Any article that begins “According to Drudge editor and Washington Times columnist Joseph Curl…” — is one that you know is going to be perversely entertaining. And sitting in the headline spot atop the Fox Nation web site is this item that isn’t the least bit sensationalized: “Must Read Tweet of the Day.”
As noted above, the author of the Tweet is Joseph Curl, a columnist at the “Moonie” Washington Times and the editor of the widely disreputable Drudge Report. Curl is also a pal of master conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who has been featured on Drudge more than 200 times in the past two years.
On the basis of that resume, the Fox Nationalists chose to make their top story a reposting of Curl’s Twitter feed wherein he reveals a couple of late-breaking, unsourced “scoops” that they regard as having the importance of a “nuclear” blast. Here is what Curl Tweeted:
“Hearing from some top Hill sources that IRS scandal about to explode. Low-level agency workers miffed at being blamed. About to return fire.”
And…
“One source says there’s a paper trail to DC, and some who were worried from the get-go kept a paper trail. Wouldn’t say WH, but said ‘high.'”
The smart money is on Curl’s reporting to be left in the dustbin of journalistic fantasies that never come true. Like most of what Curl writes, there is no factual basis or named sources. It is merely wishful thinking that he, and his enablers at Fox, hope will keep the drool dripping from the mouths of their glassy-eyed followers for another day, while they try to manufacture a smear that might actually stick to President Obama or his administration.
Undoubtedly these soundbites will fade away and Curl will never be called upon to answer for his erroneous reporting. It’s their modus operandi. Make an outrageous and unsupported statement. Get Drudge to post it. Then Fox News cites it as their source for what “some people say.” When none of it pans out, move on to a new unsupported, outrageous statement and start the cycle again.
So Fox News wants to be taken seriously as a credible news organization? If that’s true, then why do they keep destroying their own credibility with stunts like this:
During the daily briefing yesterday, Wendell Goler, Fox’s White House correspondent, took the opportunity to ask press secretary Jay Carney if he would “comment on Ezra Klein’s book indicating that the President has agreed to support his former Secretary of State in 2016?” Carney answered that he was not aware of the book, and with good reason. Ezra Klein has never written the book that Goler described.
What Goler was apparently referring to was the book “The Amateur” by wackadoodle Obama-hater and Clinton conspiracy nut Edward Klein. Ordinarily, it should be a forgivable offense to verbally mangle a couple of similar names, but the problem here is that even if Goler had gotten the name right, it was an utterly inappropriate source to cite in the White House press room.
Ed Klein is a certifiable nutcase who has proffered some of the most inane theories and accusations this side of the Weekly World News. He is a proud and persistent birther. He alleged that Bill Clinton had raped his wife Hillary, whom he believes is a lesbian. All these fantastical delusions and more were advanced by Klein without evidence or named sources. His books have been denounced by critics across the political spectrum.
Nevertheless, this is the cretin who Goler actually intended to cite as his source for some secret deal between Obama and Clinton for future political office. That information by itself would not be particularly surprising, but Klein’s version comes complete with a bucket load of melodrama and personal animus between the parties.
What’s more, the book containing this news bite is more than a year old. It has only come back into discussion because this week marks the release of the paperback edition. So what we have here is Fox News raising the issue to support the marketing campaign of a year-old book that was ridiculed when originally released in hard cover.
It would be one thing if Fox merely had Klein on Sean Hannity’s program to discuss the book (which they did), but to feed this thinly veiled advertisement into the media via their primary White House reporter is unconscionable. It is demeaning to the reporter who now appears to be no more than a pitchman for a disreputable product. Nice work, Fox.
In what may be the year’s most blatantly idiotic expression of puerile Teabaggery thus far, Fox News has published an article by their truly “psycho” analyst, Keith Ablow, that seriously charges President Obama with waging psychological warfare on Americans – the people who elected him twice by decisive margins and continue to approve of his leadership.
You may recall “doctor” Ablow as the lunatic who actually praised Newt Gingrich for being unfaithful to multiple wives; who welcomed the pain of Americans suffering through the recession; who repeatedly diagnosed President Obama and others without ever having met them. No wonder he was booted from the American Psychiatric Association.
This new column reaches farther into the dimwitted dementia of Ablow’s warped worldview than ever. The first paragraph lays the groundwork for a wildly deranged analysis that seems as if it were constructed by a mind rotted with schizophrenic delusions:
Ablow: “I believe that the Obama administration is conducting psychological warfare on conservative Americans. Not only that but it is also waging this war on all Americans who previously viewed themselves, their country, their Constitution and their overwhelming belief in God as a force for good in the world.”
You can almost hear his inner voice warning him to steer clear of the reptilian demons who have inhabited the bodies of otherwise ordinary looking neighbors. He is obviously struggling mightily to prevent his thoughts and organs from being stolen.
It is in this vein that he asserts the evidence of Obama’s mental assault on all that is virtuous. He cites as proof imagined “apology tours” and insufficient expressions of patriotic pride. Ablow goes on to declare that both the President and First Lady have deliberately “planted the seeds of self-hatred and self-doubt” into the American psyche. Further evidence of Obama’s malicious mind meld is his…
“…misrepresenting horrific crimes, such as the one which unfolded in Newtown, Connecticut, as evidence of the need for gun control measures, when they clearly evidenced a need for revamping our mental health care system.”
Of course, huge majorities of Americans believe that the Sandy Hook shootings did indeed reveal a need for additional gun safety measures, but Ablow would probably just attribute that to their being under the hypnotic spell of Warlock Barack. Ablow also says that “Attacking gun rights, I believe, is an element of the psychological warfare.” So in his reverse-logic brain, keeping the weapons of war out of the hands of crazies and criminals is in itself warfare.
Next Ablow attempts to tie his psych-war theory to recent so-called “scandals” that his fellow Tea-publicans are peddling. Somehow the IRS affair is part of Obama’s war effort and the tragedy in Benghazi has become a full-on conspiracy theory in Ablow’s diseased mind:
“Ablow: Seen through the lens of psychological warfare, the failure to defend our embassy in Benghazi need not be understood simply as a screw-up. It could reflect an actual strategy on the part of the administration.”
Ablow concludes by proclaiming that “Americans who value autonomy and free will and free markets and small government” are the targets of Obama’s “black ops technique in an ongoing war against our freedoms.” Black ops are generally defined as covert, extra-legal activities carried out by military and/or intelligence agencies. For Ablow to assign that sort of purposeful deployment of wartime hostility aimed at unsuspecting Americans is nothing short of delusional. It is beyond the conventional conspiracy theory theatrics of nutcases like Alex Jones or Glenn Beck (with whom Ablow co-authored a self-help book).
It is important to remember that Ablow is not broadcasting this drivel from an Idaho compound over a ham radio network. He is a member of the Fox News Medical “A” Team and his opinions are distributed by Fox and its affiliated “news” outlets. So the next time anyone tries to pass off Fox as a reputable journalistic enterprise, direct them to this example of the absurd balderdash that they regard as respectable reporting. Fox News continues to prove that their brand of journalism is about as respectable as the fruitcakes who gave us Batboy and alien encounters with former presidents and celebrities.
“This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector.” ~ Plato
The force of fury that is emanating from Republicans in congress as they mount their crusade to ostensibly “protect” the nation from the wild excesses of a government agency gone mad has roiled the political landscape like a violently swirling tornado of partisan angst. The House Oversight Committee, chaired by ultra-rightist zealot (and recidivist criminal) Darrell Issa , has designated itself as the guardian of America’s virtue and the enemy of fiendish saboteurs in the despised Internal Revenue Service.
But there is something too convenient in the emergence of this curiously timed “scandal” that ought to raise suspicions among wakeful citizens. Think about it. The previous scandal du jour, Benghazi-Gate, was crumbling like a week-old danish. None of the frenzied allegations were panning out and, rather than diminishing the President’s reputation, his approval ratings were rising. Republicans needed a fresh dead horse to beat and suddenly the IRS dropped a gift on the GOP’s doorstep. Coincidence?
Consider further that the meat of the controversy was an astoundingly lame strategy that purported to target conservative non-profit groups for stricter scrutiny of their applications for tax-exempt status. The execution of this plan was so ineptly transparent it seems as if it was designed to be discovered. It would not have been difficult to devise a program that resulted in conservative groups being reviewed without being specific in a manner that gave away a partisan intent. But the supposed conspirators in this case used obvious language like “Tea Party” and “912 Project” to select applications to audit. That makes no sense because, if you’re trying to secretly suppress opposing political players you would try to do it secretly, wouldn’t you. What’s more, you wouldn’t leave a glowing neon paper trail that begged to be followed. Why would Democrats plotting to monkey-wrench a bunch of otherwise feeble Teabaggers, whose popularity was in rapid descent, concoct such a rickety plan?
The answer, of course, is that they wouldn’t. And to be precise, they (the Democrats) didn’t. The most prominent figures named so far in this affair are IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman and the director of the tax-exempt organizations division, Lois Lerner. Both are Republicans brought into their government jobs by George W. Bush. Remember, he’s the guy who politicized the IRS by challenging the tax status of the NAACP, Greenpeace, and even liberal churches. He also politicized the Department of Justice by firing nine U.S. Attorneys who were appointed by a Democratic president. [Update:Congressional investigators reveal that the IRS manager who initiated the Tea Party inquiries is a conservative Republican].
When assessing the facts of this plot it can hardly be regarded as insignificant that the lead plotters were Republicans. Furthermore, the first disclosure that something was awry at the IRS was not made by an intrepid investigative journalist tracking down corruption in the system. It was revealed by Lerner, who planted an aide in a public meeting to ask her about the partisan targeting. So it was actually Republicans in the IRS who cooked up the policy and then leaked it to the media via subterfuge. Why would they do such a thing?
In the process of investigating clandestine operations there is a common inquiry designed to lead to the perpetrators: “Cui bono,” or who benefits? Clearly the activities attributed to the IRS have almost no beneficial value to Democrats. After all, not a single one of the groups subjected to review were denied tax-exempt status. And since the law permits non-profits to solicit tax-exempt donations while their applications are in process, no fundraising was hampered. If this were a plot by Democrats to harm political opponents, why would they stop so far short of their goal and openly advertise their misbehavior? It seems more like a scheme to get the Democrats blamed for trying to harm Republicans without resulting in any actual harm. That would be a scenario that benefited the Republicans, who just happened to be in a position to orchestrate it.
So the GOP had motive, opportunity, and all of the available evidence that was provided and exploited came from Republicans intent on disabling a Democratic administration. It was timed to a news cycle that would otherwise have boosted President Obama’s agenda as the economy showed signs of improvement, jobs were on the rise, and major legislative initiatives like immigration, gun safety, and climate change, were gaining momentum. The lead investigator in the House (Issa) is a known crook who was informed of the IRS activities a year ago, but waited until all the pieces were in place to launch his witch hunt.
This affair smells fishy from the get-go. It was made for media consumption. Nobody got wound up in the Benghazi story because there was no easy handle for malicious reporters to grab unto, or for the public to readily grasp. But everybody already hates the IRS, so fabricating an abuse of power fable has built in appeal. That’s how you end up with wild stories about the IRS Commissioner visiting the White House 157 times, with insinuations that he was conspiring with the President. When a legitimate news reporter followed up, there were far fewer visits (perhaps as few as eleven) and they were all to attend meetings, with people other than Obama, related to the implementation of the health care bill.
However, accuracy and honesty were never a part of the brazen hype machine that has been pumping out the lurid allegations and wispy rumor mongering that Republicans have embraced as their replacement for evidence and facts. The truth is merely an obstacle to the fulfillment of the GOP’s agenda. But it is becoming more apparent every day that the truth may have more to do with Republican malfeasance than that of Democrats. And anyone who dismisses the role of Republicans in creating and executing this alleged scheme is willfully blinding themselves to the reality that the GOP had far more to gain by manufacturing this scandal than the Democrats would have had in carrying out something so inept and ineffective.
[Authors Note: If you got this far I would like to reveal now that I don’t believe for a second that the IRS affair is a false flag operation by the GOP. While all of the facts presented above are true, the conclusion is a farce meant to illustrate how different the crazies on the right are from the crazies on the left.
Conservatives would have jumped on a story with the factual details that this one has and propagated, in all seriousness, the conspiracy theory that I outlined above. Glenn Beck, Alex Jones, Rush Limbaugh, and even congresspersons like Michele Bachmann and Louie Gohmert would be polishing their tin-foil hats right about now. However, despite the ripeness of these facts, there is no one on the left pushing such a conspiracy theory.
Just a little something to ponder when right-wingers seek to make phony arguments of equivalency whenever they are caught doing or saying something that is monumentally stupid.]
It’s hard to imagine how such a desperately loathsome loser like James O’Keefe could ever sink any lower into the pits of the wretched, but with his latest video “expose” he has managed to exceed all expectations. And perhaps the best measure of his impotence is the fact that no one even knows he has a new video.
The subject matter O’Keefe and his cohorts tackle is the purported hypocrisy of a couple of California lawmakers. But while insensitively mocking the seriousness of the travails of the poor and homeless, he fails entirely to make a case for political hypocrisy (how hard could that be?). He doesn’t even manage to tie his targets to any of the behavior he alleges.
O’Keefe sets out to protest a law meant to provide a humanitarian approach to people suffering severe misfortune in difficult times. The law allows for people to use public streets to solicit donations and take rest. But O’Keefe exploits the very real tragedy of homelessness with his crew of phony vagrants whose only purpose is to harass public servants that he doesn’t like. And by challenging the legislators who voted for this law, he presumably would prefer that homeless people be incarcerated or shoved into the shadows and backalleys of the city.
O’Keefe’s premise is that the legislators who advocated on behalf of homeless rights would object to those rights being exercised in front of their own homes. However, panhandling in a residential area where there is no foot-traffic is suspicious on its face. There is, after all, nobody to solicit, so what would be the point? Furthermore, it is more intrusive to the privacy of the residents than in a commercial area, and is likely to get the attention of law enforcement.
The video itself is a hot mess of conjecture and lies, which is how we know that it’s a bona fide James O’Keefe production. He begins the romp by stating in his monotone voiceover that…
“The journalists posing as homeless people had been at [Assemblyman] Dickinson’s house for forty-five minutes. There were several passersby, and after none of these encounters with Dickenson’s neighbors did the police show up.”
First of all, isn’t it cute that he calls his costumed playmates “journalists?” The extent of their reporting was to stand around in casual attire with cardboard signs. There were no interviews, no information gathering, no activities generally associated with reporting. And there were also no “encounters” with Dickenson’s neighbors, unless you count a car driving by as an encounter. That was also the only sort of encounter with Dickenson himself, who is the subject of their “reporting.”
“At 7:05 am a car leaves the assemblyman’s driveway. According to our reporters it had Assemblyman Dickenson in the driver’s seat. But only minutes after Assemblyman Dickenson left his driveway, the police showed up.”
Here we have our intrepid investigator jumping to the conclusion that Dickenson summoned the police. Never mind that O’Keefe’s clowns were stationed there for forty-five minutes and by his own telling there were only a few minutes after Dickenson drove by for law enforcement to respond to a non-emergency situation. But O’Keefe thinks that the cops dropped everything and rushed right over. Not only is that unlikely, it simply did not occur. In fact, the police never showed up at all.
O’Keefe’s representation of the responding officer is a blatant and obvious lie. The car that pulled up to the scene is clearly marked in the video as Paladin Private Security, a Sacramento area patrol service. Nevertheless, O’Keefe repeatedly refers to the Paladin representative as “the police” and labels him a “cop.” Surely O’Keefe knows that that is a lie. And contrary to O’Keefe’s unsupported insinuation that Dickenson called for help, it is far more likely that the Paladin agent was on his routine rounds when he spotted the faux-bos.
Then O’Keefe takes us to downtown Sacramento where he posts his clown crew in front of a state building. Apparently nothing happened there that he could mangle into a spurious accusation against anyone, so his team pulled out. It’s kind of hilarious that O’Keefe left that failure in the video. But then the boys met up with a Homeland Security agent in the parking lot.
At this point it is important to note that security protocol calls for questioning people who loiter around public spaces with video cameras. It is a precaution taken to intercept potential terrorists who may be casing the joint. However, O’Keefe’s crusaders take this as some sort of affront to their freedom to playact as reporters. O’Keefe says…
“Notice how the federal officer implies that if the videographer does not waive his Fourth Amendment rights and consent to a search of his camera and property, he will get in trouble?”
Actually, no…I didn’t notice that. Probably because there is nothing in the video that remotely resembles that description. In fact, the agent informs the pair, in a rather friendly manner, that he didn’t have a warrant but that “If you’re willing to show me the video, we’re good to go.” It was a completely open and honest request. But somehow O’Keefe interprets it as an ominous threat.
O’Keefe, master manipulator that he is, saves the best for last. He closes the video with absurd claims that the government is spying on him (a lame attempt to attach himself to the scandal du jour regarding the Department of Justice investigation of State Department leaks). Then he drops this whopper:
“The last time we waived our rights, the federal government destroyed our property, charged us with a crime we didn’t commit, and gave us probation for years.”
What O’Keefe is obliquely referring to there is his arrest and conviction for trespassing in the offices of a United States senator in Louisiana. The truth is that he was arrested and charged with a crime he did commit. He was so concerned about the potential for a felony conviction that he agreed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor in order to avoid harsher punishment.
The ease with which O’Keefe lies in both his videos and his public statements is astonishing, It is a demonstration of the inbred sleaziness of his character. Remember, this is the guy that made the wholly dishonest ACORN videos for which he recently was forced to pay $100,000 in damages to one of his victims. He is the guy who plotted to seduce a CNN reporter on his “love boat.” He is so disreputable that he was even debunked by Glenn Beck (now that’s low).
Yet O’Keefe persists in struggling to embarrass himself evermore with new eruptions of lies and nonsense. His capacity for shame is seemingly boundless. He doesn’t even have the support of his former mentors at Fox News or the Breitbart asylum. If you really want to see O’Keefe’s latest fumble, it is here. But below is a completely different video that I thought you might enjoy:
Can we finally agree that these Teabagging cretins are friggin nuts?
Raw Story is reporting on a Tea Party leader who is making the claim that conservative stalwart and anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist is secretly an Islamic extremist plotting to infiltrate the U.S. government with his Muslim Brotherhood comrades.
“In a video posted by the Far North Dallas Tea Party on Thursday, Texas Eagle Forum President and former Chairman of the Texas Republican Party Cathie Adams presented evidence that Norquist was part of a ‘stealth jihad’ in the United States.
“Adams said that Norquist, who is married to a Muslim woman, was ‘trouble with a capital T’ because ‘he’s showing signs of converting to Islam himself.’ As you see, he has a beard,’ she pointed out. ‘He’s married a Muslim woman.'”
Just to reiterate, this is not some fringe Alex Jones disciple – this is a former GOP chair. And she is not alone. Last year Michele Bachmann and four House colleagues (Louie Gohmert, Trent Franks, Thomas Rooney, and Lynn Westmoreland) sent a letter (pdf) to the Department of Homeland Security calling for an investigation into Muslim subversives infiltrating the government. The letter specifically cited a film called “The Enemy Within,” that identified Norquist as an agent of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Remember, Norquist is the guy who said that his goal is to drown the government in a bathtub. So he has had it in for America for decades. The question is: If Norquist is a Muslim jihadist, and almost every Republican in congress has signed Norquist’s “pledge,” then isn’t pretty much the whole of the GOP aligned with Al Qaeda? Considering how much they have in common, this is not really all that surprising. They both want government to be subservient to religion. They are both fiercely opposed to abortion and gay marriage. They both consider torture a valid tactic in warfare. They both dismiss science and modern academia. It all seems so clear now.
When we get to the point that facial hair can be a determinate of terrorist leanings, we have a serious departure from reality. And earlier this year, the lie factory at Fox Nation made a similarly idiotic claim about the evilness of beards. They posted an article sourced to the Washington Times that said that the Aurora theater shooter had converted to Islam in prison, and cited the same evidence (that he grew a beard) of his conversion. As I noted at the time, there are many more converts to Christianity amongst prisoners.
You really have to wonder where this ends. But more importantly, how can anyone take seriously the unsupported accusations that Tea-publicans make against Obama, Clinton, Holder, etc., if they are so obviously mentally deranged?
It must be a terrible burden to have to manage as many trumped up scandals as Fox News is currently struggling with. The sheer volume of fabricated nonsense to manufacture and inventory would be a strain on any propaganda outfit. But the pressure is showing now as Fox appears unable to function under the weight of the task. Take a look at these recent schizoid episodes they have belched out:
On the Fox Business Network, their anchor Lou Dobbs hosted a panel to discuss the state of women in the workplace and the results of a new poll that shows more American women are the primary earners in their families. In order to have a balanced debate on this subject, Fox invited only men to participate. But after you hear what one of those men said, you’ll understand why women weren’t necessary:
Erick Erickson: I’m so used to liberals telling conservatives that they’re anti-science. But liberals who defend [the increase in women earners] and say it is not a bad thing are very anti-science. When you look at biology — when you look at the natural world — the roles of a male and a female in society and in other animals, the male typically is the dominant role.
Consequently, Fox is committed to having only males weigh in on the subjects of working women, reproductive rights, domestic violence, etc. And remember, Erickson is the miscreant who once called Supreme Court Justice David Souter a “goat-fucking child molester.”
Next up is a story Fox did about the number of times Douglas Shulman, the IRS commissioner, visited the White House. Of Course, there should be nothing suspicious about a critical economic adviser spending time with other administration officials as they seek to restore the nation’s economy. But like everything else they do, Fox is only focused on turning this into a nefarious scheme of some sort. So they tally up the number of visits and imply that the frequency represents something other than devotion to duty:
Unfortunately for Fox, their own source, the notoriously disreputable Daily Caller (which is run by Fox contributor Tucker Carlson) contradicts the very premise they sought to prove. After making a federal case out of the visits attributed to Shulman, the Daily Caller correctly notes that…
“The visitor logs do not give a complete picture of White House access. Some high-level officials get cleared for access and do not have to sign in during visits […] it is probable that the vast majority of visits by major Cabinet members do not end up in the public record.”
In other words…never mind. We don’t know what the heck we’re talking about. Which is surprising because this isn’t the first time that right-wing media tried to build these logs into a conflagration and failed to ignite any sparks. Back in 2009 there was an effort to tie the President to ACORN by reporting that ACORN CEO Bertha Lewis had visited the White House a few weeks before that phony scandal erupted. As it turned out, it was a different Bertha Lewis, but nobody at Fox or their source (Breitbart News) bothered to verify the information. In fact, we still don’t know if the Douglas Shulman on the logs is the IRS commissioner.
Finally, the most disturbing evidence that Fox is suffering severe symptoms of dementia was demonstrated in this segment of Fox & Friends when the hosts interviewed John Bolton about why National Security Adviser Tom Donilon was AWOL on the night of the attacks in Benghazi. They stated flatly that Donilon was absent for the crisis, even while they showed a photo alongside Bolton of a White House meeting that clearly included Donilon.
This is pretty much what we can expect from Fox News for the duration of this scandal season. They are obviously over their heads and unable to steer a steady course. They either need some extended rest or a significant increase in the dosage of their meds. This should at least provide a lesson to them for the future: Don’t make up more scandals than you are capable of handling.
In yet another attempt to turn their audience into blithering idiots, the Fox Nationalists have posted the results of a CNN poll on ObamaCare with a thoroughly misleading headline and commentary: “Poll: Majority of Americans Oppose ObamaCare.”
For more Fox Nation mangling of the truth, get the acclaimed book, Fox Nation vs. Reality
Rather than linking to the actual poll results on CNN’s web site, Fox Nation links to a little known blog, Red Alert Politics, an affiliate of Clarity Media. Ultra-rightist billionaire Philip Anschutz owns Clarity as well as the conservative Weekly Standard. The excerpt that Fox extracts from Red Alert says merely that “54 percent of Americans still do not support President Obama’s signature domestic policy, compared to the 43 percent of Americans who support it.”
Not surprisingly, that is not the whole story – or even an honest representation of the limited story. A cursory glance at CNN’s web site fills in the details that Fox has deliberately suppressed. Although CNN also distorts the lede, at least they include the data that puts the poll’s results into context:
“A majority of Americans still oppose the nation’s new health care measure, three years after it became law, according to a new survey.
“But a CNN/ORC International poll released Monday also indicates that more than a quarter of those who oppose the law, known by many as Obamacare, say they don’t support the measure because it doesn’t go far enough.”
In other words, many of those who are being counted as opponents are actually supporters of a more liberal national health care plan. In a rational world, these people would not be lumped in with the Tea-publicans who want to repeal ObamaCare. They would be regarded as supporters who advocate an even more comprehensive policy.
Since 43% of respondents said that they support ObamaCare, and another 16% said that they support a more liberal version of it, a more accurate presentation of the poll’s results would say that 59% of Americans were in favor of the legislation – including some who want it to go further – and only 35% were opposed. That’s a solid majority of supporters.
But it may be too much to expect that Fox could grasp the complexities of math after they spent the last couple of years rejecting it along with pretty much every other principle of science and academia.
If you’ve ever wondered what Fox News gets out of its frenzied pursuit of controversy, look no further than the Nielsen ratings for the month of May 2013.
For Fox News 2013 began by delivering the network its worst numbers in twelve years. They saw their top programs losing viewers with double digit percentages. Bill O’Reilly dropped 25%, and Sean Hannity declined 19%. This occurred while their competition, Ed Schultz and Rachel Maddow, increased their audiences by 23% and 32% respectively. It was dismal performance for Fox and omen of bad times to come.
A few months later, Fox has seen a noticeable bounce that will surely brighten their mood. The recovery can be entirely attributed to the bucket of scandals they have been serving up to their bloodthirsty, Obama-hating disciples. Nothing inspires wingnut viewer loyalty like the catastrophic misfortune of one’s enemies.
The numbers for May find Fox up 24% overall compared to the same period in 2012. While that may appear to be good news, there are hazards lurking in the ratings weeds. Take a look at this chart that contrasts Fox’s primetime total audience with their weak reach among the more highly valued 25-54 year old age group.
The month of May was heavily weighted down by melodramatic news events that would appeal to Fox’s native audience. There would not likely be any migration to or from other networks during this time. CNN also benefited from the hard news orientation that is their area of expertise. Not surprisingly, MSNBC, who has soared in recent months, slowed down during this period due to their narrow focus on politics at a time when viewers were seeking out hard news. Even HLN had a solid month due to the various courtroom dramas that were playing out (Arias, Gosnell, etc.).
What is particularly striking though, is that Fox would produce such large gains overall and still decline substantially in the younger demos that advertisers favor. This is further evidence that Fox’s audience is graying at a rapid rate. This means that they will earn far less for their ad time than their competitors who attract a larger share of the demo audience. It also means that they will suffer over time as audiences age.
However, it is inescapable that Fox’s obsession with hyperbolic attacks on President Obama and his administration is not resonating with younger viewers. Fox is repeating the mistakes they committed last year by harping on wild conspiracies, extreme rightist rhetoric, and fantastical allegations for which they have no support. That’s the sort of behavior that turned them into a laughing stock and produced an audience that was stunned when Republicans cratered at the ballot box. The same sort of shock is going to strike Fox viewers when these myriad scandals all peter out. Their gullible audience will once again wonder how Fox could have assured them that the Obama administration was near collapse, but nothing close to that takes place. If there is one constant that Fox is careful to maintain, it is their determination to mislead their flock by feeding them the fringe-flavored chum they crave.
The near future will likely be more of the same barring any unforeseen circumstances. There are no predictable events on the horizon (i.e. elections) that are likely to stir the pot. Although the currently simmering pseudo-scandals may still have a little heat in them, and the Supreme Court will be dropping some decisions this summer. Other than that, stay tuned to be underwhelmed, unless you’re Fox viewer. In which case — be afraid, be very afraid.
Before anyone asks — No, that headline is not from The Onion. And the best way to demonstrate the lunacy in Glenn Beck’s most recent harangue is to let Beck do it himself:
“The media has a story line and an agenda, and they will get to it. And they certainly don’t want anybody to ever think that anything is ever planned. The media has their own agenda, and if the media has a storyline, it just writes it in. And currently the storyline is ‘conspiracy theorist.’
“Now why…why would that be the agenda item now? Why is it a concentrated effort, more than any other time in my career, why is it a concentrated effort now to label me a conspiracy theorist? Well, I’ll tell you why. It goes back to Cass Sunstein. It is exactly what he wrote. He said government should call anyone who stands against them a conspiracy theorist.
“This isn’t a conspiracy theory. This is what he wrote about. Even if it turns out to be true, you have to label people as a conspiracy theorist because it isolates them. So that’s exactly what’s happening now and I don’t really care. I mean I knew from like four years ago, I’m not getting out of this with my name or reputation. That’s fine.”
Apparently the incident that touched off this rant was Beck’s accusation that CNN’s Wolf Blitzer was set up by an atheist activist on his staff prior to interviewing an Oklahoma tornado survivor who declined Blitzer’s invitation to thank God because she was non-believer. For some reason Beck doesn’t consider his theory that Blitzer’s staff conspired against him to be a conspiracy theory.
However, what’s truly and remarkably hysterical about Beck’s persistent paranoia and deviant Messiah complex is his belief that there is some new found agenda on the part of the media to label him a conspiracy theorist. First of all, the media has played no part in Beck’s conspiratorial psychosis. He has done that all by himself. And secondly, it certainly isn’t new. How many conspiracies does Beck have to theorize before his reputation is established? Here are just a few:
Beck spewed some delusional ravings about a Saudi man Beck believed was the
mastermind of the Boston marathon bombing.
Beck claimed that the man who showed up at the Houston airport firing an AR-15, and later committing suicide, was some sort of setup directed at the NRA’s convention being held in Houston.
Beck published a book titled “Agenda 21” that is based on a nightmare fable of the United Nations subjugating the world to slavery on the pretense of building sustainable communities.
Beck has discovered that the whole birther mess was actually devised and implemented by a scheming White House in an attempt to divert attention away from a dastardly blueprint to bankrupt America and deliver its carcass to her enemies.
Beck’s reference to Cass Sunstein is a reprise of his classic mania that consisted of wild and unsupported blathering about Sunstein, George Soros, Cloward and Piven, Saul Alinsky, the United Nations, the Muslim Brotherhood, and others who were all engaged in a clandestine plot, with the help of the media, to abolish freedom.
And that is just the low-hanging fruitcake. Beck has also produced programs that insist that there is a coordinated plot between the Godless communists and the extremist Muslims to build a global Muslim Caliphate. He aired a three day special accusing George Soros of being the “Puppet Master” behind virtually every dastardly deed you can think of. He has hounded Van Jones, Shirley Sherrod, ACORN, and others relentlessly as co-conspirators in the march to Armageddon. And he has claimed so many times that the “Perfect Storm” that will herald humanity’s demise is upon us that it’s hard to keep count.
It’s hard to imagine how such a desperately loathsome loser like 
