White House officially takes on Fox News

[expression]

isn't that just normal politics, though?

If it is in the dark, yes.

Openly loosing cool, especially when this Pres is famous for his hip pizazz charm, gives the sense that this administration fully expects everyone to nod in agreement in their shouting down dissent.

If everything about Fox is trashy, why should WH take it so seriously? Doesn't it think the public can discern? Is it worried that the public, who actually voted this Pres into office, cannot make sound decisions? Does this mean WH knows better than the public and should "protect" them by approving which news they can "safely" watch? Does that mean the WH should point out where the public should be getting information about itself?

[Banh Mi]

If it is in the dark, yes.

Openly loosing cool, especially when this Pres is famous for his hip pizazz charm, gives the sense that this administration fully expects everyone to nod in agreement in their shouting down dissent.

If everything about Fox is trashy, why should WH take it so seriously? Doesn't it think the public can discern? Is it worried that the public, who actually voted this Pres into office, cannot make sound decisions? Does this mean WH knows better than the public and should "protect" them by approving which news they can "safely" watch? Does that mean the WH should point out where the public should be getting information about itself?

If the public is as smart as you give them credit for, we wouldn't need warning labels on everything. I think it's a good thing that he responds, I don't like politicians that ignore criticism as a policy.

[Ren Ying Ying]

If it is in the dark, yes.

Openly loosing cool, especially when this Pres is famous for his hip pizazz charm, gives the sense that this administration fully expects everyone to nod in agreement in their shouting down dissent.

If everything about Fox is trashy, why should WH take it so seriously? Doesn't it think the public can discern? Is it worried that the public, who actually voted this Pres into office, cannot make sound decisions? Does this mean WH knows better than the public and should "protect" them by approving which news they can "safely" watch? Does that mean the WH should point out where the public should be getting information about itself?

Losing his cool is different from stating an issue. it's not as if obama threw a beer bottle at the mic while he said it, or did he? I haven't seen that speech so I wouldn't know.

Still, I don't see why addressing opponents' criticism should be done in the dark at all. Isn't the whole deal of politics to argue it out in the open?

[expression]

There is all the difference in the world among:

a) disproving criticism by action and accomplishment
b) rebutting criticism point by point
c) demonizing critics

[expression]

Still, I don't see why addressing opponents' criticism should be done in the dark at all. Isn't the whole deal of politics to argue it out in the open?

1) A news media is not, and should not be a political opponent of the Pres, at least not in a free country. The opposition party is the political opponent.

2) Addressing opponent's criticism means properly refuting the critic's points with research/facts/logic. This is not what the WH has done.

3) I did not mean addressing criticism should be done in the dark. That is, of course, nonsense. I meant that any government will attempt to steer the media to its advantage, but in free countries, it is done in the dark because this is supposedly shameful and bad. Totalitarian regimes don't bother doing it in the dark because they see nothing wrong/no shame with it.

[jiang bao]

If it is in the dark, yes.

Openly loosing cool, especially when this Pres is famous for his hip pizazz charm, gives the sense that this administration fully expects everyone to nod in agreement in their shouting down dissent.

If everything about Fox is trashy, why should WH take it so seriously? Doesn't it think the public can discern? Is it worried that the public, who actually voted this Pres into office, cannot make sound decisions? Does this mean WH knows better than the public and should "protect" them by approving which news they can "safely" watch? Does that mean the WH should point out where the public should be getting information about itself?

Could have fooled me, given that Fox News promotes itself as “fair and balanced.” A network that promotes itself as fair and balanced but continually incites hate to push a political agenda is a propaganda machine and deserves to be called out. If you present a lie as fact and repeat that lie over and over, since many people are too lazy or too dumb to do their own research, they will take it as fact.

Remember that Congressman Wilson who yelled out “you lie” to Obama? I bet you most conservatives still believe that the healthcare reform will forcibly give coverage to illegal immigrants, but it doesn’t.

http://www.politifact.org/truth-o-me...lied-he-didnt/

Carrying nazi signs to town hall meetings only proves how idiotic the protesters are. It’s fine to protest, but to compare liberals to Nazis shows lack of understanding of basic logic and history. Compare them to commies, maybe, but liberals to fascists? Healthcare reform to concentration camps?? It’s just as stupid as anti-war protesters comparing Bush to Hitler. At least there, ideologically, both Hitler and Bush were on the far right. Those protesters are no better than the “god hates fags” people who harass gay people.

[JamesG]

Liberals can't stand people who don't think like them and can become quite spiteful, or even hateful towards them.
Fox News frequently has unabashed liberals and Obama worshippers on their programs and they frequently try to shout down or interupt others on the show who disagree with them. As Mr. O' would say.....................they're pinheads.

[Guo Xiang]

Liberals can't stand people who don't think like them and can become quite spiteful, or even hateful towards them.
Fox News frequently has unabashed liberals and Obama worshippers on their programs and they frequently try to shout down or interupt others on the show who disagree with them. As Mr. O' would say.....................they're pinheads.

You mean Bill O'Reilly, the guy who always tells his guests to shut up?

[JamesG]

You mean Bill O'Reilly, the guy who always tells his guests to shut up?

'Always'? He will tell a guest to shut up and answer a question they are trying to evade, or a guest that continually interupts another guest.
I think the producers of other Fox News shows have asked the hosts to let the interupters babble on, knowing the audience will recognise an arrogant, inconsiderate twit when they see one.

[PJ]

Meh. Just don't watch Fox News if you don't like it (and, I think most of us here knows it sucks). The channel does have other worthy shows.

[JamesG]

Now the Obama administration wants to put its sticky fingers on the internet under the guise of 'Net Neutrality' and is even considering bailing out failing newspapers. Talk about 'controlling the message'. Free speech, what a nuisance!

[jiang bao]

For anyone who wishes to know about net neutrality:
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/...ity-amendment/
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2354551,00.asp
http://techliberation.com/2008/10/08...-debate-in-us/

The issue of net neutrality has been around for years. Of course, it's not surprising that JamesG is portraying it as a government takeover orchestrated by Obama. It would be shocking if the hardcore conservatives here didn't see a conspiracy in anything the current administration did.
---

Don't remember JamesG or any other conservative member of this board complaining about the Patriot Act by the way...
---

Funny article about non-hardcore right Republicans getting bullied by the extreme ones.
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsO...59L49B20091022

[JamesG]

For anyone who wishes to know about net neutrality:
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/...ity-amendment/
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2354551,00.asp
http://techliberation.com/2008/10/08...-debate-in-us/

The issue of net neutrality has been around for years. Of course, it's not surprising that JamesG is portraying it as a government takeover orchestrated by Obama. It would be shocking if the hardcore conservatives here didn't see a conspiracy in anything the current administration did.
---

Don't remember JamesG or any other conservative member of this board complaining about the Patriot Act by the way...
---

Funny article about non-hardcore right Republicans getting bullied by the extreme ones.
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsO...59L49B20091022

Typical JB response c/w liberal blog back-ups.
Where did I say 'takeover'? Obama and the l/w Dems don't like dissemt against their beliefs or policies and would like to muzzle it, demonize its practisioners, or find a way to control it. They're just thin-skinned, spiteful weasels. They've turned transparency into opacity and unifying into marginalising. They're all yours JB and you'll be paying for them for the rest of your life.

[jiang bao]

Dear god, I hope other good folks are able to tell that the articles are written from in a neutral tone and try to present the topic in a fair manner.

I guess to JamesG, the only thing not considered liberal "smoke and mirrors" as he calls it are commentaries by the hardcore rightwing folks. Even neutrality is considered liberal smoke and mirrors to him.

I do understand that many Republicans aren't like that, but I am very glad that JamesG represents the voice of conservatism here.

[JamesG]

Dear god, I hope other good folks are able to tell that the articles are written from in a neutral tone and try to present the topic in a fair manner.

I guess to JamesG, the only thing not considered liberal "smoke and mirrors" as he calls it are commentaries by the hardcore rightwing folks. Even neutrality is considered liberal smoke and mirrors to him.

I do understand that many Republicans aren't like that, but I am very glad that JamesG represents the voice of conservatism here.

So you think its OK for a government agency to tell ISPs how to run themselves and there's no agenda involved?
Its still about control.
By the way, did you watch Frontline on PBS on Tues. night? If not, check it out at PBS.org. Government and its agencies blowing it big time!

[jiang bao]

Yeah, it worked real well on Wall St. with lax regulation.

A balanced amount of government regulation is needed. As I have said before, there is no such thing as “free market.” It is not possible in reality. When left on their own, businesses will always abuse their power. It’s the same reason why communism doesn’t work—human nature. The government needs to intervene, such as during the financial crisis last fall and still needs to keep its fingers to the pulse.

http://mobile.bloomberg.com/apps/new...d=a5682ThUSwY4

I don’t remember you crying foul when the FCC went nuts censoring “obscene” material on TV after that stupid Janet Jackson stunt. Now that’s overstepping the government’s bounds. How bout the Patriot Act? Did you complain about that?

Net neutrality is meant to define rules what ISPs can and cannot do in the marketplace, not a takeover of the internet like some rightwing commentators try to spin it to be.
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RS22444.pdf
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More "liberal" propaganda for your enjoyment, JamesG, written by David Brooks, conservative commentary, now "traitor" according to some hardcore righties.

The Quiet Revolution


Article Tools Sponsored By
By DAVID BROOKS
Published: October 22, 2009

A few weeks ago, “Saturday Night Live” teased President Obama for delivering great speeches but not actually bringing change. There’s at least one area where that jibe is unfair: education.

When Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan came to office, they created a $4.3 billion Race to the Top fund. The idea was to use money to leverage change. The administration would put a pile of federal money on the table and award it to a few states that most aggressively embraced reform.

Their ideas were good, and their speeches were beautiful. But that was never the problem. The real challenge was going to be standing up to the teachers’ unions and the other groups that have undermined nearly every other reform effort.

The real questions were these: Would the administration water down their reform criteria in the face of political pressure? Would the Race to the Top money end up getting doled out like any other federal spending program, and thus end up subsidizing the status quo? Would the administration hold the line and demand real reform in exchange for the money?

There were many reasons to be skeptical. At the behest of the teachers’ unions, the Democrats had just shut down a successful District of Columbia voucher program. Moreover, state legislatures around the country were moving backward. They were passing laws prohibiting schools from using student performance as a criterion in setting teacher pay.

But, so far, those fears are unjustified. The news is good. In fact, it’s very good. Over the past few days I’ve spoken to people ranging from Bill Gates to Jeb Bush and various education reformers. They are all impressed by how gritty and effective the Obama administration has been in holding the line and inciting real education reform.

Over the summer, the Department of Education indicated that most states would not qualify for Race to the Top money. Now states across the country are changing their laws: California, Illinois, Ohio, Wisconsin and Tennessee, among others.

It’s not only the promise of money that is motivating change. There seems to be some sort of status contest as states compete to prove they, too, can meet the criteria. Governors who have been bragging about how great their schools are don’t want to be left off the list.

These changes mean that states are raising their caps on the number of charter schools. When charters got going, there was a “let a thousand flowers bloom” mentality that sometimes led to bad schools. Now reformers know more about how to build charters and the research is showing solid results. Caroline Hoxby of Stanford University recently concluded a rigorous study of New York’s charter schools and found that they substantially narrowed the achievement gap between suburban and inner-city students.

The changes also will mean student performance will increasingly be a factor in how much teachers get paid and whether they keep their jobs. There is no consensus on exactly how to do this, but there is clear evidence that good teachers produce consistently better student test scores, and that teachers who do not need to be identified and counseled. Cracking the barrier that has been erected between student outcomes and teacher pay would be a huge gain.

Duncan even seems to have made some progress in persuading the unions that they can’t just stonewall, they have to get involved in the reform process. The American Federation of Teachers recently announced innovation grants for performance pay ideas. The New Haven school district has just completed a new teacher contract, with union support, that includes many of the best reform ideas.

There are still many places, like Washington, where the unions are dogmatically trying to keep bad teachers in the classrooms. But if implemented well, the New Haven contract could be a sign of perestroika even within the education establishment.

“I’ve been deeply disturbed by a lot that’s going on in Washington,” Jeb Bush said on Thursday, “but this is not one of them. President Obama has been supporting a reform secretary, and this is deserving of Republican support.” Bush’s sentiment is echoed across the spectrum, from Newt Gingrich to Al Sharpton.

Over the next months, there will be more efforts to water down reform. Some groups are offering to get behind health care reform in exchange for gutting education reform. Politicians from both parties are going to lobby fiercely to ensure that their state gets money, regardless of the merits. So will governors who figure they’re going to lose out in the award process.

But President Obama understood from the start that this would only work if the awards remain fiercely competitive. He has not wavered. We’re not close to reaching the educational Promised Land, but we may be at the start of what Rahm Emanuel calls The Quiet Revolution.

[sezenke]

Fox News, to draw an analogy, is like putting Kanye "Bush Hates Black People" West on as anchor and presenting him as a legitimate journalist. (Glenn Beck basically said Obama is racist) There's a line you have to draw between real journalism and hate-mongering propaganda machine that Fox IS. Fox News is on tv at the gym I go to. I see some of the garbage that goes on there. They promote opposition meetings where Obama is characterized as a Nazi (I mean, jeez, at least compare him to a commy if they wanna smear him). I am not aware of CNN or any major news network promoting anti-war protesters.

I don't think Obama is looking to censor Fox anyway. His folks are just saying Fox will be treated differently, not as a legitimate news org.

Amen to that! Fox News is trash and Obama should have every right to throw away this trash. They have been out to get Obama since day 1.

[JamesG]

Sigh. I guess there’s no point trying to open the minds of zealots who are the products of a left-wing dominated education system fueled by politically correct, sanitized textbooks. Go ahead and continue to be good little sheep worshipfully bleating ‘Obaaaama, Obaaaama’ and awaiting the next government handout. Enjoy your dreams of ‘Obama’s Utopia’, because it won’t last. It’s just a house of cards.

[jiang bao]

JamesG… it’s incredible how your politically “neutral” “education” made you incapable of understanding what the distinction between fact and opinion is. Facts and data, you dismiss as liberal “smoke and mirrors.” Opinion from conservatives, you embraced as the gospel of truth.

Repeatedly, you accuse people who don’t agree with your hardcore rightwing views as “zealots.” It’s like the Taliban calling western people infidel extremists. I suppose the fact that I turned from a moderate independent with Republican leanings into a Center Left Democrat was because of brainwashing in your eyes. Like I said earlier, I remain Republican on a few issues like capital punishment and crime and I am more center than you would ever give me credit for. Yet it doesn’t matter to you. Anyone who thinks Obama is good is a zealot to you.
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The following is not related to my above reply:
It is an OPINION piece. I am posting this simply to point out the argument that Fox News isn't exactly a persecuted champion of the First Amendment. It's still all about politics.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...746743510.html

Journalism has a special, hallowed place for stories of its practitioners' persecution. There is no higher claim to journalistic integrity than going to jail to protect a source. And the Newseum in Washington, D.C., establishes the profession's legitimacy with a memorial to fallen scribes, thus drawing an implicit connection between the murdered abolitionist editors of long ago and the struggling outfit that gave you this morning's page-one story about cute pets in Halloween costumes.

But no journalistic operation is better prepared to sing the tragedy of its own martyrdom than Fox News. To all the usual journalistic instincts it adds its grand narrative of Middle America's disrespectful treatment by the liberal elite. Persecution fantasy is Fox News's lifeblood; give it the faintest whiff of the real thing and look out for a gale-force hissy fit.

As the Obama administration has discovered by now. A few weeks ago, after Fox had scored a number of points against administration figures and policies, administration spokesmen decided it was time to start fighting back. Communications Director Anita Dunn called the network "a wing of the Republican Party," while Obama himself reportedly dismissed it for following "a talk radio format."

The network's moaners swung instantly into self-pitying action likening the administration's combative attitude to Richard Nixon's famous "enemies list."

They should remember that it wasn't just the keeping of a list that made Nixon's hostility to the media remarkable. Nearly every president—and probably just about every politician—has criticized the press at some point or other. What made the Nixon administration stand out is that it also sued the New York Times to keep that paper from publishing the Pentagon Papers. It schemed to ruin the Washington Post financially by challenging the broadcast licenses for the TV stations it owned. It bugged the office of Joseph Kraft, a prominent newspaper columnist. One of its most notorious henchmen was G. Gordon Liddy, who tells us in his autobiography that under certain conditions he was "willing to obey an order to kill [columnist] Jack Anderson."

It is interesting to note that Mr. Liddy, that friend of the First Amendment, appeared frequently in 2006 on none other than the Fox News network. In fact, the network sometimes seems like a grand electronic homage to the Nixonian spirit: Its constant attacks on the "elite media," for example, might well have been inspired by the famous pronouncements on TV news's liberal bias made by Mr. Nixon's vice president, Spiro Agnew.

And, of course, the network's chairman, Roger Ailes, was an adviser to Mr. Nixon in the 1968 presidential campaign; his signature innovation back then was TV commercials in which Mr. Nixon answered questions from hand-picked citizens in a town-hall style setting.

Although they cry persecution today, the network and its leading lights have not really distinguished themselves on the issues surrounding clashes between the government and the press. When Mr. Ailes was on the other side of the politician/press divide, making ads for the presidential campaign of George H. W. Bush, the Washington Post once found out in advance where one of the commercials was going to be filmed. According to an article that appeared in that paper in 1988, Mr. Ailes was moved to comment thusly on the situation: " 'These leakers!' he told an inquiring reporter the night before the planned event. 'I think they should all be executed and tortured.'"

Mr. Ailes was joking on that occasion. But faced with one of the biggest First Amendment cases of our own time—the New York Times's 2005 story on the George W. Bush administration's domestic wiretapping program—how did Fox News react? By impugning the motives of the Times, of course, with different Fox personalities speculating that the Times deliberately published the story when it did in order to dissuade the U. S. Senate from reauthorizing the Patriot Act.

To point out that this network is different, that it is intensely politicized, that it inhabits an alternate reality defined by an imaginary conflict between noble heartland patriots and devious liberals—to be aware of these things is not the act of a scheming dictatorial personality. It is the obvious conclusion drawn by anybody with eyes and ears.

Still, one wishes that the Obama administration had taken on Fox News with a little more skill. As cultural criticism goes, this was clumsy, plodding stuff. What the situation required was sarcasm, irony, a little humor. Simply feeding Fox a slice of raw denunciation was like dumping gasoline into a fire. It did nothing but furnish the network with a real-world validation of its long-running conspiracy theories—and a nice bump in its ratings.

[email protected]

[jiang bao]

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/04/op...WT.mc_ev=click

Who Are You Calling a Narcissist, Rush?

By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: November 3, 2009

I had a four-hour dinner once with Rush Limbaugh at the “21” Club in Manhattan, back in the days when I was still writing profiles as a “reporterette,” to use a Limbaugh coinage.

He was charming, in a shy, awkward, lonely-guy way. Not a man of the people. He arrived in a chauffeured town car and ordered $70-an-ounce Beluga, Porterhouse and 1990 Corton-Charlemagne.

But he was not a Neanderthal, though he did have a cold and blew his nose in his napkin. He talked about Chopin’s Polonaise No. 6, C.S. Lewis and how much he loved the end of the movie “Love Story.”

In those days, he called himself a “harmless little fuzzball.” He’s a lot less harmless now. I went on to columny, as my pal Bill Safire called it, and Rush went on to calumny.

As he and Sarah Palin conduct their auto-da-fé of moderate Republicans — “Moderates by definition have no principles,” he told his radio audience on Monday — Limbaugh is more than ever the face of his party, as Rahm Emanuel said.

He’s also the mouth.

Limbaugh is right that Democrats tend to dither too much. They’re always wondering if they’re doing the right thing, indulging in on-the-one-hand, on-the-other paralysis by analysis, seeing, as James Carville put it, “six sides to the Pentagon.”

President Obama will have to step it up on jobs and fixing the deficit if he wants to block conservatives from stoking the anger of Americans who only see a recovery on Wall Street, especially given the Republican sweep in top races on Tuesday night.

But the tactics of Limbaugh, Palin, Cheney & Fille are more cynical: They spin certainty, ignoring their side’s screw-ups, and they exploit patriotism, labeling all critics as traitors.

In an interview on “Fox News Sunday With Chris Wallace,” Limbaugh accused the president of trying to destroy the economy — yes, the same economy that W. came within a whisker of ruining.

“I have to think that it may be on purpose,” Limbaugh said, “because this is just outrageous, what is happening — a denial of liberty, an attack on freedom.”

Asked about Afghanistan, another W. cataclysm that has left Obama agonizing, Limbaugh stated, “I also don’t think he cares much about it.” Again suggesting that the president is an unpatriotic fop, the radio ranter averred: “He wants to manage this rather than achieve victory.”

He told Wallace that “throughout the Iraq war, it was Barack Obama and the Democrat Party which actively sought the defeat of the U.S. military.” Actually, rigorously examining the government’s conduct of a war started on false pretenses is the best sort of patriotism.

Asked about fellow conservative George Will’s contention that the United States should get out of Afghanistan, Limbaugh said, “I don’t have the benefit of knowledge that George Will has, so I trust the experts, and to me they’re the people in the U.S. military.”

Even a chickenhawk like Rush should remember how well that worked in Vietnam, or in the early years of Iraq. The founding fathers designated a civilian as commander in chief for a reason.

Military brass have told the White House that this is the first time in eight years that they have gotten the attention and resources that they’ve needed in Afghanistan.

If W. had gone to Dover in the middle of the night to salute the war dead, Limbaugh and Liz Cheney would have been gushing about his patriotism.

But since it’s Obama who at last showed up there to see the brutal cost of war, they simply have to dismiss the moving moment as a publicity stunt.

Years ago, when I dubbed Dubya “The Boy Emperor,” Limbaugh spewed a stream of personal invective about me that embarrassed even my mother, a Limbaugh fan.

But now Limbaugh calls Obama the “man-child president.”

The 48-year-old Obama is skinny and getting skinnier, but there’s nothing childish about him. He more or less raised himself and came to terms with his Oedipal demons on his own, and he radiates a hard-won maturity.

W., on the other hand, was like a kid who knew that Daddy’s friends would take care of him; he was always running off to the gym or going biking, leaving the governing to his regents, Cheney and Rummy, or incompetents like Brownie.

At our long-ago dinner, Limbaugh credited his success with being “one-dimensional.” “I’m totally concerned with me,” he said. And that was way before he got a contract for $400 million, so we can only imagine how one-dimensional he is now.

But on Sunday, he ripped the president for having “an out-of-this-world ego,” for being “very narcissistic,” “immature, inexperienced, in over his head.” (Isn’t immaturity scoring OxyContin from your maid?)

It gives new meaning to pot, kettle and black.