Showing posts with label fox news. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fox news. Show all posts
The Pot Calling the Kettle FOX
My Tabloid Facebook Friend posted a link to an article called "Fourteen Propaganda Techniques Fox 'News' Uses to Brainwash Americans," which put me in mind of the Rules of Communist Revolution that used to circulate in mimeograph back in the good old days before the Internet, when you could believe everything you read. The Communists had only ten rules, Fox has fourteen! That shows the
The Pot Calling the Kettle FOX
My Tabloid Facebook Friend posted a link to an article called "Fourteen Propaganda Techniques Fox 'News' Uses to Brainwash Americans," which put me in mind of the Rules of Communist Revolution that used to circulate in mimeograph back in the good old days before the Internet, when you could believe everything you read. The Communists had only ten rules, Fox has fourteen! That shows the
The Autumn of Love
I thought I'd be able to embed this Fox News video from Facebook, but evidently not, so you'll just have to use the link. At least one of my Facebook Friends, someone I went to high school with, thinks it's just the bee's knees, but that's just evidence of how damn dumb you have to be to believe what you see on Fox News.
First off, Fox's pundits think that a satirical sketch about a sitting President on Saturday Night Live is a sign that the liberal media's "love fest" with Obama is over. All it really means is that Saturday Night Live routinely does satirical sketches about sitting Presidents, regardless of their party affiliation. Fox's misreading is not surprising, though: the Right has always missed the jabs that liberal humorists direct at Democratic Presidents. Consider the Onion, which has been sniping at Obama as well as Republicans all along. Take Doonesbury: Garry Trudeau always has made fun of Democratic politicians, including Presidents, and liberals and leftists generally, ever since the early days of his comic strip. Following the American tendency to mistake politics for a sporting event where you cheer only for your team, conservatives have a great deal of trouble recognizing this. Then compare the Right's contender for an anti-Doonesbury, snoozefest Mallard Fillmore. How often I read it depends on how many discarded copies of the local newspaper I encounter, but I have never seen Bruce Tinsley make fun of Republicans or conservatives; that's one reason Mallard Fillmore is no threat to Doonesbury's hegemony.
Second, what liberal media love fest? The New York Times and the Washington Post have been fussing about Obama ever since he became a contender for the nomination, and they always gave George W. Bush an easy ride (though not as easy as Dubya's fans wanted, it's true -- that would be impossible). FAIR has been covering this: see their articles on alleged pro-Obama bias in the corporate media, for example.
Third, Fox's commentators are a bit confused about the political spectrum. The "left" has been skeptical, and harshly critical, of Obama all along. It's the center-right that loves him, though I know that "center-right" looks like "radical left" to Fox News and its audience. If the leftward wing of the center-right, roughly liberal Democrats, are starting to fall out of love with Obama, it's because they've begun to realize just how right-wing he is -- not, as the Fox pundits and their fans have it, because they've realized he's really a Socialist. Hence the GLBT Equality March from last weekend, a grassroots event very different from Obama's astroturfing, and therefore dismissed by Obama's partisans along with the Right. Roy Edroso had a good post pointing out Teabag Nation's general hostility to the gay movement -- not exactly surprising, but a useful reminder.
If the government has been interfering with big business and the banking/finance sector as the Fox pundits complain, that was 1) a bipartisan move initiated by Bush and embraced by both Obama and McCain, 2) at the insistence of big business and the banking sector. Those big players just wanted billions upon billions of taxpayers' dollars, of course, not any restrictions on their irresponsible behavior, and that was pretty much what they got. Like government involvement in Americans' health care, government interference with outrageous executive salaries and reckless financial practices was just what most Americans wanted.
It's really hard to make any sense out of this clip, because the pundits are grasping desperately to see Obama brought down. It doesn't really matter why someone -- anyone! -- is criticizing Obama, as long as it's someone outside their own narrow ambit. Are gays criticizing Obama? Good! Do many Americans distrust Obama's commitment to public health care? Well, they should, because he's not really committed to it, and that's a good thing, so what the public is wrong in wanting it, but let's not go there, because this is the American People we're talking about. The Fox pundits, and Teabag Nation generally, are just as incoherent as their allegedly more liberal counterparts on CNN, or elsewhere in the corporate media; but also as incoherent as the more genuinely liberal commentators who want to believe that Obama is a closet progressive, and have to do a lot of fancy footwork to make a case for that.
First off, Fox's pundits think that a satirical sketch about a sitting President on Saturday Night Live is a sign that the liberal media's "love fest" with Obama is over. All it really means is that Saturday Night Live routinely does satirical sketches about sitting Presidents, regardless of their party affiliation. Fox's misreading is not surprising, though: the Right has always missed the jabs that liberal humorists direct at Democratic Presidents. Consider the Onion, which has been sniping at Obama as well as Republicans all along. Take Doonesbury: Garry Trudeau always has made fun of Democratic politicians, including Presidents, and liberals and leftists generally, ever since the early days of his comic strip. Following the American tendency to mistake politics for a sporting event where you cheer only for your team, conservatives have a great deal of trouble recognizing this. Then compare the Right's contender for an anti-Doonesbury, snoozefest Mallard Fillmore. How often I read it depends on how many discarded copies of the local newspaper I encounter, but I have never seen Bruce Tinsley make fun of Republicans or conservatives; that's one reason Mallard Fillmore is no threat to Doonesbury's hegemony.
Second, what liberal media love fest? The New York Times and the Washington Post have been fussing about Obama ever since he became a contender for the nomination, and they always gave George W. Bush an easy ride (though not as easy as Dubya's fans wanted, it's true -- that would be impossible). FAIR has been covering this: see their articles on alleged pro-Obama bias in the corporate media, for example.
Third, Fox's commentators are a bit confused about the political spectrum. The "left" has been skeptical, and harshly critical, of Obama all along. It's the center-right that loves him, though I know that "center-right" looks like "radical left" to Fox News and its audience. If the leftward wing of the center-right, roughly liberal Democrats, are starting to fall out of love with Obama, it's because they've begun to realize just how right-wing he is -- not, as the Fox pundits and their fans have it, because they've realized he's really a Socialist. Hence the GLBT Equality March from last weekend, a grassroots event very different from Obama's astroturfing, and therefore dismissed by Obama's partisans along with the Right. Roy Edroso had a good post pointing out Teabag Nation's general hostility to the gay movement -- not exactly surprising, but a useful reminder.
If the government has been interfering with big business and the banking/finance sector as the Fox pundits complain, that was 1) a bipartisan move initiated by Bush and embraced by both Obama and McCain, 2) at the insistence of big business and the banking sector. Those big players just wanted billions upon billions of taxpayers' dollars, of course, not any restrictions on their irresponsible behavior, and that was pretty much what they got. Like government involvement in Americans' health care, government interference with outrageous executive salaries and reckless financial practices was just what most Americans wanted.
It's really hard to make any sense out of this clip, because the pundits are grasping desperately to see Obama brought down. It doesn't really matter why someone -- anyone! -- is criticizing Obama, as long as it's someone outside their own narrow ambit. Are gays criticizing Obama? Good! Do many Americans distrust Obama's commitment to public health care? Well, they should, because he's not really committed to it, and that's a good thing, so what the public is wrong in wanting it, but let's not go there, because this is the American People we're talking about. The Fox pundits, and Teabag Nation generally, are just as incoherent as their allegedly more liberal counterparts on CNN, or elsewhere in the corporate media; but also as incoherent as the more genuinely liberal commentators who want to believe that Obama is a closet progressive, and have to do a lot of fancy footwork to make a case for that.
The Autumn of Love
I thought I'd be able to embed this Fox News video from Facebook, but evidently not, so you'll just have to use the link. At least one of my Facebook Friends, someone I went to high school with, thinks it's just the bee's knees, but that's just evidence of how damn dumb you have to be to believe what you see on Fox News.First off, Fox's pundits think that a satirical sketch about a sitting
The Autumn of Love
I thought I'd be able to embed this Fox News video from Facebook, but evidently not, so you'll just have to use the link. At least one of my Facebook Friends, someone I went to high school with, thinks it's just the bee's knees, but that's just evidence of how damn dumb you have to be to believe what you see on Fox News.First off, Fox's pundits think that a satirical sketch about a sitting
Half of America Marches on Washington
I didn't pay a lot of attention to last weekend's Equality March on Washington, though I did notice that almost none of the online commentary I saw ventured to give numbers. "Thousands" was the word I usually saw; not even "tens of thousands." That suggested to me that the turnout was pretty small. Finally I found an article on the New York Times site which informed me that, according to the march organizers, "at least 150,000 people had attended, though the authorities gave no official estimate of the crowd size." That's a respectable figure. Even if you allow for the overcounting that organizers are often accused of, and cut the figure in half, you've got about as many people as turned up for the Teabaggers' in Washington rally a month ago: 1.4 million in Michelle Malkin numbers, 70,000 or so in real world people. (Note the difference between the lead and the picture caption in this article.)
But the key issues that the march was about -- marriage and the military -- are not issues I care about, and in fact I'm dubious about them. The main thing that caught my attention before the march took place was the contemptuous attitudes expressed to the march by what might be called the gay establishment, if we had such a thing. Barney Frank confirmed my low opinion of him with his snide remark, "The only thing they’re going to put pressure on is the grass." If you want hilarity, though, here's what he said on Michelangelo Signorile's show: "Barack Obama does not need pressure." I'd say that pressure is exactly what Obama needs. Lots of it, on a variety of issues.
Joe Solmonese of the Human Rights Campaign chided marchers to give President Obama a little time: "'It’s not January 19, 2017,' he wrote, referring to what would be the last day of Mr. Obama’s presidency if he were to win a second term." Right, and exactly how does Solmonese suggest that we pressure Obama after he's left office? (Oh, I haven't mentioned Obama's speech to the HRC on the eve of the march. Haven't watched the video, haven't read the transcript. Excerpts, and Jon Stewart, indicate it is more of the same hot air the man can deliver in his sleep. Maybe I'll look at it more closely some other day.)
One response that drew some attention (I can't now find where I first read it, but here's a source) was an anonymous Obama "adviser" quoted by CNBC's John Harwood jeering at the marchers as the "internet left fringe" who need to "take off the pajamas, get dressed and realize that governing a closely-divided country is complicated and difficult." The marchers were in their pajamas? Harwood later explained:
A White House flack tried to do damage control:
Dan Choi is very cute, and inspires all manner of unclean thoughts in my mind, but he really should keep that gag on. Dan, you did not "defend" or "protect" America in Iraq. You were part of an aggressive invasion (and now occupation) force that had and has no business being there. Waving your patriotism around just makes me more sure that the Equality March was not for me.
But the key issues that the march was about -- marriage and the military -- are not issues I care about, and in fact I'm dubious about them. The main thing that caught my attention before the march took place was the contemptuous attitudes expressed to the march by what might be called the gay establishment, if we had such a thing. Barney Frank confirmed my low opinion of him with his snide remark, "The only thing they’re going to put pressure on is the grass." If you want hilarity, though, here's what he said on Michelangelo Signorile's show: "Barack Obama does not need pressure." I'd say that pressure is exactly what Obama needs. Lots of it, on a variety of issues.
Joe Solmonese of the Human Rights Campaign chided marchers to give President Obama a little time: "'It’s not January 19, 2017,' he wrote, referring to what would be the last day of Mr. Obama’s presidency if he were to win a second term." Right, and exactly how does Solmonese suggest that we pressure Obama after he's left office? (Oh, I haven't mentioned Obama's speech to the HRC on the eve of the march. Haven't watched the video, haven't read the transcript. Excerpts, and Jon Stewart, indicate it is more of the same hot air the man can deliver in his sleep. Maybe I'll look at it more closely some other day.)
One response that drew some attention (I can't now find where I first read it, but here's a source) was an anonymous Obama "adviser" quoted by CNBC's John Harwood jeering at the marchers as the "internet left fringe" who need to "take off the pajamas, get dressed and realize that governing a closely-divided country is complicated and difficult." The marchers were in their pajamas? Harwood later explained:
"My comments quoting an Obama adviser about liberal bloggers/pajamas weren't about the LGBT community or the marchers," he wrote. "They referred more broadly to those grumbling on the left about an array of issues in addition to gay rights, including the war in Afghanistan and health care and Guantanamo -- and whether all that added up to trouble with Obama's liberal base..."Oh well, that's all right, then: I already knew that Obama despises the left. And why not? How many votes can we deliver, after all? Not many. So I guess he won't want my vote in 2012. That part at least will be easy.
A White House flack tried to do damage control:
In a comment to Greg Sargent of The Plum Line, White House senior communications director Dan Pfeiffer basically refuted the report.I liked Jon Stewart's take on the march and the coverage it received, though (via)."That sentiment does not reflect White House thinking at all, we've held easily a dozen calls with the progressive online community because we believe the online communities can often keep the focus on how policy will affect the American people rather than just the political back-and-forth," Pfeiffer emailed.
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Dan Choi is very cute, and inspires all manner of unclean thoughts in my mind, but he really should keep that gag on. Dan, you did not "defend" or "protect" America in Iraq. You were part of an aggressive invasion (and now occupation) force that had and has no business being there. Waving your patriotism around just makes me more sure that the Equality March was not for me.
Half of America Marches on Washington
I didn't pay a lot of attention to last weekend's Equality March on Washington, though I did notice that almost none of the online commentary I saw ventured to give numbers. "Thousands" was the word I usually saw; not even "tens of thousands." That suggested to me that the turnout was pretty small. Finally I found an article on the New York Times site which informed me that, according to the
Half of America Marches on Washington
I didn't pay a lot of attention to last weekend's Equality March on Washington, though I did notice that almost none of the online commentary I saw ventured to give numbers. "Thousands" was the word I usually saw; not even "tens of thousands." That suggested to me that the turnout was pretty small. Finally I found an article on the New York Times site which informed me that, according to the
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