Sarah Palin

John McCain’s Campaign Concedes Fox News Is Biased

Posted by on November 14, 2008 at 4:51 pm. 7 Comments :

In an upcoming article in the National Review, Rich Lowry interviews John McCain’s campaign manager, Rick Davis. Much of the interview deals with the handling of Sarah Palin, the VP candidate who Lowry says…

“…was so sparkling it was almost mesmerizing. [Her TV appearance] sent little starbursts through the screen and ricocheting around the living rooms of America.”

Wiping the drool from his chin, Lowry asked Davis why he booked Palin on Katie Couric’s CBS News program. Davis replied…

“Our assumption was people would not let us release her on Fox or local TV.”

If McCain’s campaign manager can admit that Fox News is a de facto arm of the Republican Party, and that nobody would take seriously a softball interview conducted on that network, why does Fox still try to peddle the myth that they are “fair and balanced?”

After the McCain team nixed Fox for the initial interview, they chose Couric because they were…

“…under the impression the Couric thing was going to be easier than it was. Everyone’s guard was down for the Couric interview.”

Let’s count the stupid: First they presumed that Couric would be easier on Palin because they were both women. Of course, Couric had an incentive to perform at a high level due to her low ratings and expectations. Plus, a woman reporter would actually have more leeway to be aggressive when interviewing a woman candidate. It was political malpractice for McCain and company not to recognize this. And it opens them up to charges of sexism as well because it presumes that a woman reporter would not be as probing or professional as a man.

Secondly, they actually think that the questions Couric asked were too hard for Palin. Their guard was down for such confounding inquiries as, “What newspapers and magazines do you read?” Or, “What does Alaska’s proximity to Russia have to do with foreign policy experience?” If that’s their idea of tough questions, it’s a good thing they kept her under wraps most of the time.

Thank goodness they have Fox News around for the post-election interviews where Greta Van Susteren delved into Palin’s recipe for moose chili.

A Boycott Of Fox News By Conservatives

Posted by on November 7, 2008 at 1:41 pm. 5 Comments :

Bloggers on Free Republic, AKA Freepers, are mad as Hell and they aren’t going to take it any more. The treatment of Sarah Palin by Fox reporter Carl Cameron and others has incensed them to the point where they are vowing never to watch again. I’ve compiled some of the comments from the site for their comedic value:

  • I propose that we punish the FOX Network for its hatchet job on Sarah Palin. For one week beginning at 3:00 PM today no one tunes them in. We will demonstrate the power of conservatives when their ratings plummet dramatically. Will you join me? [FYI: their boycott will have no affect whatsoever on the ratings unless a significant number of them are Nielsen families]
  • I’m done with Teevee. Let them all go to hell.
  • I am with you all the way my friend…i hope FOX goes off the air…hate em now…
  • It would be easy. Nearly every show on FNC is unwatchable these days. ….for quite a while, in fact.
  • fauxNEWS – We Distort, You Comply
  • too late………I wrote them off months ago
  • GO TO EVERY RIGHTWING BLOG AND TELL THEM TO TURN OFF FOX.
  • Tell him he’s no better than the “smear merchants” and “bombthrowers” he holds in such contempt. Allowing Carl Cameron to spew unmitigated hearsay and garbage without one shred of supporting evidence or fact makes O’Reilly just as bad as the supermarket tabloids.
  • Life without FOX is good.
  • It’s not a secret that 81% of Fox News reporters and employees donate money to the Democratic party – that’s a crazy high number for an allegedly conservative TV channel. It’s no secret to the gay community that Shepard Smith is “one” of them.
  • FOX now SUX bigtime! 🙁
  • Screw them too. I have watched very little since their recent maniacal swerve left.
  • If FOX wants me back they will bring on Glenn Beck and Rush. I have had it with weasels like Hannity and O’Reilly.[Beck is on the way]

And finally, there was this insightful thought from a a true afficianado of the arts:

This thread would do really well at Daily Koz. They think this is a great idea. They even have the artwork ready…

Yes, that’s my artwork posted by a Freeper. Thanks veritas2002. And thanks for joining the boycott everybody.

Update: The folks at RedState are weighing in as well with Operation Leper:

We’re tracking down all the people from the McCain campaign now whispering smears against Governor Palin to Carl Cameron and others […] We intend to constantly remind the base about these people, monitor who they are working for, and, when 2012 rolls around, see which candidates hire them. Naturally then, you’ll see us go to war against those candidates.

Fox News Inspires KKK Threats

Posted by on November 7, 2008 at 10:17 am. 2 Comments :

Just in case anyone still thinks that Fox News is merely an overtly biased right-wing mouthpiece for Republican issues and people, here’s a story of what trafficking in hate and lies can lead to in the real world:

“The white co-owner of a Palm Beach restaurant told her black employees they’d be fired if they voted for Barack Obama, and on the night of Obama’s victory, she wrote ‘KKK’ on their timecards and in notes she posted in the back of the restaurant.”

The owner of the restaurant claims that her actions were not meant to be taken seriously, but that is disingenuous at best. I cannot fathom how such behavior could be characterized as a joke. And in a startling attempt to defend herself, she sought to shift the blame:

“I think I got crazy with FOX News, watching too much FOX News.”

This is the sort of ugliness that is entirely predictable when you put unrepentant, racist provocateurs in the anchor seats of major television networks. It is what should be expected when those anchors invite other confirmed racists on their shows to affirm their repulsive views.

Throughout the past presidential campaign, Fox News led the rightist media in peddling racial hate. Let’s recap:

  • E.D. Hill: A fist bump? A pound? A terrorist fist jab?
  • Liz Trotta: [N]ow we have what some are reading as a suggestion that somebody knock off Osama …uh… Obama … well, both if we could.
  • Fox On-Air Graphic: Outraged Liberals: Stop Picking On Obama’s Baby Mama!
  • Bill O’Reilly: I don’t want to go on a lynching party against Michelle Obama unless there’s evidence, hard facts, that say this is how the woman really feels.
  • Bill O’Reilly: The question is: Did Martin Luther King really think of America as a bad country or a good country? Did he despise it the way Jeremiah Wright does? Or did he respect it? And that question is very difficult to answer precisely.
  • Bill O’Reilly: I couldn’t get over the fact that there was no difference between Sylvia’s restaurant and any other restaurant in New York City. I mean, it was exactly the same, even though it’s run by blacks, primarily black patronship.
  • John Gibson: Do your duty. Make more babies [or] Twenty-five years and the majority of the population is Hispanic.

Then there is also Sean Hannity’s close association with neo-Nazi Hal Turner and proud bigot Andy Martin. And Fox News “broke” the false story of Barack Obama attending a Madrassa in his youth. This lead to accusations of Obama being a Muslim that persisted throughout the campaign. Fox also led the charge against Rev. Wright with barely concealed racial overtones. This list could go on and on.

The bottom line is that when a concerted campaign of distrust and disparagement, focused on racial hatred, is part and parcel of a major news enterprise, only a fool would fail to anticipate that it would instigate behavior like that described above. Sadly, I don’t see it receding much as Fox News continues to engage in their repugnant brand of pseudo-journalism, and they continue to employ the worst offenders.

Update: It isn’t only Fox News that is inciting threats: Sarah Palin blamed by the US Secret Service over death threats against Barack Obama.

“The Secret Service warned the Obama family in mid October that they had seen a dramatic increase in the number of threats against the Democratic candidate, coinciding with Mrs Palin’s attacks.”

The Disappointment In Sarah Palin’s Heart

Posted by on November 6, 2008 at 1:10 am. 3 Comments :

It’s been less than 24 hours and already the wheels are coming off of Sarah Palin’s wagon. Fox News’ Campaign Carl Cameron is reporting what those of us with a functioning cerebral cortex already knew: Sarah Palin is an idiot.

Cameron’s sources with the McCain campaign are leaking tales of infighting between the Palin and McCain camps. She is characterized as a diva who would not take advice from staff, refused to be prepared for interviews and debates, and threw temper tantrums when faced with negative press. Even worse they are revealing the depth of her stupidity, or as Cameron describes it, “a lack of knowledgeability” (right, and Stevie Wonder has “a visionary deficiency”). Palin apparently couldn’t name the countries signatory to NAFTA. She didn’t know that Africa is a continent, and not a country. And Cameron says to expect more of these bimbotic disclosures in the days ahead.

But, as usual, the real gems come from Palin herself. In some off-the-cuff remarks she declares her intention to restore credibility to journalism:

“I want to make sure Americans do understand that there’s a little disappointment in my heart about the world of journalism today and I don’t want any individual journalists to take it personally but I have such great respect for the role of the media in our democracy. It is a cornerstone. It allows for checks and balances but only when there is fairness and objectivity in the reporting.

And I want to make sure that Americans can have great faith in that aspect of our society, the media. So whatever I can do there to help and actually be able to allow credence to be giving to the media, I want to help in that respect. That’s where I start as a journalist, receiving a journalist degree, my foundation is, again, with great respect for what the vocation is all about. I want to help restore some credibility there.”

She really does have the gift of gibberish. However, it stretches credulity for a candidate for the vice presidency, who deigned to hold a single press conference, to profess to have respect for journalism as a cornerstone of society. Her notion that the press provides checks and balances only when there is fairness and objectivity forgets that opinions and editorials are also a part of the profession. What she is really arguing for is an end to criticism, particularly of her.

She wants to make sure that Americans have faith in the media and refers to the degree she received in journalism (from the University of Idaho in Moscow, ID) as her “foundation.” But the only use she ever made of it was a brief stint as a weekend sportscaster in Anchorage. Nevertheless, she believes that she can restore credibility to the “liberal” media despite her inability to name a single newspaper or magazine that she has read.

Is this a foretelling of an interest to return to her journalistic roots? In response to questions about her post-campaign activities she said that she would like to have a public role, but not in a partisan sense. That would rule out politics, but it wouldn’t prevent her from setting up shop on talk radio or, more likely, Fox News. She still has another couple of years to kill as governor of Alaska, but that shouldn’t get in the way of her developing the pilot for the Palin Factor and premiering it in the fall of 2010. The question is…will journalism survive long enough for her to get around to saving it?

John McCain Pulls A Double, Reverse Maverick

Posted by on November 2, 2008 at 10:11 am. NO Comments :

Last night John McCain appeared on Saturday Night Live. He follows his running mate’s inexplicably lame guest shot on the program two weeks ago. The best that can be said is that he didn’t bomb as thoroughly as Sarah Palin. At least he participated in the sketches and had a few punch lines.

Still, it is a bit surprising that the jokes primarily centered on his being a cash-strapped also ran. That is generally not a theme that a candidate wants to present two days before an election. Neither is it advisable to reveal your campaign’s closing strategy, which McCain did when discussing the matter on the Weekend Update segment. Asked what he would do if his present strategy were to fail, he offered a couple of notable alternatives:

  • The Reverse Maverick: That’s where I do whatever anybody tells me.
  • The Double Maverick: I’d just go totally berserk and freak everybody out.

In reality, he has already resorted to both of these tactics.

He began his campaign two years ago with the Reverse Maverick as he abandoned many of his long-held positions to suck up to the Bush loyalists and the Christian right. Examples include advocating the Bush tax cuts that he had voted against in the Senate, adopting the Bush position on torture that he had previously opposed, and embracing evangelicals like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell who he once called “agents of intolerance.”

He rushed headlong into the Double Maverick with his selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate. That certainly freaked everybody out. In addition, his behavior in response to the Wall Street meltdown when he promised to suspend his campaign and postpone a debate (neither of which he did), was nothing if not berserk.

A third strategy mentioned on SNL was “The Sad Grandpa.” I can’t say that we’ve witnessed bona fide examples of that, but we have seen verified examples of a close off-shoot, “The Grandpa Simpson.”

Sarah Palin’s Constitutional Frights

Posted by on October 31, 2008 at 2:05 pm. NO Comments :

It’s five days before the election and Sarah Palin has still never held a press conference. But that hasn’t stopped her from bashing the media of which she is so fearful. And the story is getting even scarier.

Having a pet newspaper is apparently not enough for Palin. Now she’s afraid that any criticism of her is a violation of her Constitutional rights:

“If [the media] convince enough voters that that is negative campaigning, for me to call Barack Obama out on his associations, then I don’t know what the future of our country would be in terms of First Amendment rights and our ability to ask questions without fear of attacks by the mainstream media.”

No one is infringing on her right to call Obama out, and she does it every day. It’s pretty much all she does. But the fact that she thinks the First Amendment exists to protect her from the media, or anyone else who disagrees with her, is an appropriately scary notion to come up in a Halloween day interview. She is arguing that she be permitted to bark out all manner of scurrilous slurs with abandon. However, she regards it as unconstitutional for anyone else to exercise their own freedom of expression in response. What she is advocating is nothing less than the infringement of the First Amendment rights of her critics.

This is a recurring theme for Republicans. If they are accusing you of something, you can bet they are doing it themselves. The strategy is to identify their own faults and then accuse their opponent of engaging in them. The accusation doesn’t even need to be true. McCain’s campaign manager, Rick Davis, admitted to this tactic. So whether it be negative campaigning, voter fraud, or questionable associations, the McCain camp is knee deep in hypocrisy.

Update: Is this an example of an unconstitutional attack by the mainstream media:
Sarah Palin Got Pranked

Sarah Palin Pines For Pet Press

Posted by on October 30, 2008 at 1:38 am. 1 Comments :

Just when you thought that irony had reached peaks that would not be revisited for a generation or two, along comes a contender that exceeds all expectations. Sarah Palin is such a contender, and today she demonstrates why the great ones can never be counted out.

The latest fake controversy to be heralded by right-wing media is the so called “discovery” of an article that was actually published six months ago in the Los Angeles Times about Columbia University professor Rashid Khalidi. Barack Obama was reported to have attended a party for Khalidi where some Palestinian guests made some incendiary remarks about Israel. Of course there is nothing tying Obama to the statements or the speakers, but that hasn’t stopped the press from latching onto the story and making irresponsible and unsubstantiated allegations.

At the front of the line is Fox News, where Brit Hume, Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, etc., are already barking their patented phony outrage at Obama and the L.A. Times. At the crux of their complaints is their dismay that the Times will not release a video tape they have of the event. The Times issued a statement explaining that they received the tape from a source with an agreement that it would not be released. If Fox and its spokesmodels were actually journalists they would understand the concept of confidentiality and the privilege that exists between reporters and their sources. But we’re talking about Fox here, so an understanding of journalistic ethics may be too much to ask.

It’s not just Fox who is fanning the flames. John McCain and Sarah Palin have taken up the call and are using this affair to further pound on the press. This is where the irony comes in as Palin said this at a rally today:

“It must be nice for a candidate to have major news organizations looking after his best interests like that. Maybe some politicians would love to have a pet newspaper of their very own.”

This statement, coming from a woman who has coordinated her entire campaign with Fox News, is really a remarkable exhibition of chutzpah. She is herself a candidate with a major news organization looking after her interests. And she even has pet newspapers in Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post and Wall Street Journal. She and McCain have a relationship with a media company that is perhaps more intimate than any in history. And yet Palin is implying that Obama is being protected by the liberal L.A. Times who endorsed him for president. Did I mention that the Times has never before endorsed a Democrat for president? That’s right, despite having the words “Los Angeles” in the name, the Times has never been a liberal paper.

And by the way, Khalidi, that subversive professor that Obama was palling around with – he also received funding by a foundation that was chaired by, you guessed it, John McCain.

Ironic, huh?

Sarah Palin: Failin On Saturday Night Live

Posted by on October 19, 2008 at 1:47 am. NO Comments :

The highly anticipated appearance of Sarah Palin on Saturday Night Live was hardly worth staying up for. She had barely noticeable parts in the sketches in which she was featured, and none of what she did was remotely funny. The entire affair smelled of self-promotion on the part of SNL as well as Palin.

There was some irony in the opening where Tina Fey did her usual smash up job of impersonating Palin. Then they cut away to the real Palin telling SNL producer Lorne Michaels why she declined to play the role of herself at a press conference:

“I just didn’t think it was a realistic depiction of the way my press conferences would have gone.”

How would anyone know? It is difficult to imagine a realistic depiction of one of her press conferences because she hasn’t done a single one since being picked as McCain’s running mate. Now she has even refused to do a fake press conference for a comedy show.

Her unwillingness to cooperate characterized the whole of her appearance. In her second bit, during the Weekend Update, she refused to perform the rap that had been written for her, so Amy Poehler did it instead. Palin sat there swaying to the music a little, but otherwise contributing nothing. That was ironic too, as it closely mirrors her real life unwillingness to cooperate with the investigations into her abuse of power as governor of Alaska.

So maybe we did learn something about Sarah Palin after all. The theme of both of her sketches revolved around her refusing to actually do anything at all. It’s clear from this performance that Palin is not qualified to be a guest on Saturday Night Live, much less a 72 year old heartbeat away from the presidency.

The Supporters Who Make John McCain So Proud

Posted by on October 16, 2008 at 11:40 am. NO Comments :

At last night’s debate, John McCain responded to the reports of derogatory and hostile remarks by his supporters by saying…

“Let me just say categorically I’m proud of the people that come to our rallies.”

Oh really? Are these the people that make you so proud?

“The latest newsletter by an Inland Republican women’s group depicts Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama surrounded by a watermelon, ribs and a bucket of fried chicken, prompting outrage in political circles […] The October newsletter by the Chaffey Community Republican Women, Federated says if Obama is elected his image will appear on food stamps — instead of dollar bills like other presidents.”

Republican officials are now scrambling to apologize. But how seriously can we take their regrets when this seems to happen every other day. In fact, they are still apologizing for a racist web posting yesterday by the Sacramento County Republican Party that called for Obama to be waterboarded, and said that “The only difference between Obama and Osama is BS.”

It should also be noted that McCain’s defense of his supporters was in response to a question about the “pallin around with terrorists” comment directed at Obama. He excused his rally attendees by asserting that there are always a few people in the crowd who say things that are inappropriate. However, that comment was not made by his supporters. It came from the stage, not the crowd. It was Sarah Palin, his nominee for vice president, who made that statement.

McCain, his campaign, and far too many of his supporters are just plain repulsive. But they are a fair representation of the worst that the Republican Party has to offer.