Barack Obama

REAL Fox News Headline: Putin Is The One Who Really Deserves That Nobel Peace Prize

Posted by on September 10, 2013 at 4:31 pm. 20 Comments :

Uh oh. It appears that while we were distracted by all of the world-class stupidity that Fox News disseminates on a daily basis, we missed a stunning transferal of control of the network from Rupert Murdoch’s Patriopathic zealots to some clandestine cabal of communist, Russian subversives. How else would you explain this: “Putin Is The One Who Really Deserves That Nobel Peace Prize.”

Fox News

That is the headline of an op-ed on the Fox News web site by Fox’s military analyst K.T. McFarland (that’s Fox News, not the notoriously lie-riddled Fox Nation, as one might expect). Fox News is now taking the position that Vladimir Putin is a beacon of world harmony and togetherness, and deserving of recognition by a prestigious international organization.

Remember, we are talking about the same Putin who has been the most reliable partner to hostile regimes around the world including Syria, Iran, Venezuela, Somalia, Ukraine, Cuba, Uzbekistan, etc. The same Putin who has reinstated some of the most draconian and repressive policies since the fall of the Soviet Union. That’s the Putin who Fox News thinks deserves a Nobel Peace prize.

The inspiration for this tribute to Putin sprung from the recent proposal that Syria turn over its chemical weapons to an international body for destruction. Fox News has been applauding the Russians for two days, and now their admiration has produced this fawning praise:

“In one of the most deft diplomatic maneuvers of all time, Russia’s President Putin has saved the world from near-certain disaster. He did so without the egoistical but incompetent American president, or his earnest but clueless Secretary of State, even realizing they had been offered a way out of the mess they’d created.”

So Putin has “saved the world” with a feat of historic diplomacy, despite the incompetence of American leadership. How patriotic. We all owe our lives to Putin, even though the idea originated from United States Secretary of State, John Kerry, and was discussed by Putin and President Obama at last week’s G20 summit. And many analysts believe that the proposal would have gone nowhere without a credible threat of military force.

These facts have not dissuaded Fox News from its newly formed love affair with the communist nation that it ordinarily regards as the world’s greatest source of evil. Well, scratch that – the greatest source of evil, as far as Fox News is concerned, is President Obama. That explains how they can cozy up to their once sworn enemy from behind the Red Curtain. Fox hates Obama more than they love bashing commies. So if they can embrace something from the Russians in a way that reflects badly on Obama, they will jump at it.

This psychological defect was also exhibited last month when unnamed and uncredentialed Russian climate change deniers predicted a new mini-ice age. Fox News heralded the phony findings without providing any information as to the source, other than that it was from Russia. Since when did Fox News blindly accept anything that came out of Russia. But since it contradicted Obama’s position on climate change, Fox dove in feet first.

However, today’s big wet kiss for Russia goes much farther. This is not just articulating an agreement with some Russian individuals about a particular issue. This is a full-throated declaration of devotion for Russia’s dictatorial leader. And it isn’t just a single slobbering op-ed. Several of Fox’s stars chimed in, including Martha MacCallum, Tucker Carlson, and Charles Krauthammer, all contributing to the orgy of Russia-lust.

Just imagine the cacophony of outrage that would have ensued from Fox had even the lowliest Obama administration intern uttered a slightly complimentary phrase about Russia. Fox, and the rest of the right-wing media circus, would have trumpeted the shocking revelation as proof that Obama was intent on crushing America and delivering it to her enemies. But no such shock will be expressed over these statements that are overtly adulatory toward Putin, the leader of the Evil Empire. But that’s just typical of how hypocritical and dishonest Fox News is. If Satan rose up from the pits of Hell and criticized Obama, Fox News would hail Satan as a profound political analyst – and probably give him a show in primetime.

Addendum: Right-wingers never thought Obama should have been awarded the Nobel Peace prize in the first place. In fact, they argued at the time that he should refuse to accept it. Glenn Beck went even further to hilariously suggest that it be given to the Tea Party instead. These anti-American extremists are actually offended when the country is honored, and they prefer instead to honor bigots, secessionists, and even Russian dictators.

Fox News Bloodlust: Crusading For A Pro-War President

Posted by on September 8, 2013 at 11:36 am. 2 Comments :

Fox News radio host, John Gibson, embarked on a disturbingly hawkish fit of war mongering that was re-published today on the Fox News community web site, and Festival of Lies, Fox Nation. Gibson displayed his unabashed affinity for mortal combat with a screed that questioned whether an anti-war president should be trusted with war.

Fox Nation

The utter stupidity of that question was the basis for a rant that would only make sense to a confirmed sociopath. Gibson’s self-righteous indignation stemmed from a few sentence fragments that he extracted from President Obama’s press conference on the mess in Syria. Gibson was terribly upset that Obama said that “I was elected to end wars not start them,” and that “I’m not itching for military action,” and that “I’ve spent the last four years trying to reduce our reliance on military action.”

Hellfire and Damnation! It’s an abominable outrage, is what it is. Imagine that, a Commander-in-Chief who expresses a reluctance to unreservedly bomb the crap out of some uppity foreigners. Gibson wonders whether the President’s reluctance will result in a use of force that is hesitant, weak, and confused – which is an outright insult to America’s soldiers. He goes on to say that…

“The President’s resolve to stop the world’s worst actors from using the world’s worst weapons requires that he is willing, even ‘itching’, to act. His stated reluctance to act, his core mission to end wars not start them, stands in the way of taking his resolve seriously.”

Gibson is hankering for a president who is “itching” to start a war. And if that isn’t ludicrous enough, he offers as an example the cowboy antics of a former president, asking whether Obama “has enough George W. Bush in him to decisively use military force.” Apparently Gibson defines decisive as a determination to thrust the country into a decade-long quagmire that produced no benefit and didn’t even bring to justice the terrorist who was supposedly the instigation of it all. Obama, on the other hand, led the nation when Osama Bin Laden was killed, along with dozens of other top Al-Qaeda operatives. It’s pretty safe to say that the ghosts of those terrorist leaders do not doubt Obama’s resolve.

But even setting aside the failures and lies of the Bush administration’s conduct of war, Gibson has presented an utterly falsified version of recent history. Bush’s press secretary, Ari Fleischer, spoke about Bush’s pre-Iraq hesitancy saying “Nobody, but nobody, is more reluctant to go to war than President Bush….He does not want to lead the nation to war.” Bush himself said that “I don’t like war. War is the last choice a president should make, not the first.”

Do these admissions that Bush was not “itching” to go to war mean that his management of the military would be weak and confused, and that he should not be trusted? We will never know Gibson’s opinion of that because he will never address it. Nor will anyone else at Fox News.

However, an accurate historical account would note that, despite Bush’s pronouncements, he was, in fact, quite anxious to attack Iraq, even before 9/11. So the argument could be made that it was his craving for war that was a foretelling of the eventual disaster to which he subjected America and the world. Sincere reluctance would more likely result in a conscientious and well thought out plan.

So Gibson not only gets the history wrong, but his misrepresentation reflects a brutal, gung-ho attitude toward launching a deadly and dangerous conflagration in the notoriously unstable Middle East. Gibson advocates for expanding the mission of any Syrian strike to include eliminating Assad, but he fails to address what would be left after the fall.

This is the sort of hungering for war that characterizes right-wing, neo-cons. Interestingly, many on the right have abandoned their traditional hawkishness because they still hate Obama more than they love killing Muslims. But Fox News has generously provided Gibson this platform to lead a cheering squad for another conflict in the region. It’s a wholly ineffective and illogical effort, but that won’t make any difference to Fox’s audience who aren’t capable of, or interested in, doing the sort of research that proves Gibson is an idiot.

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Fox News Dementia: Media Is Not As Hard On Obama/Syria As They Were On Bush/Iraq

Posted by on September 4, 2013 at 4:27 pm. 7 Comments :

On Fox News this morning there was a segment debating the media coverage of the “Crisis in Syria” (video below). On any other network this would have been a legitimate subject for debate and a fascinating topic. But leave it to Fox News to broadcast a version of history that makes Snow White’s adventures with seven diminutive forest dwellers look like a PBS documentary.

Fox’s Martha MacCallum opened the segment with a declarative motion for which she provided no factual basis: “Critics are suggesting that the media is not nearly as hard on President Obama about the potential of going into Syria, as they were on President Bush and his war that he fought in Iraq.” The reliance on a ghostly assemblage of unnamed critics is a variant of the “some say” tactic of inventing a premise with which a lazy commentator can project a dishonest argument. But it was just the lead-in that conservative guest Monica Crowley required to say this:

“Most of the media were very skeptical about any kind of military intervention in Iraq. They raised a lot of very legitimate questions. They also pounded President Bush and his team relentlessly in the run-up, during the war and of course even still to this day over that war. […] It was just the fact that it was President Bush prosecuting this war. When you look at the difference between that coverage and the coverage of President Obama…in this run-up to a possible action in Syria, it’s like night and day.”

Fox News
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Indeed, it is like night and day. But not in any way meant by Crowley. Prior to the Iraq war, the media was in virtual unanimity with respect to supporting Bush and his fraudulent escapade. Even the factions of the media that are most often regard as liberal enclaves were banging the drums of war.

Recall that it was the New York Times that employed Judith Miller (now with Fox News) who was instrumental in providing cover for the Bush administration’s pro-war agenda. She was a trusty vessel for the dissemination of propaganda from Bush’s war hawks. She was the reporter most responsible for validating false intelligence on Saddam Hussein’s weapons capabilities and ambitions.

If you watched MSNBC at the time, you might recall that the top rated program was hosted by talk show legend Phil Donahue. He was a prominent skeptic of the looming U.S. invasion of Iraq. Consequently, the management of MSNBC viewed him as a “difficult public face for NBC in a time of war.” His show was canceled in February of 2003, shortly before the invasion.

The media presentation of dissent was nearly non-existent. Despite the fact that millions of Americans took to the streets to protest the war, the media declined to cover the demonstrations. Contrast that with the way they slobbered over a few malcontents in a tiny and unpopular political sect known as the Tea Party, and a handful of their hollering rubes at town hall meetings ranting about their opposition to health care.

The characterization of the media as going soft on Obama with regard to Syria is also delusional in the extreme. As expected, Fox News has been harshly critical of Obama no matter what he does. Last week they hammered him for taking a unilateral stance and failing to consult Congress on a possible reprisal for Syria’s chemical weapons deployment. This week they are bashing him for wasting time with congressional consultations and weakening the presidency by seeking them. What’s more, Obama has come in for criticism by pundits on the left like Rachel Maddow and Thom Hartmann and even Jon Stewart.

The right-wing directive to refrain from criticizing a president during international hostilities is apparently only in effect when a Republican is in the White House. Critics of Bush were often called traitors when they expressed their opposition to his policies. But outraged Tea-publicans are now encouraged to disparage the Commander-in-Chief in the most vile terms. Today it is the President who is called a traitor by right-wing protesters who fancy themselves as patriots.

In light of these facts, it is incomprehensible how Crowley can take to the Fox News channel and offer a twisted version of history wherein Obama is getting a pass and Bush suffered outrageous slings and arrows. And what is even more disturbing is that so many Fox News viewers are too dimwitted to separate the Fox fallacy from reality.

Not So Breitbart: Obama Golfs While Rome Seeks Congressional Approval

Posted by on September 1, 2013 at 10:06 am. 6 Comments :

Several news agencies reported the fact that, after announcing his decision to have Congress weigh in on the matter of a response to Syria’s chemical weapons attack, President Obama dashed off to get in a few holes of golf. It wasn’t a particularly newsworthy observation considering that the key disclosure in the announcement was that nothing substantive would be happening until Congress returned from vacation next week (which, by the way, none of these news vultures seemed to think was frivolous on the part of congress). It was perhaps a mildly interesting factlet, but hardly the stuff of national emergencies.

Nevertheless, that is precisely how Breitbart News framed the story with a headline blaring “Obama Hits Golf Course After Announcing National Emergency.”

Breitbart Obama Golf
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The numbskull dishonesty of the article begins with the fact that Obama did not announce a national emergency. But it gets worse. BreitBrat Mike Flynn, in a moment of lucid self-awareness, says that “I’m not an expert in foreign policy.” That confession is made more obvious when he continues with his suggestions for what the President might have done instead of golfing.

Flynn: There are probably some Congressional leaders who ought to be briefed. There are likely one or two world leaders who would appreciate a chat about the US plans. No doubt generals in the military would have a thought or two about how things should proceed.

Flynn must have ignored the President’s speech entirely and switched from Honey Boo Boo to Fox News just as the network’s scandalous details about Obama’s golf outing were exposed. Had he listened to the speech he would have known that Obama had spoken to all of the congressional leadership prior to making this announcement. Likewise, he spoke explicitly about his discussions with both the civilian and military national security chiefs before venturing out to the Rose Garden to brief the press and the American people.

Obviously the BreitBrats are so consumed with disparaging Obama that they can’t be bothered with actually paying attention to what he says. And if they were so concerned about presidential golf trips, why didn’t they ever complain about this:

In that video, George W. Bush did not scurry off to a tee time after making remarks about looming terror threats. No, he made them directly from the golf course, and then immediately trivialized the serious nature of his words by comically drawing attention to his alleged athletic prowess.

On the other hand, Obama conducted himself with the dignity that his office implies and the gravity that the circumstances demand. Then he went about his personal business which he is entitled to do. Maybe Flynn should spend more time researching his stories than rerunning videos of Mylie Cyrus twerking.

Fox News/GOP On Syria, Obama: Whatever It Is, We’re Against It

Posted by on August 31, 2013 at 1:27 pm. 8 Comments :

This morning President Obama stepped up to a podium in the White House Rose Garden and announced that he would be doing the responsible thing with regard to Syria’s use of chemical weapons:

“While I believe I have the authority to carry out this military action without specific congressional authorization, I know that the country will be stronger if we take this course, and our actions will be even more effective.”

Obama has been harshly criticized by members of both parties for his apparent intention to move forward with a strike on Syria without first getting a specific authorization from Congress. This morning’s announcement came as a surprise to many in the media who had presumed that the President had made up his mind to act unilaterally. Now that he has put the ball in Congress’s court, the same critics on the right are criticizing him for doing precisely what they advised him to do. Immediately following Obama’s address, Fox News turned to their panel of pundits for analysis, and they reacted in a predictably negative fashion, saying the President was weak and reluctant and indecisive. All because he took their advice, and that of many others including, according to the polls, the American people.

Steve Hayes: One can certainly argue the case, and there are plenty of people who believe, both in congress and out, that he should get congressional authorization, but there’s a long history…where presidents have taken it upon themselves as Commander-in-Chief…to take that action, that authority, upon himself and go ahead. […] It’s a good political decision. I’m not so sure it’s a good decision for the Commander-in-Chief.

Charles Krauthammer: This should be done in three days. It isn’t as if people aren’t aware of the arguments. He should go out there, bring them in, and have it done by the end of the week, and the world, I think, will have a little bit higher respect.

James Rosen: Presidents, of course, like to portray themselves as the shapers of history, as shaping the forces around them. In this case, what President Obama has effectively done, and this requires no resort to opinion here – this is a matter of objective fact – is he has placed himself now in the role of witness to power, the power he has now invested in congress.

All of these critics, who essentially agree with Obama’s decision to seek the opinion of congress, still manage to fault him for doing so. So even though he is doing the right thing, he is still wrong because other presidents didn’t bother to ask for congressional approval; or because it will take too long; or because he is abdicating power to another equal branch of government. It’s just as I predicted yesterday when I wrote that conservatives will always find a reason to bash whatever this President does:

They have instituted their typical strategy of being against anything and everything that might emerge from the White House. One faction of the GOP says that if Obama does not strike Syria, then he is weak. Simultaneously, another faction warns that such an attack would be an unconstitutional abuse of power. One side says he must strike because he drew a “red line” last year over chemical weapons. The other side says attacking for that reason would be an act of vanity. One side says he must wait for allies and the United Nations to sanction any attack. The other side says that doing so would be an abdication of our sovereignty.

There is one thing missing from every right-wing criticism: what they would do. I have yet to hear what Ted Cruz’s plan is; or John Boehner’s; or Don Rumsfeld’s; or Rush Limbaugh’s. These people have nothing but complaints and no ideas or solutions. It’s pretty much the same way they deal with health care, immigration reform, the economy, etc. They bitch relentlessly and offer nothing constructive.

They have proven this repeatedly in the past, and today just confirms their commitment to a kneejerk hostility toward Obama. These right-wing pundits could easily be replaced by an automated outrage machine. Just play a statement from Obama, push a button, and get a pre-chewed Tea-publican rant about how awful whatever he said was. We already know what Mitch McConnell thinks; or Donald Trump; or even Sarah Palin who said yesterday, “Our Nobel Peace Prize winning President needs to seek Congressional approval before taking us to war.” She also said that her solution is to just “let Allah sort it out.” So what do you think she will say now that Obama is seeking congressional approval? My guess is that she will viciously attack him for it. After all, she also said this yesterday:

Sarah Palin
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CONGRATULATIONS: Fox News Wins The Most Asinine Conspiracy Theory Promotion Award Of 2013

Posted by on August 17, 2013 at 2:10 pm. 3 Comments :

In these turbulent times there is no shortage of ridiculous nonsense disseminated from right-wing nutcases. We’ve seen relentless challenges to President Obama’s citizenship. We’ve seen Republicans explain how women’s bodies can magically “shut down” pregnancy following a rape. We’ve seen imaginary “death panels” appear in health care legislation. We’ve even seen, courtesy of Glenn Beck, allegations that Obama is protecting the “real” Boston marathon bombers.

How can you possibly top these five-star delusional classics? Well, for Fox News the answer is to pluck a video from the diseased mind of American Family Association director, Bryan Fischer, who thinks that Obama was photoshopped into the Situation Room photo on the day of the raid on Osama Bin Laden. (Video below)

Fox Nation

Fischer is well known among crackpot political analysts for sermons just like this one. His reasoning is notoriously flawed. He asserts that Obama didn’t want to be anywhere near the Situation Room during the raid in case it went terribly wrong. But how would it have been beneficial if news of a failed raid was accompanied by reports that Obama neglected to attend the planning? He would have been excoriated for his absence.

What’s more, if Obama were intent on falsifying a photograph after the fact in order to create a scenario more favorable to himself, it would have been much easier to attend the meeting and have himself photoshopped out later, if he thought that was better for his image. And Fischer complains that the picture was cheaply done and obviously faked, suggesting that the White House doesn’t have the wherewithal to employ skilled graphic artists. And finally, we are talking about the friggin President of the United States (aka Leader of the Free World). If he wanted to, he could have ordered everyone back into the room and taken a new photograph.

Absolutely none of what Fischer is alleging makes the least bit of sense to anyone with a functioning brain. Yet, for some reason, Fox News saw fit to promote Fischer’s lunatic lecture on their community web site Fox Nation. This is pretty standard fare for the Fox Nationalists who work diligently to produce the most dishonest content on the Internet.

Please see my highly acclaimed ebook, Fox Nation vs. Reality, for dozens of documented examples of Fox’s overt and repeated assaults on truth. It puts this episode into context and is a great way to shut people up who keep asking you for proof that Fox lies.

IMPEACH, IMPEACH: A Frenzy Breaks Out At Fox News

Posted by on August 15, 2013 at 3:43 pm. 11 Comments :

Is it a slow news day, or just another day at Fox News? For some reason Fox is exposing their wacko side (again) over at their community web site Fox Nation (See Fox Nation vs. Reality for an in-depth look at the site’s blatant dishonesty). In two days they have posted two articles about fishy fringe groups proposing phony “Articles of Impeachment” against President Obama.

The first thing to note is that such articles cannot be drafted by citizens. It is a legal process that begins in the House of Representatives. So these charades have no meaning other than as political publicity stunts. Secondly, the allegations must assert criminal wrongdoing that amount to “high crimes and misdemeanors.” Being unsatisfied with explanations about what took place at Benghazi, or opposition to a health insurance law, that was passed by congress and upheld by the Supreme Court, do not rise to that standard.

Nevertheless, Fox News is going all out to promote these absurd spectacles. The first was posted yesterday with a headline that shouted “Black Citizens Group Files ‘Articles of Impeachment’ Against Obama”

Fox Nation NBRA

In fact, the group was actually the National Black Republican Association, a shadowy organization with no visible means of support who exist primarily to advance false claims about the historical relationship of Democrats and Republicans to the black community. For instance, they produced radio ads and billboards declaring that Martin Luther King was a Republican, a claim that is demonstrably untrue.

The Fox Nationalists sourced their story to Watchdog.org, a division of the Franklin Center which is financed by the Koch brothers as an “investigative” journalism service. Both Watchdog and the Franklin Center espouse rabidly right-wing/Tea Party propaganda disguised as news reporting – much like Fox News.

The next impeachment article was posted today in the form of a video “trailer” for a new book by noted birther Aaron Klein. The book is titled “Impeachable Offenses: The Case for Removing Barack Oabam from Office.” It suffers from the same deficiencies of law and logic as the NBRA’s article.

Fox Nation WND
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Klein’s book was published by the book division of WorldNetDaily, the far-right home of the wildest conspiracy theories on the net, many of which are manufactured by Klein himself. In addition to a variety of birther myths, WorldNetDaily is the source of such reputable reporting as terrorists building “boob” bombs (seriously, you have to see the graphic), and Obama using the movie “The Butler” to incite race wars. The site features such distinguished contributors as Ted Nugent, Victoria Jackson, and Donald Trump.

So that’s two articles in two days planting the asinine idea of impeachment in the minds of Fox’s gullible and glassy-eyed audience. Both are from sources that represent the dregs of the uber-rightist conspiracy swamps with no credibility whatsoever. I can’t wait to see what the Fox Nationalists post tomorrow. And Fox wants people to regard them as a reputable news organization? Yeah, sure.

BREAKING: Obama Does Something, Fox News Opposes It

Posted by on August 7, 2013 at 4:14 pm. 10 Comments :

This just in from our Washington bureau. The White House has announced that President Obama will be taking decisive action on a critical foreign and/or domestic policy matter effective immediately.

Fox News Alert
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The American people are paying close attention and we will be monitoring their reaction to this story as we indoctrinate them with the approved response. In the meantime, we have twenty or thirty Fox News contributors and Republican operatives standing by to renounce the President’s move as irresponsible, premature, overdue, and too costly, divisive, and impractical. Some analysts are already saying that it won’t work and is politically motivated.

That is pretty much the standard Fox News response to anything that President Obama has done for the past five years. And today is no exception. Shortly after the news broke that the administration had filed charges against several suspects in the attack on the diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Fox went to work implementing the above protocol. One of the most entertaining, and farthest removed from reality, instances occurred (where else) on Fox & Friends.

Substitute host Clayton Morris asked Fox legal analyst (and Rupert Murdoch’s personal attorney) Peter Johnson, Jr. “What took so long?” Johnson bit into the leading question with a tirade of absurdity that began with his accusation that the filing was purely political.

Johnson: After a terroristic act, after an act of war in which four Americans were killed and others wounded, we’re gonna take this to the civil courts […] because there’s no will in this government today to bring people to task in a military sense. If we’re really engaged in a worldwide war on terror, which the White House doesn’t like to admit, then we’re gonna act in ways that are consistent with times of war.”

Johnson’s assertion that these charges will bring the suspects into a civil court illustrate just how dishonest he is from the start. He is a lawyer and knows very well that the charges filed are for criminal, not civil, violations. Johnson and Morris also belittled the filing of charges because they were not followed up with an arrest, even though they well know that the United States has no power to arrest foreigners in other countries. These charges are a preliminary measure taken so that if the suspects are apprehended by Libyan authorities, there is a pretext for requesting extradition.

But even more ridiculous is Johnson’s characterization that the Obama administration “has no will” to prosecute terrorists “in a military sense,” or that his actions are not “consistent with times of war.” After all, this is the President who orchestrated the killing of Osama Bin Laden and dozens of high-ranking Al Qaeda operatives. Johnson is aware of these facts, he just chooses to suppress them in order to disseminate his lies.

This is an all too predictable reaction from the Fox News team that is more fixated on disparaging the President than on delivering actual news. They regard their mission as misinforming their audience of weak-minded goons and muddying the political discourse. It’s something they are quite good at as long as they are dealing with gullible and incurious viewers. Fortunately for Fox, that is pretty much their key demographic.

Phony Scandals? Sarah Palin Brings Her “Redneck Whiteboard” To Fox News

Posted by on July 27, 2013 at 1:49 pm. 39 Comments :

As they are wont to do, Fox News is again ginning up outrage over a sentence fragment uttered by President Obama. And as usual, Fox not only misrepresents what the President said, they completely fail to grasp the meaning of his larger point. The fragment in question was…

“With this endless parade of distractions and political posturing and phony scandals, Washington has taken its eye off the ball.”

The President was referring to the failure of Washington to address the issues that Americans are concerned about most: the economy and jobs. He has tried numerous times to guide the attention of legislators to these matters, but has been met with obstructionism and distractions. Then when he makes high profile speeches to get citizens involved, he accused of “pivoting” to the economy despite his frequent efforts to address it. And it goes without saying that if he were not to talk about the economy, the same people would accuse him of ignoring it.

However, the really big deal, according to the media and Obama’s political foes, is his use of the phrase “phony scandals.” The right-wing media calliope has gone into convulsive fits over what is a demonstrably accurate description of current events. Whether it’s Benghazi, the IRS, ObamaCars (yes, cars), or frantic allegations that the Department of Homeland Security is trying to buy up all the bullets in America, Fox News has been feverishly promoting trumped-up Republican schemes to throw the President off his game.

Fox News has featured several guests who they contend were victims of one scandal or another. They predictably tell their stories with great passion and umbrage. The complaint Fox has is that by using the word “phony” Obama is saying that the tragedy in Benghazi, for instance, didn’t happen. But that’s simply untrue. He is saying that the allegation of a scandal is phony. And that is true. Despite their caterwauling, there has never been any connection to the White House for any of these so-called scandals. They are transparent attempts to sabotage the administration of government by a president they never considered legitimate.

Enter Sarah Palin. The recently re-employed pundit appeared with her pal, Greta Van Susteren, and introduced her latest wingnut innovation, the “Redneck Whiteboard.” The segment was preceded by a two minute long anti-Obama campaign commercial produced by Fox News. If you have the stomach for it, the video is below.

Fox News Sarah Palin

Palin rattled on furiously about how Obama has been given a free ride. She reached back to her 2008 campaign when she contends that she was muzzled by her handlers and “was banned from talking about Jeremiah Wright and Obama’s friend, Bill Ayres.”

“This is important for Americans to understand. I was not allowed to talk about things like that because those elitists, those who are the brainiacs in the GOP machine running John McCain’s campaign at the time, said that the media would eat us alive if we brought up these things. So what did that get us, though? What that got us this kind of complacency and self-censoring of a campaign where we weren’t allowed to tell the truth about who this candidate was, Barack Obama.”

[Update: PolitiFact rated Palin’s claim of being muzzled a Pants-On-Fire Lie]

Of course. It was Sarah Palin being prevented from talking about Rev. Wright that caused Benghazi. It was the suppression of Palin’s “palling around with terrorists” theme that led to Fast and Furious (a Bush administration policy) and Tea Party targeting by the IRS. It’s all about Sarah, after all. Had she been able to hammer Obama freely on his Kenyan birth, America would be enjoying the most prosperous renaissance in history. She went on to hold up an envelope on which she had scrawled a list of the aforementioned phony scandals and said…

“What it got us was a list of these scandals. This is kind of the redneck version of one of those elitist tactics of Karl Rove, how he uses his white board. This is the redneck version of a white board. And on this list the scandals that are destroying America.”

It’s just fascinating to watch conservatives dumbing down their messages to their mentally challenged constituents. It started with Fox News deploying bright colors, hypnotic motion graphics, and game show sound effects. Then Glenn Beck devolved by eschewing modern electronics in favor of an old school blackboard. Then Karl Rove dug deeper by making use of a hand-held whiteboard. Now Palin sucker punches Rove with her redneck version, something even the most remedial Teabagger can understand. Obviously these people know their audience and, therefore, continually craft their communications to match their intellectual level (which is at about the 4th grade, according to the super-secret, exalted, conservative message masters).

I just wonder what’s next. Hand signals and a series of grunts? Given the importance of conveying that Obama is destroying America, the right needs to make sure that their message is received and understood. And that’s why they have adopted intellectual giants like Plain, Beck, Hannity, Limbaugh, Bachmann, Trump, etc., as their thought leaders. It’s a strategy aimed at taking America back – to the Dark Ages, when science was considered blasphemy, and education was reserved for the aristocrats.

Fox News Lies: Obama Did Not Praise Ho Chi Minh

Posted by on July 26, 2013 at 2:04 pm. 15 Comments :

One of the propaganda tactics most favored by Fox News is the snipping of a comment by President Obama and regurgitating it in a negative, and wholly dishonest, light. They did it last year on behalf of the Romney campaign numerous times with silliness like “You didn’t build that,” and other blatant misrepresentations.

Fox News

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Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Community’s Assault on Truth

Today Fox News is premiering their latest rhetorical deception by fixating on remarks the President made in a press availability with Vietnam President Truong Tan Sang. While describing the discussion Obama had with Sang, he noted that…

“At the conclusion of the meeting, President Sang shared with me a copy of a letter sent by Ho Chi Minh to Harry Truman. And we discussed the fact that Ho Chi Minh was actually inspired by the U.S. Declaration of Independence and Constitution, and the words of Thomas Jefferson.”

That’s it. Nothing praising Ho Chi Minh at all. Just a simple recitation of unarguable facts. No one on Fox or the right-wing fruitcake brigade disputes that Ho Chi Minh revered the people and ideas that inspired the birth of the United States. He used the Declaration of Independence as the model for Vietnam’s quest for its own independence from France.

Nevertheless, Fox News is now attempting to twist Obama’s words into something that he never said or even implied. And the “fair and balanced” network brought on two revolting characters with sordid pasts to advance the distortions. Oliver North is the convicted Reaganite who illegally sold arms to Iran in order to secure funding to support fascist rebels in Nicaragua, which was prohibited by congress. Ralph Peters is the Fox strategic analyst who called on the Taliban to “save us a lot of legal hassles” by executing an American soldier. He also advocated military attacks on the media. These two traitorous miscreants spent several unopposed minutes on Fox lambasting Obama as “stupid” and “evil” as they lied about what he said.

Anyone who seriously regards Fox as a credible news source should seek professional help. The unadulterated lie that Obama praised Ho Chi Minh can also be juxtaposed with the documented fact that Fox did indeed praise the Unabomber. This is the level of cognitive disconnect that exists at Fox, and it is the reason that their audience is so pathetically ignorant. It’s a good thing that their viewers are so small in number (less than 1% of the population) and so close to their judgment day (the oldest skewing audience in television).