John Cook, over on Gawker, has a bombshell, of sorts, having unearthed documents from the Nixon Library that has Roger Ailes laying out the blueprint for Faux News, decades ahead of time.
Republican media strategist Roger Ailes launched Fox News Channel in 1996, ostensibly as a "fair and balanced" counterpoint to what he regarded as the liberal establishment media. But according to a remarkable document buried deep within the Richard Nixon Presidential Library, the intellectual forerunner for Fox News was a nakedly partisan 1970 plot by Ailes and other Nixon aides to circumvent the "prejudices of network news" and deliver "pro-administration" stories to heartland television viewers.
No doubt, with the dwarfs, finks, phonies and frauds of Nixonland, the corpulent liar didn't need the pikers, he just had to bid his time, and launch his own lie factory, were he was The King, and could listen to his lies bounce around, echoing all over the Right Wing Freak Show.
Go read Cook's post, it's overflowing with juicy tidbits
Take a few days off, and, oh boy, all kinds of things hitting the fan ...
Reading Michael Hastings' 'The Runaway General', it hard to tell if it is a good piece of journalism, or fiction, perhaps a character synopsis for some new HBO mini-series in the offing, about a cock-waving, muscle-headed military commander..
I mean, if General Stanley A. McChrystal were cast in 'Apocalypse Now', while Robert Duvall's Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore was blabbering about "I love the smell of napalm in the morning .... The smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole hill. Smelled like ...victory ...", the camera would have to pan, to McChrystal, sitting on the beach, eating napalm out his helmet, and muttering what a candy-ass Kilgore was.
It is said that he will be going to his meeting with Obama today, resignation letter in-hand, and Obama is going to have to accept it (if it hasn't already been demanded), as part of the show of not being a pansy, and letting a tin-horn commander, and the Pentagon, walk all over him.
No rearview mirrors in the room today.
So, boys and girls, should McChrystal walk out of the Oval Office today, a retired muscle-headed, cock-waving, former military commander, how soon before he beelines it to Faux News, to add fresh meat to their propaganda machine?
The rally was called just two days ago and over 100,000 made it to Washington to protest the democrat’s unconstitutional take over of the health care industry. FOX News reported:
[snip]
Thousands of Tea Partiers descended upon the Capitol in an effort to derail the march toward “Obamacare” by pressuring undecided lawmakers to vote “no” Sunday.
Hold the phone!
They quote Faux News, which only cites "thousands of Tea Partiers".
I believe it is generally accepted that "thousands" is no way near "100,000", or Faux News would have presented it as "tens-of-thousands", or perhaps "scores-of-thousands".
Here's a view of the "100,000 RALLY IN WASHINGTON AGAINST OBAMACARE";
Today, Roger Ailes, the mothernest egg chamber of the vile insects that inhabit the airwaves at Faux News, sitting in on the roundtable, of ABC News' 'This Week'.
I mean, the program also had Barbara Walters sitting in as host/moderator!
I have no idea why Jabba the Ailes decided to appear on “This Week” — but after this beatdown by Krugman, I doubt he’ll be back.
Notice Jabba doesn’t refute Krugman’s charge. He just ignores it, belches up a total non sequitur, then starts spewing Republican talking points. The result? The master propagandist was made to look like an ass on live teevee.
HUFFINGTON: Well, Roger, it's not a question of picking a fight. And aren't you concerned about the language that Glenn Beck is using, which is, after all, inciting the American people? There is a lot of suffering out there, as you know, and when he talks about people being slaughtered, about who is going to be the next in the killing spree...
(CROSSTALK)
AILES: Well, he was talking about Hitler and Stalin slaughtering people. So I think he was probably accurate. Also, I'm a little....
HUFFINGTON: No, no, he was talking about this administration.
AILES: I don't -- I think he speaks English. I don't know, but I mean, I don't misinterpret any of his words. He did say one unfortunate thing, which he apologized for, but that happens in live television. So I don't think it's -- I think if we start going around as the word police in this business, it will be...
HUFFINGTON: It's not about the word police. It's about something deeper. It's about the fact that there is a tradition as the historian Richard Hofstetter said, in American politics, of the paranoid style. And the paranoid style is dangerous when there is real pain out there. I mean, with...
AILES: I agree with you. I read something on your blog that said I looked like J. Edgar Hoover, I had a face like a fist, and I was essentially a malignant tumor...
HUFFINGTON: Well, that's...
AILES: And I thought -- and then it got nasty after that...
HUFFINGTON: ... that was never by anybody that we had...
I suppose, to be fair, we should apologize to malignant tumors, the slanderous analogy to looking like Roger Ailes.
It would be closer to say, he looks more, proverbially speaking, like Joseph Goebbels.
And Krugman's call of Faux News hawking PartyofNoican talking points is on-the-money, as, earlier this month, Newsweek cited ""Roger Ailes is the real head of the GOP";
Politics, like nature, abhors a vacuum—which is why God created Roger Ailes. The president of Fox News is, by default, the closest thing there is to a kingmaker in Anti-Obama America. And that, in turn, makes him the de facto leader of the GOP. In a relentless (and spectacularly successful) hunt for cable ratings, Ailes has given invaluable publicity to the tea partiers, furnished tryout platforms to GOP candidates, and trained a fire hose of populist anger at the president and his allies in Congress. While Beltway Republicans wring their hands or write their tracts, Ailes has worked the countryside, using his feel for Main Street resentment to attract and give voice to this year's angriest—and most powerful—voter-viewers: those who hate the Feds, the Fed, and the Ivy League. It was Ailes who put the "party" in the tea parties by giving them a round-the-clock national stage. Next month Fox will have priority access to the National Tea Party Convention in Nashville.
That prompted John Amato, over on Crooks and Liars, to highlight;
Ailes already has been leading the charge to tear down President Obama and has been very successful at that so far. In a year they have changed the political narrative when conservatism and the GOP were in shambles and the country was in meltdown. They were aided by a horrendous economy created by Bush and his conservative cronies of course that Obama inherited. The president has also left his base in the dark too, but FOX News is a real threat to the democratic process in America. PERIOD. I'm not just talking about having a conservative point of view. They created an entire political movement called the tea party movement and not a word from the media about this. Even on TV today, pundits and pols call them a wild card in politics, but that's silly, They make Newt Gingrich look like a moderate republican. When has a media outlet ever turned into an activist organization for one political party and recruited members by sending their hosts on location to do so?
I haven't heard the media complain either that FOX is the only network that has access to the teabagger convention. Once again the Aile's machine chugs along and our country suffers for it as the MSM remains mute.
It's happening, and we have history on this, that we shouldn't ignore.
Pretty bold title, heh, considering we tanked posting this weekend.
It was a bit busy, here on the Homefront, but it had to do with something else;
Today is our birthday!
So, we decided not to sit at the computer, very much, and indulge in some minor celebration (Thanks, Sisters!), as greetings dribbled in from family and friends.
In that light, we're going to point you to some other voices, on one of the weeks' top (remarkably), stories.
The ridiculous, collectively, panties-getting-in-a-knot reaction to the Obama -Faux News War.
We only touched on it briefly, the other night, with the ignoramus Jake Tapper, but there were truckloads and barges of pixels burned out on this story.
However, there were three that stood out, above the crowd.
Barry Crimmins had people jumping up, and waving at him to weigh in, so Barry, in his best-satirist-in-the-country-mode said "Okay, you want to hear what I have to say ... " with "Look! A shiny balloon!"
Back in April, we couldn't resist the sight, of ABC's Jake Tapper, in his role as water carrier for the Bush Grindhouse, and NeoNitwits, standing up, proudly, for torture, when we wrote "Jake Tapper Liked His Shit Sandwich".
Apparently, that tasted so good, he's hitting the line for seconds, as fearless (or feckless) Jake is head-butting the Obama Whitehouse, proudly hauling the buckets for Faux News, in the newly launched war against that "Fair and Balanced" (or "Fairly Unbalanced) network.
At Tuesday's White House briefing Tapper seemed completely baffled, and quite insulted, by the White House's claim that Fox News is not a real news organization. Tapper demanded WH spokesman Robert Gibbs back up the claim [emphasis added]:
Tapper: It’s escaped none of our notice that the White House has decided in the last few weeks to declare one of our sister organizations “not a news organization” and to tell the rest of us not to treat them like a news organization. Can you explain why it’s appropriate for the White House to decide that a news organization is not one –
(Crosstalk)
Gibbs: Jake, we render, we render an opinion based on some of their coverage and the fairness that, the fairness of that coverage.
Tapper: But that’s a pretty sweeping declaration that they are “not a news organization.” How are they any different from, say –
Gibbs: ABC -
Tapper: ABC. MSNBC. Univision. I mean how are they any different?
Gibbs: You and I should watch sometime around 9 o’clock tonight. Or 5 o’clock this afternoon.
Tapper: I’m not talking about their opinion programming or issues you have with certain reports. I’m talking about saying thousands of individuals who work for a media organization, do not work for a “news organization” -- why is that appropriate for the White House to say?
Gibbs: That’s our opinion.
Boehlert added "But Tapper is stumped. He can't figure out how Fox News is different from ABC News. (Psst Jake, I wouldn't say that too loudly around David Westin.)" Holy Cow!
I'm surprised that Tapper wasn't wearing a diver's wet suit, to be carrying that much water for the dwarfs, finks, phonies and frauds over that at Faux News.
But now, once again, Jake Tapper is a hero to the right-wing blogs. Because he knows that it is the objective reporters job to always object, to everything. If the President says the ocean is quite large, it is heroic reporting to demand that his spokesman acknowledge that outer space is even bigger.
Maybe we need to call in Denzel Washington, to explain, "like he was a four-year-old", to Tapper, the difference between ABC News and Faux News.
The poll finds that among GOPers, 24% think Fox is “extremely reliable,” and 41% think Fox is “reliable.” That’s a total of 65% of Republicans who see Fox as reliable or very much so.
[snip]
Even more interesting, perhaps, is how many Republicans only get their info from Fox, as compared to the other cable networks. A surprising 74% of GOPers “never” watch CNN, and an even higher amount, 89%, never watch MSNBC.
Reliable as in relationship to what?
That the moon is made of cheese, and inhabited by little green men?
Now, it will be interesting to see the reaction to Shepard Smith, from inside the chamber, of how many of his colleagues start dissing him (I think it will be a given and Hannity and The Loofah Man will locked-and-loaded), how the Flying Monkeys react.
We’ll have to keep a running check News Hounds today, because they "watch Fox News so you don't have to".
"I hope you will all join me in giving Fox News host Shepard Smith a virtual standing ovation for his emphatic, no-holds-barred stance against torture. If you'd like to send some props to Smith, you can email his show at studiob@foxnews.com."
Fox News' Shep Smith has been known to show a bit of an independent streak once in a while, meaning that he seems less willing to regurgitate FNC's propaganda ...
[Snip]
Overall, he generally comes off as pretty rational (and yes, I do believe that rational conservatives are still in existence.) Smith could probably excel as a legit journalist if he were in some other medium.
I wonder, if Faux News has, oh, I don't know, contingency plans for something like this.
They are not, necessarily, accustomed to such breakdowns.
They have to be worried, about the Flying Monkeys, and dwarfs, finks, phonies and frauds, who have heard this (or get pointed to the YouTube), who have been accidentally exposed to this piece of reality.
Roger Ailes, surely, knows how confused they must be today, the pain and anguish they are experiencing.
The switchboard could be on fire by now, all wanting to know, did Shep Smith just pull the curtain back, or did he, somehow, inexplicably, get abducted by aliens, and reprogrammed to speak like ... like ... like a ... oh God ... a Democrat!
We wouldn't bet against complete chaos at Faux News headquarters today.
Or maybe, it is something entirely different.
Maybe it is Shepard Smith, crying for help, attempting to get a message out, seeking assistance to getting out of the hellhole of Faux News.
Oh, is he shrewd.
He couldn't just blurt it out, as no doubt, the screen would cut-to-black, or a commercial, Faux News Security would swoop in, throw a net over him, and spirit him away, for reprogramming, or worse.
No, Shep's a smart cookie.
Take a hot issue in the news, let loose with a raw, emotional, honest response, knowing his signal will be heard, will be carried in the winds, will reverberate through the World Wide Web, and his rescue will come in swift time.
Just in case, run while you can Shep! ... Get out - Now! ...
Don't wait!
Ailes, likely, already as a team of people watching you, perhaps even the dreaded, fear-evoking Jesse Watters will ambush you, forcing you to recant, on-camera.
Run, Shep, Run ...
And, don't look back!
(Hmmm, maybe it's time for MSNBC - Hey, after all, they did hire a former Faux Newser, the world-wide-wonder, Rita Cosby - should give Shepard Smith shelter. They can lose that second-hour rebroadcast of Tweety, and plug in Shep, and go against their droning format of Host-Clips-Talking Heads, and have Shep man a round table, and, to be even more groundbreaking, instead of the same lapdog, MSM journalists, bring in bloggers, to chew over the days' issues ... I mean, if they're going to give Chucky T.a show ... )
And, that is to our advantage, the less being exposed to his rancid toxicity, the better.
However, today, we put on our proverbial Hazmat Suit, to point to another, Roger Ebert, who has a most amusing article, ripping on the Original Pinhead.
Apparently, recently. Loofah Man slapped at the Chicago Sun-Times, for their Liberalism.
Dear Bill: Thanks for including the Chicago Sun-Times on your exclusive list of newspapers on your "Hall of Shame." To be in an O'Reilly Hall of Fame would be a cruel blow to any newspaper. It would place us in the favor of a man who turns red and starts screaming when anyone disagrees with him. My grade-school teacher, wise Sister Nathan, would have called in your parents and recommended counseling with Father Hogben.
Yes, the Sun-Times is liberal, having recently endorsed our first Democrat for President since LBJ. We were founded by Marshall Field one week before Pearl Harbor to provide a liberal voice in Chicago to counter the Tribune, which opposed an American war against Hitler. I'm sure you would have sided with the Trib at the time.
I hesitate to quote more from it, as it is a short piece.
And, as stated above, it is most, most amusing (especially the comparison he makes, of the "outrage" the Sun-Times received dropping Loofah Man's syndicated column)
But it's now inflamed by declining imperial power, genuine economic crises, an exotic Other occupying the White House, and potent technology harnessed by right-wing corporations such as Fox News to broadcast and disseminate it widely and continuously. At the very least, it's worth taking note of. And I wonder what would happen if MSNBC broadcast a similar discussion of leftists plotting and planning the imminent, violent Socialist Revolution against the U.S. Government.
With the Republicans in meltdown, not knowing whether to piss, or wind their watches, it will be, for the next few years, such a joy to see the dwarfs, finks, phonies and frauds over there on Faux News, sitting there, their heads exploding from the build-up of methane gas.
We agree with Glen Greenwald, that this is "really worth watching";
Even more notable is the dripping condescension directed at him by the Fox personality at the end of the interview for having committed the sin of exhibiting genuine passion and anger over something as trivial as the disappearing middle class and the massive and growing rich-poor gap. That's the crime of Shrillness, one of the prime hallmarks of Unseriousness -- failing/refusing to suppress one's anger towards our political and financial establishment ...
If you really want to get the full flavor of what a jerk this interviewer comes across as, watch this video without any sound. It almost looks like an SNL skit- the guy did everything but stick his tongue out and put his thumb to his nose while waving his fingers.
“It is not just Murdoch (and everybody else at News Corp.’s highest levels) who absolutely despises Bill O’Reilly, the bullying, mean-spirited, and hugely successful evening commentator,” Wolff wrote, “but [Fox News chief executive] Roger Ailes himself who loathes him. Success, however, has cemented everyone to each other."
“The embarrassment can no longer be missed,” Wolff wrote, in another section of the book. “He mumbles even more than usual when called on to justify it. He barely pretends to hide the way he feels about Bill O’Reilly. And while it is not that he would give Fox up—because the money is the money; success trumps all—in the larger sense of who he is, he seems to want to hedge his bets.”
Wolff adds that Fox CEO Roger Ailes shares Murdoch's opinion. "It is not just Murdoch (and everybody else at News Corp.’s highest levels) who absolutely despises Bill O’Reilly, the bullying, mean-spirited, and hugely successful evening commentator, but Roger Ailes himself who loathes him. Success, however, has cemented everyone to each other."
According to Wolff, Murdoch's desire not to be defined solely by his ownership of Fox underlay his purchase last year of the Wall Street Journal, which "was in no small way about wanting to trade the illiberal -- the belligerent, the vulgar, the loud, the menacing the unsubtle -- for the better-heeled, the more magnanimous, the further nuanced."
Well, not a banner week, as far as the idiots out there, someone to really step up, clutching, body askew, to claim our IDOTW award.
Sarah Palin?
Sure, Mommy Moose was like the Emergency Broadcast Signal, popping up everywhere, on every television, at every moment, earning her the praise of becoming The Wild Wordsmith of Wasilla, as labeled by Dick Cavett, rarely rises above just being your average, run-of-the-mill dolt.
Evan Bayh, who, every time he speaks, appears to be auditioning for the mascot job with Ambien, gets an honorable mention, for, apparently believing, that all Revoltin' Joe Lieberman (R-I, CT) needs to do is stand in front of the class, and write on the blackboard 500 times, that "I am sorry for ...", the choices being;
Obama is a Marxist
Obama palling around with terrorists
Obama voted to let the troops die
Dissing Obama, as an "Independent Democrat", at the Republican National Convention
Campaigning for the Republicans, against Democrats, on Congressional and Senate races
By weeks' end, there was one person that appeared to be reaching ...
Ellie the Chimps' former CNBC Co-Host, Dennis Miller.
Yes, the former SNL smart-ass, later moving on to HBO (while both offered a stable of writers, the latter, I know, gave him a whipping, cracker-jack staff), and even a stint at Monday Night Football.
While, now, having his own radio show on Westwood One, Ellie's former partner also moonlights with the Grand Ayatollah of Ignorant Dolts, Bill O'Reilly, on the Faux News Channel.
Last night on the O’Reilly Factor, Dennis Miller said President-elect Obama should “flatten these punks at AIG.” When O’Reilly suggested Obama should arrest Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), Miller laughed and said, “Barney might want to be arrested.” O’Reilly laughed and then acted disgusted by the idea of homosexuality. Watch it ...
Oh, Jesus ... Fag jokes?
Barney Frank has been out-of-the-closet since around the time an, undoubtedly, precocious toddler Miller may have paraded around the house in his mother's high heels.
If Ellie was around, no doubt, she would have been hittin' the buzzers on that one.
For another, with Miller riding herd with the dying Pachyderm Party, it's a mighty tall glass house he spews his locker room barb from if he wants to color his jokes pink.
She’s a great dame. People are fascinated by her because the Left hate her. I think the Left hate her — mostly women on the Left hate her — because to me from outside in it appears that she has a great sex life, all right? I think she has non-neurotic sex with that Todd Palin guy. … I think that snow mobile looks like mechanized foreplay to me and that’s why people are fascinated.
Does Dennis Miller, sitting straight up, see starbursts every time the GOP Clothes Horse pops up on the screen?
Has he gone out and purchased an official Todd Palin snowsuit and snow mobile of his own, placing it in a special room of his house, rocketing across the carnal ice of Alaska, all frenzied with fascination?
Oh, wait a minute ... Wait a minute ...
I get it now.
It was so obvious ...
Dennis Miller is Bill O'Reilly's Ellie!
They just took away the Howard Dean Scream buttons.
Dennis Miller ... The Garlic's Ignorant Dolt of the Week!
It still is, thinking back to last evening, something awesome, incredibly unreal, and thoroughly satisfying.
I wonder how many Republicans today, cued up their DVD's, to look back at the Republican Convention, and watch all those speakers mock Barack Obama for being a "community organizer".
Yeah, you showed'em, alright!
Obama kicked ass, that then knocked their teeth out for mumbling about it.
Also, it was rather interesting watching it all unfold.
MSNBC seemed slow, on the take, to call states for Obama.
And, if MSNBC was slow, CNN was absolutely petrified, seemingly fearing to put that "Best Political Team on Television" in a position were they would actually have to say something of importance, and not just prattle their own talking points.
And the sets ...
OMG!
Who sold them on going with the look of a bad Las Vegas floor show?
It was like a Cirque du Soleil idea, only missing the Cirque du Soleil imagination and talent.
I half expected, the program to be torn apart, ending in acrimonious charges of "political harassment" by the end of the evening.
All that play between Rachel Maddow and Pat Buchanan during the course of the campaign coverage, the fighting and arguing, leading to a "steamy encounter", with Buchanan the injured party, claiming Maddow was working her "liberal ways" on him.
The first showing of this came early in their coverage, when they threw it over to Ann Curry (moonlighting from her usual "other members of the cast" Today Show post) for some Exit Poll mishmash.
Curry walked into the 'Disclosure' set, and, Walla!, a virtual reality snowcone-type thingy popped up with the hyped data.
I'm surprised that didn't go all in on this virtual stuff.
Think of the possibilities they could have had, bringing back Little Timmy Russert, to ghost-whisper election nuggets to his former colleagues.
And what happens to The Commander Guy's buddy "Stretch"?
David Gregory's show, 'Race To The Whitehouse', if we believe the title, closed its' curtain last evening, the race being over.
Do they retitle and repackage?
Yes they do, coming on air this evening, same set and graphics, but now called "1600" (see, that happens to be the address of house the previous version of the show was racing to ... Yes, you can use the word"stretch" here, as well)
I would have like to been on the set for that, if only to see Wolf Blitzer turn from his usual screaming at large flat screens, to screaming at empty greenscreen space, which I am sure still has the leader of "The Best Political Team on Television" totally freaked out today, ducking at shadows and pigeons.
Over at the Faux News Network, the only thing missing was a mournful Astor Piazzolla dirge, to accompany the long faces (and in Brit Humes' case, a face so long, only Elastic Man could possible match it).
And, for a moment, I half-expected a wonderful, possible, FCC moment.
Just as Hume and Turd Blossom finished looking at the ever-growing Blue map, and Rove riffing, Joe Pesci-style, as he watch the goons beat his brother to death in 'Casino', on the shortening ways McKKKain could still "pull it off", Hume tells him that Ohio just got called for Obama.
For a split-second, time was suspended, awaiting a foot stomp and plaintive cry of "Fuck!"
Fred Barnes?
He was so spooked and shaken, it took him about five-minutes to spit out one sentence.
But, then again the only sentence that matter was that Barack Obama was elected to become the 44th President of the United States.
The longer this interview goes on, the more Faux News host Megyn Kelly, talking (or we should say, "freaking out") with Bill Burton of the Obama Campaign, melts down. Megyn Kelly Loses It
As noted in the video, the fru-fru tizzy that has Kelly with, proverbially, Loony Tune steam coming out of her ears. is a Matted Sludge/Dead Campaign Express smear-of-the-week, pointing to a YouTube of a radio interview Barack Obama did over seven-years ago.
You click and you link to a YouTube clip titled "Obama Bombshell Redistribution of Wealth Audio Uncovered". The clip consists of some audio - with misleading extracts of text - to a 2001 Chicago public radio interview with a very studious Barack Obama in law professor mode discussing the limitations of the court and his belief that the legislative process is the appropriate way to pursue economic justice. (Which if memory serves - accords with the conservative preference to eliminate judges who legislate from the bench.)
This clip isn't as boring as watching paint dry. It's MORE boring. It's like watching paint PERIOD.
The phrase "Clutching At Straws" does not do justice to this very limp attempt by Drudge to erect something he can put up against Barack Obama. Alas - as Drudge is all too aware - it just won't stand up any more.
Naturally, the Right Wing Freak Show has been in a lather over it, ostensibly, to point fingers at to say the Stumblin' Bumblin' Fly Boy is right, he is a Socialist, with Faux News right there, with their fire-engine-red megaphone.
Now, in fairness, you can almost understand why Megyn Kelly melted down, on camera.
It's the final week of the campaign, and, to be cautious, things aren't looking good for the dwarfs, finks, phonies and frauds.
They're getting nervous, jittery, snapping at shadows, not sleeping well, irritable, knowing the party is coming to an end.
Afterall, if the Democrat's ticket wins, they, in all likelihood, won't be getting the daily talking points from an Obama White House, they way they have from the Bush Grindhouse.
But they also may be worried for another reason.
An Obama White House may just knock Faux News off its' perch, to be nothing more than an annoying infomerical.
During his speech at the Al Smith dinner last night, Barack Obama once again mocked Fox News, boosting an effort to destroy the power and influence of the conservative media networks, an effort that I consider to be every bit as significant as the destruction of the modern Republican party. As noted by Kos, this continues a theme for the week where Obama mocked Fox during the debate last night and then again in the upcoming New York Times Magazine in an article by Matt Bai. This is also the continuation of a recent theme for the Obama campaign: Robert Gibbs famously ambushed Sean Hannity after the last debate in Nashville, David Plouffe recently called them the "24-hour ACORN channel" and Bill Burton has been all over their network embarrassing them over and over.
Let's consider the strategy of this for a second, because it is really smart. Obama is laying the foundation of delegitimizing Fox as a respectable news network and openly making the case that Democrats and others in the news media have been afraid for so long to say out loud, that Fox News serves the sole purpose of Republican and right wing propaganda. While this may certainly sound like an obvious point to many of us on the left, it is something that has become a bit of a taboo for people to say out loud to mainstream audiences out of fear. For Democrats, the fear is that Fox will train their sights on them and further alienate them from Fox's core Bubba audience. For the rest of the media, it is a well documented fear of the Fox's heavy handed media relations machine that intimidates other journalists from writing critical stories about the network, leaving the only critical voices about the network to come from the left from filmmakers like Robert Greenwald.
The difference with Obama is that he is not afraid of Fox. Given the platform and opportunity to take them on, he is using it, unlike the Democrats on the past. In addition to the candidate and his campaign openly mocking the network, we know that Obama knows no fear of Fox because consistent with his moral code, he let Murdoch and Ailes know he didn't respect them directly to their face as Micheal Wolffe recounted in Vanity Fair.
Yes he did.
Murdoch was said to be livid that Obama didn't come in and kiss his ring.
After others intervened, Obama did, finally, go to meet Murdoch and Ailes
Then, after he said his piece, Murdoch switched places and let his special guest, Roger Ailes, sit knee to knee with Obama.
Obama lit into Ailes. He said that he didn’t want to waste his time talking to Ailes if Fox was just going to continue to abuse him and his wife, that Fox had relentlessly portrayed him as suspicious, foreign, fearsome—just short of a terrorist.
Ailes, unruffled, said it might not have been this way if Obama had more willingly come on the air instead of so often giving Fox the back of his hand.
A tentative truce, which may or may not have vast historical significance, was at that moment agreed upon.
Scroll back up and watch the video again.
It can appear that Bill Burton is having fun, getting Megyn Kelly blustering and blabbering, and watching her melt down.
Miller, who left the paper in 2005 after 28 years, spoke as word spread of her latest new job, as a commentator for Fox News. Miller said she will be on air and on the Web site part-time discussing First Amendment and free speech issues, as well as foreign policy and national security.
"I get to spout my views, I will NOT be joining the news team," she stressed. "I care about First Amendment issues and free speech and I will talk about that and foreign policy if and when we ever stop talking about the economy, which is going to be going on for a while."
J. Thomas Duffy created and lauched 'The Garlic in 2005.
Mr. Duffy is an accomplished writer, with experience as a newspaper reporter, radio writer, comedy and stand-up writer, the author of three children's books (unpublished, so far) and, and, through a good number of his writing experience, actually received payment for it.
Mr. Duffy is also a Contributing Editor on the blog, 'The Reaction' and a Contributing Writer to the blog 'The Moderate Voice.
In his spare time, Mr. Duffy likes to promulgate that is actually the dog salivating that caused Pavlov to ring the bell.
