President Obama has finally taken a stand against Fox News. Fox News claims to a non-partisan "Fair and Balanced" news network. If so they should prove it. Instead they unfair and unbalanced as they are the Bull-Horn for The Conservative Movement -they are the agitators who seem to be prodding their base into violent actions against their own gov't by calling into question everything Obama does . Obama is not trying to shut Fox News down which Fox claims -Obama is just making the point that Fox is partisan and has become a Republican, Radical Right attack machine. Fox has a right to spew their nonsense and hate but Fox is not a non-partisan news network. They put their own spin on everything and misinform , lie , ignore the facts and confuse factual reporting with opinions which are not based on facts .
Media Matters: Fox News' War on the White House
A video from http://mediamatters.org
Fmr. Fox News Commentator: Beck's 'Scary' Language was Factor in My Decision to Leave Fox
From Liberal Viewer
Stephen Colbert PWNs Glenn Beck? from Liberal Viewer-
Glenn Beck is a Fake Pundit , a fraud , an idiot or a Seer
During Sen. Kennedy's Funeral Karl Rove attacks & smears Kennedy as Kennedy's remains were being put into a hearse. Fox News gives Karl Rove a platform to attack Democrats and Obama while he defends his own abysmal record with the the Bush Regime.
from the Liberal viewer.
Karl Rove Trashes Ted Kennedy on Day of Funeral?
Here is and another case presented by The Liberal Viewer in which Fox News uses the death of someone whom they hate to spew more lies & smears in this case Kurt Vonnegut. Yet Fox News claims to be "Fair & Balanced" ie they mean it is fair to attack and smear anyone who might be a "lberal" which they balance with praise for anyone who is conservative enough or at least hates Obama.
Fox News Obituary Trashes Kurt Vonnegut
See for instance commentary by John Doyle in the Globe and Mail giving a Canadian perspective in which he characterizes Fox News Network as the "24/7 anti-Obama administration opposition" and that "Fox News and its allies are attempting a very American kind of coup – relentless smearing of a legitimate, elected government as socialist, un-American and totalitarian. You get enough people believing the smears, the coup succeeds."
The danger of taking on Fox News's cranky old men
U.S. President Barack Obama goes to war – against the Fox News Channel" John Doyle, Globe and Mail , Oct. 26, 2009
Few things in the TV racket are richer in humour than the sight and sound of Fox News pundits spewing self-righteous venom for the delectation of the cranky old guys who watch Fox. And yes, they are the Fox News audience. According to studies, in 2008, some 50 per cent of the Fox News Channel viewers were over 63, the oldest demographic in the cable-news racket, and the majority of viewers of Hannity's and O'Reilly's shows were men. Yep, that's the Fox News demo – the cranky old guy who stormed out the front door and shouted at you to quit playing outside his house. He's still angry. Except right now he's angry about Obama.
The question is this: Why bother attacking Fox News? The answer is this: It's Obama's “just watch me” moment, a snarl at both Fox, which has set itself up as a 24/7 anti-Obama administration opposition, and at those weak-kneed Democrats who think Fox is best ignored.
Of course, the Obama administration's attacks on Fox have produced the inevitable closing of ranks by all the network and cable-news outlets. Can't let Fox seem isolated. One for all, and all for one. But, in truth, I doubt if Obama's boys are bothered by that. The main point of the tactic of attacking Fox is to put the channel on the defensive, to make it look foolish as it tries to justify its endlessly negative coverage of Obama and his policies. For Obama's boys, it's the attack-first-and-make-'em-squirm tactic.
These are dangerous days for the Obama administration, as it struggles to create a workable health-care proposal, a sensible foreign policy and to ease the U.S. economy out of deep recession. At the same time, the climate of debate is toxic. The precise nature of the level of debate was put in context recently by Gene Weingarten in The Washington Post, writing sarcastically about his paper's public search for “the next great pundit.” The sarcasm includes this remark: “The current debate in America, for example, isn't whether Barack Obama is, or is not, right for the country, it's about whether Barack Obama is, or is not, Hitler.”
It's Fox News that has set that tone. Fox News pundits have promoted and encouraged viewers to attend those “tea party” protests and town-hall meetings. The insufferable Glenn Beck has ranted that Obama's health-care-reform agenda is a means by which Obama can effect “reparations for slavery.” It's Fox that continually suggests Obama's policies have the taint of socialism or even communism and reinforces this by always referring to officials in the Obama administration as “czars.” It's ludicrous, it makes no sense (the commies were getting rid of the czar, actually), but it plays well to cranky old men who can't be bothered to check facts but are deeply energized by hate.
And the attack by Obama's boys on Fox also acts as a warning to other all-news channels. CNN, for instance, harbours the appalling Lou Dobbs, a guy who has given succour to the nut jobs who believe Obama wasn't born in the U.S. and therefore should not be president.
How far will Obama's people go? Just watch them. It's a battle worth fighting, as far as they are concerned. Politicians and policies have been destroyed by relentless attacks based on rumour, innuendo and half-truths. As far as the Obama administration is concerned, Fox News and its allies are attempting a very American kind of coup – relentless smearing of a legitimate, elected government as socialist, un-American and totalitarian. You get enough people believing the smears, the coup succeeds.
and so it goes,
GORD.
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