Martha Maccallum's Furrowed Brow

Martha Maccallum of Fox News “debated” health care reform with Bob Beckel and Kate Obenshain today.

The segment is called “Health Care Countdown: Debating the Differences.”

Representing the left was Beckel, a professor of advanced political studies at George Washington University, and on the right was Obenshain, the vice president of the Young America’s Foundation.

Read the entire story on Examiner

Media Consultant Joel Silberman

Media consultant Joel Silberman explains why Americans are so misinformed about just about anything political. Silberman said the fault should be placed squarely on the shoulders of the mainstream media for perpetuating the “big lie.”

Silberman’s theory is that the right-wing echo chamber repeats the “big lie” over and over again until it becomes the Truth. The big lie is actually lots of untruths. Obama is a communist. The recession was caused by the Democrats, despite Republican control of both the Executive and Congress. Government is always the problem and can never ever do anything right.

The same situation was on display prior to the war with Iraq when a majority of Americans believed Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9/11.

I agree with Silberman, but the problem with American gullibility is rooted in their animosity to critical thinking and education. However, never before have we had a 24-hour news channel dedicated to promoting the big lie, and like Silberman said, forcing other news organizations to acknowledge the lie, therefore, giving it credence.

Tea Party Leader Mark Williams

You can tell a lot about a movement by its leaders. One of the Tea Party leaders is Mark Williams. On his blog he refers to people as “faggots” and “retards.” He even called President Obama as a “racist-in-chief.”

His blog’s tag line is: “It’s not Right vs Left, It’s Right vs Wrong.”

Williams is supposedly a radio host, although I’ve never heard of him, and he’s a regular contributor to Fox News – that’s not surprising.

Here’s a snippet from his blog post calling people “retards” and “faggots.”

Did I say retard? I meant to say; genetically defective, circus freak, tiny cranium, hairy-arm-pitted female & faggot alleged male biological train wrecks who totally make the argument for forced Eugenics, starting with anybody with a Vermont return address. They could drag the entire gene-pool to the bottom if they ever bred with normal homo sapiens.

Williams’ blog is filled with hate-speech. While I could keep quoting him – it’s sickening.

My point is that while the Tea Party seek to gain a foothold in US politics, it’s becoming more and more clear that racism, homophobia and hatred are key driving forces behind this so-called movement.

While the Tea Partiers are loud, they don’t represent the values that most Americans adhere to, which is tolerance and acceptance of others. These people represent the fringes of our culture and not the mainstream – despite their undue media coverage.

Fox News asks “What do you think Tea Party movement is all about?”

The options are:

• Small government and fiscal responsibility
• Exposing Democrats’ socialist agenda
• Voicing outrage at out-of-touch politicians
• Fruitless mix of racism, conspiracy theories
• Other

That second option is clearly a loaded, or leading, “question.” Yet only 2 percent selected it. As of 8:02 p.m. Eastern today, Feb. 10, 2010, 69 percent of the more than 110,000 respondents said the Tea Party is a “fruitless mix of racism, conspiracy theories.”

Fox News will probably “lose” this poll, so to maintain the public record, here are screen shots from the poll.

Screen shot taken at 8:02 p.m. on Feb. 10, 2010

Screen shot taken approx. 8:02 p.m. Feb. 10, 2010

Fox News Poll

Fox News broadcasted an edited version of the Bill O’Reilly interview with Jon Stewart on cable. Not inherently a bad thing to do, perfectly acceptable, but some have suggested that it made O’Reilly look like he nailed Stewart. Here’s the entire unedited version of the interview.

No one in the mainstream media, it seems, has the guts to take on this scandal. This isn’t some penny ante affair about graft or infidelity. This is a direct assault on our national values, on who we are as Americans. At one time, the criminal types who burglarized the Watergate or the office of Daniel Ellsberg’s doctor were reviled. Now they have their own network. Bret Baier set the scene last Thursday:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-fiderer/fox-news-embraces-cyber-t_b_383887.html

Glenn Beck showing a picture of Chairman Mao

On his show yesterday, Glenn Beck ran through a series of photographs from the Chairman Mao regime and read from Mao’s “red book.” Beck said that several people working in the White House are Maoists because of a speech White House Communications Director Anita Dunn gave in June when she said Chairman Mao was one of her favorite philosophers.

“We’ve found all kinds of crazy people that work at the White House,” Beck said. “I think we found two or three that worship Chairman Mao.”

He didn’t say who the other alleged Maoists are, but Beck’s certain that Dunn is one of them. However, according to Dunn, her reference to Mao was an attempt at irony.

Here’s what she said to a high school graduation class at St. Andrews Episcopal School in Potomac, MD:

A lot of you have a great deal of ability. A lot of you work hard. Put them together and that answers the why not question. There is usually not a good reason. And then the 3rd lesson and tip actually come from two of my favorite political philosophers. Mao Tse-tung and Mother Teresa, not often coupled with each other, but the two people that I turn to most to basically deliver a simple point which is you’re going to make choices, you’re going to challenge, you’re going to say why not. You’re going to figure out how to do things that have never been done before. But here’s the deal, these are your choices, they’re no one else’s.

In 1947, when Mao Tse-tung was being challenged within his own party, on his plan to basically take China over, Chiang Kai-shek and the nationalist Chinese held the cities, they had the army, they had the air force, they had everything on their side and people said how can you win, how can you do this, how can you do this against all the odds against you, and Mao Tse-tung said “You fight your war and I’ll fight mine.”

Think about that for a second, you don’t have to accept the definition of how to do things and you don’t have to follow other people’s choices in the past. OK. It is about your choices in your path, you fight your own war. You lay out your own path. You figure out what is right for you. You don’t let external definition how good you are internally. You fight your own war. You let them fight their’s. Everybody has their own path.

And then Mother Theresa who upon receiving a letter from a fairly affluent young person you asked her whether she could come over and help with that orphanage in Calcutta responded very simply, “Go find your own Calcutta.” Go find your own Calcutta. Fight your own path. Go find the thing that is unique to you. The challenge is actually your’s – not somebody else’s challenge.

Glenn Beck showing a photo of a man being tortured

Clearly Dunn used Mao and Mother Theresa to make her point that these young high school graduates should not be discouraged by what others are saying, but to pave their own path regardless of the difficulties they may face. Beck is purposely being intellectually dishonest by pretending Dunn is a Maoist. Referring to Mao in a speech does not mean that Dunn is a Maoist – she also mentioned Mother Theresa. Does that means she worships at the altar of Mother Theresa too?

In his show, he ran through a series of photos of the Mao regime trying to make his point that the Obama administration wants to implement a Maoist communist plot to overthrow the US republic.

“I thought, you know, if you want to see the future, let’s look at the past. Who are these people idolizing? And I came up with a few pictures. Words? Come on. I just decided to look at some of the pictures first,” Beck said.

The photos were of Mao firing a gun, Mao celebrating Stalin’s 70th birthday, Mao replacing workers’ names with numbers and a Mao torture technique. Beck ended this segment by showing a photo of a party at the White House and saying, “This is just a picture of a party at the White House the other night.”

Beck then read from Mao’s “red book,” which says, “Oppose extravagant eating and drinking and pay attention to thrift in the economy.”

So wait, the Obama administration is filled with Maoist – who are opposed to extravagant eating and drinking – and yet, there’s a photo of an extravagant party at the White House?

Here’s the video segment from Beck’s show Oct. 21, 2009

Glenn Beck

Whether you like it or not, television shows have been advertising vehicles since the invention of product placement. Jerry Seinfeld ate Banana Nut Crunch cereal for breakfast and Elaine chugged Snapple. But now that the Entertainment Industry Foundation, a Hollywood charitable organization, is working with the television industry to encourage volunteering Fox News commentator Glenn Beck says that’s communism.

Huh?

“Celebrities are coming together to make it cool to volunteer,” Beck said Monday on his show.

The EIF campaign is spreading their message to promote volunteerism across 60 shows on all of the major networks, including Fox. In some cases, it will be woven into the plot.

“Well, isn’t this fantastic,” Beck said. “It’s almost like we’re living in Mao’s China right now.”

Beck sees communists around every corner.

“Obama controls the message through the media he holds in his pocket, or in his little hand. And soon if you disobey,” Beck said Obama will slap your hand.

It can be difficult to follow Beck’s logic, because like all of his “arguments” are devoid of reality, but let’s play along. From what I can tell, Beck is worried that if EIF can encourage enough people to volunteer, that will create a huge army of volunteers which Obama can then control to do something evil. But like a Vermonter might say, “You can’t get there from here.”

It just doesn’t make sense, haven’t all presidents encouraged volunteerism? Isn’t that a cornerstone of most religions including Mormonism? Beck’s a Mormon, but I guess he hates volunteering because all volunteers are foot soldiers for Obama’s communist agenda.

Can you say “Red-baiting“?

Fox News and the Obama administration don’t get along. White House officials have accused the cable news network of being an extension of the Republican Party. Fox News commentators fire back that Obama is a communist seeking to destroy the country by turning the US into a Chairman Mao style fascist state.

Let’s set aside the fact that 99 percent of all cable news, no matter which network you watch, is worthless. It’s a mix of “balloon boy” stories and opinion journalism masquerading as news. The stories that are covered are often, wrong, incomplete or in the case of “balloon boy” irrelevant.

But what about Fox News? Should the White House be telling journalists to stop paying attention to the network with the highest ratings?

One White House official told Politico that the ACORN story only became big news because Fox News covered it “breathlessly for weeks on end.”

According to the Politico story the White House official cautioned journalists about following Fox’s lead.

“Let’s make sure that we keep perspective on what are the most important stories, and what’s being driven by a network that has a perspective. Being able to make that point has been important.”

Some journalists and media critics have said that a direct attack on a specific news organization can have a chilling effect. That is, of course, if journalists take their marching orders from the White House. Otherwise, it seems unlikely to have any such impact.

But nonetheless some veteran reporters are concerned.

“I can never remember a White House urging news organizations to boycott other news organizations. That strikes me as unprecedented,” Thomas DeFrank told Politico. DeFrank has covered eight presidents and is currently the bureau chief at the New York Daily News.

However, it’s worth noting the dramatic shift in journalism over the last five years. The old notion of objectivity has been tossed overboard for the more Hunter S. Thompson gonzo-style reporting. Whether that’s good or bad – it’s here to stay. And as anyone who’s watched Fox’s news coverage, they’re all for it.

And let’s not forget that the battle between the Fox News and the White House is more about politics than the sanctity of journalism. The White House rightly sees Fox News as the enemy. When you look at their coverage during the Bush administration, there’s was nary a word about a White House that kept a tight lid on its message. And anytime a news organization ran a scathing story about the Bush administration, it was labeled a radical left-wing propaganda machine by Fox News commentators.

But now, Glenn Beck – the biggest loudmouth on Fox News – can’t stop talking about Obama’s Mao-ist agenda to silence journalists. He’s outraged that the president would try to “control the media.” Evidently this is the first time Beck has paid attention to presidential politics. There’s never been a president who didn’t try to control the media – it’s all part of the game.

The reason the White House is taking shots at Fox News is to garner some love from their base. Liberals are dismayed by Obama’s lack of progress on nearly every issue he campaigned on: Gitmo, the Iraq War, don’t-ask-don’t-tell, health care reform, the economy, the environment, transparency and the list goes on. This attack on Fox News is an attempt to show progressives that the Obama administration has the stones to stand up and fight. The question is whether this is a fight worth fighting.

–
Source: Politico “White House: Media shouldn’t follow Fox” by Josh Gerstein and Mike Allen Oct. 20, 2009

Fox News Bill O'Reilly

For some reason the White House has picked a fight with Fox News. On Sunday, White House Communications Director Anita Dunn said that the cable news network was not in fact a news organization but rather an extension of the Republican Party.

“The reality of it is that Fox News often operates almost as either the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican Party,” Dunn told CNN’s Howard Kurtz. “Take their talking points and put them on the air. Take their opposition research and put them on the air, and that’s fine. But let’s not pretend they’re a news network the way CNN is.”

Fox News commentators jumped at the chance to strike back at the White House.

Fox News Glenn Beck

Glenn Beck blew Dunn’s remarks way out of proportion. On his show, he took out a tourist map of Manhattan, drew a circle around Fox News headquarters, he then played army with military toys, putting a fence around the Fox building and encircling it with tanks and missiles.

“We’ve got the missiles pointed right a Fox,” Beck screamed into the camera. “And let’s make sure that everybody understands this is the enemy America. Everything that’s going wrong with the country – happening right here.”

Dunn didn’t say that Fox News is responsible for everything that’s going wrong with the country. What she said was that Fox News is a “wing of the Republican Party.” In true Beck fashion, he’s creating the illusion that the White House is actively seeking to destroy Fox News – to get them off the air. Dunn didn’t say anything about stopping Fox News from broadcasting.

“Free speech under attack. Sure. In the coming days,” Beck assured his audience. “I’m going to show you how this administration is consolidating power, and that you’re right to speak out, and your right to hear simply opposing voices – people who are asking legitimate questions – all under assault.”

Bill O’Reilly chimed in during his Talking Points Memo segment. He said the White House is attacking Fox News because they’re the only cable news network willing to ask tough questions. O’Reilly said that Fox News is “fair and balanced” and he challenged anyone to prove him wrong.

The other news networks, such as CNN and NBC, O’Reilly said “clearly favored” Obama over McCain during the election and NBC continues to give the president good coverage. O’Reilly demanded evidence that the network’s hard news is anything but honest, objective and fair and balanced.

Well, it just so happens, that last month, Fox News producer Heidi Noonan was caught on tape rallying the crowd while reporter Griff Jenkins delivered some of that “fair and balanced” hard news coverage O’Reilly was bloviating about.

Oh and the 9/12 rally was sponsored and promoted by Fox News and Glenn Beck in particular. The network’s commentators over-reported the turnout, and even ran a newspaper ad chastising the other news networks for not covering the event, even though they actually did.

It’s kind of shocking, but apparently Bill O’Reilly is a proponent of a government health care plan. On his show Wed., he said, “I want that. I want, not for personally for me, but for working Americans, to have a option, that if they don’t like their health insurance, if it’s too expensive, they can’t afford it, if the government can cobble together a cheaper insurance policy that gives the same benefits, I see that as a plus for the folks.”

It looks like O’Reilly trying to put some space between him and Glenn Beck.

Watch the video on Daily Kos.