Fox Nation Says Obama Is Toxic

Posted by on June 19, 2010 at 11:13 am. 6 Comments :

Fox Nation has portrayed President Obama in so many unflattering poses that it’s hard to keep up with which demonic entity they are associating him with at any given point in time. He has been juxtaposed with terrorists, tyrants, mobsters, and that old standby, Hitler. Today the Fox Nationalists, in an attempt to disparage the President, have tread on new territory.

In the wake of a massive oil spill, courtesy of British Petroleum and the regulatory apparatus of the Bush Administration, Fox is apparently trying to cast Obama as a horrifying freak, a monster, an alien. That will surely be well received by the FoxPods who frequent their web site. But it is just another example of the childish and disrespectful level of discourse that is routine for Fox News. To the Fox Nationalists the enemy isn’t BP, it’s the President, the victims on the Gulf coast, and the people in the public and private sectors struggling to repair the damage.

The funny thing about this is that the idiots at Fox have utterly mistaken the imagery they are attempting to exploit. The picture they have inserted to represent Obama is actually the comic superhero, Toxic Avenger. He is a fighter for justice and the bane of evildoers, particularly evil politicians and others in positions of power. Note the American flag that is part of the Toxic Avenger’s logo.

What’s more, the Foxies have once again demonstrated that they have tin ear when it comes to political messaging. The Toxic Avenger became what he is by having been shoved into a vat of chemical waste. He is the victim of noxious pollutants that represent a lethal danger to society. Gee, is that reminiscent of any current event that is presently dominating the news and the public’s attention?

So while the President is currently battling the worst environmental catastrophe in our nation’s history, Fox attempts to cast him as a monster, but instead portrays him as a champion of justice who has been grossly deformed by environmental contaminants. And the image even shows him with a mop, ready to clean up the mess caused by the greedy and evil corporatists, and the politicians and regulators of the previous administration, who permitted this disaster to occur.

Nice work, Fox. I’ll take the Toxic Avenger any day over the Bush defilers of the planet, the criminals at BP, and the Republican apologists for the oil barons.

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Joe The Plumber: Living In The Past

Posted by on June 17, 2010 at 7:11 pm. 6 Comments :

It would take something uncommonly funny to resurrect any interest in the sublimely irrelevant Joe “The Plumber” Wurzelbacher. And wouldn’t you know it, Joe obliges:

“I don’t listen to Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck or Sean Hannity because I never want to be accused to stealing their material.”

What does he think he is, a stand-up comic? Is he really worried that he might hear one of his ideological allies pop out an anti-liberal gem and then he’d absentmindedly pass it off as one of his own (as if he’s ever had an original thought)? Someone needs to explain to him how the vast [fill-in-the-blank]-wing conspiracy works. You’re supposed to promote shared ideas and commonly held views.

It’s probably for the best that he isn’t listening to Limbaugh, Beck, and Hannity. That would be a healthy prescription for anyone, even a delusional moron who has far exceeded his allotted fifteen minutes. But you have to admire Joey the P’s persistence in grasping for a shred of limelight. Especially his work ethic. He doesn’t just show up at a Tea Party and start shouting at imaginary socialists.

“I come up with my own facts. Usually, they’re from 40-year-old encyclopedias. I don’t look at the new stuff because the new stuff’s been rewritten. But you take an encyclopedia written 40 years ago and you take a new one today, and you’ll find a world of difference.”

Exactly! That’s why old Joe still thinks we have to defend ourselves against the Soviet Union. It’s why he refuses to fall for that nonsense about a moon landing. And he can’t wait to buy the next ABBA 8-track. Although he remains confused about why so many people are talking about the B-movie actor who became governor of California.

I would go Joe one better and refuse to read any encyclopedia printed after Gutenberg. Everyone knows that by turning the press into a mass medium it fundamentally transformed it into a progressive propaganda machine. News and information should only be available to the wealthy and powerful, as God intended.


FreedomWorks Boycotts MSNBC Over New Right Doc

Posted by on June 17, 2010 at 3:45 pm. 12 Comments :

Tea BaggerYesterday Chris Matthews hosted a documentary look at the Tea Party, right-wing militias, Republican extremists, and other components of what he calls “The Rise of the New Right.” It was a generally adequate compilation of the genesis and evolution of the year-old “movement” to take our country back – to the Dark Ages.

While Matthews touched on many of the most troubling aspects of the New Crusaders, there was a noticeable absence of fervor when discussing the very real threats posed by a small but zealous group of reactionaries bent on terminating their ideological rivals. The documentary efficiently checked off the major flash points, but did so in a rather detached manner that diminishes the dangers posed by giving serious consideration to a phony party that was created by corporatists, fed by media, and dependent on the willful ignorance that is the byproduct of greed and fear.

Nevertheless, the subjects of this program have gotten their panties in a bunch by what they regard as slander and a “left-wing propaganda hit piece”. In response, FreedomWorks has joined with Tea Partiers to boycott an MSNBC advertiser. For some reason they singled out Dawn Dishwashing Liquid. From the FreedomWorks web site:

“Tea Party leaders from coast to coast are fighting back against the smears by boycotting one of the network’s sponsors, Dawn dish soap, until they cut off funding to MSNBC. FreedomWorks believes it is important to join this effort, and show unity with other Tea Party groups in the face of these attacks by writing, calling and faxing the offices of Dawn (and parent company, Procter and Gamble) to ask them to stop subsidizing these vicious attacks by MSNBC and Chris Matthews.”

There is a certain measure of irony in this boycott initiative. FreedomWorks just became a sponsor of Glenn Beck’s radio program. Beck told his listeners that accepting FreedomWorks as a sponsor was a “hard decision” because he did not “want to send the message to you that the way to restore our republic is through the political process only.” Despite his reluctance, Beck gave a full-throated endorsement to FreedomWorks and urged his audience to “link arms” with them and to “get on every bandwagon” they can.

First of all, Beck’s pretension that he has some sort of aversion to politics is perhaps one of the best examples yet of his severance from reality. He rants about politics and Washington every single day. But more to the point, he has been the target of a surprisingly successful boycott that has cost him more than a hundred advertisers. Beck has taken to the air to denounce these activists as commies and thugs who are out to deprive him of his Constitutional rights. But now he is embracing a new sponsor (one of the few not ashamed to be associated with him) that is engaging in the same tactics that he fiercely condemns.

I have no problem with any group engaging in a boycott. It’s a time-honored part of democracy. If FreedomWorks wants dirty dishes they are free to boycott Dawn or Ivory or Joy or any dishwashing liquid they like. I am curious though as to why they singled out Dawn. Perhaps it has something to do with this:

“For 32 years, the International Bird Rescue Research Center has had a surprise weapon in the battle against the oil: Dawn dishwashing detergent.

After a 1971 oil spill, the California-based nonprofit group began experimenting with products including paint thinner and nail polish remover to find the least traumatizing method for cleaning oiled animals. In 1978, the researchers settled on the blue liquid soap.”

Dawn’s website claims they have rescued thousands of animals over 35 years. They have donated 7,000 bottles of detergent to the current oil spill crisis in the Gulf. Maybe a crony corporate enterprise like FreedomWorks doesn’t like the fact that Dawn eliminates oil or that they help wildlife (for the record, Dawn is an oil-based detergent and may not be the best overall choice for the environment). Maybe an organization so wrapped in hypocrisy should be boycotting Palmolive, because when it comes to hypocrisy, “they’re soaking in it” (h/t Madge).

It’s unlikely that the FreedomWorks boycott will amount to much. Targeting a single product wouldn’t cause much of a dent even if they were successful in getting P&G to stop running ads for Dawn. And FreedomWorks isn’t even focusing their effort on Chris Matthews’ show but at the MSNBC network. Their announcement of the boycott leads off with this bit of bravado:

“If MSNBC‘s ratings could go down any further, they would after this show.”

FreedomWorks may be disheartened to learn that the Matthews documentary posted the second highest rating for the network during primetime as well as being the #2 program in its time period. The documentary performed more than 60% better than Matthews’ average rating for May 2010.

If Tea Baggers don’t like seeing themselves portrayed as militant nutcases, then they should stop acting like them and associating with them. They should stop embracing leaders like Beck, Sarah Palin, and Newt Gingrich, who frequently use hostile rhetoric. Gingrich even called the Tea Party the “militant wing of the GOP.”

Lashing out at relatively mild documentaries and boycotting their advertisers isn’t going to gain them much respect. To the contrary, it will reveal just how small and impotent a minority they really are. And as for losing viewers, it’s not like FreedomWorks members were ever in MSNBC’s audience in the first place.

This Just In: As usual, Stephen Colbert has uncovered the REAL conspiracy…


Rick Barber Spills The Beans, Glenn Beck Froths At The Mouth

Posted by on June 15, 2010 at 7:16 pm. 4 Comments :

Rick Barber Founders

The new campaign ad for Alabama congressional hopeful, Rick Barber, is going to anger some very prominent people. The unintentionally hilarious ad features Barber playing the role of a modern revolutionary recruiting Sam Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and George Washington, into a conspiracy against the IRS, health care, and President Obama. The high school quality playlet concludes with Barber asking the founders if they are with him. To which Washington replies, “Gather your armies.”

First of all, historians will be shocked by the numerous inaccuracies crammed into the sixty second commercial. Then there are the veterans who would be offended by the suggestion that armed insurrection against the U.S. is an acceptable form of political dissent. And other patriots will object to these pretend revolutionaries using the American flag as a table cloth. And, of course, Stephen Colbert will likely want to sue Barber for appropriating his persona (but not nearly as funny).

But who could have anticipated that Glenn Beck would emerge as the harshest critic of Barber? Beck called Barber “a dope” and said that he is “one of dumbest people I have seen.” You have to wonder what would set Beck off to this degree. After all, Barber’s ad was as close to a tribute to Beck as could be imagined. He featured Beck’s three favorite Founders. He mirrored Beck’s disingenuous devotion to the Constitution. He covered the conspiratorial territory that Beck plods incessantly. He did everything but genuflect and chant Beck’s name. Beck even prefaced his criticism by saying that he agreed with Barber’s description of the IRS.

So why is Beck so outraged and offended? Perhaps the answer lies in these remarks by Beck on his radio program today:

“How many times did they stand up peacefully? How many times did they stand up and get onto a ship and vomit off the side of it so they could go deliver a letter to the king? Well, I know it’s been a tough couple of years, it may not be time yet to gather your armies.”

Setting aside the vomiting Founders, Beck tells us here precisely why he’s mad: Barber jumped the gun, and in the process, spilled the beans. Beck isn’t upset at Barber for overtly advocating violent rebellion. He’s upset that Barber spoke too soon. Beck isn’t ready yet. And Barber committed the cardinal sin of upstaging Beck and usurping his role as the Messianic leader of the revolt.

This conclusion is painfully obvious. Why else would Beck get so worked up over a call to “gather your armies?” The last sentence of his new novel (released today by coincidence(?)) menacingly declares…

“We’re everywhere. Stay with us. I’ll see you soon. The fight starts tomorrow.”

How exactly is that different than Barber’s call to arms? OK, Beck’s book is fiction, or as he calls it, “faction.” Beck says that the events in the book are made up, but he also says that the ideas are rooted in the truth. But Barber’s ad is not exactly non-fiction, given that he is seen conversing with long-dead historical figures.

So there really is no difference between them other than Barber’s audacity for getting out in front of Beck’s parade. Beck has an event coming up in August that is scheduled to be the launch party for his next book, “The Plan,” a 100 year blueprint for the restoration of America. I can understand why Beck would be angry at Barber for stealing the thunder he hopes to rain down on his disciples. He has been planning for the release of The Plan for months. How dare Barber spoil it all by promoting his own crackpot schemes to get elected to Congress? That’s what Beck is so infuriated by. Beck will lead his troops into battle when the time is right and not before. And woe be to anyone who imperils his plot or gets in his way.

Bonus Hypocrisy: Keith Olbermann also criticized Barber’s ad, but Beck found no common quarter with him. In fact, Beck bashed Olbermann as a…

“…two-faced, no talent, soon to be washed up, alcoholic, throw yourself off the ledge of a building cause you such a loser, kind of guy.”

So when Beck calls Barber out it’s righteous indignation. When Olbermann does it, it makes him a loser. More importantly, I’ve never heard any suggestion that Olbermann was an alcoholic. But Beck’s litany of insults paint an accurate picture of Beck himself. Beck is a former abuser of alcohol and drugs. He admits to being suicidal on multiple occasions. He has lost about half his audience since the beginning of the year. And neither of his faces have any talent.


Christian Broadcasting Network v. News Corpse

Posted by on June 15, 2010 at 1:48 pm. 15 Comments :

The Christian Broadcasting Network, home of The 700 Club, has notified News Corpse of a defamatory posting on this web site. I received an email from their legal team that included an attached letter (pdf) from Louis Isakoff, Vice President and General Counsel of Pat Robertson’s Regent University. Isakoff is representing Pat Robertson’s son (and CBN’s CEO), Gordon. The letter said in part:

“It has recently been brought to our attention that your internet site, newscorpse.com, has posted comments from Cheryl Spencer which are false, misleading, and defamatory. A copy of that post is included with this letter. The posting accused Mr. Robertson of adultery. Obviously this accusation is inaccurate.”

The letter goes on to demand that I “remove the posting immediately” to “avoid legal action” against me. The posting in question is over two years old and it did not address Robertson in any way. It was about the hiring of the late Tony Snow, former Fox News host and Bush press secretary, by CNN. The offending material was contained in a comment made by a reader. Cheryl Spencer, whom I do not know, made a comment, that I did not endorse, concerning Robertson’s marital fidelity. News Corpse, as an advocate for higher standards in the media, respects free speech and provides an open forum for opinion from all ideological perspectives.

CBN and Robertson are demonstrating a rare measure of sensitivity by bringing down the hammer on a small Internet publisher of opinion over an old article that didn’t even mention their client. Isakoff may be a Yale lawyer and the head of the legal division of a big university and media enterprise, but he is woefully uninformed on matters of new media publishing and free expression. Had he taken the time to research the matter, he would have quickly discovered that US Code Title 47, Chapter 5, Sub-Chapter II, Part I, § 230(c) provides immunity from any cause of action related to comments posted on blogs:

(1) Treatment of publisher or speaker
No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.

There is an abundance of case law affirming the protection for bloggers from lawsuits stemming from comments made by readers. The Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Citizen Media Law Project have extensive documentation of this. And that protection even applies when a blogger is notified of an allegedly defamatory comment and declines to remove it.

I can’t say whether this misunderstanding of the law is typical of Regent University lawyers, but there are certainly curious circumstances associated with that crowd. The Bush administration hired some 150 of them, including White House counsel Monica Goodling, who took the fifth before a congressional committee investigating the potentially illegal firing of U.S. Attorneys by the Bushies for partisan political reasons. And the presence of 150 lawyers in the Bush Department of Justice from a single Christian law school that was less than thirty years old is startling and unprecedented.

I have no intention of removing the comment posted on my site. I believe that the demand by CBN is without merit and is deliberately intended to harass me and to stifle free expression. This sort of bullying tactic has a chilling effect on individuals and organizations who seek only to exercise their Constitutional rights and provide forums for others to do so as well. It’s disappointing to see a religious institution, who’s rights are protected by the very same Constitutional amendment, exploit their power by threatening innocent authors and publishers.


Glenn Beck Admits He’s A Fraud – Again

Posted by on June 14, 2010 at 1:09 pm. 13 Comments :

In the past Glenn Beck has revealed that he takes seriously his self-appraisal as a “rodeo clown.” He often describes himself as an entertainer. He tells his audience that “if you take what I say as gospel, you’re an idiot.” He has been exposed for shedding less than sincere tears on camera. He even admitted that there is a legitimate case for global warming despite his frequent mockery of it.

It’s hard to find anything that Beck actually stands for. His hypocrisy is legendary. And in today’s USA Today Beck adds to the list of his adventures in artifice. In the interview he was asked about the writing of his upcoming novel The Overton Window. This is what he said:

“There’s clearly no way that I’m sitting behind a typewriter or word program and pounding this out. … I have my vision and need someone to make sure that vision stays there.”

On the title page of the book, Beck cites three “contributors” with whom he shares credit. It’s rather surprising that anyone would consent to being saddled with credit for writing what appears to be an unintentionally hilariously piece of literary garbage. But it is not surprising that Beck couldn’t have written this book by himself.

Beck’s schedule already includes a daily three hour radio show, another hour on his TV program, numerous guest spots on other Fox News shows, and live personal appearances around the country. Where would he find time to write this, or any other book, and still be the devoted family man and father of four that he claims to be?

Beck’s admission that he doesn’t sit behind the typewriter makes no distinction between his new novel or his many other published works. This means that all of his frenzied fans who gobble up his nonsense in printed form are being ripped off because Beck is clearly not the author of the tomes he peddles with his name on it.

It’s unlikely, however, that his fans will hold it against him. They obviously are not the most discerning consumers to begin with. And as long as the final product affirms their previously held misperceptions of this fragile, tyranny-destined world, they’ll be happy – if you can call that kind of paranoid, doom-laden mindset happiness.

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WSJ: The Alien In The White House

Posted by on June 9, 2010 at 12:37 pm. 6 Comments :

The right-wing media long ago cemented its status as a shrill, extremist platform for failed conservative positions, pundits, and politicians. Often it melded all three into its version of super-troopers, peddling partisan rhetoric and propaganda. Fox News, not surprisingly, is the best example of this with their employment of media-politico crossovers like Sarah Palin and Karl Rove.

However, to the extent that some of the more sober purveyors of news sought to maintain an image of seriousness and thoughtful analysis, even that boundary has been breached.

When Rupert Murdoch purchased the Wall Street Journal it was a respected news organization that, at least outwardly, aspired to adhere to established journalistic principles. Murdoch insisted that he was committed to preserving that heritage and that he would not impose his views on the paper’s editorial process. But this morning any aspiration toward ethical journalism was abandoned and replaced with an embrace of the most deranged lunacy straight off of the supermarket tabloid rack.

Dorothy Rabinowitz composed a screed for the Journal that is so devoid of rationality it makes an argument for her family to invoke conservatorship and have her confined to an institution for her own protection. It begins with the title The Alien In The White House. Despite a disclaimer at the end of the fourth paragraph that it has “nothing to do with delusions about his birthplace cherished by the demented fringe,” Rabinowitz has to know that the imagery in her words plants the very message she claims not to be espousing. The demented fringe will devour it with relish. She wants her readers to conjure up thoughts of a foreign, illegitimate, usurper to power.

Fox Nation Obama AlienIn support of this promotion of birtherism, Murdoch’s web site, Fox Nation, republished Rabinowitz’s column with a graphic exclamation point. The visual cues employed here escalate the routine insanity of those who believe that Obama was born in Kenya, to an even more absurd insinuation that he is not even from this planet. At this rate the Weekly World News may sue Murdoch for infringing on their fringiness.

But even the message to which Rabinowitz is laying claim distastefully casts President Obama as something other than a patriotic public servant. In fact, she paints him as borderline treasonous. In her view the President aligns himself with foreigners and pursues their interests and not those of Americans.

“A great part of America now understands that this president’s sense of identification lies elsewhere, and is in profound ways unlike theirs. He is hard put to sound convincingly like the leader of the nation, because he is, at heart and by instinct, the voice mainly of his ideological class.”

Never mind the fact that it was a majority of Americans, not foreigners, who elected him. Rabinowitz imagines that the country has a perception of the President as having a “distant relation to the country.” However, the truth is that she is the one who feels a distance from the mainstream citizens who rejected the policies of her ideological class; the policies that drove the nation into a financial ditch and embroiled it in two costly wars.

Ironically, the first example Rabinowitz offers of Obama’s other-worldliness is that, upon moving into the White House, he failed to find a place for a bust of Winston Churchill. She is literally arguing that by removing the bust of a foreigner Obama is aligning himself with foreigners. That is the level of cognitive disconnect the right suffers from in general. And, of course, had he placed Churchill’s bust on the mantle in the East Room, he would have been criticized for glorifying a foreigner and harassed about why an American didn’t get that spot of honor on the mantle.

It is to be expected that broadsheets like the Weekly World News publish stories about presidents meeting with Venutians, but it represents a devastating collapse of integrity to see the Wall Street Journal treading that territory. And the fact that this nonsense is plastered across multiple Murdoch properties proves that it is his initiative. He cannot pretend to be removed from the hysterical madness that has permeated his enterprise. He is responsible for Rabinowitz’s incoherent daftness, just as he is responsible for Glenn Beck’s fascist evangelism, and Bill O’Reilly’s arrogant racism, and the rest of the crackpot conspiratorialists at Fox.

If Rupert Murdoch ever hoped that by acquiring the Journal he would rehabilitate his reputation, he has fouled that up entirely. Rather than having the Journal’s respected history rub off on him and polish his legacy, he has rubbed off on the Journal and stained it forever. Nice work, Rupe.

ADDENDUM: With regard to the bust of Churchill, Rabinowitz was even more off base than I thought. First of all, Churchill’s bust was on loan from the British embassy and was returned before Obama was inaugurated, so he had nothing to do with it not being displayed. What’s more, Obama put a bust of Martin Luther King in the place where Churchill’s had been. And this is what Rabinowitz is asserting is somehow un-American?


Glenn Beck’s Campaign For American Supremacy

Posted by on June 7, 2010 at 4:05 pm. 3 Comments :

Over the years that Glenn Beck has been a public figure there have been numerous representations of him as a rabid, right-wing, conspiracy-obsessed, extremist. All of which were true. In his inimitable way, and despite all the corroborating evidence, Beck countered such portrayals as smears and sought to cast his critics as Nazi sympathizers or worse. To that end he embraced Jonah Goldberg’s absurd fabrication of what he called “Liberal Fascism” – about as oxymoronic a word pairing as there ever was.

Last week, however, Beck sealed the deal. He let his true colors show by taking to the air and promoting the writings of Elizabeth Dilling, an avowed racist, anti-Semite, and Nazi supporter, who praised Hitler and called President Eisenhower “Ike the Kike.” With this testimonial Beck joins the likes of David Duke and the Stormfront crowd as admirers of Dilling’s commitment to hate.

This is really nothing new for Beck or the rightist faction from which he evolved. Beck and other conservatives have lately been advocating a distinctive philosophy they call “American Exceptionalism.” While its original definition had more to do with a unique quality that was attributed to a new nation of immigrants who were committed to forming a democratic republic, it has been twisted into something much uglier by modern conservatives. Whereas it once referred to a nation and people who were different, the New Exceptionalists define it as a nation and people who are better. It has undergone a transformation from American Exceptionalism to American Supremacy. In this form, America is considered to be entitled to a superior status among nations. It is stronger, more virtuous, and favored by God. And it is exempt from the moral boundaries within which other nations must abide.

No one embodies this doctrinal mutation more fittingly than Beck. In recent months he has blurred the lines between political pundit and religious cult leader. He has declared that the Constitution was the result of divine inspiration and is as immutable as holy scripture. He regards the nation’s founders as saintly. One of those founders, Thomas Jefferson, expressly disagrees with Beck. On the matter of Constitutional immutability, Jefferson wrote that “…with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times.” That’s hardly an argument for strict constructionalism. And with regard to the divinity of himself and his contemporaries, Jefferson spoke disparagingly of the arrogance of one generation dictating the terms of existence to their heirs, castigating those who would “…ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human.”

Of course, Beck could hardly be expected to understand that sort of ego-less self-awareness and humility. He is far to busy canonizing repugnant figures like Dilling and his political mentor, Cleon Skousen, another Nazi sympathizer. And he is also preoccupied with exalting himself as the only mortal with the transcendent vision to see the dastardly schemes being perpetrated by President Obama, unions, environmentalists and progressives.

Beck’s campaign for American supremacy is as bigoted as Hitler’s doctrine of a Master Race. The notion that one group of people, on the basis of their nationality, are better than others, is as repulsive as one group asserting superiority on the basis of skin color. Yet this is Beck’s unabashed position, and he promulgates it daily.

There is a glaring irony in the right’s promotion of American supremacy. Their delusion that they are better than everyone else contradicts their affinity for American Averagism. They abhor those they portray as elitists. If you graduated from Harvard you are automatically out of the mainstream. If you dedicate your life to public service you are out of touch with ordinary working Americans. And the highest standard by which a leader is judged is whether you would like to have a beer with him, as if the souse at the end of the bar sucking on a Budweiser is the best qualified person to negotiate a nuclear arms treaty.

So, in fact, the people who claim to be superior actually have an aversion to the real character traits that signify achievement. At the same time, they revere traits that are decidedly lowbrow. Yet these ignorant dullards have an absurdly high, and undeserved, impression of themselves and believe that they are best suited to lead the world.

Rightist theocons like Beck are hypersensitive to charges of racism or fascist leanings. They have spent many years trying to shield themselves from such connections, mostly by accusing their critics of the very same thing. But now Beck has come out of the Nazi closet with his endorsement of Dilling. It is the most blatant admission of his true bigoted self to date. And he can no longer hide from it. Neither can his enablers at Fox News And News Corp. If these people don’t want to be called Nazis, they ought not to praise them and promote their views.


Glenn Beck Blames 9/11 On Major Fox News Shareholder

Posted by on June 4, 2010 at 11:21 am. 24 Comments :

Glenn Beck BlackboardI wonder how this one is gonna go over at the next News Corp board meeting.

On his program yesterday, Glenn Beck embarked on another of his famously illogical rants. This one had something to do with the Israeli encounter with activists seeking to break the blockade in the Persian Gulf. Somehow Beck segued into a discussion of 9/11 and an offer made by a Saudi prince to help with restoration efforts.

Prince Alwaleed bin Talal approached New York’s then-mayor Rudy Giuliani and offered $10 million to help the city recover. Giuliani, in a fit of intolerance, refused the money. In the retelling of these events, Beck hypothesized that the money was tainted and that the Saudi donor was aligned with the terrorists who flew the planes into the World Trade Center towers:

“Do you remember what happened right after 9/11 with Rudy Giuliani? Do you remember Saudi Arabia came and said, we want to help. This guy [pointing at Prince Alwaleed bin Talal al-Saud] came over and said ‘I want to give you a $10 million dollar check.’ Rudy Giuliani said, ‘you see that over there? I don’t think we want your help. You already sent us help. And you flew that help into … the trade centers.‘ The same prince later blamed the U.S. policy for the attacks. Giuliani said, take your check, we don’t want your money.”

I’m not sure how any of that related to the incident in the Persian Gulf. Beck is notorious for constructing incoherent scenarios that reflect nothing more than his hallucinatory imagination. But the real problem here is that the Saudi Prince who Beck explicitly accused of being part of the Al Qaeda gang who attacked Manhattan on 9/11, is actually the largest shareholder of Fox News’ parent, News Corp, other than Rupert Murdoch and members of his family. That makes him Beck’s boss. Prince Alwaleed is also a close friend of Murdoch and former President Bush.

Set aside for the moment that Alwaleed is an international financier who has never been implicated in terrorism or affiliated with terrorists. Thus, Beck’s accusation is the most vile sort of slander. It’s typical of Beck’s hypocrisy that he would fiercely reject the notion of taking any money from this person that he regards as a terrorist, yet Beck is taking money from him every day as an employee of the company that Alwaleed owns a significant portion of. It’s also typical that Beck’s appreciation for facts is so limited as to not even acknowledge this relationship.

So what consequences will there be for Beck calling Alwaleed a terrorist? Beck has survived calling President Obama a racist. He has survived the loss of millions of dollars due to an advertiser boycott. He has survived equating social justice to Marxism and telling his viewers to leave their churches if they practice it. He has survived hosting (and agreeing with) Michael Scheuer, who said that the only hope for America is for Bin Laden to attack us again with weapons of mass destruction. Can Beck survive calling the owner of his network a terrorist?

Murdoch and his henchman, Fox CEO Roger Ailes, are in a difficult position. If they do nothing they risk Alwaleed punishing them by dumping his stock. That would likely result in a plunging value for News Corp shares. If they fire Beck they could unleash a backlash from the Beck Confederacy of Dunces that could result in a massive exodus of their core viewers. Even more troublesome is the potential for violent responses from the aggrieved BeckPods.

If I were forced to make a prediction, I would lean toward everyone doing nothing. The past tells us that Fox News is disinclined to ever acknowledge flaws or wrongdoing. And the major players are all business people who may regard their financial prospects as their highest priority – even Alwaleed. Beck may get a stern talking to, and he may have to promise to be more careful in the future, but I think it is unlikely that he would be terminated over this if he wasn’t terminated over advocating more terrorist attacks on our country.

Perhaps the effect of Beck’s cumulative transgressions may lead to a more severe response, but there’s been no evidence of that in the past. It’s possible that Murdoch may be itching to ditch Beck. He has been attempting to polish his legacy as a serious newspaperman in his golden years. But he could easily be dissuaded from taking action by Ailes and by his fear of the Becklash.

If I’m wrong, and Beck is set adrift, it would be to the credit of News Corp’s management. Although why they didn’t act sooner will still remain a blot on their managerial record. But if I’m right, it would just further affirm Fox’s status as wholly unethical, utterly unprofessional, thoroughly dishonest, and blatantly self-serving. It would reinforce their position that disseminating propaganda is more important than respect for the truth or responsible journalism. Now, which side of that equation do you think Fox would come out on?


Fox News Ratings Plummet In May

Posted by on June 4, 2010 at 7:54 am. 12 Comments :

The latest ratings report for cable news networks reveals a sharp decline for America’s #1 provider of right-wing propaganda. Fox News is leaking more than the BP oil rig in the gulf. According to TV By the Numbers:

In May, all of Fox News’ primetime programs posted their worst 25-54 demo deliveries in a year or more. May represents The O’Reilly Factor’s worst performance since January 2009, Hannity’s lowest delivery to date since taking over the time period in January 2009 and On the Record’s lowest since May 2009. Fox Report with Shep Smith had its lowest demo delivery since December 2008.

Even worse for Fox, their ratings have dropped about 20-35% in almost every hour of the day from their numbers at the beginning of the year. Fox’s stars were all particularly hurt in the key advertising demographic of 25-54 year olds. Neil Cavuto was down 29%, Bill O’Reilly dropped 30%, and Sean Hannity sunk 35%. Glenn Beck was not immune either. Despite his claim on his program last week that his numbers had risen, the truth is that he suffered a 23% drop in the demo and 26% in total viewers.

To be sure, the cable news market was fairly soft last month. The only network that posted increases was CNN, and that was likely due to the favorable comparisons over their previous dismal performance. This ratings report is nothing to brag about for any of the big players. But Fox hit some milestone lows that need to be put in perspective considering their proclivity for lying about their market position. Beck has already made ludicrous claims about his numbers, and O’Reilly spends half his time boasting about himself.

While Fox remains in the top spot for cable news, we need to remember two things: 1) Cable news is a small market that in total draws about half the audience of the broadcast news providers. And 2) Being #1 is not a validation of quality. Just ask anyone who’s ever eaten at McDonalds.