has donated millions to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Republican Governor’s Association.

All of the usual suspects were present at the secret meeting, from the Chamber of Commerce to Big Oil to the pharmaceutical giants to defense, real estate, Wall Street, and the top right-wing think tanks. The attendees even included a couple of Supreme Court Justices, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. Talk about your activist judges. After attending these meetings (which reportedly occur biannually, with the next one set for Palm Springs in January), these media hucksters return to the airwaves to promote the agenda they helped to fashion. And, of course, there is no disclosure that they had a hand in the policies they are peddling.

Tea CrusadersThis is another example of a phenomenon that is increasingly confounding to me. How can the Tea Party, who describe themselves as average, middle-class, Americans who are seeking to restore Constitutional principles and make Washington accountable to “We the People,” continue to follow an elite assembly of wealthy corporatists whose interests are so far removed from those of the Tea Party? Why doesn’t the Tea Party, who fancy themselves as revolutionaries, revolt against these upper-crusty impostors who are so obviously trying to manipulate their movement to the benefit of their elite and wealthy friends? What sort of revolutionaries align themselves with the entrenched establishment?

If the Tea Party had any sense they would be repulsed by Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, Fox News and the business-allied GOP. They would reject these phonies who are perverting the movement they claim belongs to the people. They would refuse the dirty money flowing from the Koch brothers, the AstroTurfers (i.e. FreedomWorks, Americans for Prosperity, et al), and foreign financiers like the Chamber of Commerce and Rupert Murdoch.

But then again, if the Tea Party had any sense they wouldn’t be the Tea Party as we know it. They are a sad crowd of gullible malcontents, and the more I contemplate their role in contemporary society, the more I pity them. I just wish their pathetic endeavors and delusions didn’t also cause the rest of the country suffer.

Sarah Palin Pimps Glenn Beck’s Phony News Site

Posted by on September 24, 2010 at 1:37 pm. 5 Comments :

The Tracy and Hepburn of 2010’s right-wing elitist set, Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin, just can’t get enough of one another.

Sarah Palin was the first guest on the first show Glenn Beck aired on Fox News. He interviewed her again last January when he revealed what he wrote in his diary about her:

“Tomorrow, I meet Sarah Palin and family for the first time. I’m actually a little nervous — as she is one of the only people that I can see that can possibly lead us out of where we are.”

He continued…“OMG, I hope she likes me back.”

Palin reciprocated by attending his Acute Paranoia Revival Show in DC. Then he re-reciprocated by trodding up to Alaska for a for-profit 9/11 memorial with tickets ranging up to $225.00.

Now Palin continues the love affair with a double Twitter shout out for Beck’s phony “news” site The Blaze:

#1: Log on 2 “theblaze.com” & change the course of information gathering in America! Site helps truth be told;we’ve had to put up w/LSM too long

#2: Rock your news-gathering world! Take a look at this new website recently launched called The Blaze. Let’s change…

What a joke. Palin has called herself a journalist despite never having had a real job as one. The best she can claim is that she read sports scores for a weekend broadcast on a local station in Alaska. Now she thinks Beck’s online circle-jerk qualifies as news.

Beck has also called himself a journalist. But he’s also said that he isn’t one (typical Beckian doubletalk). The Blaze is his attempt to cash in on the sort of revenue generated by Drudge, Huffington, Breitbart, etc. When he announced the site he said that he had hired the best journalists he could find. But if you click on the headlines, most of them lead to articles posted elsewhere on the Internet. There is virtually no original reporting on the site.

The right-wing noise machine is well known for its insulated PR practice. Stories spin through Drudge, National Review, Fox Nation, Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, and back around through them all a few times. The Blaze is just a new destination on the map.

The fact that Palin committed two precious tweets to fluffing this waste of bandwidth just affirms the circular nature of their media. They just keep inventing new ways to tie up their disciples in a maze of conservative propaganda.

Sarah Palin’s Shout Out To White Nationalist Group?

Posted by on September 19, 2010 at 3:12 pm. 10 Comments :

Sarah PalinSarah Palin, the Queen Bee of the Tea Party Crusaders, appeared in Des Moines Friday night to lend a hand to the Iowa Republican Party. As usual, she used the front of that hand to scrawl jingoistic talking points and the back of it to slap Democrats.

However, some of her remarks may have extended beyond the typical Palinese, right-tuned, dog whistle, into a rather disturbing appeal to a repulsive, racist and violent band of neo-nazi cultists:

“I don’t know how the machine works. I don’t really know who they are who strategize and organize up in that hierarchy in the GOP machine…

I don’t know who organizes the efforts that is needed to put obsessive partisanship aside when it gets in the way of just doing what is right for the American people and those internal power struggles that need to be set aside for the good of The Order.”

Let’s just set aside her absurd claim that she, as a former governor and candidate for Vice-President, has no connection to the inner workings of GOP machine politics. I’m more interested in what she means by “the good of The Order.”

Commonly used, the phrase “the order” is associated with totalitarian regimes that demand subservience and single-minded acceptance of the decrees of entrenched dictators. It refers to the social benefits of enforced conformity and obedience. It represents a philosophy wherein the order of tyranny is preferable to the chaos of democracy. It is highly unusual that an American political figure would employ that phraseology and its underlying implications.

Even more disquieting is that The Order is also the name of a notorious and violent white nationalist organization. It was founded in 1983 by Robert Mathews, a Mormon convert (like Glenn Beck) and fan of the white supremacist group, Aryan Nations. It’s name was inspired by a similar group in William Luther Pierce’s racist and anti-Semitic novel of race-war, “The Turner Diaries.” The Order’s primary goal was to carve out an Aryan state in the Pacific Northwest. They financed their operations with robberies and counterfeiting, and they were responsible for the murder of Alan Berg, a Jewish radio talk show host in Denver.

Palin’s comments were a part of a prepared speech, so this was not an extemporaneous gaffe where she may have meant to say “for the good of the party (or the country).” This was a very explicit reference to something that must have some meaning for her. But given the known meanings that I cited above, it’s hard to imagine that she has some other definition of which only she is aware. Which leads to the possibility that this was a deliberate communication to a specific subset of her followers.

Palin also addressed the media in her speech:

“We have got to hold the press accountable when you know that they’re making things up and telling untruths. We have got to do this together. And, by the way, I’m the biggest proponent of freedom of the press in this country, our young men and women in uniform willing to fight and die for our constitutional rights, including that right to that free press. It’s why I’m hot on this lamestream media issue. It’s why I’m adamant that they tell the truth. How dare anyone disrespect our troops’ sacrifice by claiming the right to print and to say anything, without a corresponding responsibility to truth?”

In an award winning feat of false association, Palin connects what she regards as dishonesty in the press with disrespect for the troops. If you gave her the chance she would connect everything from jaywalking to bed-wetting with disrespect for the troops. And if not telling the truth was the measure of one’s respect, she would be guilty of high treason.

How dare she anoint herself as the arbiter of what people have the right to print and say? She is one of the biggest purveyors of disinformation on the current political scene. And to make this even more surreal, she also thinks she can decide who is, or is not, a journalist:

“And in this kind of strange, unaccountable day of anyone and everyone getting to claim that they are a journalist, you have got to ask yourself, who are they really, when the media uses, say on deep, deep background, anonymous sources to cowardly attack someone, their record, their intentions?”

She has presented herself as a journalist in the past. Although she did eventually obtain a degree after attending five or so colleges, the only job she ever held was on a local weekend newscast reading sports scores. She demonstrates her total ignorance of journalism by disparaging anonymous sources, a rare but necessary part of reporting. Even worse, she obviously doesn’t know that sources on “deep background” are always anonymous.

All told, this was another atrocious Palin speech that exposed her as a laughably bad media analyst. But the truly shocking revelation was her affinity for The Order, and whatever that phrase means to her. Because, intentional or not, it’s going to resonate with the sort of militia-minded hate groups that populate the Wyoming woods.

Christine O’Donnell Flunks Remedial Republicanism

Posted by on September 18, 2010 at 12:59 pm. 5 Comments :

The latest Tea Party Mama Grizzly to ascend within the ranks of the GOP asylum is Delaware candidate for senate, Christine O’Donnell. Last Tuesday O’Donnell defeated “moderate” Republican, Mike Castle and will face Chris Coons in the general election in November. This should be fun considering her record as an unabashed schizoid. But between now and then she will have to undergo an extreme right-wing makeover.

After O’Donnell’s surprise victory she immediately announced that she would appear on both Fox News Sunday and CBS’s Face the Nation. But she just as quickly canceled both appearances. This is in keeping with the Republican model this year. Both Rand Paul and Sharron Angle did much the same thing.

The reason O’Donnell canceled is because she had to attend Remedial Republicanism classes (RemGOP 101). As an inexperienced Tea Bagging nominee she has not been properly prepared for her new, high profile, public role. So despite her initial agreement to talk to the press, her handlers have been instructed to reverse course so that her coaching can begin first.

There is much to learn for someone in her position. She has to become acquainted with Facebook and Twitter, and make those the primary outlets for her public statements. This is critical because those platforms protect her from actually engaging in a dialogue or having to respond to annoying questions about her background or agenda. She also has to learn how to dodge, obfuscate, mislead, and smear. These skills are important in the event that she finds herself in a position where she is unable to evade a conventional reporter.

In the few hours after her primary win, O’Donnell made some embarrassing gaffes that illustrate the need for sequestering her in the RemGOP re-education facility. She proved that she doesn’t even know basics like Media Freeze-Out. The fact that she would book a non-Fox interview is evidence of just how far behind she is in her studies. To catch up she will have to buckle down and cram for the next few days.

Luckily she has many experienced tutors to help her bone up for the final exam on November 2nd. Paul, Angle, Joe Miller, Ken Buck, and of course, Sarah Palin, have all demonstrated their expert ability to avoid all press contact except, of course, for Fox News. And even then, stay away from “news” related programming by only visiting friendly, partisan, hacks, like Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity.

O’Donnell must heed the advice of her mentors. Sarah Palin recently told Fox’s O’Reilly that O’Donnell should “Speak through FOX News.” Sharron Angle has a policy of only appearing on TV programs that allow her to beg for money. These are amongst the lessons that O’Donnell needs to internalize and adhere to.

It’s a good thing for these GOP cowards that the media doesn’t care if they are being played for saps. Palin can fire off rounds from the safety of her Facebook page and the press dutifully reports it as if it were newsworthy. Angle, Paul, and the others can flaunt their delinquency knowing full well that what they say on Fox News, or at podiums before Tea Bagger rallies, will still be covered by the rest of the media stenographers. Bob Schieffer of Face the Nation demonstrated the typical behavior of the compliant press when O’Donnell backed out of her booking. Schieffer booked GOP strategist Ed Rollins instead. It never occurred to Schieffer to call Chris Coons, O’Donnell’s Democratic opponent, who ought to be just as timely a guest, except for the fact that he isn’t a whack-job Republican.

So don’t expect to see much of O’Donnell between now and election day outside of the warm confines of Fox News. The same goes for her role models and mentors. If there is one thing you can be certain that the right-wing does well, it’s teaching their wards how to dodge scrutiny and manufacture their own PR.

Fox News Donates Free Air Time To The GOP

Posted by on September 17, 2010 at 1:29 pm. 3 Comments :

In a bit of creative synergy, Fox News has figured out a way to give Republican candidates a platform without appearing overtly political. This tactic permits the candidate to get national media exposure without having to spend any money or to engage in any kind of informative debate that impacts their campaign.

Here’s how it works: This morning Megyn Kelly aired a segment on a parent who was arrested after he blew a verbal gasket on a school bus. He was upset because his daughter was being bullied by other students and the school allegedly failed to do anything about it.

That’s an issue that tugs at the heart but really has little significance to anyone but the people involved and the tabloid set who watch Fox News for gossip and melodrama. What makes this segment unique is that Kelly brought in two lawyers to debate the matter. One of the lawyers just happened to be Pam Biondi, the Republican candidate for Attorney General in Florida. While Kelly did mention that Biondi is a candidate in her introduction, throughout the segment the on-screen graphic identified her only as a “former Florida prosecutor.”

There is no good reason for Biondi to make an appearance like this on national TV to discuss a situation that has nothing to do with her campaign. What’s more, there is no good reason for Kelly to select Biondi for this debate. Well, except for the fact that Biondi is the GOP candidate for Attorney General. She is a far-right ideologue who wants to repeal the health care bill, opposes gay adoption, and supports Arizona’s immigration law. And in a touching aside, she was sued by a New Orleans family when she refused to return their dog who was lost during Hurricane Katrina (the family did get their dog back, eventually).

Oh yeah…Biondi also has the endorsement of Fox News contributor Sarah Palin, which I guess makes her a mama grizzly.

To put this in perspective, try to imagine Fox News inviting Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidate for Attorney General in California, into the studio for six minutes of expensive airtime to discuss a local school matter. At the very least Kelly could give equal time to Dan Gelber, Biondi’s Democratic opponent. She could have him on to weigh in on the school’s cafeteria menu.

This sort of booking policy is a not-so-thinly disguised method of making an in-kind contribution to Republican office-seekers. Television is the most expensive form of political advertising, and having a network that doles out campaign welfare in the form of free airtime is a distinct advantage. Fox should have to report these bookings as campaign donations.

Hypocrisy Alert: Fox News Sues Democrat For Infringement

Posted by on September 16, 2010 at 2:19 pm. 9 Comments :

In a feat of Olympian hypocrisy, Fox News has filed a lawsuit against Robin Carnahan, the Democratic candidate for senate in Missouri. The network that regularly rails against the excess of litigiousness in American society, is alleging that Carnahan’s ad infringes on their proprietary property.

The ad in question has been temporarily removed from Carnahan’s web site, and YouTube as well, but you can still view it here. The offending content was a clip of Carnahan’s opponent, Roy Blunt, in a 2006 interview with Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday. Wallace is seen asking whether Blunt is the right man to “clean up the House” given his financial ties to convicted felon Jack Abramoff, and his efforts on behalf of the tobacco industry despite his romantic relationship with a tobacco lobbyist.

In addition to copyright infringement, Fox alleges violation of privacy, misappropriation of Wallace’s likeness and – I kid you not – that the ad is “compromising its apparent objectivity.” This begs the question, apparent to whom? The filing itself (pdf) begins with a paragraph that contradicts Fox’s assertion of objectivity:

“In a smear ad against political rival Roy Blunt, Defendant Robin Carnahan for Senate, Inc. usurped proprietary footage from the Fox News Network to made (sic) it appear – falsely – that FNC and Christopher Wallace, one of the nation’s most respected political journalists, are endorsing Robin Carnahan’s campaign for United States Senate.”

By characterizing the ad as a “smear ad,” Fox may be setting up a lawsuit against itself for compromising its objectivity. Perhaps what Fox is really concerned about is that the ad may instead compromise their reputation for partisanship, as Wallace’s question actually addresses some very real and damaging facts about Blunt, a candidate belonging to Fox’s favored political party (the GOP). In fact, the ad’s representation of Wallace may actually enhance his reputation for objectivity, and therein lies the real dilemma for Wallace and Fox. They are fiercely attached to their biases and can’t abide anyone casting them as even marginally neutral.

Fox’s complaint is unlikely to prevail in court. The doctrine of Fair Use permits the reproduction of segments of copyrighted material, particularly in works of commentary and political expression. Fox News Sunday is an hour long program, but the clip in Carnahan’s ad is a just a few seconds. And it is clearly political in nature, which grants it further protection from the First Amendment.

However, what propels this lawsuit from the merely frivolous to the strikingly hypocritical is that Fox News doesn’t seem to have any problem with candidates who use their precious, copyrighted material in support of Republicans. In that scenario there isn’t any infringement or harm to objectivity. Take for example this ad for Rand Paul, featuring Fox News contributor Sarah Palin:

The ad contains all of the same elements that triggered Fox’s complaints against Carnahan: infringement, misappropriation of likeness, and harm to apparent objectivity. In the Paul ad, Palin is even making her endorsement on Wallace’s Fox News Sunday. So you have a Fox News employee, on a Fox News program endorsing a Republican candidate in a campaign ad, and yet Fox never filed suit against Paul.

If, as the lawsuit claims, Carnahan “intruded upon Wallace’s private self-esteem and dignity; and caused him emotional or mental distress and suffering.” then why isn’t the same true for Paul’s ad? Perhaps the severity of the mental distress and suffering was such that the aggrieved party became incapacitated and was unable to respond.

News Corpse would like to extend its sympathies to the poor and suffering Chris Wallace, Sarah Palin, and Fox News. This must be so hard on them.

Sarah Palin Pimps Fox News

Posted by on September 16, 2010 at 10:43 am. 2 Comments :

After the surprise victory by Christine O’Donnell in the GOP senate primary in New Hampshire, her role model, Sarah Palin, visited Bill O’Reilly to offer the candidate some advice on dealing with the press and her own staff, who O’Reilly asserts are keeping her off of his program:Sarah Palin Factor

“So she’s going to have to learn that, yes, very quickly. She’s going to have to dismiss that, go with her gut, get out there, speak to the American people. Speak through FOX News.“

The spectacle of Palin, a Fox News employee, offering her analysis that O’Donnell should “speak through Fox News” is a perfect illustration of the built in bias that is at the heart of Fox News. Palin inadvertently let slip the fact that Fox is the PR arm of the Republican Party and that Republicans should be taking full advantage of that (not that they didn’t already know).

Try to imagine someone like correspondent Lara Logan advising Democratic candidates to speak through CBS News. For that matter, try to imagine any network news correspondent with a role remotely similar to Palin’s at Fox. In addition to her network duties, Palin actively campaigns for GOP candidates, raises funds for the party and affiliated advocacy groups, and is herself a potential candidate for office.

Palin is not alone at Fox as a partisan player. Former Fox News host John Kasich is presently running for governor of Ohio. Former, and possibly future, presidential candidate Mike Huckabee currently hosts his own Fox show. Contributors Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, and Andrea McGlowan, have all been, or are considering being, GOP candidates for office.

Fox News is the place where Republicans go to nurture their political aspirations. They are the farm team for the GOP. And now Sarah Palin has admitted it in public.

On 9/11: Palin And Beck Bash America, Praise Fox News

Posted by on September 12, 2010 at 11:42 am. 4 Comments :

Glenn BeckGlenn Beck and Sarah Palin appeared together at a for-profit Arctic Circle Jerk yesterday, the ninth anniversary of the Al Qaeda attacks on the United States. Although Beck said that his speaking fees would be donated to a charity, and that Palin was not being paid, no one explained where the estimated half million dollar ticket receipts would end up. (Hint: Beck’s nose and Palin’s shoe pantry).

Typical of a Palin/Beck enterprise, the profiteering on 9/11 extended into some blatant self promotion and exploitation. The pair joked about their future plans as possible presidential candidates and attacked their rivals in Washington and the press. But what was most disconcerting was their eagerness to disparage the country and dispense fear in place of providing solace on this sad anniversary. Beck was particularly gloomy, warning that complacency has set in:

Beck: We’re in trouble, the country is coming apart at the seams. […] I fear that we are forgetting what it takes. How do we not make the same mistake again?

Sarah PalinThat is vintage Beck, announcing some imagined Armageddon that is threatening to rip the nation apart any day now. Palin, of course, agreed, and pointed her bony, judgmental, finger at President Obama:

Palin: It starts from the top. Those who kind of set the tone in our country that would lead us towards a complacency that is very, very, very dangerous. I fear that is why we are seeing the patterns we’re seeing right now, especially over the last 20 months.

In speaking about those at “the top” who “kind of set the tone,” might she have been referring to former President Bush who famously declared that he didn’t care about Osama Bin Laden, then proved it by letting him get away and carpet bombing an unrelated country of other dark-skinned heathens? Palin never bothered to illuminate for us what patterns she was observing, but since there has not been any increase in domestic terrorism in the last 20 months, they must be visible only to her and those she has infected. And that was not the end of her delusional observations as she invented a new mythical history of the Statue of Liberty:

Palin: This Statue of Liberty was gifted to us by foreign leaders, really as a warning to us, it was a warning to us to stay unique and to stay exceptional from other countries. Certainly not to go down the path of other countries that adopted socialist policies.

To be fair, Palin didn’t invent that myth, she learned it from Beck whose ability to concoct reptilian conspiracies is unmatched by asylum-dwellers worldwide. The two of them have much in common philosophically, as well as financially. Both, of course, are employed by Fox News, so it should come as no surprise that they took time away from ignoring 9/11 to pimp their Network of Lies. While praising Beck for representing “why so many citizens never have to apologize for being American,” she made the point that, “It’s a brutal, left-dominated, lamestream, media world out there. What would we do without Fox News?”

Indeed. What would we do? What would we do without a network whose most prominent performer just admitted that it is an openly right-wing propaganda machine? I suppose we would all be apologizing for being American (which I only began doing since the advent of Beck and Palin). And we wouldn’t have Fox News personalities to tell us how much trouble the country is in. And we wouldn’t have been alerted to the unraveling of the nation and it’s separation from God. And we wouldn’t have been able to fork over $225.00 for the privilege of having a couple of ignorant fear mongers shower us with these lies on a day that the rest of the country was memorializing the victims of an historic tragedy.

Update: New video was posted at YouTube that shows a heckler rising to call Beck and Palin hypocrites. She was immediately drowned out by booing, and Palin stepped forward to say, “My son, and his soldier buddies standing over her, they’re protecting your right to say things like that tonight.” Apparently they weren’t protecting that right very well, because as Palin was saying that, the woman was being forcibly ejected from the hall by other attendees.

Dishonoring 9/11: Fox Nation’s Calendar For Obama, Palin And Beck

Posted by on September 7, 2010 at 7:39 pm. 4 Comments :

Over at the Fox Nation, where every news item is a right-wing attack piece, they have been alerted to the fact that President Obama will be spending September 11 at the Pentagon, one of the sites targeted by the terrorists ten years ago. But rather than publishing a story with the headline, “Obama to Mark September 11 at the Pentagon,” the Fox Nationalists posted this:

Pres. Obama Not Attending 9/11 Ceremony at Ground Zero

As might be expected, Fox clearly went out of their way to come up with that negative slant on the story They could easily have used the more neutral headline I proposed above, which happens to be the actual headline of the article to which Fox Nation linked.

What Fox News did not report is that Obama is not the only prominent public person who isn’t going to ground zero on 9/11. In fact, the two most prominent employees of Fox News, Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck, aren’t going to ground zero either. They also won’t be at the Pentagon. And they aren’t going to be at the Pennsylvania crash site with Michelle Obama and Laura Bush either. (For the record, Vice-President Joe Biden will be at ground zero).

Palin and Beck care so much about this memorial that they have scheduled an appearance together more than 3,000 miles away from any of these sites, in Anchorage, Alaska, at an event that will cost the public between $73.00 and $130.00 each to attend. Oh yeah, there is also a $225.00 ticket that includes a meet-and-greet with Beck. What a wonderful way to honor the memory of the citizens and responders whose lives were lost on 9/11.

Perhaps Beck decided to visit Palin in Alaska on this anniversary so that the two of them could keep an eye on Russia. More likely, Beck is repaying Palin for her appearance at his Washington BeckFest last week. And it is quite a rich repayment that could bring in half a million dollars. That oughta restore some honor.

So while Obama is honoring the fallen, the Fox all-stars, Palin and Beck, will be hustling their followers. And the only news that Fox sees in all of this is that Obama won’t be at ground zero. Fair and balanced.

Update, 9/10/10: It only took three days for Glenn Beck to buckle under pressure and claim that he “had always intended to donate the speaking fee from the event on Saturday.” Even so, his statement just raises further questions. Since the event stands to raise about half a million dollars, and Palin reportedly is not getting any fee at all, then how much is Beck’s fee? And if it isn’t half a million dollars, where is the rest of the money going? Beck and Palin have received in the area of a hundred thousand dollars for such events. After expenses this would still leave more than a quarter of a million dollars that is unaccounted for. It’s hard to believe that that money isn’t going to end up in the pockets of Beck and/or Palin.