Barack Obama

Fox Nation vs. Reality: Romney’s Phony Lead Over Obama

Posted by on April 20, 2012 at 12:36 pm. 2 Comments :

Sometimes the brazen disrespect Fox News has for honest analysis is breathtaking. They seem to have such a fierce determination to deceive their audience that no limits are drawn for their blatant biases. Take, for example, the article posted this morning reporting on the results of an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll:

Fox Nation

The Fox Nationalists analyzed this poll (which was co-produced by a fellow Murdoch entity, the WSJ) and concluded that the headline news that it contained was that “Romney Opens Up Lead Over Obama.” Just to give you an idea of how far they had to stretch in order to make this an anti-Obama article, here are some of the actual results from the poll:

  • Obama leads Romney among all registered voters 49% to 43%.
  • Obama leads Romney among African Americans 90% to 4%.
  • Obama leads Romney among Latinos 69% to 22%
  • Obama leads Romney among young voters (18-34) 60% to 34%.
  • Obama leads Romney among women 53% to 41%.
  • Obama leads Romney among Independents 44% to 34%.
  • Obama leads Romney as most likable 54% to 18%.
  • Obama leads Romney as caring about average people 52% to 22%.
  • Obama leads Romney on looking out for the middle class 48% to 22%.
  • Obama leads Romney on being knowledgeable and experienced 45% to 30%.
  • Obama leads Romney on being a good commander-in-chief 43% to 33%.
  • Obama leads Romney on standing up for his beliefs 41% to 30%.
  • Obama leads Romney on being honest and straightforward 37% to 30%.

The poll also found that respondents favored Obama’s approach to the economy by fighting for fairness and strengthening the middle class; that 45% approve of his handling of the economy (a five point gain over last fall’s poll); and that a plurality (36%) believes the president’s policies have helped U.S. economic conditions. In fact, the only economic question in the poll where Romney beat Obama was on who would have better ideas for improving the economy, where Romney led 40% to 34%. And on the basis of that single statistic Fox trumpeted a headline that played up Romney lead in the poll.

To be fair, Romney did lead on some other questions (i.e. white and suburban voters), but that hardly compensates for the devastating beating he took on almost everything else. Sometimes, when you witness such gross misrepresentation, you have to stop and say “Wow.” Just “Wow.” These people have no scruples whatsoever.

For Those Who Still Don’t Think That Fox News Is The PR Arm Of The GOP

Posted by on April 11, 2012 at 12:55 pm. NO Comments :

If there is anyone out there who still thinks that Fox News is a fair and balanced news enterprise, as opposed to a Republican promotional agency, check out these recent stories at their Fox Nation web site:

RNC Catches Obama Using ‘Same Tired Rhetoric’ April 5, 2012.
Obama’s budget speech yesterday recycled the exact same scare tactics he used last year. See the original RNC video showing Obama’s State of the Union speeches side-by-side.

New Video Exposes Myth of Obama’s Great Speechmaking April 11, 2012.
Obama’s recent budget speech recycled the exact same scare tactics he used last year. See the original RNC video showing Obama’s State of the Union speeches side-by-side.

That’s right. The Fox Nationalists posted a story on April 5, and then posted the exact same story on April 11. When posted the second time they labeled it as “New.” The entirety of the story is a video by the Republican National Committee mocking President Obama for reprising a speech this year that he had made last year, as if he were guilty of plagiarizing himself. Politicians often reuse speeches when they are speaking on the same subject. Have the Fox Nationalists ever heard of a stump speech?

There is a comical irony in that Fox is rerunning a GOP video that is critical of Obama for rerunning a speech. That irony escapes the Fox dimwits. But what’s really disturbing about this is that Fox is just replaying Republican propaganda as if they were retained to promote the GOP brand. Perhaps they weren’t satisfied with the number of views the video got the first time they posted it, so they threw it up there again. How many times do they plan to run it?

This is nothing but a gift of free publicity from Fox News to the Republican Party. When will the Federal Elections Commission realize that Fox is acting on behalf of the GOP and force it to report these in-kind donations on their financial disclosure forms?

Fox Nation vs. Reality: Nuking The Fact Checker

Posted by on April 9, 2012 at 2:02 pm. 5 Comments :

I have previously noted the often hilarious overuse of hyperbole by the dimwits at Fox Nation. Today they deliver additional proof that they don’t really know the meaning of the words they use.

Fox Nation

The Fox Nationalists are referring to the Washington Post’s Fact Checker column. The Post analyzed remarks by President Obama about the Supreme Court that the rightist media is twisting into absurd allegations of threats and ignorance of constitutional law. But a reading of the Post’s article reveals something short of a nuking. In several places the Post outright validates the President’s points:

The Post affirms Obama’s claim that…

“…the Supreme Court hasn’t overturned a sweeping law in quite some time. By ‘sweeping,’ we mean statutes that apply to virtually all citizens, as the Affordable Care Act does.”

The Post agrees with Obama on the economic substance of the ACA.

“The court affirmed Social Security under Congress’s Constitutional power to tax, while the Affordable Care Act deals with something different: the power to regulate commerce. As such, the health law involves an economic issue, just as Obama noted.”

The Post certifies that Obama was correct in saying that the Court overturning the ACA would be extraordinary.

“Many of the right-leaning legal experts we talked to acknowledged that the modern Supreme Court has largely — but not entirely — shown deference to Congress when it comes to such matters.”

The Post takes the President’s side on the question of whether prior cases were applicable due to their having a focus on economics or commerce.

“[T]he government lost two such cases during the Bill Clinton years. It argued unsuccessfully in U.S. v. Lopez (1995) that possession of a firearm at school constituted economic activity, and in U.S. v. Morrison (2000) that violence against women affected interstate commerce. Those cases dealt with economic matters, right? Not technically. The Supreme Court determined that the laws didn’t involve commerce at all.”

The Post notes that Obama was correct in his assessment of the Court’s deference to Congress.

“Obama correctly noted that the Supreme Court has shown more deference to Congress since the 1930s when it comes to economic legislation, but he said the court has upheld such statutes without exception ever since. This is only true in a very narrow sense.”

This is Fox Nation’s impression of having been nuked by the Washington Post. In fact, the Post gave Obama two Pinocchios, which they define in part as “using legalistic language that means little to ordinary people.” I’m not sure how the President could have made his case about a legal issue without resorting to legalistic language, so the Post is being somewhat obtuse in their rating.

But one thing is certain, there was no nuking going on. That’s just an effort of the part of the Fox Nationalists to inject a negative spin and hope that their audience doesn’t read the article for themselves (which they don’t have to worry about considering the incurious, dittoheadedness of their audience).

Fox News Psycho Analyst Keith Ablow Delivers Another Demented Diagnosis Of Obama

Posted by on April 7, 2012 at 12:11 pm. 1 Comments :

This is rapidly devolving into surreal comedy. Keith Ablow, a member of the Fox News Medical “A” Team, keeps showing up on Fox properties dispensing the most absurd opinions about President Obama’s psychiatric profile.

Keith Ablow

Remember, Ablow is the same “doctor” who wrote an editorial for Fox News praising Newt Gingrich’s infidelity and serial matrimony as proof that he would make America stronger were he president. And no one should be surprised that Ablow has separated from the American Psychiatric Association due to “ethical differences.” His opinions are devoid of any professional substance or reason. They are merely excuses to vent his political biases couched in cliche jargon and twisted logic.

Ablow has never examined (or even met) the President, so his opinions are about as credible as my evaluation of quantum physics. But that doesn’t stop him from continuing to embarrass himself on television by spreading puerile nonsense. His latest excursion into idiocy took place yesterday on Fox Business Network’s Lou Dobbs Show in a discussion of the President’s remarks about the Supreme Court. Here is the exchange that Ablow thinks passes for psychoanalysis:

Dobbs: Joining us now to talk about the psychology behind this confrontation between the administration and the judiciary, Dr. Keith Ablow. […] What would possibly be motivating the president to get into this mess, and seemingly he’s unable to let go of it.

Ablow: Well, he’s seemingly unable to let go of it because I think we finally have to start taking him at his word. And you know this is a favorite theme of mine, that people want to try to find some other explanation than the obvious. The obvious explanation is that the President has contempt for that branch of government, is egocentric, and believes that any form of authority, perhaps other than that vested in himself, is untrustworthy. Particularly the longstanding authority associated with branches of government of the United States. That’s literally the most obvious explanation.

The one part of that statement that’s true is that this is one of Ablow’s favorite themes. He has been relentlessly pushing his delusional theory that the President is acting out some sort of suppressed rage as a result of a deprived upbringing. It’s a good thing that more children are not crushed by such childhood traumas or the country would be overrun with kids who excel academically, graduate with honors from Ivy League law schools, and enter careers in public service that lead to the White House. It must have been awful for young Barack.

Ablow’s “obvious explanation” is fraught with fantastical apparitions. There is simply no way that he can justify the assertion that Obama has contempt for the judiciary or that he rejects its authority. Why on earth would Obama have dedicated his adult life to law and constitutional scholarship if he did not have a profound respect for it? The entirety of Ablow’s theory is that the alleged contempt grew out of Obama having been raised by a single mother with help from her parents. But Ablow never connects the dots to show how that could have resulted in animosity toward authority. Is Ablow suggesting that every kid from a broken home is averse to authority? And what about all the young rebels from intact families (like mine)?

Simply said, Ablow’s analysis is bullshit. He is incapable of forming a coherent argument to support his wild notions, and he never even bothers to try. The “obvious explanation” for Ablow’s frighteningly comedic bluster is that he is petulant and partisan right-wing schizoid whose impersonation of a doctor has failed miserably.

Fox Nation vs. Reality: Obama’s War On Women

Posted by on April 6, 2012 at 4:13 pm. 5 Comments :

Fox Nation has taken up the tactic perfected by Karl Rove of attacking head on your opponent’s strengths and accusing them of your own weaknesses. Hence we have the Fox Nationalists declaring: “Obama’s War on Women.”

Fox Nation

Throughout this campaign cycle there have been numerous examples of conservative assaults on women. We have seen them insult a female law student, calling her a slut and a prostitute. We have seen them block the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act. We have seen them oppose access to reproductive health care without first undergoing intrusive, unnecessary vaginal probes. We have seen them lobby for rolling back the availability of contraception from their own private insurance policies.

The War on Women is unquestionably being waged by conservative politicians and pundits. Therefore, consistent with the Rovian strategy, it is time for conservatives to assert that it is really the other way around and that it is Obama who is anti-woman. And in support of that mission Fox Nation has published an article sourced to the ultra-conservative Washington Free Beacon that takes the President to task for golfing and for failing to employ women amongst his senior staff and advisers.

The Beacon focuses their report on remarks by the White House Press Secretary, Jay Carney who, in a response to a reporter’s question, said that the President believes that the Augusta National Golf Club, hosts of the Masters Golf Tournament, ought to admit women as members, something it has never done. The Beacon then characterized Carney’s answer by saying that…

“The remarks were viewed by some as a conscious effort by the White House to propagate the meme of a “war on women” being waged by Republicans against the fairer sex.”

The question the Beaconese and the Fox Nationalists should answer is: What is Mitt Romney trying to propagate by announcing the exact same position? And they surely know of Romney’s stance because they reported it on their web site prior to their report on Carney’s White House briefing.

The Beacon went on to say that “The president himself, however, has a well-documented history of excluding women.” They provided no evidence whatsoever to support that statement. Some examples would have helped it to make sense considering that Obama’s cabinet is full of women in the highest positions – beginning with Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton; Secretary of Labor, Hilda Solis; Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius; Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano; and EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson. Additionally, some of Obama’s closest personal advisers in the White House have been women, including Valerie Jarrett, Stephanie Cutter, and Samantha Power.

But the Fox Nationalists can’t let facts get in the way of their propaganda. They’ve got an audience to misinform, and when the lies are as big as these, they need to devote every bit of energy to the mission.

Remember When Conservatives Were Against Unelected Judges And Judicial Activism?

Posted by on April 5, 2012 at 8:47 am. 2 Comments :

In another brazen exercise in hypocrisy, conservatives have launched a coordinated attack on President Obama for remarks that were entirely reasonable and uncontroversial. The President was asked by a reporter how he would respond if the health care reform bill currently being debated by the Supreme Court were to be ruled unconstitutional. His response said in part…

“I’m confident that the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress. And I’d just remind conservative commentators that for years what we’ve heard is, the biggest problem on the bench was judicial activism or a lack of judicial restraint — that an unelected group of people would somehow overturn a duly constituted and passed law. Well, this is a good example. And I’m pretty confident that this Court will recognize that and not take that step.”

This has set off a round of panic attacks in right-wing circles as knee-jerk contrarians accuse Obama of undermining the constitution, subverting democracy, and even threatening the Supreme Court. Where any objective person can find the presence of a threat in the President’s remarks is beyond incomprehensible. It’s Obama Derangement Syndrome in action. Conservatives assert that these comments were intended by the President to be a warning for the justices deliberating the case. Never mind that Obama in no way implied that there would be consequences if the justices did not arrive at a particular ruling, only that he was confidant of a favorable outcome. That’s pretty much the position taken by anyone interested in a pending judicial proceeding. And as the President said explicitly, he was just reminding conservatives of their own long-held views on judicial activism.

The Right-Wing Noise Machine has been spinning feverishly to push this issue in order to damage the President and cast him as opposed to constitutional principles. Rush Limbaugh and Karl Rove called Obama a thug. Mark Levin said that he declared war on the Court. Fox Nation currently has at least eleven articles on this subject. And Fox News has been running numerous segments including one this morning that featured three former George W. Bush staffers to assert that what Obama said was unprecedented and nothing like anything that Bush ever said (see below).

Among the complaints being hurled by the right-wing, extremist opponents of the administration is that Obama’s use of the phrase “unelected judges” amounts to a form of tyranny and is an affront to judicial independence. But it is Republicans who have been more often associated with that phrase over the years as they brandish it every time a court rules against whatever pet litigation they are pushing – especially when it concerns reproductive rights or gay marriage. For example, here are a few instances when the very people lambasting Obama today used identical language when it served their purposes:

  • Mitt Romney: Today, unelected judges cast aside the will of the people of California who voted to protect traditional marriage.
  • Mitt Romney: The ruling in Iowa today is another example of an activist court and unelected judges trying to redefine marriage and disregard the will of the people as expressed through Iowa’s Defense of Marriage Act.
  • Rick Santorum: 7M Californians had their rights stripped away by activist 9th Circuit judges.
  • Newt Gingrich: Court of Appeals overturning CA’s Prop 8 another example of an out of control judiciary. Let’s end judicial supremacy
  • Speaker John Boehner: This latest FISA proposal from House Majority leaders is dead on arrival. It would outsource critical national security decisions to unelected judges and trial lawyers.
  • Rep. Roy Blunt (R-MO): Today, the decision of unelected judges to overturn the will of the people of California on the question of same-sex marriage demonstrates the lengths that unelected judges will go to substitute their own worldview for the wisdom of the American people.
  • Sen. Jeff Sessions: This ‘Washington-knows-best’ mentality is evident in all branches of government, but is especially troublesome in the judiciary, where unelected judges have twisted the words of our Constitution to advance their own political, economic, and social agendas.
  • Rep. Tom Feeney (R-FL): I’m appalled that unelected judges have irresponsibly decided to legislate from the bench and overturn the will of the people.
  • George W. Bush: This concept of a “living Constitution” gives unelected judges wide latitude in creating new laws and policies without accountability to the people.
  • Thomas Sowell: Unelected judges can cut the voters out of the loop and decree liberal dogma as the law of the land.
  • Laura Ingraham: We don’t want to be micromanaged by some unelected judge or some unelected bureaucrat on the international or national level.
  • Gov. Rick Perry: [The American people are] fed up with unelected judges telling them when and where they can pray or observe the Ten Commandments.
  • Pat Robertson: We are under the tyranny of a nonelected oligarchy. Just think, five unelected men and women who serve for life can change the moral fabric of our nation and take away the protections which our elected legislators have wisely put in place.
  • Robert Bork: We are increasingly governed not by law or elected representatives but by an unelected, unrepresentative, unaccountable committee of lawyers applying no will but their own.
  • Sen. Orrin Hatch: A small minority and their judicial activist allies are seeking to usurp the will of the people and impose same-sex marriage on all of the states. Ultimately, the American people, not unelected judges, should decide policy on critical social issues such as this one.
  • Steve Forbes: You have judicial activism, where unelected Supreme Court justices are trying to impose a state income tax.
  • Glenn Beck: Even if you agree that the role of government is to take wealth from one to another, should it be the role of unelected judges and justices that do this?
  • Sen. John McCain: We would nominate judges of a different kind […] And the people of America – voters in both parties whose wishes and convictions are so often disregarded by unelected judges – are entitled to know what those differences are.
  • Justice Antonin Scalia: Value-laden decisions such as that should be made by an entire society … not by nine unelected judges.

If the conservatives quoted above were to be consistent, they would now be pleading with the court not to overturn the health care reform bill that was passed by super-majorities in both houses of congress. Instead, the right is aghast that a Democratic president would deign to remind them of their own principles and is clamoring for a judicial resolution. It has already been demonstrated that Republicans have no problem switching positions once Obama has agreed to them. Cap and trade and insurance mandates were both originally proposed by Republicans, but as soon as Obama announced support for the concepts the GOP reconsidered and insisted they were the socialist ideas of an aspiring dictator.

Now that one of the GOP’s favorite attack lines, judicial activism, has been usurped by the President, conservatives are crawling out of the woodwork to characterize it as an assault on the judiciary. Republicans have always defined judicial activism as the act of judges ruling against them. When judges rule in favor of the conservative position they regard it as following the constitution. So hypocrisy is not a particularly surprising development in this matter. But the degree to which it is demonstrated here may set new records for shamelessness.


Erwin Chemerinsky, Dean of the University of California Irvine Law School, wrote in his book, “The Conservative Assault on the Constitution” that…

Although there is no precise definition of judicial activism – it often seems to be a label people use for the decisions they don’t like – it seems reasonable to say that a court is activist if it overturns the actions of the democratically elected branches of government and if it overrules precedent. In fact, conservatives, including on the Supreme Court, often have labeled decisions striking down the will of popularly elected legislatures as ‘activist.'”

Activism is in the eye of the beholder, but there is no doubt that conservatives have been at the forefront of scolding courts for ruling against them. Taking that to the extreme is Newt Gingrich who recently told Bob Schieffer on Face the Nation that he advocated arresting judges to force them to defend unpopular decisions before Congressional hearings. If that isn’t a threat against the judiciary, what is?

The right has very little problem with violating the constitution when it comes to separation of powers. Just this week a conservative judge on the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals gave a Department of Justice attorney an unusual homework assignment. In a case unrelated to the one before the Supreme Court, Judge Jerry Smith wondered whether Obama was suggesting “that it is somehow inappropriate for what he termed ‘unelected’ judges to strike acts of Congress.” Then Smith ordered the attorney to produce a three page letter “stating specifically and in detail in reference to those statements what the authority is of the federal courts in this regard in terms of judicial review. That letter needs to be at least three pages single spaced.”

It is difficult to imagine on what basis this judge has assumed authority to issue such an order. It is a blatantly political and petulant demand that can only be intended to insult and embarrass the DOJ and the President, and has no bearing on the case before him. The President never said that the Supreme Court could not overturn an unconstitutional law. He just said that he didn’t believe that this law was unconstitutional and therefore, in his view, and that of many legal experts, should not be overturned. Judge Smith is a bald-faced partisan and would be more at home on Fox News than on the bench.

The question is, what will Republicans say if the Court upholds the health care reform bill? Would that be an act of judicial tyranny against the will of the people (never mind that the bill was passed by the people’s representatives in congress with super-majorities in both houses)? And how can Republicans continue to rail against Roe v. Wade as the ultimate example of an activist judiciary now that they have established that such a charge is tantamount to tyranny and regarded as a threat?

The answer, of course, is that conservatives will do what they always do: pretend that their prior assertions never existed or don’t apply. They will trudge forward with blindfolds over their eyes and plugs in their ears, unimpeded by anything they said previously, no matter how badly it contradicts what they are saying now. It’s hypocrisy at its best and the Republican way of life.

Fox News Anchor Asks: Did Obama Campaign Threaten To Kill Chelsea Clinton?

Posted by on April 4, 2012 at 3:57 pm. 4 Comments :

This was picked up by Media Matters and represents another incident where Fox News continues to permit their employees to make abhorrent comments with impunity. In this case it was anchor Heather Childers who Tweeted “Thoughts? Did Obama Campaign Threaten Chelsea Clinton’s Life 2 Keep Parents Silent?”

Fox News

Childers question is referencing an article at a far-right blog that is neck-deep in Birtherism and other conspiracy theories. Media Matters has more screen shots of Childers’ Twitter feed where she initially defends her horrific comments. From Media Matters:

The post passes on suggestions from film producer Bettina Viviano about Obama associates threatening individuals to hide secrets about Obama’s eligibility. The post also forwards suggestions that the Obama campaign was involved in the murder of former head of the Arkansas Democratic Party, Bill Gwatney; threatened President Clinton; and “told him that his daughter Chelsea would be next if he opened his mouth.”

Childers insisted that she was only raising the topic for conversation. She repeatedly noted that she welcomes all sides in a debate. What’s offensive about this is that she thinks that an unsupported allegation about the President threatening to murder the child of a political opponent is a legitimate side and worthy of engaging in debate. Perhaps we could ask for “thoughts” on whether Childers is a crack whore who molests children. Hey, I’m just bringing it up as a subject for debate.

An update on the Media Matters page posts a comment from Childers’ boss Michael Clemente, that merely says that Childers “understands this was a mistake.” There was no indication of any punishment or consequences for her actions. And there was nothing that addressed at all a second Tweet by Childers that said “Thoughts: President Obama Channels Joseph Stalin and Attacks Supreme Court Justices.” So after speculating as to whether Obama was a murderer, she ups the ante and speculates that he somehow resembles a mass murderer.

And, as usual, Fox News tolerates this behavior and requires no penalty be paid. Not termination, not suspension, not even a public wrist-slapping. After so many similar incidents without punishment, the only conclusion is that this is behavior that Fox News encourages and very likely rewards.

Fox Nation Asks The Stupidest Questions

Posted by on April 3, 2012 at 4:13 pm. 3 Comments :

Today there are critical Republican primary elections being held in Wisconsin, Maryland, and Washington, D.C. There is a still raging controversy over the shooting of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed teenager in Florida. There is a tornado ravaging northeast Texas including the metropolitan areas of Dallas and Fort Worth. We have ongoing crises in the domestic economy and foreign affairs. And yet, the Fox Nation web site is featuring this story at the top of their page: Does the President Want to Be Emperor?

Fox Nation

With everything that is happening around the country and the world, the Fox Nationalists seem to think that this is a serious question that deserves to be featured in the most prominent spot on their page. What it is in reality is a disparaging assault against President Obama that the accompanying article doesn’t even make an attempt to support. The article begins by saying…

“In divide and conquer fashion, President Obama has recently launched blistering and some have said unprecedented attacks against the following perceived enemies… the Supreme Court, Rep. Paul Ryan, American oil and gas companies, Wall St traders, American insurance companies, families making over $250K per year, and those who question man-made global warming.”

That is not by any intelligible interpretation a bid to become emperor. In fact, all the President is doing is articulating established principles held by Democrats, and most Americans, just as any politician would. He did not attack the Supreme Court. He merely offered his opinion that the court would not rule against the Health Reform bill. And as for oil companies, Wall Street, and the wealthy, Obama has simply restated the same positions that got him elected by a landslide three years ago.

The Fox fabulists are attempting to spin the President’s opposition to extremist right-wing policies as akin to dictatorship. I’m sure that conservatives would prefer that the President never said a word, but that would only be considered democratic to the censorious martinets of the GOP. The president has both a right and a duty to enunciate his platform, and if the right doesn’t like it they should offer competing ideas that think would be better. Since the only ideas they have are the same ones that got us into this economic catastrophe four years ago, I’m not surprised that they chose instead to make absurd declarations about tyranny.

However, if the right wants to ask dumb questions, you might think they would reserve them for an appropriate place for such opinions. Instead they lead their news with this tripe and still expect to be taken seriously as journalists. This is the sort of puerile behavior that is the trademark of Fox News. And we can expect to see much more of it as the campaign progresses into the fall. In fact, expect it to get much worse as they become more desperate for having been saddled with a nominee that no one in their party can stomach.

Breitbart Whitewashing Zimmerman, Blaming Obama For Trayvon Martin Crisis

Posted by on March 29, 2012 at 12:04 pm. 13 Comments :

The folks over at Breitbart’s joint are feverishly striving to exonerate Trayvon Martin’s shooter, George Zimmerman. Their web sites are plastered with stories that either defend Zimmerman or shift the discussion to other persons or subjects.

In one article, Breitbrat Dan Riehl makes the inane argument that ABC News was “reckless” in their decision to release a police videotape showing Zimmerman arriving at the police station for questioning. The video is significant in that it contradicts prior assertions that Zimmerman had been beaten and bloodied by Martin. There is no evidence of any injury to Zimmerman in the video.

Nevertheless, Riehl advances rebuttals that sound as if he is working for the Zimmerman legal defense team. He begins by suggesting that the video was too low quality to reveal anything conclusive. Then, contradicting himself, writes, “True, there appears to be no blood on Zimmerman’s shirt.” Then Riehl invents scenarios wherein Zimmerman was allowed by police to change his allegedly bloody clothes before arriving at the station, which would be a severe violation of procedure and ethics. What’s more, it makes no sense because a bloody shirt would be evidence of a struggle during which Zimmerman could claim to have felt threatened. Why would police suppress evidence that would have justified their decision to release Zimmerman?

Riehl’s account is blatantly biased and incoherent. And he tops it off by blasting ABC for releasing the video saying that the network “should be ashamed of its reckless highlighting of a non-story.” So apparently Riehl is of the opinion that ABC should have kept the video a secret. That’s how Breitbart’s BigJournalism practices the craft of journalism.

Another article, this time by Joel Pollak, editor of Breitbart’s BigGovernment site, seeks to tie President Obama to the Martin story. Pollak’s theory is a nearly incomprehensible mashup of Martin, Obama, and Derrick Bell, the subject of Breitbart’s failed attempt to expose the President as a college radical.

Pollak’s article is titled, “Critical Race Theory and the Trayvon Martin Case.” Critical Race Theory (CRT) is a legal/academic concept that Bell had written about and studied. It holds that there is more to racism than just the attitudes held by individuals, that it is also ingrained in society via traditional economic and judicial hierarchies. Pollak simplistically and falsely begins his narrative by defining CRT as “characterized by white supremacy–an idea Obama invoked by insisting that Americans ‘examine the laws’ that supposedly led to Martin’s death.” To be clear, Pollak is referring to the comment Obama made in response to a reporter’s question:

“I think all of us have to do some soul searching to figure out how does something like this happen. And that means that we examine the laws and the context for what happened.

“And I think every parent in America should be able to understand why it is absolutely imperative that we investigate every aspect of this, and that everybody pulls together — federal, state and local — to figure out exactly how this tragedy happened.”

I’m not sure how any fair person could object to that. Yet that’s the statement that Pollak regards as an evocation of white supremacy. If anything, the Martin tragedy supports CRT by demonstrating the flaws in the judicial system. This is a case where after an unarmed black teenager was shot and killed, his body was tagged as a “John Doe” and tested for drugs. The shooter, on the other hand, was never tested for drugs or alcohol and was released by police with his weapon and no plans to investigate or indict him for any crime. If that isn’t reason enough to examine the laws than what on earth would be?


Pollak continues saying that Obama “waded in, playing up the racial drama,” and then remarkably writes “Obama–the center of the crisis, and to some extent its intended beneficiary.” Obama is only the center of the controversy in the warped minds of extremist, right-wing provocateurs like Pollak. And where he gets the notion that Obama was the “intended” beneficiary is beyond comprehension. If Pollak actually believes that this crisis was conceived and executed to help the President, he is seriously in need of the psychiatric attention that is now available to him thanks to ObamaCare.

Pollak closes by saying that “To speculate that Zimmerman is guilty based on the available facts is one thing; to convict him based on his supposed race, and on Martin’s, is the classic definition of “prejudice.'” However, the people protesting the handling of this affair are not convicting Zimmerman of anything. They are merely demanding that the ordinary process of justice be observed.

Ordinarily after a shooting there is an arrest and an investigation, which could lead to a trial if the evidence warrants. But the Breitbrats are all fired up to whitewash this crime and sweep it under their racist rug. They load up their web sites with tangential stories about celebrity Tweets, and over-zealous protesters, and bogus accusations of media bias, and absurd connections to a conspiratorial White House that must have planned the whole thing.

All I can say is that it’s a damn good thing that Breitbart wasn’t around when Martin Luther King was assassinated. They would surely have defended James Earl Ray and blamed the whole thing on President Johnson.

Fox News Psycho Analyst Keith Ablow: Obama Has It In For America

Posted by on March 28, 2012 at 2:24 pm. 4 Comments :

Fox News’ resident psychiatrist, a member of the Fox News “A” Team, visited Lou Dobbs yesterday on the failing Fox Business Network. The two of them discussed the Trayvon Martin shooting in the unique manner that is typical of the leader in dishonest, uninformed, hyperbolic, right-wing media.

Much of the conversation focused on President Obama’s comments on the subject a few days ago in response to a question from a reporter. The crux of their criticism centered Obama’s personal reflection that “If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon.” Both Dobbs and Ablow were incensed that Obama expressed that personal reflection and accused him of turning the incident into a racial matter. They complained that the President should have sought to unite the country and address the shock that all Americans must feel after hearing about this tragedy. And, oddly enough, that’s exactly what Obama did. Preceding the personal part of his comments, Obama said…

Obama: I think every parent in America should be able to understand why it is absolutely imperative that we investigate every aspect of this, and that everybody pulls together — federal, state and local — to figure out exactly how this tragedy happened.

Nevertheless, Dobbs and Ablow only heard the part of the remarks that they could misconstrue as racial. It is still mind-boggling how rightists can so cavalierly assert that Obama is hell-bent on disparaging white people – like his mother. And it’s rather disingenuous for conservatives like Dobbs and Ablow to portray the Martin incident as a tragedy that ought not to be limited by race, when the other half of the time they are discussing it, they don’t regard it as tragic at all, but simply a case of self defense from an aggressive black teenager.

As usual, Ablow distinguishes himself by making an absurdly remote diagnosis of the President, a man he’s never examined or even met. That is an explicit violation of the standards of ethics of the American Psychiatric Association, which Ablow need not worry about since he was forced to separate himself from the APA due to “ethical differences.” Ablow’s conclusion, on the basis of information he gleaned from a paranoid hallucination, is that Obama is an anti-American zealot on a mission to bring the empire to ruin.

Ablow: As a psychiatrist, there is a certain point, when you get a diagnosis, you say, OK look, absent something that refutes this, this is the diagnosis. A president who hangs around with Rev. Wright – whose wife said that she was never proud of this country – has an edge. He’s got it in for this country. And at moments when there’s an opportunity to fracture the unity, he does.

Setting aside the fact that Ablow is lying about Obama’s relationship with Wright and Michelle’s comments on pride, his assertion that Obama has “got it in for this country” is just plain lunacy. Does he really think that Obama raised himself up from a struggling single-parent home, worked through schooling to achieve honors from one the nation’s most demanding universities, applied his skills to both public and private enterprises, and put himself before a grueling campaign that resulted in his being elected president of the United States, all because he has a hankering to tear it all down?

Where do these nutjobs get these unfathomably ludicrous theories? Do all Fox analysts have to have lobotomies prior to going on the air? Any reputable news enterprise would be embarrassed by having someone like Ablow on their payroll. So it’s a good thing for Ablow that Fox News exists.