When a conservative does something, it's OK, but not the same thing happens to a Democratic politician. It really doesn't matter what it is. Right now we're talking about rights for bombers, but it could be anything at all.
Liasson: ...don't forget Richard Reid, the shoe bomber was also mirandized and I don't remember a hue or a cry about that either. This is I think really unfortunate all around if you think that politics should stop at the water's edge, it should also stop at national security matters and alleged terrorists attacks.
Liasson reminds the Fox Crew that the shoe bomber was Mirandized the same way as the underwear bomber. Democrats on the Hill didn't immediately attack Bush after this, but let the process work. That's not part of the landscape now. Conservatives attack every second of every day, even when it compromises our national security. Why do they hate America so?
And apart from asking for a lap dance, why is Chris Wallace taking a political position on whether the underwear bomber is talking or not? I thought Fox's "news shows" didn't indulge in opinions ...
One of the reasons Fox News has become such a serious problem is that journalists as a profession have utterly failed in their traditional role of self-policing their colleagues. Journalists need to be speaking out about the truth that Anita Dunn pointed out in October: That Fox has ceased offering even a resemblance of a news organization and has become a propaganda channel 24/7.
Fox has largely been able to get away with it because its money and influence are so sizable that it has silenced with profession with a combination of threats and bribes: If you call them out, you get blackballed. On the other hand, if you play along, you get invited on their shows and get a fat contributor's paycheck.
Among the most disturbing examples of this have been NPR's Mara Liasson and Juan Williams, who have become such regulars on Fox that their identities are increasingly that of a typical Fox commentator. And in the process, they've deeply marred NPR's hitherto-sterling reputation as a reliable source of accurate and unbiased news.
A classic example of this took place in early September (see the video above), when Liasson, in a discussion on health care with Fox's Brett Baier, agreed to go along with the new Luntz-approved Fox talking point that it wasn't a "public option" in the health-care reform package, but a "government option.
Executives at National Public Radio recently asked the network’s top political correspondent, Mara Liasson, to reconsider her regular appearances on Fox News because of what they perceived as the network’s political bias, two sources familiar with the effort said.
According to a source, Liasson was summoned in early October by NPR’s executive editor for news, Dick Meyer, and the network’s supervising senior Washington editor, Ron Elving. The NPR executives said they had concerns that Fox’s programming had grown more partisan, and they asked Liasson to spend 30 days watching the network.
At a follow-up meeting last month, Liasson reported that she’d seen no significant change in Fox’s programming and planned to continue appearing on the network, the source said.
... Liasson defended her work for Fox by saying that she appears on two of the network’s news programs, not on commentary programs with conservative hosts, the source said. She has also told colleagues that she’s under contract to Fox, so it would be difficult for her to sever her ties with the network, which she has appeared on for more than a decade.
I find it comical that Liasson reportedly thinks that because she's on two 'serious' Fox News shows that that means she's no way associated with the rest of channel's nutty and hateful programming. Apparently, Liasson is able to magically cocoon herself within the confines of two programs. And even though she cashes those Fox News checks she's not really, y'know, part of Fox News.
Gimme a break.
You can't be half pregnant in a situation like this, which means Liasson needs to forcefully defend Fox News in its entirety. But if she can't do that and she still cares about her reputation as a journalists, than she ought to walk away from Rupert Murdoch's money, because the glaring truth is that Fox News jumped the rails many, many months ago.
Any news organization that took its responsibilities seriously would take pains to cover presidential criticism fairly. It would regard doing so as itself a test of integrity. At Fox, by contrast, complaints of unfairness prompt only hoots of derision and demands for "evidence" that, when presented, is brushed off and ignored.
There is no need to get bogged down in this phony debate, which itself constitutes an abuse of the fair-mindedness of the rest of the media. One glance at Fox's Web site or five minutes' random viewing of the channel at any hour of the day demonstrates its all-pervasive slant. The lefty documentary Outfoxed spent a lot of time mustering evidence that Fox managers order reporters to take the Republican side. But after 13 years under Roger Ailes, Fox employees skew news right as instinctively as fish swim.
... Whether the White House engages with Fox is a tactical political question. Whether we journalists continue to do so is an ethical one. By appearing on Fox, reporters validate its propaganda values and help to undermine the role of legitimate news organizations. Respectable journalists—I'm talking to you, Mara Liasson—should stop appearing on its programs. A boycott would make Ailes too happy, so let's try just ignoring Fox, shall we? And no, I don't want to come on The O'Reilly Factor to discuss it.
Liasson can't sit there on a panel on a "news show" -- whose tea-party promotions and slanted attacks on the White House are a matter of public record -- as the token "liberal" with Stephen Hayes and Charles Krauthammer every few days, and more often than not go along with their right-wing characterizations of events, and promulgating the right-wing narratives that are the basic fabric of these shows, and not be tainted by the association.
If Liasson wants to pretend that Fox is unbiased so she can keep collecting it paychecks, then let her. But NPR should move on to someone who actually displays real journalistic standards.
Krauthammer was missing from his usual appearance with Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday in their round table discussion group during the second half of the show. The panel is usually comprised of Mara Liasson of National Public Radio; Bill Kristol of The Weekly Standard, and Juan Williams of National Public Radio. This week Fred Barnes of The Weekly Standard was sitting in. Was it due to his reported contribution to President Bush's Inaugural speech? We aren't sure, but it did have us wondering and we are planning to call FOX News about it. Also, will it disqualify him from being a member in future panel discussions about the administration's policies, since obviously he is working to promote the President's agenda.
Why on earth would anyone ask Bill Kristol's opinion on foreign policy when his percentage of being correct on any issue is somewhere well below the Mendoza line?
But on Fox News, having a grasp of facts is not a hiring qualification, though it appears that bloodlust is. Because in discussing North Korea's recent missile tests, the consensus among all the pundits is that it's time to go bomb North Korea. You know, Obama has had all of five months in office to show that his sissy diplomacy tactics could work and as per Mara Liasson, clearly, they've failed.
But it's "Brother Kristol" (when did Fox News hosts start sounding like Communist Party Leaders?) who so righteously earned his spot on the Worst Person list on Countdown by saying that it's probably not a bad idea to launch an attack or two (or a dozen) against North Korea:
You know, it might be worth doing some targeted air strikes to show the North Koreans, instead of always talking about ‘gee, there could be consequences’ to show that they can’t simply keep going down this path.
Funnily enough, this was the same advice he gave for Iraq. Problem was he didn't have any ideas about what we do after those air strikes. And we're still there in Iraq, losing lives left and right six years later. Then after Brit Hume, Juan Williams and Liasson weigh in with their eagerness to sacrifice other people's children, William the Bloody ups the ante, by raising the spectre of North Korea encouraging a nuclear Iran --NIE and signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty be damned--that leads to some ooga-booga scary Middle Eastern nuclear domino theory:
We have some huge priority in—correctly put a huge priority in trying to stop Iran from going to nuclear...going nuclear. If we look back-- if the Iranians look around and see that Pakistan went nuclear, no consequences. If North Korea is going nuclear, has gone nuclear, no real consequences, except a lot of talk of how it's not acceptable. Well, now we’re saying, ‘Gee, Iran is not acceptable too.’ North Korea is awfully important to Iran for a couple of reasons -- proliferation issues, they could actually help directly or indirectly the Iranian program, bu more importantly, the example. I do think the Obama administration to the degree that they really do not want four years from now looking at a world where Iran is nuclear and Egypt and Saudi Arabia is going nuclear and the entire non-proliferation regime has collapsed. They need to be, from their own point of view, in actually dealing with Iran, much tougher on North Korea, I think, than our previous policies have been.
Seriously, are we not paying dearly for your utter wrongness enough now? If you're so gung-ho for yet another war, Wiliam the Bloody, suit the hell up or shut the hell up.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that anything that FOXNews bobbleheads accuse Democrats of is something of which it can easily be shown that they themselves are guilty.
Case in point: the difference in response by FEMA between Katrina and the Southern California wildfires last week. While there is some truth to Mara Liasson's statement that simply the Bush administration has learned to avoid the bad p.r. they got after Katrina (although not completely), there's no denying that, as Juan Williams points out, with the wildfires, it was Bush's base that was affected. However, leave it to Bill "I get everything wrong, but I have a direct line to the White House" Kristol, to claim the difference lies in the fact the political affiliations of the respective states' governors, and anyone who suggests that there is any politicization just doesn't want to admit how they were failed by their Democratic elected officials.
