Happy New Year to all.
You will be delighted to learn that 2013 is the first year since 1987 to have four different numbers. Seriously, who notices this stuff? Well, aside from bloggers with too much time on their hands.
But enough of the trivial.
In my own way I love Fox News. They provide focus. Much in the same way that the New York Yankees, the Dallas Cowboys and the Boston Celtics provide an opportunity to really root against something. Any time those teams take the field their opponent is guaranteed an avid new group of fans. No one cheers for the Kansas City Chiefs unless the Cowboys are in town. Toronto barely knows it has a basketball team but when Boston takes the court, Toronto even forgets about the Leafs.
Like those sports teams, Fox can always be counted upon to provide a certain clarity. They are the gold standard of misinformation...the beacon of darkness in an otherwise enlightened world. Face it, you can't spell "full of excrement" without F O X.
Normally, Fox contents itself with garden variety rubbish: "Obamacare is the government take-over of the healthcare industry" "Liberals are waging a war on Christmas" "Obama is a socialist" "Obama is coming for your guns" "ACORN stole our election". They trot out the blond brigade of Laura Ingram, Greta Van Sustern, Gretchen Carlson and the bulimic bombshell, Ann Coulter to remind America of the evils of political compromise and all things Democrat. To their credit, the babes of Fox continually find new lyrics to the same old song. To avoid being accused of making stuff up, Fox can usually find some discredited political operative to "prove" the latest Obama/Democratic atrocity and confirm what their audience already believes; namely that Liberals are un-American scum.
This pseudo-journalism was never more in evidence than last week when Greta Van Sustern interviewed John Bolton former Bush ambassador to the UN. Bush/Cheney showed their cynical contempt for the United Nations by appointing Bolton in August, 2005. It would have been kinder to just send a bag of burning manure to UN headquarters. Oh wait, they did. Bolton, without the slightest vestige of proof or information of any kind, opined that the Secretary of State Hillary Clinton faked her fall and concussion at her home to avoid testifying before the Congress about Benghazi. Ms. Clinton was expected to appear before a Senate committee last week but was forced to cancel when a dizzy spell due to dehydration caused a fall resulting in a concussion and subsequent blood clot. For John Bolton to suggest that this was a ruse to avoid testifying about Benghazi is contemptible and disgraceful. Furthermore Greta knew exactly what he was going to say which makes her complicit.
For Bolton to suggest that Secretary Clinton was dodging the Senate committee is the worst form of slander. For one thing, Ms. Clinton has already accepted full responsibility for the security lapses in Benghazi which claimed four American lives. She will appear before the committee next month after she recovers. Perhaps Mr. Bolton is suggesting that the staff at New York Presbyterian Hospital was in on the conspiracy.
This sort of shabby reporting is Fox's stock and trade. They will backtrack on the story, suggesting that John Bolton made the statement and not one of Fox's talking heads. Roger Ailes, the grand poobha at Fox knows that the retraction will never match the coverage of the original story. Fox will mumble something about everyone being entitled to his or her opinion and move on to the next sham-wow. Hillary Clinton's people at State will spend the next week denying a story that was never a story. Mr. Bolton will retreat to the Dick Cheney Academy of Despicable Public Conduct, there to convene around the cauldron with Karl Rove (still muttering about Ohio), Don Rumsfeld, and the master himself, Richard "call me 'Dick'. everyone does" Cheney. There they will ponder why their toxic political stew is only marketed on one network.
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