The Seventh Sense

Dear Fox News

If you're going to have an article entitled "Alarm Grows Among Dems About Obama’s Chances", shouldn't you have in there a quote from at least, oh, one Democrat who is, as the title suggests, actually alarmed about Obama's chances?

How To Apologize

What is this?  Like, the tenth Limbaugh post in a row?

No, not really.  This one is a little different.  It's a public service message on how to apologize.  Or actually, how NOT to apologize, using Limbaugh's apology as an instructional template.

(Yeah, this is a Limbaugh post. Who am I kidding?)

So let's look at the text of the apology, as it appeared on Limbaugh's website on Saturday.  My comments will be in bold.

“For over 20 years...

Sorry.  Have to stop already.  First of all, the proper way to apologize to a person is to apologize to that person.  When Ed Schultz called Laura Ingraham a "slut" on his radio show, he apologized (on his television show) and then took himself off the air for a week.  But before he did any of that, he called Laura Ingraham on the phone and apologized personally.  He didn't bury his apology on some Saturday website posting.

"For over 20 years, I have illustrated the absurd with absurdity, three hours a day, five days a week. 

Rule number two: Don't start off your apology by discussing your resume and success.  An apology  isn't about how great or successful or wonderful you are a person.

In this instance, I chose the wrong words in my analogy of the situation. I did not mean a personal attack on Ms. Fluke.

Rule number three:  Don't lie.  On its face, Limbaugh meant it as a personal attack on Ms. Fluke.  He spent three shows, three hours each, on the subject -- repeatedly talking about how much sex Ms. Fluke has.

I think it is absolutely absurd that during these very serious political times, we are discussing personal sexual recreational activities before members of Congress. I personally do not agree that American citizens should pay for these social activities. What happened to personal responsibility and accountability? Where do we draw the line? If this is accepted as the norm, what will follow? Will we be debating if taxpayers should pay for new sneakers for all students that are interested in running to keep fit? 

Rule number four:  In an apology, your opinions about the surrounding circumstances or the atmosphere are irrelevant.  You did wrong.  Be contrite.  Say it.  Don't use the apology as a launching point for your opinions about other things.

In my monologue, I posited that it is not our business whatsoever to know what is going on in anyone’s bedroom nor do I think it is a topic that should reach a Presidential level.

Rule number five:  Don't shift focus.  You may have been trying to make a point when you hurled insults at someone for three days straight, but that is irrelevant. 

My choice of words was not the best, and in the attempt to be humorous, I created a national stir. I sincerely apologize to Ms. Fluke for the insulting word choices.’’

Rule number six:  Understand what you are apologizing about.  Here, it sounds like Rush is saying "I wish I had found better words to say that you want to have sex all the time."  In fact, I suspect that is what he is saying.

And that ends Rush's "apology" and hence, my analysis of it.  The last point is the most offensive, for as he later explained on his radio show, he was only apologizing for his "word choice" with respect to using the words "slut" and "prostitute".  That's it.

So, here's a list of things that Rush said about Ms. Fluke (as well as women in general), for which he doesn't apologize... (and remember, he could be talking about your girlfriend, mother, daughter, sister, or YOU):

March 1, 2012:

Limbaugh says Fluke is "having so much sex, it's amazing she can still walk".  He also asked "Who bought your condoms in sixth grade?" During the same show, he said:

So, Ms. Fluke and the rest of you feminazis, here's the deal. If we are going to pay for your contraceptives, and thus pay for you to have sex, we want something for it, and I'll tell you what it is. We want you to post the videos online so we can all watch.

March 2, 2012:

Limbaugh he offered what he said was a "compromise" to contraception coverage: purchasing "all the women at Georgetown University as much aspirin to put between their knees as possible". He continued that saying he "[ran] some numbers" on contraception costs and arguing that contraception coverage was "flat-out thievery" that would force taxpayers to pay to "satisfy the sexual habits of female law students at Georgetown". Later, he dismissed concerns over lack of access to contraception coverage and mocked Fluke's congressional testimony, affecting a baby's voice and pretending to cry, saying: "I'm going broke having sex. I need government to provide me condoms and contraception. It's not fair." He asked, "Ms. Fluke, have you ever heard of not having sex? Have you ever heard of not having sex so often?" 

He continued, saying that Georgetown should establish a "Wilt Chamberlain scholarship ... exclusively for women". He described Fluke as "a woman who is happily presenting herself as an immoral, baseless, no-purpose-to-her life woman. She wants all the sex in the world whenever she wants it, all the time, no consequences. No responsibility for her behavior."

March 3, 2012

Limbaugh defended his previous comments about Fluke and complained that "not one person says that, 'Well, did you ever think about maybe backing off the amount of sex that you have?". Limbaugh said that requiring insurance companies to cover contraception is "no different than if somebody knocked on my door that I don't know and said, 'You know what? I'm out of money. I can't afford birth-control pills, and I'm supposed to have sex with three guys tonight.' " On her parents being proud of her he said, "I'm gonna button my lip on that one."

He went on to say that if his daughter had testified that "she's having so much sex she can't pay for it and wants a new welfare program to pay for it," he'd be "embarrassed" and "disconnect the phone", "go into hiding", and "hope the media didn't find me".

He continued later, "Oh! Does she have more boyfriends? They're lined up around the block. They would have been in my day." He continued that Fluke testified that her "sex life is active. She's having sex so frequently that she can't afford all the birth-control pills that she needs. That's what she's saying."

Remember, Rush said he wasn't attacking Fluke personally.  And for everything about, he doesn't feel the need to apologize.

RIP Andrew Breitbart: Death Of A Douchebag, Indeed

So yesterday we learn of the sudden passing of Andrew Breitbart at the age of 43, from "natural causes".

There is a convention in polite society that you do not speak ill of the dead.  Or at the very least, that you allow some time for the body to cool before you reflect -- politely -- on one's past.  And I admire that convention.  There is, after all, his wife and two children who are mourning today.

But Breitbart's wife and children are not likely to read this post.  And what's more, Andrew Breitbart himself didn't adhere to that convention. From Michael Calderone at Politico, we see how Brietbart himself talked about Ted Kennedy:

Andrew Breitbart, a Washington Times columnist who oversees Breitbart.com and BigHollywood.com, tapped into the anti-Kennedy vein in the hours after the senator’s death was announced, posting a series of Twitter messages in which he called Kennedy a “villain,” a “duplicitous bastard” and a “prick.”

"I'm more than willing to go off decorum to ensure THIS MAN is not beatified,” Breitbart wrote. “Sorry, he destroyed lives. And he knew it."

He also tweeted, famously, "Why do you grant a BULLY special status upon his death?" 

So in light of that, it seems fitting to give the late Breitbart the very same Brietbart treatment that he bestowed on Ted Kennedy, Michael Jackson and others.  

Let me be clear: I'm not reveling in his death.  Right now, there are lots of conservative bloggers saying that liberals are absolutely giddy about Breitbart's death.  I'm not, and I don't know anyone who is.  We're not saddened either though.  Most of us justd shake our head at the news and think "Karma's a bitch".  And if there is any regret, it's that the man didn't live long enough to have an epiphany and come to regret the destruction he did.

He was a tremendous prick.  Not so much for his far right politics, which many people hold,  but because of his methods.  Like McCarthy from decades ago, Breitbart engaged in the politics of personal destruction.  And he did it with a zeal that -- frightingly -- many on the right celebrate.  He was wrong (Shirley Sherrod) as often as he was right (Anthony Weiner).  But he didn't seem to care either way.  As long as somebody (on the left) was destroyed....

For me, the Shirley Sherrod matter sealed Breitbart's reputation as the ugly underbelly of conservative politics.  Sherrod was forced to resign from her post as Georgia State Director of Rural Development for the United States Department of Agriculture, after Breitbart posted a selectively edited video to his blog that made her look like a racist. Sherrod resigned in July 2010.  Breitbart admitted that the video he presented showed Sherrod making statements out of context, but he never apologized and showed any sign of regret.  (Ironically, the Sherrod video was debuted on Breitbart's main website, Big Journalism, a website that purports to lecture the mainstream media on journalistic ethics).

That's serious rat-fucking.

[Sidenote: Sherrod shows herself to be classier than Brietbart ever could be]

There is much speculation on the right about Brietbart's death.  Already the whisper campaign has begun -- Obama did it.  And that's the kind of people that Breitbart both inspired and exploited -- the mouth-breathers who believe any piece of crap that he (and those like him) handed out.  On the whole, it degraded respectable debate in this country.  It lowered the level of political discourse.  Why prove the strenghths of your ideas and policies when you can just destroy the lives of your enemies?

Which is why I can't disagree with the words of Matt Tiabbi, writing for Rolling Stone:

[H]e also had enough of a sense of humor to appreciate why someone like me shouldn’t bother to pretend I’m sad he’s dead. He wouldn’t, in my place. So to use one of his favorite words: Good riddance, cocksucker.* Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.

Conspiracy Theories and Cognitive Dissonance

On "Fox & Friends" this morning, Brian Kilmeade noted that good economic news matters a great deal when it comes to the president's fortunes, but only "if you believe these numbers."

A minute later, Gretchen Carlson added, "Unemployment has gone down, more jobs have been created. Now, you can argue about how those numbers, some people say they've been fabricated."

"If you believe these numbers"?  The unemployment numbers have been fabricated?

This kind of rhetoric breezes by on Fox News typically, without any fanfare.

When I hear it, I think to myself: "Wait a second.  The monthly unemployment data is compiled by career officials at the Bureau of Labor Statistics.  Those numbers are important, as they go into the policy-making decisions of the President, Congress, and many thousands of businesses.  Wouldn't that be a MAJOR scandal -- on the scale of Watergate -- if those numbers were simply fabricated?"

And indeed it would be a major scandal.  And ALL the networks (especially Fox) would be all over it 24/7.

But they're not.  And why not?  Because there is absolutely no evidence for this theory. It's just thrown out there.

In such a case, I'm inclined to ask: "Are the people at Fox News stupid, or dishonest?"

Alex-Seltz Widen has a third theory:

If it weren’t improper to psychologically analyse strangers, one might think the Fox hosts are displaying a textbook example of cognitive dissonance here, a psychological phenomena in which people who hold a strong belief about something invent (sometimes far fetched) explanations for new evidence that conflicts with their existing views. Obama is bad for the economy, the jobs numbers show the economy is doing better, so there must be something wrong with the jobs numbers. Needless to say, this is hardly the behavior one expects from fair and balanced journalists Fox hosts claim to be.

That might account for some, I suppose.  But -- at least where Gretchen Carlson is concerned -- I'll go with "stupid".  In any event, it's not journalism.

The New York Times Asks "Shall We Report The Truth?"

In a stunning editorial today, the New York Times ombudmen Arthur Brisbane asks TImes readers whether -- hold on to your hats -- whether or not Times reporters should state the facts.  He gives us an example of how it might work:

...Mitt Romney often says President Obama has made speeches “apologizing for America,” a phrase to which Paul Krugman objected in a December 23 column arguing that politics has advanced to the “post-truth” stage.

As an Op-Ed columnist, Mr. Krugman clearly has the freedom to call out what he thinks is a lie. My question for readers is: should news reporters do the same?

If so, then perhaps the next time Mr. Romney says the president has a habit of apologizing for his country, the reporter should insert a paragraph saying, more or less:

“The president has never used the word ‘apologize’ in a speech about U.S. policy or history. Any assertion that he has apologized for U.S. actions rests on a misleading interpretation of the president’s words.”

The answer to Mr. Brisbane's question is, of course, YES.  Reporters should not be court stenographers, simply jotting down the he-said, she-said of political life.  Where there are discernable FACTS to be made or clarified, the Times should OF COURSE make or clarify them.

The responses in the comments section are almost universally the same, i.e.,

This is like a bad joke, except it's not funny. Are you seriously asking whether a journalist should point out when, for example, a candidate for president is lying to the American public? The answer is unequivocally yes. I also find it very disappointing that this piece is assumes that pointing out a falsehood would be considered biased or unfair.

I also think referring to the people on whom you report as "newsmakers" is misleading and problematic. The image is that the politician, whoever it may be, is the only active participant in the process, and that a journalist must simply passively report whatever the politician does or says.

and

This should not even be a question. Allowing blatant untruths to go unchallenged is not "objective reporting," it's merely lazy and irresponsible. You do seem to lead the discussion with the "apologizing for America" example--this is hyperbole rather than an outright lie, and a reasonable reader could conclude that Romney is giving his own spin on the president's words. There are, however, any number of outright falsehoods that have been spoken on the campaign trail, and even before--how much differently might have the health care debate played out if the Times and other news organizations had noted, in the body of their articles, that many statements by senators and congressmen and women simply weren't true? Or, how would an assessment for truth of politicians' words affected the lead up to war in Iraq?

In short: yes. Let bluster stand, but please, please, please verify that politicians' statements of fact are, in reality, factually correct.

and

How is it possible this is even a question? Of COURSE you should fact-check the the things people tell you, and inform readers if what they said is false. Your job is to tell us the relevant facts about a story, and if someone lies, that's an extremely relevant fact. 

If I want to know the he-said-she-said I can read twitter. The Times is supposed to be a news operation.

The sad state of journalism.  You can see what is going on here: the Times is worried that they will be accused of bias.  So they write things like "Mitt Romney says that two plus two equals five; Democrats disagree".  But as Jamison Foser explained very well this morning, he-said/she-said journalism makes matters worse through neglect.

When reporters omit reality from their stories in order to avoid being seen as "involved" or "taking sides," they are taking sides. And they are taking the wrong side. When you treat two statements -- one true and one false -- as equally valid and equally likely to be true, you are conferring an undeserved benefit on the false statement.

Journalism needs to hold politicians' feet to the fire (both Democrat and Republican).  When facts are stated incorrectly, this needs to be pointed out!

Ed Murrow is rolling in his grave.

When Right Wing Media Spin Meets Reality

The conservative Daily Caller, yesterday, continuing its ongoing demonization of Occupy Wall Street protesters:

It took a huge media push to convince people the Tea Party was dangerous, but the huge media push to convince them OWS isn’t dangerous has failed. Occupiers are really nice until you get to know them.

And again, the Daily Caller, earlier today:

Here’s a live feed of the filthy, ignorant, violent Occupy Wall Street crybabies in Zuccotti Park, as they do whatever it is they think they’re doing today. Obviously there’s no way to predict what’ll be said or done..

Story filed by Daily Caller reporters moments later:

While covering Occupy Wall Street’s “Day of Action” Thursday morning, Daily Caller reporter Michelle Fields and videographer Direna Cousins were struck by NYPD officers as police tried to clear Wall Street of protesters.

“The police officers were beating the protesters with batons, and were also beating the media,” Fields told TheDC. “They hit Direna and me with batons. They hit other members of the press in order to get them to move out of the street.”

Both were struck, but neither sustained injuries that required hospitalization.

Clear indications that Fields and Cousins were members of the press didn’t stop the NYPD beating.

“Direna had a camera in her hand and I had a microphone, and we were being hit,” she said. “When I fell to the ground I said at one point, ‘I’m just covering this! I’m covering this!’  And the officer just said, ‘Come on, get up, get up,’ before pulling me up by my jacket.’”

“The protesters came up to me right away and asked if I needed any medical assistance. They were actually very kind and helpful. It was the police officers who were very aggressive,” Fields added.

Don't Know Much About History

Bill O'Reilly decided to write a history book.  Specifically, a book about Lincoln's assassination called “Killing Lincoln,” which O’Reilly co-authored with Martin Dugard.  It's #2 on the New York Times non-fiction bestseller list, right behind the monstor biography of Steve Jobs.

How bad is this book?  Historians are panning it.  Why?  Because it has the one thing that history books should never have: bad facts.

For example, Edward Steers, author of five books about the Lincoln assassination, calls O'Reilly's book “somewhere between an authoritative account and strange fiction.”  Steer's review (which is not online) appears in the November issue of North & South, the official magazine of the Civil War Society, and lists about 10 errors of fact.

So inaccurate is the book that the National Park Service flunked it:

Rae Emerson, deputy superintendent at Ford’s Theatre, which is a national historic site under the jurisdiction of the National Park Service, has penned a scathing appraisal of O’Reilly’s “Killing Lincoln: The Shocking Assassination that Changed America Forever.” In Emerson’s official review, which I’ve pasted below, she spends four pages correcting passages from O’Reilly’s book before recommending that it not be offered for sale at Ford’s Theatre because it is not up to quality standards.

The National Park Services' full review is below the fold.  (It only examined the parts relating to Ford's Theater)

And perhaps Bill should stick to uninformed commentary about contemporary events.

Fox News Makes Stuff Up, Part 294

Fox News says:

President Obama has declared Aug. 26 -- which marks the 91st anniversary of the constitutional amendment giving women the right to vote -- to be "Women's Equality Day." 

Wrong.  Congress decided that August 26th is Women’s Equality Day.  In 1971.  Obama is merely following in the path of past presidents.

UPDATE:  Oh dear.  The ankle-biter over at Patterico is all in a tizzy over my post, apparently still obsessed with me while pretending not to be.  

He seems to think that *I* think the news story is slanderous of Obama.  Oy.

My point, which needs to be spelled out for some mouth breathers, is that Fox News got the story wrong.  President Obama did not declare Aug 26 to be Women's Equality Day.  That was done by Congress, a relevant fact that I assert Faux News omitted in order to make it look like this was Obama's doing.  (It's called red meat for the conservative masses).

Aaron would like to suggest that "declare" is synonymous with "proclaim".  However, they are NOT bilaterally synonymous.  When you declare something, you state it formally, for the first time.  As in "declaring bankruptcy" or "declaring war".  Proclaim CAN mean the same as "declare" in that sense, but "proclaim" can also mean a mere affirmation of something already existing.  "Declare", on the other hand, cannot.

It is incorrect to say that Obama formally "declared" something, unless that thing did not exist prior to his declaration.  Since Women's Equality Day had already been declared as August 26, Obama merely affirmed it by proclamation.

Other writers seem to understand the difference between "declare" and "proclaim", and can use them in a grammatically correct manner.  But the ankle-biter does not.  Then again, he has reading comprehension problems, so he gets a pass.

UPDATE #2:  On the other hand, another reader points out something obvious that I regrettably overlooked... i.e., that the story came from Reuters.  So Fox News didn't fashion the story in a way to make it red meat for its readers.  On the other hand, the story is poorly written and grammatically incorrect, and I can see why it appears that Fox, and ONLY Fox, seemed to pick it up.

My Sarah Palin E-mails

They're releasing 24,000 emails from the time when Sarah Palin was governor of Alaska.  And because that's a lot of emails to sift through, many news organizations have been asking people to sign up, and help them sift through them quickly to find the fun stuff.

Which I did.

The emails are being released, but my batch hasn't come in yet.

But I wish *I* had a job where I could just ask other people over the Internet to do it for me.

UPDATE - A la send in the clowns, don't bother.... they're here (some of them anyways):

Sarah Palin emails from Alaska

 

Sarah Palin Emails #2

Palin emails, #3

CNN Fail (Yes, Another Birth Certificate Related Story)

Saw this on the online CNN site today.  The story is self-explanatory from the headline, but note the caption...

It reads: "Ivaless Sinclair says husband David Sinclair, who died in 2003, never mentioned his connection to President Obama"

Well, no.

Who even heard of Obama in 2003?  He wasn't even a U.S. Senator then.

 

Parting Is Such Sweet Sorrow

Glenn Beck to leave Fox News.  Well, "transition off" it... some time this year.

Next stop.... oblivion.

It's not terribly surprising.  His ratings have plummeted in the past few months.  He was a victim to his own success.  The problem for Beck was, he had to constatntly top himself.  And to do that, he had to get crazier and crazier, so much so that even his loyal followers were going "Really?  Seriously?"

Is America Waking Up?

Suddenly, the majority of Americans realize that Fox News isn't a reliable source:

In the space of one year, Fox News has lost its perch as the most trusted TV news network in the US and is now average at best, a new survey has found.

A poll gauging public trust in TV news has found that PBS is the most trusted name in news, while trust in Fox News has dropped significantly.

According to a survey from Public Policy Polling, "a year ago a plurality of Americans said they trusted Fox News. Now a plurality of them don't."

In a survey taken a year ago, PPP found that Fox was the most trusted news network, with 49 percent saying they trusted the network, and 37 percent saying they did not. In the new poll, 42 percent said they trusted the network while 46 percent disagreed.

PPP notes that trust in the network declined only marginally among conservatives, from 75 percent to 72 percent. "But moderates and liberals have both had a strong increase in their level of distrust for the network -- a 12-point gain from 48 percent to 60 percent for moderates and a 16-point gain from 66 percent to 82 percent for liberals," the institute reported.

Do Americans Favor Or Oppose Collective Bargaining Rights? [FOX lies about the answer]

There have been a few polls on this, but none from a non-partisan pollster.  Until yesterday. USA Today and Gallup released a new poll that found that a whopping 61 percent of Americans oppose efforts like those of Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI) to strip public sector unions of collective bargaining rights. The poll also found that only a third of Americans support such a policy, indicating that Walker is pandering to the far-right of the American electorate and is hardly representative of mainstream political thought in this country.

This morning, the Fox News show Fox & Friends referenced the USA Today/Gallup poll. With incredible brazenness, the Fox hosts actually reversed the results of the poll in order to claim that two-thirds of Americans supported Wisconsin-style laws rather than opposed them.

That's right -- they reversed the results to show the OPPOSITE of what the poll said.

Here's the video:

 

Fox News Makes Stuff Up, Says Insider

At Media Matters: FOX NEWS INSIDER- “Stuff Is Just Made Up”.

A former Fox News employee who recently agreed to talk with Media Matters confirmed what critics have been saying for years about Murdoch’s cable channel. Namely, that Fox News is run as a purely partisan operation, virtually every news story is actively spun by the staff, its primary goal is to prop up Republicans and knock down Democrats, and that staffers at Fox News routinely operate without the slightest regard for fairness or fact checking.  

“It is their M.O. to undermine the administration and to undermine Democrats,” says the source. “They’re a propaganda outfit but they call themselves news.”

And that’s the word from inside Fox News.

Unfortunately, this isn't the kind of story that's going to blow the lid off of Fox News.  Reliance on one anonymous source, who repeats conventional wisdom, hardly constitutes proof of anything.

Fox News Having More Biblical Problems

It stated off with Bill O'Reilly, trying to explain why religion isn't a scam:

"Tide goes in, tide goes out. Never a miscommunication. You can't explain that. You can't explain why the tide goes in."

As I and many others pointed out, even schoolchildren can explain why the tide goes in and out, and you don't need to resort to the Bible.

It continued on Fox News with Bill O'Reilly again, apparently irked at the laughter directed his way by his own stupidity.  He released a video for "premium members" of his website, including a challenge to those who've scoffed at his evidence of the supernatural.

"Okay, how did the Moon get there? How'd the Moon get there? Look, you pinheads who attacked me for this, you guys are just desperate. How'd the Moon get there? How'd the Sun get there? How'd it get there? Can you explain that to me? How come we have that and Mars doesn't have it? Venus doesn't have it. How come? Why not? How'd it get here?"

We have the Moon because of a large impact on Earth, the pieces of which eventually coalesced to form the Moon.  

And the reason we have the Moon and not Mars and Venus don't have the Moon is... uh, well because we have our moon and Mars and Venus have their moons.

So Bill is 0 for 2.

And now Fox Nation is having its own religion problems.

President Obama spoke at the National Prayer Breakfast at the White House yesterday, and cited a familiar Biblical verse. As far as the Fox News website is concerned, the president "botched" the Scriptural reference. Fox Nation reported (on its front page, as if this were important):

President Obama misquoted a familiar Bible verse during a faith-based address at the National Prayer Breakfast.

"Those who wait on the Lord will soar on wings like eagles, and they will run and not be weary, and they will walk and not faint," the president said during a speech to several thousand people at the breakfast.

But the actual passage, from Isaiah 40:31, states: "But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint."

Fox News apparently isn't aware that there are several versions of the Bible.  Obama was quoting from the New International Version.  Fox News apparently thinks it's KJV or the highway.

But did Obama get it "wrong"?  Hardly.

Maybe Fox News should get out of the theology biz for a while.

More Evidence of Fox News Bias Emerges

About a year ago, Fox News correspondent Wendell Goler delivered a live report from Copenhagen and told viewers the truth. The United Nations' World Meteorological Organization, Goler said, had announced that that 2000-2009 was "on track to be the warmest [decade] on record."

Not quite 15 minutes later, another memo was sent by Fox News Washington managing editor Bill Sammon.

In the midst of global climate change talks last December, a top Fox News official sent an email questioning the "veracity of climate change data" and ordering the network's journalists to "refrain from asserting that the planet has warmed (or cooled) in any given period without IMMEDIATELY pointing out that such theories are based upon data that critics have called into question." [...]

Sammon's orders for Fox journalists to cast doubt on climate science came amid the network's relentless promotion of the fabricated "Climategate" scandal, which revolved around misrepresentations of emails sent to and from climate scientists at the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit. 

Note this: Sammon's marching orders were sent to the network's news division, not its opinion shows.

So in other words, Sammon was arguing that since there is a "debate" about global warming (there isn't actually, at least not among scientists), you should slant any news evidence which resolves that "debate".  Riiiiight.

This is the second interesting revelation in as many weeks about Sammon's political agenda at Fox News. Last week, it was his memo about how the network should characterize the public option during the health care debate. This week, it's reports on global warming.

How Fox Slants The News

During the heated health care debates last year, the Washington editor of Fox News sent a memo to Fox News employees instructing them not to call it the "public option", but to call it the "government option".  Why?  Because polls showed that people had a much more negative reaction to "government option".

From: Sammon, Bill
Sent: Tuesday, October 27, 2009 8:23 AM
To: 054 -FNSunday; 169 -SPECIAL REPORT; 069 -Politics; 030 -Root (FoxNews.Com); 036 -FOX.WHU; 050 -Senior Producers; 051 -Producers
Subject: friendly reminder: let's not slip back into calling it the "public option"

1)      Please use the term "government-run health insurance" or, when brevity is a concern, "government option," whenever possible.

2)      When it is necessary to use the term "public option" (which is, after all, firmly ensconced in the nation's lexicon), use the qualifier "so-called," as in "the so-called public option."

3)      Here's another way to phrase it: "The public option, which is the government-run plan."

4)      When newsmakers and sources use the term "public option" in our stories, there's not a lot we can do about it, since quotes are of course sacrosanct.

[Source]

It's interesting to note that he acknowledges that he admits that the term "public option" is ensconced in the nation's lexicon, but he wants his news people to avoid the phrase anyway.

The Sanity Effect

MSNBC's Keith Olbermann announced that he is suspending, perhaps permanently, his "Worst Person In The World" segment in an effort to reach a new tone on his show.

Will such a move be made by Fox's Bill O'Reilly or Glenn Beck?

Don't hold your breath.

Juan Williams And Bigotry

"Bill, I’m not a bigot. You know the kind of books I’ve written about the civil rights movement in this country. But when I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous."

- Juan Williams.

Can we, if nothing else, agree on a working definition of "bigotry"?

It seems to me that if you get nervous because you see Muslims on a plane, it is because you have an assumption, or perhaps a fear, that these Muslims will hijack or blow up the plane, because that is what happened on 9/11.  

In other words, based solely on their appearance, you attributing certain negative traits to these hypothetical "Muslims on a plane".

Juan, that is what bigotry is.  I mean, maybe it is understandable that you feel nervous and worried.  Maybe it is commonplace.  Maybe every non-Muslim feels that way.  But it is bigotry, and let's not pretend that it is not.

Now, I don't think Juan Williams should be fired for solely for saying this.  And I'm not sure that he was, in fact, fired simply for saying this.  I think he's had a long history of being lame -- being one kind of journalist/reporter on NPR, and another kind on Fox News (the Bill O'Reilly ass-kissing kind).  And I think last night was the final straw for NPR.

So so long, Juan.

Exercises In "Fair and Balanced"

Personally, I don't care all that much that Ken Mehlman, the former chair of the Republican National Committee, is gay.  I think it is relevant, considering that when Mehlman was Bush's chief campaign strategist in 2004, he was instrumental in the plan to thrust DOMA into the limelight in order to motivate the (homophobic) Republican base.

So Mehlman's revelation is news.

But not to Fox News, who ignored the story.

Fox News = Terrorist Funder

Yesterday morning on Fox & Friends, Fox News contributor Dan Senor observed that The Kingdom Foundation, whose chairman is Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, is a funder for the Cordoba House Initiative. 

“The Kingdom Foundation, so you know, is this Saudi organization, headed up by the guy that tried to give Rudy Giuliani $10 million after 9/11 that was sent back, funds radical madrassas all over the world,” Senor said. “And he funds this imam,” Fox host Brian Kilmeade chimed in. 

Okay, so Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Tanel is a bad guy because he chairs an organization which funds the Cordoba House Initiative (aka "the Ground Zero mosque").

But guess what else is significant about Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Tanel?

Outside of the Rupert Murdoch family.... he's the largest shareholder of News Corp (the corporate owner of Fox News). Why, there's even a picture of him published today meeting with News Corp executives to strengthen ties between his Arab news conglomerate and News Corp.

That's right.  Even though they didn't come right out and say his name, Fox News accused a person who owns 7% of Fox News.... of funding terrorist organizations.

Fox News wants Americans to believe Al-Waleed bin Talal is responsible for funding Islamic radicalism. Fox News doesn't want Americans to know that Al-Waleed bin Talal is also responsible for funding Fox News.

Well, what must be do about that?  Stop watching Fox News.  Jon Stewart explains:

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Although poking fun, Stewart actually asks a relevant question: When talking about this terrorist funding Saudi prince, did Fox News correspondents not know he was a major shareholder... or were they being evil by intentionally not mentioning his name?

Truth Gets Its Boots On

The Associated Press sent out a memo today to its writers and editors advising that they should no longer use the phrase "Ground Zero mosque" to describe the controversial Islamic cultural center and former Burlington Coat Center store, located in lower Manhattan two blocks (and out of view) from Ground Zero.

While I applaud the Associated Press for its stance, this would have been even more helpful a few weeks ago, before so many Americans became enraged by a proposal that doesn't exist and got fed a steady stream of misinformation.

Actually, even calling it just a "mosque" is a misnomer.  It's a cultural center.  It has a "prayer room" in it, but that isn't a mosque.

By the way, you know what else has a "prayer room" where Muslims go and pray every single day?  The Pentagon.

It's not like the Pentagon was attacked on 9/11 and people died there, right?

Question Of The Day

How many days will it be before Fox News airs something on the controversy about its parent company, News Corp, who donated an unprecedented $1 million to the Republican Governor's Association?

Palin And The Angry Inch

Wow.  The "respectable" right-wing blogs are just as mean as they are inaccurate.

It all started when Sarah Palin, while shooting her reality for The Discover Network, was confronted by a woman with a huge home-made sign saying "Worst Governor Ever", in reference to Palin.  The whole thing was caught on video, including the moment when Palin asked the woman what she did for a living.  The woman replied that she was a teacher, which caused Palin to visibly (and somewhat disrespectfully) roll her eyes.

So what happens next?  Well, it became the job of the 101st Fighting Keyboard Commanders to totally eviscerate this woman, because she committed the sin of confronting Palin (just as Shirley Sherrod committed the sin of not being racist).

And within 24 hours, a "respectable" right-wing blog had the goods. At Gateway Pundit, the headline screamed, "THAT WAS NO TEACHER.... Unhinged Leftist Who Confronted Palin Is A Singer In a Drag Band", accompanied by this photo.

Aha!  They nailed her!   So they got to call her a "liar".

Except, facts are stubborn things.  The woman who confronted Palin, Kathleen Gustafson, is pictured on the left in the photo.  And the "drag queen band"?  Well, that's “Hedwig and the Angry Inch”, a play in which Ms. Gustafson was the director.  That's right kids, she is, among other things... wait for it... a theatre teacher.

A teacher certification from the state of Alaska?  You bet.  You can look it up here.

So who is lying?

As Ann Althouse says:

I just want to say that it's stupid as hell to say that someone working on the terrific musical "Hedwig and the Angry Inch" is "a singer in a transvestite band." What tastes like red meat to some people mostly makes you look small-minded, nasty, and uninformed.

More Attempted Journalistic Lynching of Shirley Sherrod

One would think that the right would want to move past the Shirley Sherrod story.

For those living under a rock last week, the story in a nutshell is this:  Right wing provocateur Andrew Brietbart, pissed that the NAACP had accused the Tea Party movement of racism, fired back on his blog magazine by posting a video of a low-level Department of Agriculture employee named Shirley Sherrod.  In the video, Ms. Sherrod was giving a speech to a Douglas County Georgia chapter of the NAACP.  The video was from March of this year.

In the video, Ms. Sherrod -- a black woman -- is telling a story of how she did the barest amount possible to help out a white farmer who was losing his farm.  "RACISM" cried Breitbart, followed by the cries of "RACISM" from Fox News.  (In an embarrassing sidenote, both the NAACP and the Obama Administration quickly condemned Ms. Sherrod, and by the end of the day, she was sacked).

The problem, not surprisingly, was that the video was taken out of context.  When the full video was released, we learned that Ms. Sherrod was telling a personal account of something that happened to her 26 years ago, and the reason she was telling the story was to convey to her audience a very personal "learning experience" from her own life.  Specifically, she wanted to tell the audience how she realized that the issues facing farmers aren't issues about black or white, but about poverty... and how important it is that we all transcend race, as she did 26 years ago.  (She actually did help out the white farmer a great deal, and he came forward to say so.  Both the NAACP and Obama apologized to Ms. Sherrod, and she was offered her job back).

After last week, you would think the conservative media would drop the issue in embarrassment, wipe the egg from their collective face, and move on.

But nope.  Now they really have to put the screws to Shirley Sherrod.  Smear her they must, even though this woman has done nothing to them.

To that end, the American Spectator has a piece today accusing Sherrod of lying about sheriff Claude Screws lynching Bobby Hall, a Sherrod relative (a story she conveys in the unedited version of her speech).

If you're unfamiliar with the case, it originated in Baker County, in rural southwest Georgia, where Sherrod is from. In 1943, Screws, the white sheriff, arrested a black man, Hall, who was accused of theft and taken to the local courthouse in handcuffs. Upon their arrival, Screws and his two white deputies mercilessly beat Hall, by some accounts for as long as 30 minutes. Screws then dragged Hall's unconscious body, feet first, through the courthouse square. Hall died soon after.

Screws was convicted on federal charges, but the Supreme Court ultimately overturned the conviction over inaccurate jury instructions.

In her speech, Sherrod explained, "Claude Screws lynched a black man." The American Spectator wants readers to believe she was lying -- i.e., Screws didn't "lynch" Hall, because Screws didn't use a rope. Hall was beaten to death, but to writer Jeffrey Lord, a former Reagan political aide, that apparently doesn't count.

And that's the "gotcha".  Sherrod, screams the American Spector headline, is a liar.

Unfortunately, that's just B.S.  A lynching is an extrajudicial mob killing -- not necessarily by rope -- the murder of Emmit Till is probably the most famous example.  As Adam Serwer (among others) has pointed out:

No one who worked to document the practice of lynching in the South limited the definition of the term to solely include those lynchings that occurred using a rope. Don't believe me? Here's the definition of lynching as described in the 1922 anti-lynching bill introduced by Republican Rep.L.C. Dyer that Lord pretends to know something about:

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the phrase "mob or riotous assemblage," when used in this act, shall mean an assemblage composed of three or more persons acting in concert for the purpose of depriving any person of his life without authority of law as a punishment for or to prevent the commission of some actual or supposed public offense.

So now the right's second attempt to smear this woman has failed (and honestly, what do they have against her??)

Fortunately, some at The American Spectator are distancing themselves from Lord's piece. John Tobin writes:

What on Earth is Jeffrey Lord talking about on the mainpage? He says that the sentence "Claude Screws lynched a black man" is untrue. Lynching is defined as an extrajudicial killing by a mob (which can be as few as two people). The fatal beating of Bobby Hall most certainly qualifies.

Philip Klein writes in The American Spectator:

I am rendered speechless by a 4,000-word article that is based around the suggestion that somebody is a liar for saying that a black man was lynched, when he was merely beaten to death by a white sheriff who evidence suggests had previously threatened to "get him."

One is reminded of the old "have you no sense of decency, at long last, sir" quote.  Sadly, I think uttering that to the conservative "media" would have no effect at all.

UPDATE:  E.J. Dionne has some thoughts about Sherrod and the right-wing smear machine that are well worth reading, e.g.:

The mainstream media and the Obama administration must stop cowering before a right wing that has persistently forced its propaganda to be accepted as news by convincing traditional journalists that "fairness" requires treating extremist rants as "one side of the story." And there can be no more shilly-shallying about the fact that racial backlash politics is becoming an important component of the campaign against President Obama and against progressives in this year's election.

Journalistic Error

According to Gawker, the Washington Post was debating which cover story and art to feature on its online page.  It was either going to be this:

 

or this:

Apparently, somebody messed up, because for a few hours yesterday (until somebody fixed it), the online Washington Post looked like this:

Ooopsy. 
 

BREAKING NEWS: Obama Gives A Long Answer

Apparently, it's more important to report the number of words that Obama uses, and the number of minutes he speaks.  What he actually says, however.... whether it is true or not, etc..... eh, that's just filler for this "news" article.

Fox News Cuts Away From Obama... Again

Earlier today, Fox New's Happening Now cut away from President Obama's signing of the health care reconciliation bill (the one that fixed a couple gaps in the big one passed last week) in order to cover.... wait for it... a plane crash that never happened.  Fox News was (it claims) told that the airplane had flap problems, so they cut in to watch a pefectly fine 737 make a perfectly fine landing.

This is becoming quite a pattern:

America Live cut away from Obama health care speech for reports on Toyota Prius crash, "Erin Andrews Peephole Stalker." On March 15, in the last week before the historic health care vote, America Live host Megyn Kelly cut away from Obama's health care speech, gave her own summary of his comments, and directed viewers who wished to see the speech in its entirety to FoxNews.com. She then moved on to discuss a pending news conference about a Toyota Prius that had crashed -- a week earlier.

On Twitter, Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz reported, "Fox breaks away early from Obama health care speech, MS & CNN still with it." He later added, "Now on Fox (instead of Obama): Erin Andrews Peephole Stalker to be Sentenced This Afternoon. Hasn't even happened yet!"

Fox cut away from Obama-GOP Q&A but airs GOP "response" in its entirety. During President Obama's question and answer session with Republican members of Congress at the GOP House Issues Conference, Fox News Channel was the only cable news network to cut away and not show the exchange in its entirety, instead providing commentary on the event. However, Fox News subsequently aired all of the "Republican response" press conference held by House Minority Leader Rep. John Boehner (R-OH), Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN), and Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) after the question and answer session with Obama.

Fox cut away from terrorism press conference to show Glenn Beck. Fox News contributors spent several days criticizing the Obama administration's response to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's failed attempt to bring down a Northwest Airlines flight on Christmas Day. However, Fox News responded to the administration's January 7 press conference about its handling of the incident -- featuring Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, whom several Fox News personalities had called to step down -- by cutting away to commentary on the event and then its regular programming: Glenn Beck, and its host's attack on the progressive movement and its "hundred-year time bomb."

I guess they want to be able to spin the narratives about Obama (how socialist and angry he is, how he always needs a teleprompter, etc) and it doesn't look good when their own coverage contradicts the spin.

Fox News Will Believe And Report Anything

The Fox Nation headline yesterday: Global Warming Activist Freezes to Death in Antarctica.

This caused much chortling among Fox News fans, who left comments like this:

I'm sorry but this is about the funniest thing I've ever read!! Talk about what comes around goes around!!!!!!!!!! Ya get what you ask for - this has it all!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thank you FOX I needed that. This is delicious just goes to show what elitism and arrogance will do to you if you use it on mother nature.

Somehow or another, the liberal media and Al Gore will spin this and blame it on global warming. Not sure how they'll do that but it will be interesting to find out.

I GUESS THESE BRILLIANT SCIENTISTS DIDNT HAVE BIG NANNY TO TELL THEM TO PUT ON A COAT

In a world of constant bad new's, finally a story we can all read and laugh about. Truelly this is the greatest story of the year.

It's stories like this that make me appreciate God's infinite wisdom, and sense of humor.

Just goes to show you how easy the left is duped. Only a dumb@$$ would do this in the d.e.a.d of winter.............

I can't stop laughing..... I need a great laugh this morning.

Slight problem.

Fox News picked up the story from a satire news site (much like The Onion) and passed it on as fact.  The satrical piece is about four years old.

Snopes sets the record straight.

How Much You Want To Bet Glenn Beck Cries On TV Today?

Just asking....

UPDATE:  Perhaps a better question would be: "Will Rush Limbaugh now move to Costa Rica?"

UPDATE #2: Digby has the pushback for the whiny wingers:

The teabaggers are all upset that the Democrats passed a bill without any Republican votes. Evidently, this makes it illegitimate and unconstitutional. I'm not surprised they think this. They get their constitutional instruction from Glenn Beck.

***

It's fairly clear that Republicans don't understand how democracy works. You campaign, people vote, you win elections, you get a majority, you pass legislation. They seem to think Democracy means that that elections are irrelevant, majorities are meaningless and that all legislation is contingent upon the permission of the Republican Party.

I'm sorry these people are so unhappy. I know how they feel. I used to hate it when the Republicans passed some disgusting initiative that went against everything I believe in. But I don't recall having a mental breakdown at the notion that they could do it even though I didn't want them to. The idea that they were obligated to do my bidding didn't actually cross my mind.

As they used to say repeatedly, "elections have consequences." If the people don't like this bill, they have every right to turn the Democrats out of office and repeal it. But screaming hysterically that it's cheating to pass legislation with a majority just proves that these folks' great reverence for the constitution is based more on their love of wearing funny hats than anything that's written in it.

This is how the system works. If you don't like it, start pressing for a constitutional amendment that requires that all legislation be approved by every teabagger in the land before it can be enacted. Or start campaigning to put your teabaggers in office so they can have a majority and enact the legislation you like. In either event, stop the whining about "abuse of power." They passed a bill you don't like, for crying out loud, it's not like they seized office with a partisan decision by the Supreme Court and then invaded a country that hadn't attacked us or anything...

From The Anti-Health Care Rally In D.C. Earlier This Week

I know I'm throwing out a lot of video today, but this one is particularly good.

It's another on-the-street interview with anti-health care protesters in D.C., conducted by New Left Media (which actually is two undergrad journalism students, who produce good stuff).

On the one hand, it's about what you would expect.  These people really hate health care reform.  What privisions do they dislike?  Uh.... they don't really know, actually.

I particularly enjoy how they claim that everybody else (other than them) are KoolAid drinkers who blindly follow their leaders like sheep.  Yet, what do they watch?  Who do they seek out for their (mis)information?  Where do they get their sound bites from? Fox News, natch.  Enjoy.....

RELATED: A Republican speechwriter under Reagan and Bush conducts a survey of Tea Party protesters at a rally and concludes "For an antitax group, they don't know much about taxes."   For example:

The first question that was asked concerned the size of government. Tea Partyers were asked how much the federal government gets in taxes as a percentage of the gross domestic product. According to Congressional Budget Office data, acceptable answers would be 6.4%, which is the percentage for federal income taxes; 12.7%, which would be for both income taxes and Social Security payroll taxes; or 14.8%, which would represent all federal taxes as a share of GDP in 2009.

***

Tuesday's Tea Party crowd, however, thought that federal taxes were almost three times as high as they actually are. The average response was 42% of GDP and the median 40%. The highest figure recorded in all of American history was half those figures: 20.9% at the peak of World War II in 1944.

***

The survey also reveals some misperceptions about the status quo on healthcare and energy in the United States. The average Tea Partier placed the United States’ global rank in life expectancy at 11^th, when in fact the CIA ranks the United States 49^th.

***

In terms of energy policy, Tea Partiers estimated that the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve (ANWR) holds about 70 years worth of oil, based on America’s present rates of consumption. Conventional estimates suggest that ANWR holds about a year’s supply of oil, based on the CIA’s estimate of oil consumption.

What Digby says:

I'm guessing that most of these people don't know much of anything that's true they're just consumed with inchoate rage that the "bad guys" are in power and therefore they must be doing all the bad things everyone tells them they are doing.

The modern conservative movement propaganda holds that government is the problem not the solution. The corollary is that is you have a problem, government must be the cause. You are short of money? It must be because of taxes. People don't have health care? It must be because the government is running it. Crime? Big government. Lack of jobs? Government.

This isn't about issues, it's about a delusional worldview formed by people who listen to a bunch of hucksters who have successfully looted the country while persuading about half the people that the government was doing the looting and giving it in the form of "handouts" to people who didn't deserve it. It's a great scam and a lot of people have made a lot of money promoting it.

It's a shame that these same people are getting screwed six ways to Sunday, but I'm getting less and less sympathetic as I see them throwing dollar bills into the faces of disabled citizens and telling them go somewhere else looking for a handout. These aren't just misguided souls. They are cruel jerks.

[Emphasis mine]

Stewart v. O'Reilly

For those who missed it, here's a couple bites....

Did You Know....?

Fox News chose to not broadcast the Hope for Haiti Now benefit concert (both CNN and MSNBC did). Instead, Bill O’Reilly aired a segment about Sarah and Bristol Palin’s “body language” during their Oprah interview and Sean Hannity conducted an interview with Karl Rove on the Obama administration’s approval ratings and health care reform.

Quote Of The Day

Sarah Palin on Glenn Beck's show, explaining why George Washington is her favorite founding father:

“That is who you need to find to serve in government, in a bureaucracy,” Palin said. “Those who you know will serve for the right reasons because they’re reluctant to get out there and seek a limelight and seek the power. They’re doing it for people. That was George Washington.”

That's from Sarah Palin, folks -- the woman who quit her job as governor to write a book, go on a massive book tour, and get a very lucrative deal as a contributer to Fox News.

 

UPDATE:  I love Steve Benen's observations about the Palin-Beck interview, which I rip off here in its entirety:

WHAT PALIN AND BART SIMPSON HAVE IN COMMON.... About 12 years ago, there was an episode of "The Simpsons" in which Bart was supposed to deliver an oral report on Libya. Bart, of course, hadn't done his homework and had no idea what to say. He stood up, cleared his throat, looked at the blank page in front of him, and winged it.

"The exports in Libya are numerous in amount," Bart said earnestly. "One thing they export is corn, or as the Indians call it, maize. Another famous Indian was Crazy Horse. In conclusion, Libya is a land of contrast. Thank you."

None of this made any sense, but Bart couldn't just stand up and say, "I have no idea what I'm talking about because I'm unprepared." He had to say something, so he made up some silliness and got the ordeal over with as quickly as possible.

Every time I hear Sarah Palin try to answer any question on any subject, it immediately reminds me of Bart's classroom presentation. Take yesterday, for example, when Glenn Beck asked Palin, "Who's your favorite Founder?"

This isn't the former half-term governor's best subject. Palin did, after all, boast not too long ago that the Founding Fathers wrote the Pledge of Allegiance. But like Bart, she couldn't just take a pass, so she told Beck, "You know, well, all of them, because they came collectively together with so much ... so much diverse and so much diversity in terms of belief, but collectively they came together."

She eventually said, "And they were led by, of course George Washington." I kept waiting for her to say, "Or as the Indians called him, George Washington."

If "all of them" sounds like a familiar response, it's because Katie Couric asked Palin about which newspapers she reads. "Um, all of them," she replied.

I realize right-wing activists adore the former governor, but her conspicuous unintelligence should be obvious to anyone above the age of 4.

Nancy Pelosi: Is She Crazy... Or a Kook?

Sarah Palin made her first appearance as a contributor to Fox News on Bill O'Reilly's show.  The whole transcript is here, and it is as you might expect.

But one particular section jumped out at me for some reason:

O'REILLY: Do you know Nancy Pelosi? Have you ever met her?

PALIN: I met her once in the Capitol building, yes.

O'REILLY: Yes? Did you have...

PALIN: She wouldn't remember me, but...

O'REILLY: She wouldn't — I think she'd remember you, Governor.

PALIN: No, no, no.

O'REILLY: But did you chat with her? Do you have any idea?

PALIN: Chatted with her a little bit, yes. She was leading a group of school children through on a tour. And I thought, well, that's nice that she has that time on her hands that she could do that.

O'REILLY: Yes, but the school children need to be led. You know that.

PALIN: Yes, that's what I'm saying. It was nice.

O'REILLY: Now, do you think that she's a kook?

PALIN: I think that she, too, is quite disconnected from what her constituents are telling her — and constituents all over the country.

O'REILLY: But she's a San Francisco liberal. But — but do you think she's actually crazy?

So Palin -- a woman who quits her job as governor before her first term is out and takes a lucrative job at Fox -- is mocking Speaker Pelosi who took the time to escort schoolchildren around the Capital Building.  How nice.

And of course, all O'Reilly wants to know is whether that make Pelosi a crazy woman, or a kook.

Sarah Palin To Contribute To Fox News

Like she doesn't already?

Details:

Ms. Palin will not have her own regular program, one person with knowledge of the deal said, though she will host a series that will run on the network from time to time. This person would not elaborate, but the network does have a precedent for such a series.

Host a series.  Presumably, with a script.  Damn.  I was hoping they would just let her talk.

When Tiger Woods Needs Brit Hume's Advice...

The Tiger Woods story, as I've often said, isn't a news story.  It certainly doesn't warrent a panel discussion on a Sunday morning "news" channel.

And it certainly doesn't require commentary like that offered by Brit Hume, who said this weekend that Tiger Woods isn't going to be made whole until he rejects his religion and accepts the correct religion (Christianity).  Specifically, Hume said:

"The extent to which he can recover seems to me depends on his faith... He is said to be a Buddhist. I don't think that faith offers the kind of forgiveness and redemption that is offered by the Christian faith. So, my message to Tiger is, 'Tiger, turn to the Christian faith and you can make a total recovery and be a great example to the world.'"

Watch:

I love how Hume's comments make Bill Kristol and the other panelists uncomfortable.  Perhaps they, too, are wondering why a senior political analyst for a so-called "news" network proselytizing, on the air, during one of the network's "news" programs.

Welcome to Fox News Ministries.

Speaking Too Much

Sometimes, even in innocuous posts, the writers at National Review Online reveal their true nature.  Take for example this seemingly harmless excerpt from a post by Mike Potemra at National Review Online:

Coincidentally, I have over the past couple of months been watching DVDs of Star Trek: The Next Generation, a show I missed completely in its run of 1987 to 1994; and I confess myself amazed that so many conservatives are fond of it. Its messages are unabashedly liberal ones of the early post-Cold War era - peace, tolerance, due process, progress (as opposed to skepticism about human perfectibility).

Wait, what?

Peace, tolerance, and due process are liberal?

So that means conservative values are what -- war, intolerance, and avoiding the law?

Wow.  Just wow.

More Fox Flubs

This still hasn't been fixed as I write this, so if you click, you still might catch it.

Anyway, read this poll from the Fox News website, and see if it makes sense to you:

 

They've got their biased leading answers backwards, no?

Our National Discourse

You know the state of political journalism is in sorry shape when you read things like this:

This morning, Gore appeared on MSNBC, where Andrea Mitchell read from Sarah Palin's Facebook page to ask the former vice president questions about climate change.

I'm getting a lot of use out of this graphic:

More Fox Flubs

Isn't it funny how the "mistakes" that Fox makes always seem to err against Obama or liberals?

Here's a clip from yesterday in which Obama announces that the TARP bailout cost U.S. taxpayers $200 billion less than we originally thought.  That's good news, right?  The bailout's addition to the deficit is $200 billion lower?

Still, Fox can't get it right.  Watch:

Wasn't it only a couple of weeks ago that Fox announced a "zero tolerance" policy for on-air mistakes?

More Fox Poll Reporting

From last week:

 

That comes to 120% for those keeping score at home.

 

Fox News Won't Tolerate "Mistakes" Anymore

After a couple of days of questionable "mistakes" with its news programming (see here), Fox News’s management has issued a memo declaring that “Effective immediately, there is zero tolerance for on-screen errors”:

Effective immediately, there is zero tolerance for on-screen errors. Mistakes by any member of the show team that end up on air may result in immediate disciplinary action against those who played significant roles in the “mistake chain,” and those who supervise them. That may include warning letters to personnel files, suspensions, and other possible actions up to and including termination, and this will all obviously play a role in performance reviews. So we now face a great opportunity to review and improve on our workflow and quality control efforts. To make the most of that opportunity, effective immediately, Newsroom is going to “zero base” our newscast production. That means we will start by going to air with only the most essential, basic, and manageable elements. To share a key quote from today’s meeting: “It is more important to get it right, than it is to get it on.” We may then build up again slowly as deadlines and workloads allow so that we can be sure we can quality check everything before it makes air, and we never having to explain, retract, qualify or apologize again. Please know that jobs are on the line here. I can not stress that enough.

We'll see what kind of impact this has on..... wait -- this just in:

Really?  193 percent of Republicans support Palin or Huckabee or Romney?  Really?!?

(Actually, this probably happened before the memo....)
 

Fox News: Worst TV News Ever

Perhaps some of you are aware of the fact that Jon Stewart -- a guy on a comedy channel -- last week caught Fox News showing false footage.  In a news story about the Tea Bag rally held by Backmann (attended by a few thousand at best), Fox showed footage of the 9/12 rally (attended by tens of thousands), passing it off as part of the Bachmaan rally.

“If I didn’t know any better I’d think they just put two days together and acted like they didn’t,” said Stewart, before going on to present video evidence that that was precisely what they did — including Hannity exclaiming over how many people cared enough about freedom to come down to be heard on a Thursday. Er, Saturday.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Sean Hannity Uses Glenn Beck's Protest Footage
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Hannity subsequently apologized for the Fox News "mistake".

But, it happened again, this time on a news program.

Here's a screenshot of the footage of one of the rallies that Fox's Gregg Jarrett showed yesterday and claimed was "just coming into us" as part of the Sarah Palin book tour:

 

See the "Happening Now" chyron?  Well, not so much.

Here's a photo posted last year by Florida TV station CFNews 13 of a November 1, 2008, Palin rally in Ocala, Florida:

Notice any similarities?

UPDATE:  Fox apologizes (again)....

 

Bye Lou

Lou Dobbs, August 14:

It's just killing the left wing in this country that they can't force CNN to fire me.

Lou Dobbs, today:

.....

 

Stewart's Parody of Glenn Beck

A bit of a departure for Stewart, but great:

What's "For Now" At Avenue Q Now

Last March, I wrote about the show Avenue Q and how they had to change their lyrics in the song "For Now".  One of the lyrics was "George Bush is only 'for now'", but of course, with the Obama relection, there was some question about what to do with that line.

The Broadway show settled for "George Bush WAS only 'for now'", while the national tour opted for "Prop 8 is only 'for now'".

The tour is over, and Avenue Q itself has moved to an off-Broadway house. (At the last Broadway performance, the lyric was changed to "THIS SHOW is only 'for now'!").

And what's the lyric now?

"FOX NEWS is only 'for now'"!

The White House vs. Fox News

So many people are covering this -- I have little to add.

For those not paying attention, the Obama White House is openly condemning Fox News for its biased reporting.  Fox News is crying foul.

In the latest volley, Fox News is claiming that the White House doesn't know the difference between its opinion programming (Beck, Hannity, etc.) and actual news programming.  Their news programming, Fox insists, really is "fair and balanced".

That, of course, is a joke.  Their news programming reflects the opinions of their opinion programming, a point made well by Media Matters here:

 

Quote Of The Day

As reported in Time:

"The fact that our numbers are up 30 plus in the news arena on basic cable I'd like to think is a sign that we are just putting what we believe to be the facts out on the table," said Michael Clemente, Fox's senior vice president for news, in an interview on Tuesday.

Reflect on that very revealing statement by Fox News VP for News.

"..we are just putting what we believe to be the facts out on the table..."

That's the kind of statement you probably wouldn't hear from any other legitimate news organization -- print or broadcast.

The point of journalism is to put out the facts -- not what the media outlet believes are the facts.  And if you don't know the facts, you send people out to get them.

When you broadcast or publish beliefs, that's speculation.  Or opinion.  Or even advocacy.  And that's fine -- there's always a place in this information age for speculation, opinion, and advocacy. 

But it's not journalism, and it's very telling that these words come from a senior vice president of cable news.

Beck and the "Alamo for Truth"

Earlier this week, Beck -- almost crying (again) -- lashed out at "the media" for digging into his past.  Apparently, it had something to do with an excellent three-part Slate article (starting here) about Beck's life.

In the course of his performance, Glenn Beck assured viewers that what he does, well, "it's about me and you and quite frankly, Fox News -- the Alamo For Truth"

Watch:

I'm not sure that Glenn knows what he is saying.  The Alamo was a huge failure and national embarrassment, resulting in the death of many Americans, and that has become its metaphorical meaning.  By calling himself and Fox News the "Alamo for truth", isn't he suggesting that Fox News is the place where the truth ultimately dies?