Posted on 11/06/2008 3:32:09 PM PST by big black dog
Normally, Fox News is a quality news outlet that has more integrity and balance than any other news outlet. Not so, today. Somehow, Fox let itself slide to the level of the National Enquirer when it ran with some wild rumors about Sarah Palin that originated from “unnamed” sources.
Kerri Houston Toloczko wrote a nice column for Regular Folks United in which she identifies the sources and has some choice words for them. From her column: News has been circulating around GOP insiders for weeks that McCain campaign honchos Rick Davis and Steve Schmidt were planning to blame Sarah Palin for McCain’s loss. This was expected to be an effort to punt the blame for their own failures to the side of the ticket that was most popular with the base, attracted the largest rally crowds, and scared the living bejeepers out of the opposing party.
The slander was projected, and appeared immediately after the election.
What was not anticipated was the disgraceful level of venom-laden vitriolic drool that dribbled from their camp, and their use of a respected Fox News reporter as their personal tool for deflecting their own accountability.
Last night on the O’Reilly Factor, McCain campaign embed Carl Cameron laid out Davis and Schmidt’s case against Palin with glee that channeled junior high mean girls, and details only worthy of the National Enquirer on its darkest day.
If these were real charges and real concerns, Schmidt and Davis would not have hidden behind the cloak of anonimity and would instead have put their names out for all to see right from the very start. This is clearly a sour grapes response to the election loss. Further, I doubt that Schmidt and Davis would have started such idiotic rumors about any male candidate.
The slanders included idiotic notions that Governor Palin didn’t know Africa was a continent or that she didn’t know the three nations that made up NAFTA. Only the most gullible and naive (or the most die-hard Democrat) would believe such nonsense slanders. These slanders are right up there with Barack Obama claiming there are 57 states, or Joe Biden claiming that President Franklin Roosevelt got on TV after the market crash in 1929. Hell, even the bit about Biden telling a man confined to a wheelchair to “stand up and take a bow” didn’t reach this level.
Given that Sarah Palin was reared by two school teachers, owned a business and rose up to become the Governor of Alaska, it is pretty easy to see how idiotic Davis and Schmidt are for starting such rumors.
Toloczko goes on: As a human person, I was shocked. As I woman, I was disgusted. As a conservative who understands how important this new fresh face has been to our political renewal; I was incensed.
As a Republican, I was ashamed.
…
Senior campaign officials should stand up like grownups and take responsibility for the outcome of the campaign instead of throwing the girl under the bus. Fox News’ Carl Cameron should go to rehab for his apparent case of Stockholm Syndrome after spending months on McCain campaign planes and buses.
And Bill O’Reilly should designate all of them as “pinheads” and apologize to Governor Palin for showing such personally damaging and politically counterproductive rumors and innuendos the light of day.
Ironically, as the head honchos of McCain’s failed campaign attempt to deflect their own inadequacies in such a disgusting and defamatory manner, they have ensured that they will never be hired again. What they have demonstrated without question is that they cannot be trusted.
I would have expected something like this from, say, Kathleen Parker or Christopher Buckley or even Peggy Noonan. But for Bill O’Reilly to consciously participate in this kind of slander was unthinkable up until now.
Carl Cameron is an idiot and now needs to go get his new slot on CNN. What a sickening display of nonsense to promote the trashing of Palin. I personally have had it with these jerks.
“Will no longer tune in to FAUX except for Hannity and Neil Cavuto...”
Actually, since Hannity refused to discuss this topic on his radio show today, it was pretty clear he’s not going to defend Palin and risk losing his job. He’s a sellout, too, and I’m done with him.
Parley Baer, I’m the same way with what I watch on Fox Snooze.
I can only stand so much middle of the road, fence sitting from O’Reilly, many times I’d like to jerk him through the tv screen and question him myself. I wish Sean Hannity had his own show forget that alien looking freak Colmes!
It’s not enough to not watch them or buy their fish wrap.
Dont click on any links to cnn, nyt, etc, you know who they are. The more eyeballs they get the more they can charge advertisers.
“Actually, since Hannity refused to discuss this topic on his radio show today, it was pretty clear he’s not going to defend Palin and risk losing his job. He’s a sellout, too, and I’m done with him.”
What did he say?
I hate to break this to you, but Fox News has been a trashy tabloid "news outlet" for years. The programming is sensationalist to the point of being tiresome (which is typical of a Rupert Murdoch media outlet), and when they hired that moron Geraldo Rivera they exposed themselves as a complete fraud.
Well, I was waiting for him to jump on the subject; he didn’t. (Rush was wild about this and totally incensed.) Sean started taking calls. One caller brought up the recent attacks on Palin and Sean couldn’t wait to dump the call. He mumbled something like, “Well, I’m not sure those things are true” and the caller was gone. Not one more mention of the subject.
FNC has gone the way of the MSM. We don’t watch them anymore. They’ve gotten too big for their boots and just like the rest of the lame media. It’s VERY quiet in our home except for the sounds of music. Sure as hell beats the talking heads and “all about me’s” on the boob tubes.
Hannity is getting the squeeze from FOX. He’s in a really bad position. Nevertheless, I was disappointed he wasn’t willing to touch this.
I won’t say anything to my mom. She used to love BOR, but she’s disgusted with him - was going to buy his book next time we went to the bookstore - not now.
But she looks forward to Hannity on the radio and H&C, and I don’t want to spoil it for her.
“He’s in a really bad position.”
So were the people who fought in the Revolutionary War, and they lost more than jobs.
They’ve been going the trashy route for a while.
I sent the following email to Sarah Palin’s governor office in early September.
I am supposed to enthusiastically join the Republican campaign, because McCain has chosen you as his vice president candidate. However, I foresee you confronting consistent internal tactics to isolate, misquote, miscommunicate and misinform shunting into obscurity the conservative positions, which dominate your political career.
Conservatives associating with the Republican Party may view you positively, but manifold enemies surround you. McCain forces will grant such selective influence, as they believe increases daily polling numbers, not only during the campaign, but in Washington if the Republican ticket is elected. According to Republican elites an era of William F. Buckley’s writings fueling Ronald Reagan’s initiatives is historical aberration, so maintaining conservative credentials means fighting a political Cold War. Principled actions demand extraordinary energy, cunning, and endurance to fight battles within as severe as any against the Democrats.
I received a small taste of that when spending several fruitless days attempting to open an account the GOP said people could use to address platform issues. I think it is reasonable to conclude too many people, who were not John McCain acolytes, had been submitting information. I had seen stories GOP elites were going to rewrite the platform for McCain’s candidacy, and there was confirmation.
You can easily follow downward sloping paths similar to Ike Eisenhower’s in relationships with political elites. When Republicans chose Ike, Harry Truman said they would eat him alive. Truman foretold Ike’s principle compromises, even as Republican leaders maintained Ike’s proven character was vital to reverse ever-diminishing Republican Party influence.
The first major principle abandonment came when Joe McCarthy denounced George Marshall as a Communist. General Marshall had promoted Eisenhower over hosts of more senior officers, and supported his assignment as commander of the D-Day invasion. Ike decreed McCarthy would not board his train in Wisconsin. Ike would also present a tribute to Marshall in Milwaukee. First aides, through supposed miscommunication, allowed McCarthy on the train. Political aides then not only dissuaded Ike from delivering the tribute, but also convinced him to appear with McCarthy in speeches. Eventually Ike would participate in political lies surrounding the U-2, completely stifling the character and principles of the man who lead allied troops on D-Day, and whom Americans thought they had elected.
I do not plan to identify with the politically nuanced who find compromise of conservative principles a way to office. In general saying, “Vote for us. We are just as good as the Democrats” should garner many votes from those traditionally driven by media sound bites impacting their emotions. However, the party alienates people like me who voted their own job out of existence, decided to serve voluntarily in harms way, turned down promotions out of principle, and operate a home on a single income. From events of the past several years, I must conclude that fundamentally the GOP finds such people as you and me irrelevant, if not embarrassing.
Remember the success of Bill Clinton cemented in politics for both parties the idea that character did not matter. There are no principles, but only ideas that secure possession of an office. John McCain is the most prominent Republican example of this new direction towards possession of power through careful exploitation of perceived expediency. You have been chosen for the ideas you express, but those dominating party leadership remain confident they can suppress or deflect any embarrassing expressions of principle. For you to maintain conservative stature requires overcoming McCain’s additive fawning for media, and liberal approval.
Politics is the art of compromise and leadership is the art of principle. Lincoln used superb political skills to implement some of the most cogent and insightful principles to guide this nation. McCain has used political skills to implement compromises consistent with increasing personal acclaim. The former is dead and the latter is alive, but dead to principles unrelated to his immediate personal advancement.
Since leadership is absent from the Democrat and Republican Parties, each individual must make a way to manage commitment to principle and political party affiliation. Each individual must answer questions as to what extent, under what circumstances and when, if ever, do you forsake conservative principles to align with an enemy of your beliefs against a greater enemy of your beliefs? You should never pretend conscious decisions are not required every day as political elites offer instruction and persuasion allowing you to find supposedly morally or ethically supportable choices, when such weighty utilitarian and cynical considerations dominate the campaign.
Besides McCain’s conservative problems with granting amnesty to illegal aliens and restricting freedom of speech, he has a more subtle, but tragic, deficiency in the areas of national security and integrity illustrating my point about correctly identifying moral and ethical issues.
John McCain lacks leadership for the Global War on Terror. His leadership codified the Army interrogation manual making terrorists legal combatants. His leadership granted terrorists American citizenship rights under Fifth, Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. He thereby ensures information vital to defeat terrorists remains sacred and unobtainable. Terrorists are unresponsive to direct questioning and psychological gambits. Therefore, interrogators need all stress and coercion techniques our military encounters in survival schools. McCain embraces liberal orthodoxy considering those methods torture, but his searing experiences call forth contrary insights he must suppress.
McCain especially understands from the Geneva Conventions terrorists are not insurgents or freedom fighters. They are not armed forces, militias, or volunteer corps of any country or authority. These killers are not members of organized resistance movements carrying arms openly. They have no distinctive identifier. Terrorists cannot even qualify as spies or saboteurs destroying infrastructure required to support military operations. Therefore, they are not prisoners of war.
McCain understands Geneva Conventions intended to isolate such forces, provide them no protections, and allow destruction with any overwhelming furies needed to crush their abominations. Knowing these factors, he has promised to close Guantanamo Bay, inviting terrorists into our legal system. He has decided to accommodate extraordinarily savage behavior, which checkmates national laws intended to manage simple murder and kidnapping, and renders Posse Comitatus a crumbling deception. To gain liberal and media approbation, McCain has embraced their doctrinaire civil liberty rules providing legal conduits enabling terrorists to move operatives and material into this country for an effective war against us.
McCain especially appreciates from our Constitution that laws guaranteeing civil liberties presuppose operation within an invincible society. He more than most understands Alexander Hamilton’s words that acknowledging devastating, unforeseeable perils exist must precede deliberations balancing common defense and civil liberties. The Federal government’s three branches primary responsibility is to pursue Hamilton’s admonition that powers must exit without limitation; providing capabilities thwarting dangers as well as repelling attacks. McCain understands powerful warfare capabilities require the potent intelligence acquisition and exploitation he is determined to withhold before and throughout military campaigns.
The framers of our Constitution and the Geneva Conventions held powerful positions throughout the darkest times of our country and the world. They were our Founding Fathers, and parents and grandparents of the Greatest Generation. Their words expressed durable morality earned in our fight for freedom, and against the ultimate bloody deluges of the 20th century. These first generations expressed principles derived from confronting shattering tragedies, and earning peace through victory. John McCain’s actions are particularly reprehensible because he turns a blind eye to the council of these people for personal political gain.
McCain continually seeks popular advancement by placating those coveting comforting morality allowing shelter from hard choices and danger awareness. His crime is repudiating military and intelligence professionals facing the hardest choices when confronting shrewd, ruthless enemies obscured behind frightening uncertainties.
John McCain succumbed to the terrible addiction of political power. The same addiction expressed itself differently in fellow Navy officer Randy Cunningham, who was the Navy’s first Vietnam ace. Over the decades the honor and moral authority of both were gradually traded away for influence in the political arena. To me McCain is like a cadaver prepared for viewing. The removal of blood and organs equates to the trading away of honor and moral authority. The reputation that remains is like the cosmetics applied for viewing the corpse at the funeral. It is easy for anyone, including you, to get onto the same sort of gently downward sloping path.
The final result is tragic, but we should not suffer such pathetic and contemptible modern day Macbeths or Hamlets as President and Vice President. We should not design a platform enabling continuation of such abominable expressions of behavior. Conservatives should also be skeptical that anyone, including you, can maintain principle against determined assaults by political elites quietly chanting the mantra Bill Clinton bequeathed to politics.
Hey, Bill is lookin’ out for himself. Everybody in the media is doing what ever it can to ensure the Marxist Onada is happy with them. Fairness Doctrine club is a significant weapon. These spineless idiots do not have the guts to fight it. And/or they’re willingly on board the “fundamentally change the Constitution and America” bandwagon.
“Fairness Doctrine club is a significant weapon.”
Only if the cowards let it be.
I made a vow to never watch any MSM news again, we stopped watching CNN, MSNBC years ago and we are very close to scratching FOX news, with ORealy in the tank for Obomination as well.
Frankly I and my entire family don't trust any of them or what they have to say. They are all propaganda tools of Satan and the democRATS to bend and mold the minds and will of the weak minded and uninformed to drink the Obamessiah Kool Aid.
While I will pray for Obama's salvation, as far as a blessing for America's new "TZAR" to quote Tevya... "May God bless TZAR Obama and keep him far away from us!"
Name any Pubbie who has stood up to the left in any meaningful way since Reagon.
I see that the Pubbie House chair is resigning and an allegedly more conservative guy, Cantor, is taking his place. Bohnyer is still holding his “leadership” role in Senate; and the RNC chair thinks it was all Palin’s fault and is not getting out of the way.
Gingrich is yapping about making a play for the RNC job, but he does not really have the credentials I’m looking for. He folded up like a cheap camera over the illegally recorded message brouhaha. And, at best, he was tepid toward Palin. I want someone who’ll give the finger to the dems just like they do to us.
It’s too soon after the election to expect everything to be fixed. But the RNC chair and Bohnyer need to move along smartly.
I have no argument with most of what you said. I hope Cantor will be strong. Going by past events, it seems they do well standing up for us when they’re just a senator/congressman, but once in a leadership role, they do a good job at rolling over in the “bipartisan spirit.”
But the cowards I’m speaking of are the so-called conservative media. I read yesterday where the dems are now saying the fairness doctrine is obsolete in this day and age. I don’t believe for one second that they’re not working on something.
Of course, we can count on Rush and a handful of others to smoke them out, but will the rest just parrot the dems lies? My fear is that the fairness doctrine will be slid into a major piece in the midnight hour - too late to do anything except bend over once again.
They will try to gag conservative radio and blogs. They will attempt to crush free discussion on internet, Conservative sites and chat rooms. The lefts’s economic policy never works. Therefore, for the left to prevail it must control education, media, communication, the military, police and government. It also must deny guns to the public.
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