Posts tagged ‘Fox News’
Foreclosure of the Fourth Estate
Earlier this week I was watching an interview of GOP presidential hopeful Michele Bachmann on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe”. Ms. Bachmann told the hosts and other assembled guests that she thought everyone should pay some sort of tax, even ten dollars, as she put it, so everyone has a stake in America. I fully expected Joe, or Mika or even Willie to ask the congresswoman from Minnesota how she could say this when she told an audience at a debate not too long ago that the ideal tax rate for everyone should be 0%. As I often do while watching TV, I asked the question aloud to Ms. Bachmann and waited for my trusted journalists to echo my words.
Crickets.
Anyone paying the barest of attention to the GOP presidential nomination race would have spotted this inconsistency yet the hosts of “Morning Joe” just let it slip right on by. Before anyone accuses me of being a partisan attack dog, look at the following three stories and tell me how much the main stream media has covered them:
- Solyndra — when we are supposedly fed up with crony capitalism this story of an ill-advised loan to a poorly run energy company with evidence pointing to undue pressure from the White House, has received relatively little attention.
- Fast and Furious — guns end up in the hands of Mexican criminals with the involvement of the US Justice department. Attorney General Eric Holder and other Justice staff give incorrect information to Congress. Depending on your politics, the deception was either deliberate or not.
- $7.2 trillion in tax payer money doled out by the Fed without congressional knowledge much less approval.
Now it’s not that you can’t find these stories if you search for them but they are hardly leading news broadcasts.
When I was a kid, television news came from the big three networks, ABC, CBS and NBC. News anchors were assumed to be objective. This is why when, for example, Walter Cronkite came out against the Vietnam War it was a major shock to the system. Now there are cable networks entirely devoted to news and two of them have an obvious bias, MSNBC on the left and Fox on the right. It is now possible to sit down to a night of “news” coverage devoted to portraying an opposing political viewpoint as either dumb, dangerous or at worst treasonous. This kind of reporting leaves out facts that interfere with the politics of the reporters.
The most important purpose of a free press is to accurately inform the average citizen. It is supposed to even the playing field and enable us to better participate in our democracy. It seems what we have now are sloppy journalists who don’t do their homework before interviews and let politicians get away with inconsistencies and contradictions or news professionals who flaunt their political bias.
One thing we didn’t have when I was a kid was the Internet. Now with Google and a little patience, we can weigh the differing sides of a story and come to our own conclusions. Each of us must become our own news aggregator. Either we do that or we wait until comedian Jon Stewart’s “Daily Show” covers a news item better than the so-called professionals will.
Respectfully,
Rutherford
Image: Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
The Danger of Partisan Media
No, this is not another attack on Fox News. This time I have to take a minute calling out my beloved MSNBC which I’ve always claimed, despite its liberal bias has always taken the higher road compared to Fox.
Late this week Chris Matthews on “Hardball” devoted an entire segment to Texas Governor Rick Perry’s pay-to-play method of governing. Apparently there is a pretty conspicuous pattern of campaign donations being followed by legislative favors. Michele Bachmann got the conversation started during last Monday’s GOP debate when she accused Perry of letting campaign donations influence his decision to mandate administration of the HPV inoculation to young female Texans (with an opt-out available to their parents). Perry’s response, which has inspired chuckles ever since, was did Michele really think he could be bought for a lousy $5,000.00?
Unfortunately, as I watched Chris go on and on about Perry’s ethics, I could not get out of my mind a story that my readers called to my attention, namely the brewing Solyndra scandal. Up until my cadre of conservative opponents threw it in my face, I figured Solyndra was some sort of sugar substitute. Little did I know it was a solar panel manufacturer with a lousy business model which was loaned half a billion dollars of our money by an administration who had been warned things would go bad, but who also had been prodded by Solyndra investor George Kaiser to approve the deal. George by sheer coincidence was an Obama fund-raiser. Sure enough, as predicted by some, Solyndra went belly up this month firing all of its workers.
Now you might fault me for not knowing about this story but clearly Chris Matthews and his producers knew about it. So how could they possibly go on a rant about Perry’s crony capitalism when the White House has a discernible stench of it right now? To make matters worse, guess where I had to turn to get the full Solyndra story? Comedy Central. That’s right, once again a man who should be a pure comedian, Jon Stewart, was delivering news that the MSNBC prime time pundits didn’t want to touch.
I’ve always considered MSNBC’s advantage over Fox that they had bias without hypocrisy. Now I need to reconsider that assessment.
Respectfully,
Rutherford
NPR President Vivian Schiller Should be Fired
Wow, sometimes proving political correctness gone awry doesn’t get any easier than this. Apparently on Fox, Juan Williams told Bill O’Reilly that although he gets nervous when he sees Muslims boarding his flight, he thinks we need to control our prejudices. The first half of that comment got Williams summarily fired from his gig at NPR.
Now apparently, the defense for the firing according to NPR President Vivian Schiller was that Williams violated NPR terms of employment. This from the Huffington Post:
Schiller appeared at the Atlanta Press Club, where she defended the decision, saying that Williams had violated NPR’s guidelines barring its analysts from making personal or controversial statements.
via Juan Williams On NPR Firing: No One Spoke To Me Before Firing Me
Well for starters, does NPR really want to be that much of a yawner network? No personal or controversial statements? Does NPR stand for Not Particularly Relevant? It also defies logic since Williams made the statement (taken out of context) on Fox, not NPR.
But here’s the kicker. Schiller went on to say:
… he should keep his feelings about Muslims between himself and “his psychiatrist or his publicist.”
Now is it just me or does that comment sound the least bit personal or controversial? Seems to me old Viv ought to be fired if we’re gonna stick by NPR guidelines. Fortunately for Viv, she’s the President so she could give herself a day to make a public apology for the comment. Apparently Williams got no opportunity at all to defend himself.
Look, I’m not a huge fan of Juan Williams. I don’t think he’s the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree. But political correctness has gone too far when someone warns against prejudice by using himself as an example and then gets fired for his self-effacing candor.
When Barack Obama said that his white grandmother would sometimes make him cringe with racially insensitive comments, conservatives shouted that he threw his grandma under the bus (and some went as far as to say it proved he hates white people). We liberals came to his defense, reminding everyone of the full context of the comment, which included how much he loved the grandmother who partly raised him. If we’re going to be intellectually honest and consistent, we must now come to the defense of semi-conservative Juan Williams who made an honest and ultimately instructive comment about his views toward Muslims, when taken in full context.
Comedian Jackie Mason used to tell a joke about how he never got nervous if a bunch of Hasidim gathered behind him at an ATM machine (vs if a bunch of blacks did). The joke illustrates that we have a reason for our prejudices. It is incumbent upon us to reach deep into our better selves and overcome those prejudices. That was all Juan Williams was saying.
It’s an honest shame that Schiller and her cronies are so afraid of a fatwa being declared against them that they would not only trample on the First Amendment but do so to the detriment of a valuable discussion that we need to have in this country right now.
Respectfully,
Rutherford
Obama Oval Office Address: Even Left Says Epic Fail
I noticed recently that one of my conservative readers started quoting from liberal media sources, sources that he had previously derided. He helped me understand why and tonight I got a full blast of confirmation. You see, the liberal media is starting to turn on Barack Obama and conservative Obama-haters everywhere no longer need to seek refuge at Fox “News” to get their daily fix of Obama-ass-kicking. (That’s Obama being kicked, not the other way around.)
Tonight, Obama spent about 15 minutes broadcasting from the Oval Office his plan of action for the Gulf of Mexico oil spill disaster. Oh wait a minute, there was no discernible plan discussed. Forget O’Reilly, Hannity or Limbaugh. Keith Olbermann, yes the left’s answer to the Fox stable of opinion-meisters, was nearly apoplectic at the conclusion of Obama’s address tonight. He wasn’t alone. His guests, Chris Matthews and Howard Fineman piled on too.
Nearly everyone on the left defined tonight as Obama’s opportunity to make the Kennedy-moon-mission speech with the new mission being energy independence. It didn’t happen. At one moment it came close. You see, Kennedy said we would put a man on the moon and bring him safely back to Earth. He threw down the gauntlet and let the details take care of themselves. That is what a President is supposed to do. He is NOT supposed to tell the American people we will change our energy policy …. I don’t know how but it is going to happen. What do you mean, you don’t know how? You don’t need to say that. That is not what we want to hear from you. Then, to add insult to injury the ghosts of George W and Sarah Palin appeared as Obama told us that with God’s help everything would work out. Is God a new cabinet appointee? Is prayer a substitute for good domestic policy? Is the Holy Father going to clean up MMS?
From day 1, Obama could kiss conservative support goodbye. His only hope of political survival is a loyal base. This base is looking for boldness. We didn’t see it tonight. Obama truly could have skipped tonight’s address and he’d be no worse off.
Memo to the President: You know you are in trouble when conservatives eagerly tune to Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow to see you get eviscerated.
Respectfully,
Rutherford
Is Glenn Beck an Intellectual?
My first and only exposure to Fox News’ Glenn Beck was through the prism of rival network MSNBC. From that perspective, Beck is a buffoon, perhaps a dangerous one in that he seduces folks who don’t know any better to buy into his theories. The last word I would have used to describe Beck is “intellectual”. Hence, I dismissed him and anyone who used him to prop up their political arguments. I never gave it another thought.
Next thing I know, Beck is Time Magazine’s cover boy with an accompanying article that went pretty soft on him. Its concluding point though could not be denied. Beck is the fictional character Howard Beale from the movie Network, come to life:
So this establishes Beck’s bona fides as a proxy for American angst and “fed-upness”. But that doesn’t mean he’s an intellectual.
A couple of weeks ago, I stumbled across an article in the Washington Post, the title of which intrigued me. The title of the article was “Is Conservatism Brain Dead?” A pet theory of mine has been that conservatism is failing right now because it has no intelligent advocates. John Boehner looks half the time like he’s fresh from a bender. Michelle Bachmann ties the census to internment camps. No one seems to present ideas in an intelligent fashion. When I argue this with my conservative opponents, I always cite the example William F. Buckley, so intellectual at times to be almost incoherent. Yet his PBS program “Firing Line” often took the form of a formal debate, where a particular political position was “resolved” and two sides would argue the different sides of the resolution intelligently. The author of the Post article, Steven Hayward, also mentioned Buckley and his conclusions were similar to mine until he said one thing that shocked me:
The case of Glenn Beck, Time magazine’s “Mad Man,” is more interesting. His on-air weepiness is unmanly, his flirtation with conspiracy theories a debilitating dead-end, and his judgments sometimes loopy (McCain worse than Obama?) or just plain counterproductive (such as his convoluted charge that Obama is a racist). Yet Beck’s distinctiveness and his potential contribution to conservatism can be summed up with one name: R.J. Pestritto.
Pestritto is a young political scientist at Hillsdale College in Michigan whom Beck has had on his TV show several times, once for the entire hour discussing Woodrow Wilson and progressivism. He is among a handful of young conservative scholars, several of whom Beck has also featured, engaged in serious academic work critiquing the intellectual pedigree of modern liberalism. Their writing is often dense and difficult, but Beck not only reads it, he assigns it to his staff. “Beck asks me questions about Hegel, based on what he’s read in my books,” Pestritto told me. Pestritto is the kind of guest Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity would never think of booking.
Okay, so Beck may lack Buckley’s urbanity, and his show will never be confused with “Firing Line.” But he’s on to something with his interest in serious analysis of liberalism’s patrimony. The left is enraged with Beck’s scandal-mongering over Van Jones and ACORN, but they have no idea that he poses a much bigger threat than that. If more conservative talkers took up the theme of challenging liberalism’s bedrock assumptions the way Beck does from time to time, liberals would have to defend their problematic premises more often.
I was so shocked that a man who had up to that point presented an intelligent argument was now lauding Beck, that I joined an online chat session with him the following day. We had the following exchange:
Middlebury, Conn.: But for a summary statement at the beginning of the chat, you haven’t defended Glenn Beck. Does his esoteric knowledge of conservative dogma really outweigh most of his utter foolishness?
Steven F. Hayward: Jury is out on that. As I’ve said to friends the last two days, I know I’ve gone out on a limb offering a partial defense of him, hoping that he doesn’t saw it off behind me.
Hayward acknowledges that presenting Beck as an intellectual is fraught with potential challenges. But I wanted to dig deeper and look up any conversation I could find between Beck and the Woodrow Wilson scholar, Ronald Pestritto. What I found surprised me (note that the camera man points the camera at the wrong people when they are introduced and the YouTube poster even attributes the quotes incorrectly):
While one guest, Matthew Spalding impressed me as a talking points spouter, Pestritto does appear to be a scholar who has considered matters within a historical context.
So, has my opinion of Beck changed? Only in part. While I cannot swear that Beck runs all that deep, it does appear that unlike some of his peers, Hannity, O’Reilly and even Limbaugh, Beck wants to plumb the depths of academia to support his points. It appears that the man actually reads. He does not, at least on occasion, treat his audience as a league of dumb followers. He presents them with ideas to chew on.
This may make Beck, far from a buffoon, one of the most dangerous men on television. Behind the tears and the nutjob theories, are some arguments presented cogently enough that liberals must take him seriously and work hard to pick him apart. The only thing more dangerous than people following a fool, are people following a wise one.
Respectfully,
Rutherford
I Think Therefore I am Not
I spent the better part of last week confined to a hospital suffering from flu-induced pneumonia. To the hospital’s credit, they had a cable line up that could rival that of the finest hotel. Unfortunately, my liberal leanings were short circuited by the absence of MSNBC. I knew if I watched too much CNN I would only extend my hospital stay. So I did what any other political junkie in my position would have done …. I watched Fox News Channel. Whether I watched “The Five” or Neil Cavuto or Hannity, one consistent meme I heard repeated was their derogatory references to “the main stream media”. The more I heard this, the funnier it seemed. Fox News Channel consistently beats CNN and MSNBC in ratings. While I hate to admit it, they are the kings of 24 hour news coverage. More folks watch them than their competitors. So could someone please tell me how FNC is not the mainstream media? These are the outsiders? These are the underdogs? Give me a break. Of course, claiming not to be mainstream pumps up their aggrieved victim status and clearly if conservative politics has become anything of late it has become the politics of aggrievement. Still I found this self-delusion of being outside the mainstream pretty amusing.
The other example involves the GOP Presidential contenders themselves. If you left your brain in your bottom desk drawer, you would believe that these are four brave Washington outsiders. These are men who rail at big government. They are the ones who will change everything. Yet even a cursory examination reveals that three of the four are Washington institutions. Newt Gingrich, the infamous Speaker of the House from the 1990′s has since his ouster profited from Washington connections for the past 20 years. Ron Paul has been a House Representative since 1976 with about a 12 year hiatus in the late 80′s/early 90′s. For all his rhetoric and a good 30 years of Washington experience, he hasn’t moved the needle one inch toward a less intrusive Washington.
And then there is former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum. Santorum has been a Washington fixture since 1991 and qualifies as an outsider now only because he lost his Senate seat in 2006. Unlike veteran Ron Paul, Santorum doesn’t even try to hide his “Washington disease”. He speaks in legislative mumbo jumbo. He talks about the bills he has championed. He talks about having to vote against conscience “to take one for the team.” He sounds like anything but a Washington outsider.
Yet each of these men would have you believe they oppose the very government that has employed them for decades. Are they fooling themselves or just trying to pull something over on the rest of us?
When you dig under the outsider rhetoric of Fox News Channel and the GOP contenders, you come to a disheartening conclusion. They’re all playing for the same team as those currently in power and real meaningful change is highly unlikely in the near future.
Respectfully,
Rutherford
Image: smokedsalmon / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
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February 27, 2012 at 8:30 pm Rutherford 482 comments