FOX News

Yesterday Scott Brown tried to justify Joseph Stack flying an airplane into the federal building in Austin by saying “no one likes paying taxes”.

This all seems to play nicely with FOX declaring that this isn’t domestic terrorism.

Yeah – who is weak on terrorism? Cue Dick Cheney in 3…2…..

Yesterday Sarah Palin finally addressed Limbaugh’s use of the word “retard” and as expected, she approves!

PALIN: I agree with Rush Limbaugh. He was using satire to politically correct —

WALLACE: He used the “r” word.

PALIN: He used satire. Name-calling by anyone, I teach this to my children and you teach it to your children and grandchildren, too. Name calling by anyone is just unnecessary. It just wastes time. Let’s speak to the issues and — [...]

PALIN: I didn’t hear Rush Limbaugh calling a group of people whom he did not agree with ‘f-ing retards’ and we did know that Rahm Emanuel has been reported, did say that. there is a big difference there. Again, name-calling, using language that is insensitive, by anyone, male, female, Republican, Democrat, is unnecessary. It’s inappropriate. Let’s all just grow up.

As Think Progress points out, Rush used the phrase over 40 times saying, even saying there was going to be a “retard summit at the White House”.

But it doesn’t stop there. Sarah seems upset with name-calling, yet look at what she says immediately after that:

They are kooks. I agree with Rush Limbaugh.

Either amnesia sets in or her personality just switched, because Sarah goes right to name calling. And let’s not forget that name calling was her big ploy while making campaign speeches, calling people terrorists, socialist and anything else she could think of.

One final thought about this. Why in the world is Fox News spending part of their Sunday show interviewing employees? This would be like Joe Scarborough being the big guest on Meet the Press. It’s fine to have them on a panel, but as the headliner? Please….

Fox covered news of a deadly shark attack in eastern Florida this week and right after covering the story, Dick Morris declared "you got to be afraid of Obama and sharks”. As Paddy says; “They have gone full circle and are actually a parody of themselves”

This story keeps getting better and better. Here’s FOX’s coverage of their sad news day:

Think Progress has much more.

We see this on FOX:

It’s time for another issue of “it’s ok if you’re a Republican”:

Even Republicans should be able to get stoned, according to a Fox News anchor. While interviewing Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong, Fox News' Gretchen Carlson found herself in the curious position of advocating for marijuana rights Friday.

Chong told Carlson that he wants to see marijuana legalized -- but not for Republicans. "We want to legalize pot for everyone that wants to smoke it. You know, we don't want to legalize it for Republicans."

Carlson quickly came to the defense of stoners in the GOP. "That wouldn't be fair. Would it?" asked Carlson. "I mean being fair and balanced, if you want to legalize it shouldn't you want to legalize it for everyone?"

Yes we do want it legalized for everyone, but the Republicans act like it will be the end of civilization as we know it.

Can you guess who one of them isn’t? I’ll give you a hint. Their name starts with FOX and ends with News.

I guess the pre-recorded O’Reilly and Hannity are much more important than the millions of lives torn apart by the earthquake.

Who ever picked 1/11/10:

Former Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska has signed on as a contributor to the Fox News Channel.

The network confirmed that Ms. Palin will appear on the network’s programming on a regular basis as part of a multi-year deal. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Ms. Palin will not have her own regular program, one person familiar with the deal said, though she will host an occasional series that will run on the network from time to time. This person would not elaborate, but the network does have a precedent for such a series. Oliver L. North is the host of an occasionally running documentary series on the military called “War Stories.”

When it came time for Rep. Joe Sestak (D-PA) to respond to claims by Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) that health care reform was socialism, the FOX satellite decided to act up:

Given the history of FOX News and their extreme bias reporting, it does leave one wondering if this was by total accident. A quick loosening of a cable can cause this exact problem, as well as a few other tricks. I’m not saying that is what happened, but it is something feasible.

Oh this is just priceless:

Fox News' Brit Hume gave Tiger Woods some personal advice Sunday morning, telling the scandal-plagued (and Buddhist) golfer to 'turn to Christianity' to make a full recovery.

On "Fox News Sunday," Hume — the former leader of Fox News' political reporting and host of "Special Report" who now serves as an analyst for the network — said that Woods' recovery "depends on his faith."

"The extent to which he can recover seems to me depends on his faith," Hume said. "He is said to be a Buddhist. I don't think that faith offers the kind of forgivness and redemption that is offered by the Christian faith. My message to Tiger would, 'Tiger, turn to the Christian faith and you can make a total recovery and be a great example to the world."

Yeah because Christianity has always been such a model religion, especially in the case of marriage. Right Newt? Right Mark Sanford? How about you Ted Haggard?

Brit Hume…what a moron!

Remember last month when that memo from FOX News got leaked that said they wouldn’t tolerate any more on air errors, and if they happen people could lose their jobs? Well let’s see if it works:

Last week, Fox and Friends showed a Rasmussen poll graphic revealing that a whopping 120 percent of the American public believes scientists may be falsifying research to support their own theories on global warming:

So Fox – who will be getting the ax for this? We’ll all be waiting your response.

Image via Wikipedia

FishBowlDC has obtained an internal FOX News memo, where it looks like they are tired of all the mistakes lately and making changes:

Subject: Quality Control We had a mistake on Newsroom today when a wrong book cover went on screen during a guest segment, the kind of thing that can fall through the cracks on any day with any story given the large amount of elements and editorial we run through our broadcasts. Unfortunately, it is the latest in a series of mistakes on FNC in recent months. We have to all improve our performance in terms of ensuring error-free broadcasts. To that end, there was a meeting this afternoon between senior managers and the folks who run the daytime shows in which expectations were reviewed, and the following results were announced:

OK stop right there! This latest rash of mistakes started off with Hannity showing false footage of a tea party rally last month to try and inflate the numbers. Hannity isn’t daytime, so why wasn’t his people in there? It certainly seems like as many mistakes happen between the 8:00 and 10:00 hours as does throughout the day.

Let’s continue:

Effective immediately, there is zero tolerance for on-screen errors. Mistakes by any member of the show team that end up on air may result in immediate disciplinary action against those who played significant roles in the "mistake chain," and those who supervise them. That may include warning letters to personnel files, suspensions, and other possible actions up to and including termination, and this will all obviously play a role in performance reviews. So we now face a great opportunity to review and improve on our workflow and quality control efforts. To make the most of that opportunity, effective immediately, Newsroom is going to "zero base" our newscast production. That means we will start by going to air with only the most essential, basic, and manageable elements. To share a key quote from today's meeting: "It is more important to get it right, than it is to get it on." We may then build up again slowly as deadlines and workloads allow so that we can be sure we can quality check everything before it makes air, and we never having to explain, retract, qualify or apologize again. Please know that jobs are on the line here. I can not stress that enough. I will review again during our Monday editorial meeting, and in the days and weeks ahead. This experience should make us stronger editorially, and I encourage everyone to invest themselves one hundred and ten percent in this effort.

Now this is a very harsh sounding memo, and I’m sure it was meant to be that way since it was “leaked” out.  They want to use “manageable” elements, and something like showing a image of a congressman would be manageable, but we all remember Mark Foley and how FOX constantly showed him with a (D) behind his name. This wasn’t some isolated accident – it was continual.

Then we also have some bigger “mistakes” that News Hounds point out:

So what about criminal threats and death threats against Democrats and the Obama administration that are becoming almost routine on Fox? Or does The Daily Show have to do a segment on them before Fox is embarrassed enough to call a halt?

These type of “mistakes” have been occurring on FOX for years now and they were never upset before.

Don’t be fooled by this memo – it was all a PR attempt. FOX is hoping this will show that they are serious and people will stop watching them so closely. Fortunately for us that won’t happen. We will watch even closer now to see if FOX is living up to their new standard.

Last week Sean Hannity apologized for using the wrong footage to inflate the number of people that showed up at a tea party in D.C. earlier this month. Well that must be a long time ago to the short-term memory of FOX news, who today decided to use old McCain/Palin campaign footage and use it to say it was the people showing up at one of her book signings.

What can you say? Once a liar, always a liar. Anyone who takes FOX News seriously should seek serious help.

During the entire White House/Fox News feud FOX decided to bolster about their “soaring ratings”. This meme was then picked up by a lot of talking heads in the mainstream media. Media Matters decided to go to the data and see exactly what “soar” meant to FOX:

No matter how many times reporters and pundits made the claim, a detailed analysis of Nielsen ratings numbers clearly indicates that in the two weeks after the White House in mid-October sparked a media controversy by claiming Rupert Murdoch's channel was not a legitimate news organization, Fox News' ratings did not soar or go "through the roof." In fact, not only did Fox News' overall ratings not soar, they experienced no significant increase at all. Instead, in the two weeks following the initial verbal jousts with the White House, Fox News' total day ratings virtually flatlined.

And since a picture is worth a thousand words (and something that most FOX viewers are only able to comprehend), here’s a nice graph:

Soar or spiked seems like a very big over-exaggeration. I doubt you can even call that a bump. Instead FOX really gained nothing from the war.

When you show such hatred for the President then you will believe anything:

It really gets to be pretty pathetic sometimes, watching the conservatives grasp at every straw they can in order to attack and discredit a president they don't like.

If you listened to Rush Limbaugh today or visited Fox Nation, then you might have heard about President Obama's supposed college thesis in which the college-aged commander in chief allegedly wrote: "The so-called Founders did not allow for economic freedom. While political freedom is supposedly a cornerstone of the document, the distribution of wealth is not even mentioned. While many believed that the new Constitution gave them liberty, it instead fitted them with the shackles of hypocrisy."

Of course non of these organizations have set the record straight. As matter of fact only one blogger seems set on admitting to falling for it – Michael Ledeen at Pajamas Media. Good for him.