The Outfoxed gals are suffering from cataracts of the brain.

They put blinders on horses. The purpose is simple: to restrict the animal's field of vision to a very narrow range. We were not aware that dogs were also fitted with these devices, but that seems to be the case with the newshounds (another fine product of the Outfoxed syndicate). There must be blinders of some sort on newbie hound janie, whose ignorance of news coverage leads her to find a Fox conspiracy in the most unlikely places:

Fox: The Bush Administration Press Secretary
Throughout the week, there have been many important developments that have not warranted much air time, or have not been covered at all on Dayside.... Yet, on both 8/9 and 8/11, a large chunk of these shows have been dedicated to airing the press conferences of Donald Rumsfeld and George Bush....is it truly prudent for Fox to air all of these press briefings in their entirety.... They would rather allow the current administration to have their views expressed without interuption [sic], comment, or dissent.

Yes, if you reside on Bizarro Planet with janie, Presidential press conferences are not covered live, and if they are, they are constantly interrupted for--for what? Janie doesn't explain. Never mind, it's still another Fox trick. Except look who else was covering the Rumsfeld presser:



And look who else was covering the Prez:



Incredible. The big three cable news channels are all using a Fox trick--covering press conferences without interruption or comment! How exactly did Rupert Murdoch arrange that? How was janie unaware of what is standard practice? Must be those blinders. Meanwhile, Melanie stumbles across another FNC conspiracy:

Fox Uses Cindy Sheehan to Promote Dick Cheney

Aha! This sounds like the smoking gun for sure. Clearly Mel has caught them in the act:

Right now (11:15 p.m. ET, August 18, 2005) FoxNews.com is reporting that Cindy Sheehan "Leaves Camp After Mother's Stroke." Immediately below that, FoxNews.com links to a story about Dick Cheney honoring "Troops With War Win." Fox changes its site every few minutes but here's what I mean - as I write - this is what FoxNews.com's "Latest Headine [sic]" box looks like:
LATEST HEADLINES
MLK Widow Had Major Stroke
Cindy Sheehan Leaves Camp After Mother's Stroke
VP: Honor Troops With War Win
...Earlier today I sat through a segment on Your World about how Democrats are "exploiting" Cindy Sheehan. Looks like Fox is too.

Say what? The positioning of one headline over another constitutes "exploiting"?!? If so, then Mel missed the really big Murdoch manipulation:

Fox Uses Coretta Scott King to Promote Cindy Sheehan!

Wait that doesn't make any sense either--but why should it? It's all hound logic. The blinders come out again when chrish is shocked--shocked!--at something Brit Hume said:

Brit Hume assailed the coverage on CNN as excessive.... "CNN covered his call for Hugo Chavez's assassination at length, undeterred by the fact that during the noon hour CNN's own analyst, Bill Schneider, said Robertson had little influence. At the top of the next hour, there it was again followed by a glowing report on the alliance between Chavez and Cuban President Fidel Castro. And it led CNN's three-hour "Situation Room," followed minutes later by live coverage of reaction from the Venezuelan ambassador, and then nearly two hours after that an in-studio interview with the ambassador."... Where does Brit Hume get off deriding another network's coverage? What kind of journalist publicly attacks his competitors?

Maybe chrish got her blinders from that high horse she is on. But no matter, the gaggle of the gullible are quick to set the echo chamber reverberating:

• What a bunch of ametuers [sic]. Can you imagine one of the "real" news networks acting so puerile and repeatedly disparaging their competition?
• Are stations supposed to run commentary on other stations? It seems a bit...unprofessional.
• They are very petty and unprofessional people.

Now if chrish weren't wearing those blinders, perhaps she would know that Fox News has been attacked by its competitors far more than vice-versa. Did she miss the headlines from today's New York Times article where CNN's chief rips FNC? How about the recent Anderson Cooper shot?

And then there are the obsessive-compulsive attacks by Keith Olbermann--who, unlike Mr Hume, has not been exactly accurate in his comments. For example, the phony quote, something O'Reilly didn't say, but Olby ridiculed Mr Bill on air about it (and refused to retract or apologize when shown proof he was wrong). How about the rant about Bill O'Reilly's punting records (also proved to be off-base)? Or the time he pontificated that he was going to show a clip you wouldn't see on Fox--only Fox had shown the exact same clip just two hours earlier?

Yes, no "real" news channel ever criticizes its competitors. One might add that a real journalist doesn't make a fool out of himself with envious shots at his more successful rivals, particularly shots that prove to be sloppy and inaccurate. However, that assumes that Olby is a "journalist".

But we digress. Why is it that chrish was not shocked--shocked!--at Olby's potshots as she was at Mr Hume's? Could it be those blinders? If so, they are extra-special, deluxe, biggie-size blinders, because they were so effective, they even blocked out all the discussion on the newshound site itself--detailing Olbermann's shots at O'Reilly:

• He also seems to really have it in for O'Reilly...I actually love it -- the little clock that pops up in the bottom left corner announcing the minutes and seconds left until 'The O'Reilly Story' comes on!
• By the way, Keith Olbermann is having lots of fun with [O'Reilly] these days. It's priceless, really.
• Keith Olbermann - who calls BOR "The Big Giant Head" - had quite a good time reporting on this...
• I don't know what it is, but Keith Olbermann seems to really have it in for [O'Reilly]...
• Olbermann's Countdown Show includes a segment on O'Reilly every night, with a clock in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen counting down the minutes to the O'Reilly story.

Funny, we didn't see chrish--or any of the curs--bloviating about how unprofessional it is for Olby to "publicly attack his competitors". No, that thin reed is only brought out when it's Brit Hume. Those blinders sure work well. In fact, sometimes they work so well, they can even remove words from a page:

FOX News Completely Distorts Cindy Sheehan's Comments. Take Action!
Molly Henneberg reported from Crawford, TX that Sheehan "says America is not worth dying for."... Henneberg completely distorted what Sheehan said. In fact, Iraq was the country Sheehan said was not worth dying for, as this complete quote from a transcript at wikipedia shows:
I'm going all over the country telling moms: "This country is not worth dying for. If we're attacked, we would all go out. We'd all take whatever we had. I'd take my rolling pin and I'd beat the attackers over the head with it. But we were not attacked by Iraq." {applause}
Contact FOX News and demand a retraction

Once again the credulous are easily conned:

• Of course, Fox will get away with it because they always do.
• Well I did my part to clog up their e-mailbox with a demand for retraction.
• That's it, this is disgusting I'm turnig [sic] Fox off for good, they lie and this is the final straw.
• Molly Henneberg is suffering from peroxide on the brain

But it turns out that some of the average Joes weren't buying it, and caught ellen doing a little creative editing:

You have to read the whole paragraph. And what Ellen posted here is NOT the whole paragraph. This is what Mrs. Sheehand said leading in to Ellen's cut.
"I take responsibility partly for my son’s death, too. I was raised in a country by a public school system that taught us that America was good, that America was just. America has been killing people, like my sister over here says, since we first stepped on this continent, we have been responsible for death and destruction. I passed on that bu!!s*it to my son and my son enlisted. I’m going all over the country telling moms: “This country is not worth dying for."
...I hate when the media just cuts quotes out of context - but that's just exactly what you did right here.

Ellen, blinders firmly in place, doesn't get it:

Sorry, but I don't see the relevance of what Sheehan said to what Dhue said.

The Joes, however, move in for the kill:

• when you read the entire paragraph she was very specifically speaking about America and then went on to declare she would fight if we were attacked.
• There was absolutely no mention of Iraq before her direct quote, "this country is not worth dying for."
• If you read it straight forward - she was talking about America.
• But cutting quotes out of context and forming them to your own views is not right.
• Cindy does appear to be talking about America in her statements.

So ellen shamelessly trims Sheehan's quote to hide the true meaning of the words--and after that bit of selective editing, she has the nerve to accuse Fox of "distorting" what Sheehan said!

In the end, ellen misses the most obvious point of all. If Sheehan really meant to say Iraq was not worth dying for, she wouldn't have said "this country". She would have said "that country". Even a broken-down middle-aged mutt can see that. Unless she's wearing blinders.