Fox Wars

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@Ragusa,

Until you get over your phobia of the Bush years you will never understand. This is a new era, it is the Obama era. I'm sure your parents taught you that two wrongs don't make a right. It is immoral to justify the mistakes of the Obama era, by stammering "Bbbuttt Bush did it". It just doesn't work.

Do you remember what Obama got elected on? It was all about hope and change. Because of how "evil" Bush and Co. were Obama naturally has to be held to a higher standard for he was elected on an anti-Bush tidal wave. I don't know how many countless hours you spend finding links that show Bush did the same things Obama is doing, and yet you miss the mark for I would expect that the people who despise the Bush years and agenda should be horrified that Obama is emulating them.

To get back on topic, I'm sorry, but what the Obama administration is doing is wrong and childish. Presidents are going to be made fun of, and the people the President relies on should expect to be examined with a microscope. Policy mistakes will be broadcast as failures. It has always been this way and always will be. If anything it is a disgrace that the left side of the media (which used to be known for their investigative journalism) just don't seem to want to investigate anymore. That more than anything is the truly troubling part of this issue.

 

Oh, of course, because 'Bush was so evil' Obama must be so much better? Are you trying to kid me or yourself? What is that, some self pity over the totally unjustified and vile hostility Bush policies generated? You play that old bias game again? Try to understand that many Bush policies, torture for instance, and that war (or aggression) in Iraq, or the overreach of executive power at home, gave ample reason to be unhappy with him. What are you trying to say, that people irrationally hated Bush, suggesting that now you are free to irrationally hate Obama?

Then it is a pretty silly thing to justify with the bias against Bush your getting selectively outraged over things Obama does too, on grounds that, after all, Obama promised change. Now you got him by the balls! You didn't vote for him to bring change because you probably either didn't want his change or didn't believe the promise it then. Now you prefer to believe him to be able to blame him for not meeting your high expectations? Right ... And then, when he is predictably not meeting your expectations, you can pat yourself on the back and tell yourself you did give Obama after all a chance to prove you wrong, but he failed. Glorious.

Anyway, I would perhaps understand you if you were talking about something serious, not just a standard run of the mill PR op. I would understand you complaining about Obama continuing bad Bush policies like on the state secret privilege, or for so far having not held his promise to close Gitmo, or for his stance on national security letters, or on some detainee issues etc. because that has constitutional implications - all things for which Obama's administration indeed can be rightly and sensibly criticised. But you prefer to wet your pants over the 'Nixonian' way he conducts PR instead, because he excludes FOX? What a joke ...

When one reads your post it is easy to see why the GOP currently is such a bloody mess. They don't know what they want. They just know what they don't want and that can be neatly summed up in one word: Obama.

 

Deleted as I'm going to do this much better when I have time.

Sorry.

 

Rags, I think Snook has a great point. No matter how you look at it, Obama hasn't brought the kind of change he promised. He has, in fact, embraced Bush's policies on a number of issues. If you hated Bush for it, you should hate Obama for it, too. If you don't that's just liberal bias (just like it's conservative bias that led people to support Bush doing those things, but object to Obama doing them). You're the one closing your eyes to the truth and comprimising your ethics now.

To make it clear, in the past, I didn't support Bush doing such things. I just didn't believe he actually did them. If you're not believing Obama is actually doing these things, I understand, but if you're actually saying it's ok because Bush did them, too, then you're a hypocrite, plain and simple.

 

I agree whole-heartedly

I'm not so sure. In much the same way that Bush's refusing to meet with MSNBC wasn't a black eye for him. The people that are going to to be angered the most by this are people that generally didn't like Obama to begin with.

How was this meeting "secret" if apparently everyone knows about it?

 

That's actually a very poor point. There is no "magic reset button" on reality, despite what some may believe, and Obama will spend his first two years trying to fix what Bush/Cheney jacked up. I don't believe that anyone, even the most die-hard conservative, is that ignorant to believe that Obama did not inherit a huge mess. It's true that he wanted the job of fixing it, but to claim that the country was in good shape when Obama took office is just plain idiotic (and I'm not saying you believe that Snook).

What would be a for instance?

 

Gitmo is a point in case. In January Obama signed an executive order ordering the closing of Guantanamo prison. Why is it still there? Some reasons:

He is running against a conservative opposition claiming, without any basis in fact, that closing Gitmo will set terrorists free on the streets on America, and a former VP campaigning against it in an effort to 'salvage his legacy' (i.e. thwart prosecution). That campaign shows fruits - congressmen representing the districts for proposed sites oppose detainee relocation because they are afraid it will cost them votes if the opponent exploits the matter. The detainees would probably also face trial (a real one), which, considering their previous treatment will result in, after the initial charges that they are 'the worst of the worst', a disappointingly large number of them being set free. Those who are sentenced would likely be 'supermaxed' - which means they will definitely not be able to escape (afaik there aren't many prison breaks from supermax prisons). Detainees sent home will, for instance in countries like Egypt or Yemen, face torture, which is an extradition obstacle. What to do with them? They may be innocent, but rest assured that, for those willing to exploit the matter, they will remain 'the worst of the worst'.

Obama faces some very formidable policy problems in implementing his change - and change coming slowly is not necessarily a sign of him not trying but the limits of the possible and doable. I give him credit for trying.

Contrasted with only that subject, and there are many more, the 'secret meeting' is a non-problem. Why bother? It's hype, nothing more. And why not exclude FOX? Them amplifying the birther madness for instance is definitely neither responsible nor helpful. In all probability they will remain hostile no matter what Obama does; it's their shtick, their sales pitch.

 

I don't have much knowledge of US channels either, as unlike Fox they don't provide clips which make appearances in comedy shows. Fox is terrible.

I don't mean to be all high and mighty about the superiority of our media. The tv debate in the US would correspond to the newspapers over here, with Fox taking the place of the tabloids. The tabloids aim to get ratings by reporting what people want to hear in an entertaining manner. They certainly do not try to give an objective reporting of the 'truth' and their analysis is designed to correspond with the views of their readers, not with what is correct. They're quite happy to publish misleading or just plain wrong facts, as long as it sells. The journalists are smart people who don't believe what they're saying. But they get a good paycheck from it.

Having said all that, for a lot of people if they don't get their news from these sources they're not going to get it from anywhere. And these organisations are a major power in today's world. I can understand Obama wanting to ignore them but I can't see it being good for him.

 

GTMO, wire tapping, warrantless searches, torture, etc. Even the events that happened, I believed Bush didn't know about them. Even today, I don't know how much Bush knew and how much Cheney handled himself.

I think you give too much credit to the other news channels in the US. They all chase ratings above all else, and aren't above turning a grain of sand into a mountain if it get's them viewers.

 

Ragusa - Gitmo is a good case in point. The previous officials kept poor records, many of which were not filed correctly. The evidence against some of them has been so compromised that they very well may be set free, because there was no attention to detail regarding their individual cases. Basically, they just stuck them there without any regard to the legal process. Now Obama's people have to go back sort out every single case all over again, and process the files and evidence so that they make sense from a legal standpoint.

If Bush had no idea that these major policy events were occurring within his own admistration, you believe that to be a defense for the incompetcy of his presidency? Good luck with that one....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/24/AR2009012401702.html

 

A point that I think has been missed so far in this thread is that to some extent Fox and pals are recognizing a very gradual, tentative shift that is occurring, and are responding to that. The shift, quite simply, is that Dem politicians are increasingly likely to actually call out the ridiculous nonsense the various organs of the GOP spout, and as well are more likely to respond in kind (see Rep. Grayson). And on that note:

Snook, we all know you're just upset because the new Vice President doesn't shoot old men in the face.

 

FOX has the potential to change, if Shepard Smith is any indication

I like that guy and his surprise remarks - he apologized for lack of balance in a report that only interviewed one (the Republican) of the three candidates in the New Jersey gubernatorial race. So some people there appear to treat 'Fair and Balanced' as something other than a mere slogan. He surprised his audience by saying that America doesn't f****** torture and by saying that a public option isn't a government takeover. He also remarked that the mail he gets from his viewers is more and more frightening, and, on an amusing note, that the 1500 calories bacon cheese doughnut burger are probably a sign of impending Armageddon.

So yes, in principle there is hope for FOX. They haven't driven out all sanity, probably because rational conservatives watch ads, too, and there is money in retaining them. But for one Shepard Smith FOX has Bill O, Hannity, Beck, Hume and probably six others whose name I don 't know.

 

Ragusa, did you find it as hilarious as I did that the "Shepard Smith Uncensored" title was censored? I just have to know.

 

I don't bother actually. I didn't read the article either, I watched the clip, and he said all that.

Now Raw Story and even more so Huffingon Post apparently consider FOX (with the Weekly Standard, New Republic, Washington Times) to be one of the Republican Prawdas. Considering what Beck and Hannity did to boost birtherism and foment revolution of angry white people it is surprising that an anchor of the same network voices concern of the anger that expresses itself in his e-mails, or expressing views on health care or torture that would clash with theirs in a conversation, on a network renowned to stay on message. Probably that's what Huffington Posts meant with uncensored. Or, this is America after all, it was because of the f-word. That said, I can't read the minds of either Raw Story's or Huffington Post's editors.

 

But they don't really believe any of that stuff themselves. They are like TV evangelists only preaching politics instead, and buttering their bread with the anger and paranoia of which you speak.

 

For all practical purposes it doesn't matter whether they believe it or not as their flock do believe, and fervently so.

It has relevance only insofar as it suggests that their obnoxious TV personalities have a ruthless and cynical real live counterpart. Interesting insight, but devoid of practical value.

 

It goes deeper because the "real live" counterpart's paranoia is intensified by a media reality, one which has no test in the day-to-day reality that most people live in. The interplay between the media hosts, who are even more cynical because they are only interested in their own media careers, ratings and ultimate fame and fortune, and the willing participants, reside within their own slef-crafted reality. When other people ask, "which planet are you from?" it's almost no longer a sarcastic question.

 

I agree to the extent that their tv personalities create in the mind of already paranoid viewers alternate realities, in which Obama has a moustache and wants to destroy America with his pernicious socialist agenda bla bla bla etc. pp. There is a real risk from that real paranoia. Someone might indeed take a shot at the tyrant.

My point is just this: It is obvious what Beck and Hannity do. They're cynical rabble rousing demagogues. We both know that. Those who think likewise will agree with us. Those who believe them will consider our judgement a vile, partisan smear and won't listen.

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Well, I often like what Fox has to say even though I know they are rabble rousers. I know many of them are jerks, but even a jerk can make good points occasionally. However, this letter to the editor of my local paper, written by a fellow Canadian, kinda went overboard in its praise. Have a chuckle, my friends:

 

LKD, that's hardly surprising. Alberta is by far the most conservative province in Canada, and the more extreme of those (which is not an unsubstantial number) make the U.S. far right look like socialists.