Sean Hannity

Waterloo For Fox News?

Posted by on March 22, 2010 at 7:47 pm. 5 Comments :

Fourteen months. Fourteen long months of the most venal, histrionic, sensationalized, dishonest, and relentless crusade of disinformation, and what do they have to show for it?


[Purchase FreakShow stickers at Crass Commerce

Fox News has been the official campaign headquarters for opposition to health care reform. They dispatched their top personalities to headline rallies and protests. They consigned thousands of hours of valuable air time to anti-reform politicians and pundits. They converted their studios into Republican platforms for electioneering and fundraising. They adopted the Tea Party “movement” so thoroughly that they even rode along on its bus tours and branded its events as Fox enterprises.

And they lost.

Fox News is fond of reminding everyone of their ratings dominance. Although the cable news universe is comparatively tiny (Fox News has less than half the viewers of the lowest rated broadcast news program on CBS), Fox incessantly boasts that it is the leader in the space. But the fallout from the health care debate ought to demonstrate precisely how little that victory means in the macro world of politics. If the number one cable news network cannot sufficiently move public opinion to produce a legislative victory after fourteen months of persistent propaganda, it would be folly to regard them as if they were some formidable bastion of power or influence. Yet that is exactly how they are regarded by their patrons in the Republican Party (and many in the press).

Last July I wrote an article describing how “Fox News Is Killing The Republican Party”

Fox has corralled a stable of the most disreputable, unqualified, extremist, lunatics ever assembled, and is presenting them as experts, analysts, and leaders. These third-rate icons of idiocy are marketed by Fox like any other gag gift (i.e. pet rocks, plastic vomit, Sarah Palin, etc.). […]

By doubling down on crazy, Fox is driving the center of the Republican Party further down the rabid hole. They are reshaping the party into a more radicalized community of conspiracy nuts. So even as this helps Rupert Murdoch’s bottom line, it is making celebrities of political bottom-feeders. That can’t be good for the long-term prospects of the Republican Party. […]

This is a textbook example of how the extreme rises to the top. It is also fundamentally contrary to the interests of the Republican Party. The more the population at large associates Republican ideology with the agenda of Fox News, and the fringe operators residing there, the more the party will be perceived as out of touch, or even out of their minds.

See also: As Fox News Goes Up, The GOP Goes Down

Undoubtedly, Republicans will still embrace Fox News. They are not about to abandon the media megaphone that they believe is most in tune with their agenda. Consequently, they will continue to be hampered by the association with unhinged hyperbole like this:

Glenn Beck: This is the end of prosperity in America forever if this bill passes. This is the end of America as you know it.

Hannity: If we get nationalized health care, it’s over; this is socialism.

Neil Cavuto: National Healthcare: Breeding Ground For Terror?

In an inspired fit of illogic, Stephen Hayes of the Weekly Standard appeared on Fox News this morning to accuse Democrats of being partisan. His evidence was that 34 Democrats voted with Republicans against the health care care bill, but no Republicans voted with the Democrats in favor. Of course, that’s actually evidence that the Democrats were NOT partisan. They demonstrated some diversity in their views while Republicans all marched in lock-step against the bill. In further support of this inane argument, Hayes may have uttered the day’s funniest, and most truthful, commentary:

“If Bart Stupak was a Republican crazy he probably would’ve stuck with his original position.”

I couldn’t agree more. Sticking with his original position against the bill, would certainly have qualified Stupak as a Republican crazy. And it is generous of Hayes to admit that holding the Republican view is tantamount to being insane.

Where do you go after you’ve argued that Armageddon will be the result if your alarms are not heeded (as GOP chair Michael Steele did today) and your argument is rejected? Do you moderate your rhetoric and attempt to restore civility to the debate? Or do you accelerate into a frenzied panic and march a phalanx of livid lemmings over a cliff? My money is on the latter, so far as Fox News is concerned. They still consider it to be in their best interests to manufacture the sort of melodrama that captures television audiences.

Here it’s important to remember that the interests of a television network are worlds apart from those of a political party. So while Fox is happy to gin up the rancor in hopes of attracting more viewers stimulated by bloody conflicts, the GOP will only be further damaged by the partnership. However, unfortunately for them, they have nowhere else to go. Fox News, and a few other rightist authors and radio talkers, have become the de facto face of the Republican Party. This is a point made by conservative strategist David Frum in his discussion of health care winners and losers:

Yes it mobilizes supporters – but by mobilizing them with hysterical accusations and pseudo-information, overheated talk has made it impossible for representatives to represent and elected leaders to lead. The real leaders are on TV and radio, and they have very different imperatives from people in government.

Frum goes on to predict that the continuing, and escalating, hysteria will be a boon to right-wing media. I’m not sure that I agree with him on that point. Certainly the hardcore disciples of Beck and company will remain glued to their sets. But we might also see audiences recede out of frustration and/or fatigue. After pouring everything they had, including their sanity, into a winner-take-all death match and losing, it would surprise no one if a significant segment of the audience decided to take a vacation from the lunacy. If an effort as determined and prolonged as the one Fox just concluded could not prevail, then what would it take?

The good news from all of this is that, as abhorrent as Fox News is, it ought not to be viewed as a Goliath that will crush any opponent. They gave it their all and came up short. They huffed and they puffed, but the House stood strong (oh wait, that was a wolf). This is the clearest evidence yet that Rupert Murdoch’s empire is a paper Fox. However, that doesn’t mean that it should be neglected. It can still bark ferociously and the other members of the media pack continue to give Fox more credence than they deserve. And for these reasons we must remain vigilant and prepared to respond to the deceitful and unethical practices of this phony pseudo-news enterprise.

In the long term I continue to believe that an informed public will reject Fox’s brand of shallow and divisive disinformation. And looking back, the health care debate may one day be perceived as a turning point. It may be that this long, sordid affair will be the battle that turns the war for responsible journalism to favor reason and truth. It may be Fox News’ Waterloo.

[Update: 3/25/10] David Frum has been dismissed from his job at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. That’s what he gets for going rogue.

Malice In Wonderland: Fox News Through The Looking Glass

Posted by on March 2, 2010 at 2:26 pm. 8 Comments :

Tea CrusadesOver the past year the Tea Party phenomenon has attracted a lot of attention from the rightist media. From the beginning Fox News took the lead sponsoring and promoting Tea Party events, dispatching their anchors to literally host Tea Party rallies, and donating hundreds of hours of airtime to Tea Party spokespeople and supporters. Fox News is the de facto Tea Party Channel.

Despite that massive PR push, the Tea Party remains quagmired as a niche clan of exclusionary cultists and corporate dupes. But that hasn’t deterred Fox News from their campaign to Tea Bag America. This morning Fox Nation declared that Tea Parties are going on high alert, and posted recruiting calls for Joe the Plumber’s Tea Party Tax Revolt.

All of this got me to wondering where it will all end. With a major so-called “news” network advocating on behalf of the delusional flank of the conservative crusade, it seems to me that the right stumbled into an abyss and has consumed some mighty potent mushrooms. So, with apologies to Tim Burton, I present…

Malice In Wonderland, Fox News Through the Looking Glass:

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Later this month a new Tea Crusade will commence in the form of another AstroTurf sponsored bus tour. The thrid Tea Bagger Express will conclude in Washington on April 15. On August 28, Glenn Beck will headline his “Restoring Honor” affair at the Lincoln Memorial. That’s an ironic event considering the obvious lack of honor of the host. He just starting claiming that it’s a fundraiser for the Special Operations Warrior Foundation, but he originally promoted it as the launch date for his next book “The Plan.” Also, the date is the anniversary of Martin Luther’s King’s “I Have a Dream” speech at the same location. A couple of days ago, Beck called King a “radical socialist” and questioned whether we should be celebrating a holiday in his name. Now Beck seeks to muddy King’s memory by usurping this historic anniversary to hawk his book. In September Beck’s second annual 9/12 rally will take place on 9/11. This gives Beck another opportunity to tarnish a sensitive anniversary.

Expect all of these events to be aggressively promoted on the Tea Party Channel (i.e. Fox News). And expect there to be more coverage of, and interviews with, Tea Baggers and there proxies in Congress. And above all, expect more confusion, mischief, and deceit on the part of Fox and the right-wing politico-media complex.

I must say that I have to agree with Alice when she said:

“It would be so nice if something made sense for a change.”

Generation Zero vs. Capitalism: A Love Story

Posted by on February 24, 2010 at 2:20 pm. 21 Comments :

Last Night Sean Hannity devoted the entire hour of his Fox News program to the documentary “Generation Zero.” This morning Fox Nation featured it on their web site as a “Must-See” film.

Generation Zero recently made its public debut at the Tea Baggers Ball in Nashville and was subsequently screened at CPAC, where it was introduced by the terminally choleric Andrew Breitbart. The film was produced by David Bossie of Citizens United, the plaintiff in the recently decided Supreme Court case that granted corporations unprecedented financial participation in federal elections. It was directed by Stephen Bannon who, in another life, produced the Sean Penn directed “The Indian Runner.” Don’t tell Bill O’Reilly, who is boycotting Penn’s films.

I haven’t seen this film (it’s not actually been released yet), but its pedigree and cheer leaders reveal something of its intended mission. The web site says the film is not about the failure of capitalism, but it goes on to say that it will “change everything you thought you knew about Wall Street and Washington.” That assertion makes it difficult to separate the movie’s message from the tenets of capitalism. From reviews and discussion of the film, it seems the basic premise is that the current economic meltdown we find ourselves struggling through was caused by the selfishness and egocentrism of the children of Woodstock. This is a peculiar and illogical theory.

It’s a peculiar theory in that it presumes to blame the “Baby Boom” generation for today’s economic catastrophe. But in doing so, the film is really blaming the poor parenting skills of the “Greatest Generation” who, in their zeal to shield their kids from the pain of depression and war, acceded to their every material want and raised them to be shallow and self-indulgent. That’s a pretty harsh condemnation of the generation that survived decades of trauma in the first half of the last century. The filmmakers are essentially charging the generation that fought its way through the economic disasters of the 1930’s and the worldwide conflagrations of the 1940’s with raising their children to be so socially decadent as to lead the nation into near economic collapse. Do the filmmakers really believe that these parents passed no lessons on to their kids about the hardships they endured?

It’s an illogical theory in that it attempts to create linkage between the hippies of the 1960’s and the financial barons of the 1990’s. So much of the rhetoric of right-wing history revisionists relies on castigating the youth movement of the 1960’s. They are portrayed as drug-addled degenerates and dropouts who contributed nothing of value to society. Their preoccupation with trivialities like civil rights, peace, and free love, permanently labeled them as subversive and anti-social. Since when did their reputation get rehabilitated to the point that they are now seen as captains of industry and finance with the blood of our capitalistic empire on their hands? Surely many former hippies went on to successful careers, but I would venture to say that not one of them became the CEO of AIG or Merrill Lynch.

The Baby Boomers that took the helm of big business were the ones that kept their hair short and listened to Pat Boone in the 60’s. They were the hall monitors and the narcs at their prep schools. They were born to wealth and privilege. It was they, who were already inbred with self-indulgence and egotism, who held the reins of power in the 2000’s. It certainly was not a bunch of idealistic, public school, counter-culture, former flower children who somehow grew up to be greedy sociopaths.

It wasn’t a cabal of aging hippies who invented credit default swaps. It was a cooperative of Wall Street pirates and their Washington patrons. It wasn’t the result of permissive parenting, but of submissive regulators and legislators. While Generation Zero dwells way too much on an unrealistic Leave It To Beaver version of the 1950’s, it actually does approach this part of the problem as well. The movie does not neglect the culpability of an entrenched financial class that has no historical memory whatsoever.

Ironically, that’s exactly what Michael Moore presented in “Capitalism: A Love Story.” Moore’s film was an indictment of the coziness between Wall Street and Washington. And it assailed the notion that solutions had to be afforded to the tottering financial institutions, rather than to the suffering citizens who were the victims. So some of the themes in Generation Zero that are now being heralded by the rightist media were previously explored by Moore. But while there are clear parallels between Moore’s Capitalism and Bannon’s Zero, it is unlikely that either side will acknowledge it. The chasm is far too wide to cross. Even on Hannity’s show there was an exchange that came close to recognizing this ideological affinity, but it was ultimately ignored as they broke away to a commercial.

Sean Hannity: Is it the political system that is more corrupt? Because I believe Capitalism works. Capitalism is the answer.
David Bossie, Producer: Clearly Capital Hill is corrupt. Capital Hill is the problem, not Wall Street here.
Stephen Bannon, Director: I think it an inextricably linked network between Capital Hill and Wall Street. […] You’ve had the American taxpayer, the average, middle-class American, paying taxes to bailout these big firms, and there’s been no change in behavior, no change in structure no change in regulation.

It’s interesting to see Bossie quickly suck up to Hannity and absolve Wall Street of any liability. It’s even more interesting to see Bannon contradict both of them and spread the blame evenly across the econo-political spectrum. But most interesting would be if all the people that go to see Generation Zero would pick up a copy of Capitalism: A Love Story as well. They may realize that Michael Moore is not the demon he’s made out to be by the right. And conversely, Moore might take a look at Generation Zero. If it isn’t stuffed with right-wing polemics and denunciations of 60’s “radicals,” perhaps he could promote it alongside his own movie.

If both of these films tell the same story of overarching corporate greed and government complicity, it would make a compelling double bill.

The Right’s Top 25 Journalists?

Posted by on February 11, 2010 at 4:43 pm. NO Comments :

Tunku Varadarajan, national affairs correspondent for The Daily Beast, has compiled a list of what he and 50 academics, politicians, and journalists, consider to be the top 25 right-wing journalists in America. The most enlightening thing we learn from this list has nothing to do with the ranking of wingnuts in the media. What is truly fascinating is how it reveals their definition of a journalist. Here are the top 10:

  1. Paul Gigot, Editorial Page Editor, The Wall Street Journal
  2. Glenn Beck, Fox News
  3. Rush Limbaugh, Radio Talk Show Host
  4. Peggy Noonan, The Wall Street Journal
  5. Bill O’Reilly, Fox News
  6. Michelle Malkin, Fox News/Blogger
  7. David Brooks, The New York Times
  8. Sean Hannity, Fox News
  9. James Taranto, The Wall Street Journal
  10. Matt Drudge, The Drudge Report

To be fair, placing Paul Gigot at the top of the list recognizes a veteran newsman who spent decades with ink-stained fingers pursuing his vocation as a reporter and editor. While devotedly right-wing in his current role as an editorialist and commentator, he also has the resume of a bona fide journalist. And that makes him the ONLY journalist on the list.

It is nearly hysterical that the 50 unnamed participants in this project elevated Glenn Beck to second place; and Rush Limbaugh to third; and Bill O’Reilly to fifth; and … well you get the idea. What’s more, Varadarajan obviously has a soft spot in his heart for his former employer, Rupert Murdoch. Seven of the top 10 are also Murdoch minions employed by either Fox News or the Wall Street Journal. I wonder if some of the few real journalists at those shops are upset that they were ignored in favor of Sean Hannity and Peggy Noonan?

It is rather telling that an assembly of conservative academics, politicians, and journalists, couldn’t actually come up with names of other conservatives who are actually journalists. One of their selections, Limbaugh, has already responded to the list by declaring that he shouldn’t be on it. At least he is honest enough in this circumstance to admit that what he does is not journalism.

Some of the notable non-journalists on the remainder of the list include raging propagandist Andrew Breitbart (11), serial interrupter Neil Cavuto (14), Coulter clone Laura Ingraham (21), and Marc Morano, a virulent Climate Crisis denier and science skeptic.

Overall, judging from this coterie of cranks, I’m surprised that James O’Keefe and Jeff Gannon weren’t given honorable mentions. Perhaps the panel should be consulted again and made aware of some of these glaring omissions. Remember, Joe the Plumber served as a war correspondent for Pajamas Media. How dare they insult these fine conservatives by failing to honor their contributions to the rightist media.

Fox News And Breitbart Smear O’Keefe Prosecutor

Posted by on February 2, 2010 at 10:53 am. 2 Comments :

In a report that is jam-packed with falsehoods, Fox News casts sinister aspersions on the motives of the U.S. Attorney who brought the case against pimp/journalist James O’Keefe for his alleged felonious activities in the office of Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu.

The first paragraph of the article, titled “U.S. Attorney Steps Down From O’Keefe Case,” has nothing whatsoever to do with the story as headlined. Instead, it appears to be no more than an attempt to set up an allegation that the U.S. Attorney’s office deliberately filed false charges against O’Keefe and his accomplices.

“James O’Keefe, accused of trying to tamper with the phones of Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu, was ‘framed’ by the media and the U.S. attorney’s office, Andrew Breitbart, publisher of BigGovernment.com, told Fox News Monday.”

The second paragraph of the article eventually gets around to the point of the story, but only after asserting a series of additional falsehoods dispensed by ultra-conservative propagandist, Andrew Breitbart.

“The same day the man who first published James O’Keefe’s explosive videos exposing wrongdoing at community organizer ACORN came to his defense Monday, claiming the conservative filmmaker ‘sat in jail for 28 hours without access to an attorney’ while the prosecutor made his case to the media, the U.S. attorney involved stepped down.”

Let’s just set aside the fact that no wrongdoing on the part of ACORN has ever been proven; and that there is no evidence that O’Keefe was denied or delayed access to an attorney, or even an allegation of that by O’Keefe; and that the prosecutor did not make a case to the media while O’Keefe was being held. The first reports in the press didn’t come out until after he was released. Now we can deal with the real issue.

In this article, ostensibly about U.S. Attorney Jim Letten recusing himself from the O’Keefe case, Fox News went to great lengths to juxtapose that news with allegations of wrongdoing from Breitbart. Those allegations were featured in the lede and repeated in the following paragraph that explicitly tied Breitbart’s charges to the recusal. The Fox News version of events was that Letten stepped down the same day Breitbart issued his defense of O’Keefe. The clear implication being that those two events had something to do with one another. Fox News is plainly and irresponsibly insinuating that Letton stepped aside because of some impropriety.

The same implied correlation occurred in the very next paragraph wherein the charge that O’Keefe was framed was repeated, followed by Fox News again connecting that to Letten’s recusal by saying that it took place “hours later.” For the record, the New Orleans Times-Picayune (in an act of actual journalism) has confirmed that Letten asked to be recused a week ago, long before the smear by Breitbart and Fox. The remainder of the article was a virtually uninterrupted platform for Breitbart’s wholly unsupported defense of O’Keefe. Breitbart was quoted extensively making allegations for which he had no foundation.

“James O’Keefe sat in jail for 28 hours without access to an attorney, while the U.S. attorney leaked the information about his arrest, helping the media frame it as ‘Watergate Junior.'”

“The panty bomber on Christmas was given — you know, this guy’s from Al Qaeda, and he’s not even an American citizen, and he’s given access to an attorney right away. I believe that this was a concerted effort, this is just my opinion, to allow for the media to frame the issue to put James O’Keefe in a very bad position.”

“It [O’Keefe’s arrest] is tied to the Justice Department. And we’ve been very aggressive in asking Eric Holder to investigate what’s seen on these ACORN tapes and he’s ignored it.”

Fox News made no attempt to verify any of these remarks, nor did they attempt to interview anyone who might have rebutted them. They let them stand unchallenged as if they were settled facts. However, they did reprint O’Keefe’s prior statement in defense of himself. A statement that had already been demonstrated to be untrue.

“The sole intent of our investigation was to determine whether or not Sen. Landrieu was purposely trying to avoid constituents who were calling to register their views to her as their senator.”

Of course, were that the case, why did he leave Landrieu’s office and try to gain access to the telephone wiring closet at another location? Fox News didn’t ask that question. Sean Hannity didn’t get an answer to that either in his exclusive fluffing interview with O’Keefe yesterday. In fact the whole interview was staged to permit O’Keefe to declare his innocence while refusing to answer substantive queries.

So who is U.S. Attorney Jim Letten whom Breitbart has accused of framing O’Keefe; of manipulating the press; of participating in a DOJ revenge plot against Breitbart?

Letten was a George W. Bush appointee who has served as U.S. Attorney since April of 2001. He is well known for his successful prosecution of former Democratic Louisiana Governor, Edwin Edwards. He has bipartisan support as a federal prosecutor with both Landrieu (a Democrat) and Sen. David Vitter (a Republican) backing his reappointment to the post by the Obama administration. In fact, Vitter was so determined to see Letten reappointed that he held up the nominations of other prosecutors until he had an assurance from Attorney General Holder that Letten would remain on the job.

Is that the profile of a man that would engage in the mischief that Breitbart alleges? Is that someone whom Fox News ought to be insinuating recused himself from a case due to some malfeasance?

To make matters worse, Fox News exploits the confidential nature of recusals to bolster their innuendos about Letten. While they tie the recusal to Breitbart’s attacks, they never entertain the notion that Letten stepped aside for legitimate reasons. For instance, he may know one of the suspects, or his family, personally. One of O’Keefe’s accomplices, Robert Flanagan, is the son of Letten’s fellow Louisiana federal prosecutor, William Flanagan.

This illustrates the lengths to which Breitbart, and his patron Fox News, will go to defame anyone they deem to be obstructing their mission to dispense disinformation and to contribute to the ignorance of their audience. The article from Fox News is so transparently biased as to be bordering on libel. It is without question knowingly malicious and false. And it is a product of Fox’s “news” division, not the primetime TV opinion mongers upon whom Fox usually likes to blame their deliberately deficient reporting.

For Fox, there is no escaping the reality that this is inexcusably unprofessional and prejudicial. And sadly, it is business as usual at Fox.

Hannity And Morris Campaign For Waterboarding

Posted by on January 5, 2010 at 4:10 pm. 6 Comments :

Sean Hannity and his guest Dick Morris spent some quality time advocating for waterboarding yesterday. They fell all over each other to see who could be the most vigorous proponent of torture for the would-be crotch-bomber.

HANNITY: We can’t talk to this guy. We ought to be waterboarding this guy.
MORRIS: Absolutely. This is an exact example of something where his insistence on treating everybody as a civil liberties issue gets in the way of the intelligence. By the way, the information we get after we waterboard him should not be admissible this criminal trial.
HANNITY: But you agree with me. We should waterboard him.
MORRIS: Yes.
HANNITY: And by the way, you and I are going to be hammered tomorrow.

Let the hammering begin. However, I would like to direct my hammering at the breakout idiocy of Morris. After drooling over the prospect of a lovely torture, Morris swerved to another topic so that he could peddle his disdain for the Constitution:

MORRIS: But, Mr. Blogs, I don’t think the evidence that we get from waterboarding him should be admissible in his criminal trial. The Fifth Amendment still exists. But it should be actionable for intelligence to break up other Al Qaeda plots.

Mr. Blogs? I’ll assume that he’s talking to me and answer thusly: Mr. Prostitute Toe Sucker, you can’t simply dismiss the Fifth Amendment on a whim. What’s more, your whole argument against placing a terrorist in the criminal justice makes no sense. You say that providing an attorney will result in the defendant clamming up. But that would not be the case when the defendant was captured in the act at the scene of the crime. Under those circumstances, an attorney would not be advising a not guilty plea and seeking an acquittal. He would most likely advise a guilty plea and seek to trade information for leniency. Consequently, there would be a greater likelihood of extracting intelligence through the criminal justice system than through torture, which has been proven to provide unreliable data.

But Morris doesn’t stop spewing stupidity there:

MORRIS: …the other point here is the reason 9/11 happened is that Bill Clinton treated the ’93 bombing of the Trade Center as a crime, not as an act of war.

Actually, unlike 9/11, we caught the perpetrators of that incident and put them in prison. In addition to that, we bombed their foreign facilities and “retired” some of their operatives. If anything, our success may have spurred the terrorists to seek revenge.

MORRIS: I think that if we don’t take our country back in 2010, it’s not going to be there for us to take back.

Where is it going to be, Dick? Is it going to spontaneously combust? Will it join Atlantis at the bottom of the sea? Will there be an asteroid collision with the planet? Are you really suggesting that there will be no more America after the 2010 if Republicans fail to assume power? I think you and Glenn Beck had better sit down and coordinate your stories on the Marxist, socialist, progressive utopia in our future.

MORRIS: There are Democrats and there are Republicans. Now I used to be one of them. I used to be a conservative Democrat. I’m not any more because it doesn’t exist. […] If you’re a Democrat, you’re a Democrat, you’re a Democrat, and that’s all you can be.

So despite the fact that it has been Democrats who have battled to form working majorities, and it’s the Republicans who have voted in lockstep throughout this session of Congress, it is still the Democrats who Morris regards as philosophical purists. Even though Republicans have actual “purity tests” that their members are pressured to abide by, while Democrats are plagued by Blue Dogs who vote more like Republicans.

It’s always interesting to observe this sort of cognitive breakdown. It’s just that it’s becoming a bit too predictable for people like Morris and his Fox News enablers. It would be nice if every now and then they refrained from saying things so monumentally stupid it makes you pity them. Just for variety they should try to make sense once in a while – if they are able to.

Now We Know What Sarah Palin Reads

Posted by on November 19, 2009 at 2:54 am. 1 Comments :

Last year, Sarah Palin famously flubbed a softball from Katie Couric. It’s actually not even precise to call it a softball. It was more of a floating feather on a windless day. Couric simply asked Palin what she reads. That was the question that Palin was incapable of responding to coherently.

Now, a year later, the mystery is solved. Palin was interviewed by Sean Hannity yesterday. Hannity came prepared with a bushel full of feathers to lob at Palin, but thanks to his crackerjack investigative skills, he managed to extract a truly newsworthy revelation:

Palin: I read Newsmax and the Frontiersman and the Wall Street Journal and everything online. I absorb the news via many, many sources.

She would have to absorb the news like a ShamWow in order to read “everything” online. However, she does do a good impersonation of the ShamWow pitchman by mentioning first the magazine, Newsmax. Her book, Going Rogue, is currently being peddled by Newsmax as bait to lure subscribers. I’m sure they appreciate the plug. The other two publications she reads are her hometown Wasilla rag and Rupert Murdoch’s financial paper. Need I remind you that Palin’s book is published by Murdoch’s HarperCollins?

This is the woman that virtually every conservative pundit is describing as the terror of liberals and Democrats. They are mostly echoing the sentiments of Bill O’Reilly whose Talking Points yesterday were devoted to “Why the Left Fears Sarah Palin.” The only problem is, I can’t find anyone on the left who is afraid of Sarah Palin. To the contrary, she is a great source of amusement to all the lefties I know. If anyone is afraid of Palin, I think it is the Republican Party. A recent CBS poll shows that only 43% of Republicans think Palin is qualified to be president. And 48% don’t even want her to run (more than the 44% who do). And that’s just Republicans.

In my highly unscientific poll of liberals I know personally, 100% are praying for her to run and win the Republican nomination. They’re not fearful, they’re giddy.

For the record: The DNC has conveniently complied a list of errors and falsehoods in Palin’s book, “Going Rogue.”

Fox Uses False Video (Again) To Inflate Sarah Palin’s Crowd

Posted by on November 18, 2009 at 5:58 pm. NO Comments :

Just one week ago, Jon Stewart exposed Sean Hannity for inserting video of a rally last summer to make a less successful rally this month look like it was well-attended. It was a blatant distortion that could not plausibly have happened by accident. Nevertheless, that is exactly the excuse Hannity coughed up, as he sought to trivialize the affair and sweep it under the rug. I wonder how Fox News will explain it this time.

ThinkProgress has caught them red-handed again. The video below was introduced by Fox anchor Gregg Jarrett saying…

“Sarah Palin continuing to draw huge crowds while she’s promoting her brand new book. Take a look at…these are some of the pictures just coming into us. You can see the lines earlier had formed this morning. There’s a crowd of folks.”

The problem is that this video clearly shows Palin at a campaign event last year, not a current stop on her book tour. McCain/Palin signs are plainly visible in the audience. But Jarrett’s commentary identifies these images as “just coming in.” It should also be noted that Jarrett is considered by Fox to be an actual “news” anchor, not a part of their editorial programming, like Hannity.

Following the takedown by Stewart, Fox and their apologists insisted it was an innocent mistake and that they had no intention of being deceptive. But how many times does this need to happen before their alibis are dismissed for the lies that they are? Real news enterprises do not misrepresent events to advance their agenda. You will notice that they have never made a mistake like this that increased the size of a Democratic rally. The dishonesty of Fox News seems to have no lower boundary. Before too long we should expect it to look something like this:

Update: Fox News has responded to this latest Faux pas by typically blaming a lowly editor:

“This was a production error in which the copy editor changed a script and didn’t alert the control room to update the video,” Michael Clemente, senior vice president of news at FOX, sad [sic] this evening. “There will be an on-air explanation during Happening Now on Thursday.”

That’s twice in two weeks. And on different programs. This is either intentional or a pattern of incompetence. Perhaps they should schedule a daily program to make their on-air explanations so they don’t have to interrupt their mistake-filled propaganda.

Sean Hannity’s Lies Exposed By Jon Stewart

Posted by on November 11, 2009 at 2:27 am. 7 Comments :

Jon Stewart is on fire. About two weeks ago, Stewart put together one of the best presentations illustrating perfectly why Fox News is NOT news. Just last week Stewart gave us an hysterical portrayal of Glenn Beck’s diseased psyche. And last night Stewart proved, once again, that he is a far better journalist than most of those who actually call themselves journalists.

Why does Sean Hannity even still have a job? Anyone else, on any other network, would be fired for this sort of deliberate fabrication. Apparently on Fox it is acceptable to show video footage from a rally two months ago and pretend it is from a rally a few days ago, in order to falsely inflate the size of the attending crowd.

The propagandists at Fox are well aware that the nation overwhelmingly supports heath care reform, so they resort to dishonesty in pursuit of their unpopular agenda. If they can’t get enough Tea Baggers to show up, Fox will just falsify the video record to make whatever point serves their venal interests. It is the same disrespect for the truth that compels Hannity to assert, without any evidence, that 20,000+ people turned out to the protest, although neutral sources say it was no more than 10,000. Hannity’s guest, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), put the crowd estimate as high as 45,000. She also said that the event was the result of spontaneous word of mouth. What she left out was that Fox News promoted the affair repeatedly and anti-health care lobbyists like Americans for Prosperity funded the organizing efforts, including some forty buses to deliver the AstroTurfers to the Capital.

What’s truly depressing about all of this (besides Hannity keeping his job) is that the rest of the media has failed to report any of it. When Dan Rather aired a true story that was marred by a few poorly vetted documents, it became a media frenzy that eventually cost Rather his job. But when Hannity blatantly manufactures a false story, the media shrugs its shoulders and turns away.

This is why Jon Stewart is such a treasure and a model of journalistic integrity, despite his objections to being cast in that role. We definitely need more like him. It would be great if they were just as funny, but I’d settle for just being responsible reporters.

Update: Hannity has responded to Stewart’s exposé in a typically smug manner, saying that he had “screwed up” but that it was “an inadvertent mistake.” Then he thanked Stewart and his writers for watching. That’s a little like a heroin trafficker thanking a DEA agent for listening in on his phone calls.

More to the point, Hannity’s apology doesn’t pass muster. It stretches credulity to assert that he had merely used “some incorrect video” along with some that was correct. The event he was discussing was current news, footage for which would be at hand in the newsroom. In order to buy his excuse you would have to believe that someone accidentally stumbled into the video archives facility, mistakenly retrieved footage from an event that took place two months prior, and unknowingly spliced it onto the correct footage. Then everyone on the staff – editors, directors, producers, and Hannity himself – failed to notice the mishap even after the multiple viewings that these prepackaged segments are subjected to prior to going on the air. Yeah, right.

Desecrating The American Flag

Posted by on October 29, 2009 at 11:43 am. 2 Comments :

Much of the right-wing blog and cable crowd is aghast at what they regard as the disrespect accorded to the American flag by a video in an online contest for health care reform ads. The contest is sponsored by the Democratic National Committee’s Organizing for America.

I happen to think that’s a pretty fine video. It makes its point in a creative and compelling way. There is nothing derogatory directed at the flag because there is, in fact, no flag. It’s a painting. And the commentary affixed to it tells a story about our nation and what we can achieve.

Nevertheless, the hypersensitive panic attackers on the right are having conniptions. Sean Hannity and Michele Malkin tried desperately to twist this into a scandal. Fox Business News anchor, Jenna Lee, hosted a debate that featured Armstrong Williams calling it obscene. Gretchen Carlson and the Fox & Friends crew commiserated about what Carlson said was a movement to make the flag offensive. Bill O’Reilly wasn’t all that disturbed until his guest, Laura Ingraham got him riled up. Ingraham even talked hypothetically about how disrespectful it would be if someone were to walk on a flag.

That’s funny, she never had that problem when George W. Bush actually did walk on a flag. It goes without saying that stepping on a flag is disrespectful, and letting it touch the ground is officially regarded as desecration. So is placing any mark, insignia, letter, word, etc., on it. But that didn’t stop Bush from signing a flag.

These hypocritical pseudo-patriots just don’t know the difference between art and actual desecration. They are obsessed with exploiting non-events to promote their own twisted view of patriotism. More than anything else, they want to manufacture controversies that harm the President, Democrats or liberals in general. Fortunately, this is precisely the sort of fanatical ranting that is driving reasonable Americans farther from the Republican Party and its PR arm, Fox News.