Needlenose

Fox News viewers are less informed than people who don’t watch any news:

“people who watch Fox News are 18-points less likely to know that Egyptians overthrew their government” and “6-points less likely to know that Syrians have not yet overthrown their government” compared to those who watch no news”…”the results show us that there is something about watching Fox News that leads people to do worse on these questions than those who don’t watch any news at all.”"

That’s being charitable.  ”that something” is known as stupidity.

Tip of the ‘Nose to Film Critic Buddy

In recent days, a long-simmering scandal in the United Kingdom over unscrupulous journalism (specifically, the repeated hacking of cell phones owned by celebrities, politicians, and crime victims) by newspapers owned by billionaire Rupert Murdoch has exploded, with leading Murdoch executives being arrested and top British officials forced to resign over apparent complicity with the papers’ schemes.

And now obvious questions are being asked:

… critics muse that Mr. Murdoch’s free-wheeling and politically conservative hand in British reporting may have influenced American journalism as well – particularly in the well-regarded Wall Street Journal, whose parent company Dow Jones was acquired by Murdoch’s News Corp. in 2007.

For its part, the Journal’s editorial page fired back about these charges in an editorial for Monday’s paper:

When News Corp. and CEO Rupert Murdoch secured enough shares to buy Dow Jones & Co. four years ago, these columns welcomed our new owner and promised to stand by the same standards and principles we always had…

… [regarding] Friday’s resignation of our publisher and CEO, Les Hinton, who ran News Corp.’s British newspaper unit during the time of the alleged hacking . . . on ethical questions, his judgment was as sound as that of any editor we’ve had.

To help readers understand what makes this such a galling non-denial denial, we pause here for a concurring opinion from the hereafter:

The WSJ editors lie without consequence

The above is from the suicide note of Vincent Foster, an aide to the Clinton administration who killed himself in 1993 after being savaged in a series of Wall Street Journal editorials during the preceding two months.

In other words, it wasn’t the Journal‘s editorial-page standards that anyone was concerned about when Murdoch took over.  The issue is whether Murdoch pushed the news operation into the op-ed section’s moral cesspool.

Record-breaking heat in Baltimore, Washington and Philly.  No apologies seem to be forthcoming from Faux News and Reactionary pundits who mocked Al Gore during last winter’s snowstorms.  Blinded by ideology?  Cherry picking the facts?  Or just stupid?  You decide.

"I'm sooo gonna enjoy campaigning for 2012!"

Some early reactions from various parties to the news of Osama Bin Laden’s death:

Sean Hannity, Fox News: “What we want to know here at Fox, is ‘Why did it take Obama three years to catch him?’”

Donald Trump: “”I am really honored to play such a big role in hopefully, hopefully getting rid of him”

Tea Party Nation head & Birther Judson Phillips: “How do we know it’s really Osama Bin Laden?  We demand that he produce see long form death certificate!”

Apple Spokesperson Lynn Fox: “See?  We told you that retaining your locational information was a good thing!  Osama sure loved his iPhone!”

Got any more?

*Update 5/2/11* Checked out Redstaters.  In spite of their happiness in the killing of their great BugBear, they can’t help but throw in some spite, first with a slap at us for “the relentless drumbeat of “war crimes” for those who did so much of the long and lonely work to make this possible.”  Academic Elephant, the “war crimes” were perpetrated by Shrubya for invading a country in contravention of international law that had absolutely nothing to do with Osama Bin Laden (as well as war crimes shit like not protecting the Iraqi antiquities museum, National Library, letting folks raid uranium out of the Tuwaitha Reactor .  Dumbass.  His pal streiff can’t help himself, he has to take a swipe at Code Pink, whom, he presumes, will hold a “take back the night march’ some place to mourn his passing.”  Asshole.  streiff’s big fear now?  That Obama will use this as the justification to close down Guantanamo.  I guess streiff was too lazy or blinded by ideology to notice that Osama was located through classic intelligence work, not through another 100 waterboardings of  Khalid Shaikh Mohammed or Osama Bin Laden’s driver.

*Update 5/2/11, 5:10P* spoke with a reactionary co-worker, who echo’d streiff’s sentiments – he claimed that intelligence gleaned from Gitmo was responsible for locating Bin Laden.  I guess for conservatives, old-fashioned intelligence work just isn’t as sexy as waterboarding and ‘enhanced interrogation techniques.’

*Update 5/4/11* Heh Fox had to find something to criticize.  Shep Smith floats a trial (leaden) balloon that Obama’s operation was illegal.  I thought reactionaries loved violent action and results by enemy means necessary?  I guess the Wrong Wing Wurlitzer is throwing shit on the wall looking for something that will stick to nay say Obama’s achievement.  There is always a backlash, this will just be hard for them to spin.

Self-delusion is a wonderful thing, but not if you’re a Black man working for Fox News. You think they want you on there, but in actuality you serve a slightly different purpose. Your presence is to justify that your employer can spout all manner of borderline to actual racist content without getting into trouble. Because, after all, they employ minorities.

Fox News’ “Of COURSE I’m not racist! I have plenty of Black friends” excuse got into a scrap with a college professor over his Fear of a Black Planet. The professor, Dr. Caroline Helmand, teaches at Occidental College. Their conversation on NPR began with her agreeing that Juan Williams shouldn’t have been fired by the news agency, even if she felt his comments on Muslims were bigoted. She further stated that “I think that if I were to say that I clutch my purse every time I walk by a black man that might resonate with a lot of Americans. It might be the truth but it’s a bigoted statement.”

Williams did what he is paid to do: He reassured his viewers by insulting me and other Black men. I spent several years in a Red Midwestern county, and several women clutched their purses when I walked by, even though I had no intention of robbing them. So Helmand’s statement is very well worded, and Williams could have run with that and made some valid points about profiling. He could have even worked his actual statement into that, making for an educated discussion from a Black perspective on Fox. Instead, he made a DIRECT pander to the predominantly White audience who watches Fox News.

First, he made a soothing “it’s perfectly OK to think like this, Fox viewers” blanket statement. He said “Let me just tell you, with the amount of black on black crime in America, I get nervous and I’m a black man.” So, every Black man scares Williams, even Steve Urkel and Buppies. After Helmand challenged him again, Williams dug in his heels: “I’m the father of black young men and I’m saying that if you saw a couple guys walking around looking like thugs down the street late at night, you’re saying ‘Oh, I’m not going to think it through.’ Caroline, I think you are way off base.”

Bullshit.

Let’s dismantle Williams’ bass-ackwards statement. Suppose those “couple guys walking around looking like thugs down the street late at night” were Williams’ KIDS. I’m sure they are very nice, respectable young men, but Williams’ statement paints them as potential thugs simply by inclusion. What is the description of a “thug?” To many people, the definition of a thug is “young, Black men.” Williams’ kids, to use the classic racial profiling excuse, “fit the description.” Would Williams be understanding if his children came to him, as I have more than once to my parents, to describe an upsetting racial profiling incident? With my bald head, stern look and—hell, my skin color—I look like a “thug” to some people. I suppose by Williams’ rationale I should mug the shit out of you. Then, since I am college-educated, I can give you a calculus lesson as you crawl down the sidewalk. Calculus is a lot more painful than mugging–trust me.

Williams does what the rest of the Fox pundits do: He blatantly disavows that his statements could offend. They always act stunned when someone calls them on the potential offense, knowing damn well what they are doing. This is cowardice. I state right now that what I am saying in this piece may offend you. I don’t give a shit, but at least I’ve given you the respect of acknowledging that your offense could exist. I can hear you now: In his comedy routine, Chris Rock made a statement similar to Williams’, and he won the Emmy for it! What liberal nonsense! Rock did indeed make this statement, but he surrounded it by 10 minutes of differentiating and absolving Black men who are NOT thugs. And Chris Rock is a COMEDIAN, not a news anchor. Actually, Rock used much stronger language than “thug,” and while Williams didn’t use that particular word, I’m sure Roger Ailes wouldn’t mind if he did.

Sadly, this isn’t the thing that pisses me off most about Williams’ subbing on the O’Reilly Factor. He missed a primo opportunity to ask for some motherfuckin’ iced tea. I would have. That is my biggest disappointment with this episode.

The cost of oil.  The cost of coal.  The cost of wind power.

*Update* Tip of the  ’Nose to MIT Buddy: On Faux News they are saying that Obama and the Liberals sabotaged the oil rig.  DrudgeIdiot is calling the spill Obama’s Katrina.  Those fuckers are evil and stupid:

Just how stoopid are Fox viewers?

Trial by Monster Truck

I can’t determine which is crazier – the claim that Obama shouldn’t be President because he wasn’t born here, or the belief by a large majority of Repugs that he didn’t wind because little old ACORN managed to steal 9.5 million votes.

Are they stupid, crazy or does this just demonstrate the success of the big lie technique as applied by Faux News and the Wrong-Wing Media Echo Chamber?  Or all three?

Combine this with the obvious popularity of Caribou Barbie among the wingnut set, and you come to realize that Idiocracy is closer at hand than 500 years in the future.

Maybe we could make the Khalid Sheikh Mohammed trial more popular with the Palin crowd by including monster trucks, flamethrowers and chainsaws.

*Update 11/24/09* case in point:

From Howard Kurtz’s Monday column for the Washington Post:

Fox News is expected to announce today the hiring of a new contributor, a veteran national security correspondent who has shared a Pulitzer Prize.

Her name is Judith Miller, and she is nothing if not controversial. Miller left the New York Times in 2005 after testifying in the trial of former White House aide Lewis “Scooter” Libby that he had leaked her information about a CIA operative. Miller’s conduct in the case, which led to her serving 85 days in jail for initially refusing to testify, drew rebukes from the Times executive editor and some of her colleagues.

In the run-up to the Iraq war, Miller reported stories on the search for Saddam Hussein’s supposed weapons of mass destruction that turned out to be untrue, some of which were cited in a Times editor’s note acknowledging the flawed coverage. Miller, now with the conservative Manhattan Institute, wrote when she left the paper that she had “become a lightning rod for public fury over the intelligence failures that helped lead our country to war.”

Miller will be an on-air analyst and will write for Fox’s Web site. “She has a very impressive résumé,” says Senior Vice President John Moody. “We’ve all had stories that didn’t come out exactly as we had hoped. It’s certainly something she’s going to be associated with for all time, and there’s not much anyone can do about that, but we want to make use of the tremendous expertise she brings on a lot of other issues. . . . She has explained herself and she has nothing to apologize for.”

Given her background in ideologically motivated snipe hunts, Miller seems like a perfect fit to join Fox News’ round-the-clock coverage of ACORN’s alleged vote-fraud activities.

Via ThinkProgress and Media Matters, it seems that Fox News was miffed enough at a New York Times story on its declining ratings to not only do a video segment attacking the NYT, but also alter photographs it showed of the reporters:

It doesn’t take much knowledge of history to guess at the inspiration for Fox News here. Just like old times, apparently.

$80+ billion for the war on Iraq and nothing to rebuild Afghanistan – Dubya is daring history to repeat itself.  Before the war, Dubya inadvertently summarized the Gulf War II succinctly: “As I said, this looks like a rerun of a bad movie and I’m not interested in watching it.” He was in fact criticizing Iraq’s cooperation with the U.N. weapons inspectors (which in hindsight, appears to have been nearly complete).

But like any good Hollywood producer, he’s laid the groundwork for a sequel to the Afghan conflict as well. While lavishing more than $80 billion on the Gulf War II, he has apparently reneged on his promise to rebuild Afghanistan. Although the U.S. maintains a military presence in that country, its activities appear to be focused on a futile and expensive cat & mouse game on the Pakistan border as well as protecting “our” bully, Afghani President Karzai (although apparently the privatization-minded Administration has actually outsourced the latter to the corporate mercenaries at DynCorp).

This neglect of the folks we “liberated” in this last war is causing the same sorts of unrest that led to the original emergence of the Taliban from among the numerous thugs and warlords pillaging Afghanistan following the end of the Soviet occupation. In an eery echo of Dubya, Karzai’s brother recently summarized the current situation: “It’s like I am seeing the same movie twice and no one is trying to fix the problem.”

I’m confident that the Oily Men in the White House won’t neglect Iraq completely. My prediction is that U.S. aid, funded at least in part from Iraqi oil revenues, will go into rebuilding Iraq’s petroleum industry. Oil Slick Bush will “pass the buck” for the remaining reconstruction, if any, to its patsy friends in Europe and the U.N. If Afghanistan is any indication, this won’t be a high priority for Dubya. So expect to see these new blockbuster hits:

Afghan War II and Gulf War III!

Brought to you by Fox News: “All war, all the time.”