Fox Haters Week in Review
Keith Olbermann, Bill O'Reilly, Glenn Beck, David Shuster, and the Pope? What do they have in common? They're all caught up in the latest thrill-packed edition of Fox Haters Week in Review!
Shuster Watch:
What is one to make of David Shuster, who famously scooped that "Karl Rove will be indicted"? His tweets are no more accurate than his broadcasts, as was revealed this past week. In a story first reported by J$P, Shuster made the preposterous claim that Rupert Murdoch and News Corp were keeping MSNBC-HD off of the satellite service DirecTV. How so?
By the way, for all of you watching on DirectTV and wondering why MSNBC is not in HD, ask mr. Murdoch/newscorps [sic], the owner of DirectTV.We assume that as an industry professional and insider, Shuster knows full well who owns DirectTV, and it ain't "mr. Murdoch/newscorps". So was Shuster (who is quick to accuse Karl Rove and Sarah Palin of lying) himself a liar, or was he just too ignorant to know better?
We had sent Shuster a tweet alerting him to his false report, and so did ICN. But it seems that rather than correct his smear, he swept it under the rug--because that tweet has disappeared from the web! However, it still went out to all of Shuster's 18,000+ followers, without any retraction from David. Now Shuster's tweets frequently link to articles, often with encouraging words like "must-read!" Maybe one of those sites gave Shuster some bad DirecTV intel. Over the past two weeks the sites Shuster links to the most (by far) are Talking Points Memo (5) and The Huffington Post (11). Neither was a source for the Murdoch smear. But scouring other likely suspects turned up one recent post that repeated the false claim. We found it here and here, among other places, but the genesis is here, at Keith Olbermann's blog of choice, the Daily Kos. The thrust of the piece was how to block Fox News from a Dish network receiver:
Even DirecTV, which is owned by News Corporation, the parent company of Fox News, offers the ability to create a customized version of the program guide that includes only the channels you care about.... Side note: Should I suggest that current DirecTV customers participating in the bailout switch to Dish Network? Sure! Dish kicks DirecTV's ass anyway, regardless of what you think about News Corporation and Rupert Murdoch.The comments that follow are like catnip to Fox haters:
I worked in an office building which had TVs tuned to Faux "News" in the lobby.... So I brought my remote in from home. There were security cameras in the lobby so I kept my hand and remote in my coat pocket and changed the tvs to MSNBC as I casually walked past with the rest of my coworkers on the way into the office one morning. They stayed that way most of the day but by quitting time they had been changed back. So a few days later, I removed Faux "News" from the guide, and used the parental control feature to lock it out so that even if they wanted to change it back, they would need the 4 digit password which only I knew.Was this the post that inspired Shuster to smear Rupert Murdoch and News Corp? Or did he know all along that his "facts" were wrong, making him what he calls others: a liar?
The Loony Bin:
If you ever want to know what's happening on The O'Reilly Factor, the last place you want to look is oreillysucks.com. This week Laura Ingraham subbed on Friday, and the sucksters tell us that, after Laura's Talking Points Memo:the rest of the show was about what you would expect from a far right partisan Republican. All right-wing spin and propaganda, passed off as fair and balanced news.What no names? Perhaps that's because the guests included Democratic strategist Matthew Lippman, journalism professor Jane Hall, advocate for terrorist detainee rights Steven Clark, and author of a scathing anti-Palin column Sally Quinn.
On Wednesday O'Reilly interviewed Rep Peter King and Al Sharpton, and that inspired the sucksters to a concoct a real pearl of prevarication:
Proving where O'Reilly stands on the issue, he supports King, and disagrees with Sharpton on everything. Sharpton pointed out that a jury voted 12 to 0 not guilty, and that it was reckless and irresponsible for an elected Congressman to call the man a child molester when he was never convicted of it, ever. O'Reilly disagreed and defended his friend Peter King.A blatant lie. O'Reilly didn't disagree at all, and in fact had challenged Rep King on this very point:
O'REILLY: The timing of what you said, it was harsh...in hindsight, couldn't you have waited a week?This is consistent with what O'Reilly said in another segment with Dr Marc Lamont Hill:
O'REILLY: I want to be fair... Jackson was acquitted of child molestation charges. He did settle a civil suit but settling something doesn't mean anything.... Is it fair to say he's a child molestor if he's not convicted in a court of law?
O'REILLY: In fact if you remember I was the guy that said he was acquitted in a court of law and it's got to stand. And I reiterated that last night and I've never made any comment, any comment, about his criminality ever -- okay? Because I'm going with the system.
Great Moments in Olbypocrisy:This week the infamous, deplorable Keith Olbermann decided to attack Fox News via Glenn Beck and Michael Scheuer, starting off by quoting Scheuer:
OLBERMANN: "Only Osama can execute an attack that will force Americans to demand that government protect them effectively, consistently and with as much violence as necessary.” Scheuer‘s interviewer, Glenn Beck of Fox News, did not attempt to correct him, did not scream at him, what the hell do you mean the only chance we have as a country right now. Beck did not accuse Scheuer of insanity, nor disloyalty, nor palling around with terrorists? Beck did not even burst into tears. The host merely nodded gravely, as if this made sense.... We have to legally stop the people who view terrorism as acceptable means of affecting political change in this country, people like Michael Scheuer. And we have to legally stop the people like Glenn Beck, the enablers who simply nod gravely, as if the idea and the speaker were not treasonous. Author Michael Scheuer and Glenn Beck of Fox News, today‘s worst persons in the world.Now we could direct your attention to incidents like Olby interviewing Michael Moore, who thanks God that a hurricane is approaching and wishes for it to hit the Republican convention. Keith's response: a chuckle, and on with the interview. But more to the point is when Michael Scheuer himself appeared on Countdown and presaged what he said to Glenn Beck:
SCHEUER: We don‘t treat the—this Islamist enemy as seriously as we should. We think somehow we‘re going to arrest them, one man at a time. These people are going to detonate a nuclear device inside the United States, and we‘re going to have absolutely nothing to respond against. It‘s going to be a unique situation for a great power, and we‘re going to have no one to blame but ourselves.Now did Olbermann correct him, or scream at him? Did he accuse Scheuer of disloyalty? Here is exactly what Keith Olbermann said to Scheuer:
OLBERMANN: Michael Scheuer, the former head of the bin Laden unit at the CIA. Great thanks for your time tonight, sir.Keith Olbermann simply moved on, as if the idea and the speaker were not treasonous. He didn't make Scheuer a "worst person", let alone name himself as an "enabler of terrorism". And he didn't suggest that he had to "legally stop" himself. Because, after all, Olby's rules don't apply to him, only to Fox.
Misinformed Is Right:
There's a website that states as its mission:
A GLIMPSE OF THE MISLEADING, ABSURD, OFTEN ENTERTAINING, YET OFTEN DOWN RIGHT DESPICABLE REPORTING FOX NEWS AND HER SUBJECTS PARTAKE IN EVERY DAY.This week's example: a headline at foxnation.com that read:
Obama Meets the Pope, Makes It Out AliveCalling this Fox News "not making sense", the site adds:
This got me thinking, are they trying to make a reference to the fact the Pope has been accused of being tied to the "Hitler Youth?" That's the worst case scenario. I mean Catholics aren't all that bad, all of the time. I was raised one and I never thought I wasn't going to make it out alive. Chalk it up for bad humor.No chalk it up to ignorance and sloppy reportage. The headline wasn't written by Fox at all. It was merely a link to this Newsweek post, entitled:
Obama Meets the Pope, Makes It Out Alive
Let Loose the Dogs of Deceit:
We've exposed how the newshounds (another fine product of the Outfoxed cabal) use people's religion to demean them, and sure enough, Priscilla is at that game again, ridiculing Gretchen Carlson as a "good Christian soldier". Meanwhile Ellen whips up a HeadLie that is quite a stunner, even by her shoddy standards:Fox News Panel’s Mean-Spirited Slurs Against Michelle Obama Include Attacking Her For Saying America Is A Mean CountryUm, Michelle Obama did say that. Now it's a "slur" to disagree with something she clearly did say? Ellen Q.B. also gave us an example of fuzzy math in a debate over the proposition that welfare and food stamps will stimulate the economy:
Out of seven people, only panelists Quentin Hardy and Evelyn Rusli saw the mean-spirited ridiculousness of the suggestion.Actually it was six people (Ms Brodsky decided to throw David Asman into the mix, even though he was the moderator and posing questions from both sides). And of the six people, her own write up identifies not two, but three as siding with the proposition. Three out of six? Does that sound "fair and balanced" to anyone? And then we have one of the classic newspoodle headlines of all time, a real tribute to their intellect and seriousness of purpose:
Fox News Smears Jungle GymsNo, we didn't make that up. By the way, the "smear" claimed in the headline? Some of the panel didn't support funding jungle gyms in the healthcare plan, and some did. In the twisted world of the kennel, having multiple points of view means Fox is "smearing jungle gyms!"
Finally, on the first anniversary of Tony Snow's death, a look back into the kennel archives, for a remembrance of the man's passing. The hounds closed comments on their main thread, but a few gems made their way in anyhow:
- Tony Snow was the faceplate of a fascist leaning group of Neocons. I do feel terrible for his family in this time of great pain, however. My prayers are with them. But I will never hold Snow in anything other than great contempt.
- It's not as if Tony kakked at the dinner table and landed face down in a plate of linguini with his wife and kids looking on they knew this was coming.Professionally the guy was a hired liar for one of the most incompetent and corrupt administrations this country has seen and a good one so like you my sympathy is tempered and for Tony I will never have anything but unbridled contempt. Not that I'm going to watch to see, but I'd be surprised if fux noise doesn't spend the next few days doing their best to promote his canonization and trying to attach mcinane to his sympathy coat tails.
- Nobody held a gun to Snow's head. He earned that contempt, every shard of it.
- Every time that some one has passed on the left or the right and I have come on here there has been nothing but civil words for their passing even if we did not agree with them politically. A very good example of this was when Tony Snow had passed only good words were said of him…
