Posted on 09/05/2009 10:23:13 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
All together now, let’s say thanks to Rupert Murdoch. The media mogul gave us Fox News and what Charles Krauthammer calls its “alternate reality,” a world view competing with that of traditional media that are shocked that anyone could believe theirs is not the only possible way to understand what’s going on.
If not for Fox, we might be less exercised as a nation about proposed health-care restructuring that would spend us into economic mayhem. If not for one of its stars, Glenn Beck, we wouldn’t have half as much publicity about the left-wing zanies the Obama administration keeps placing in positions of extraordinary power.
As columnist Krauthammer has observed, Murdoch spied an interesting “niche” out there - something like half the population, and that’s not hyperbole. The most recent polls show 40 percent of Americans identifying themselves as conservatives and another 35 percent calling themselves moderates. In my experience, the moderates don’t like the far right but also recoil in horror at the semi-socialist, big-government, tradition-mocking belief system that has come to typify the 21 percent of the population that calls itself liberal.
Of course, liberals don’t use the word “liberal” anymore. They are trying to escape their ignominy in the eyes of many by calling themselves “progressives.” By any other name, however, their political attitudes remain the same.
Fox News claims to be “fair and balanced,” to be non-ideological. Make of that what you will, but we can all surely agree that the network is more likely to do adversarial reporting on liberals than ABC, NBC or CBS, and more likely to lend a sympathetic ear to conservatives than they are. NBC’s cable manifestation, MSNBC, is far left as well as lewd, mean-spirited, condescending and sometimes downright hateful, as in Chris Matthews of “Hardball” saying former Vice President Dick Cheney “always wants to kill.”
Beck has gotten into trouble for his own inexcusable excesses, such as calling President Obama “a racist.” Some advertisers have fled the scene while hypocritical NBC newsmen say he should be fired, as if Beck’s offense was worse than what Matthews said or than what MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann says almost daily or than some of their own journalistic failings, such as inattention to the radicals Obama is bringing into his administration. Beck has done an enormous public service in talking about this.
A top-notch intellect Beck is not. Bill O’Reilly? Although failing to notice his outsized ego would be like failing to notice the Rocky Mountains while driving West from Denver to Utah, he has pluses, too. His show is often provocative and more worthwhile watching than most of what’s on TV.
Sean Hannity was better with a liberal sidekick, but does raise some great questions along with some that aren’t. Brit Hume is a classy newsman. Intellectuals include Krauthammer, now a regular and among the three or four best commentators in America. Juan Williams is a Fox liberal of the thoughtful kind I find myself admiring.
The test is not just in the tasting, but in the ratings. Fox News buries its cable news competitors not by a little, but a lot. When millions watch, millions react, politics is changed and America benefits. In my view.
Keep it up, Glenn!
You had me hook, line and sinker until the end. Well played, sir.
She recently got engaged on the Mall in D.C. So I would imagine she’s busy doing all those girly pre-marriage things right now.
:-)
Like another era, aren’t those days? I was calling my cable company to get FOX with no result. Had dial-up and 32 megs of RAM with which I could get FOX on line but the video stalled every few seconds. Then FOX pulled its video feed and nothing for months. Not a cable company in the country now that doesn’t carry it, is there?
As long as it isn't one that Clinton fouled.
Any chance he'll get another liberal amigo to hang with him, or will they all get hissed to death for helping Hannity argue more effectively about these issues?
I remember how liberals used to complain about Colmes -- that he was too nice, etc. (they wanted him to snarl and sneer like Rosie O'Donnell, I suppose).
Actually, there's a pretty good essay to be written about why this statement is wrong. I don't have time for it, though.
Basically, "liberals" like Hubert Humphrey and Adlai Stevenson and Walter Mondale are nearly extinct, displaced by "progressives" whose line goes back to the Red CPUSA members and Stalinist-front activist traitors of the 30's who eventually seized control of the Democratic Party in 1972 and, with few interruptions, have run it ever since.
Think of a Democrat who did *not* have flaming-radical connections after 1972, and I'll show you a Democrat who fell by the wayside in the primary process. Almost *all* the more-successful Dem candidates in the primaries have been "progressives".
Bill Clinton and the Democratic Leadership Council? Clinton may have been a Chinese PLA asset since his 20's. He covered up for Wen Ho Lee (using Bill Richardson as his man on point) and demonized the honest spyhunter Notra Trulock. This he did, and much, much else. Clinton, the old SDS New Leftist, a "moderate"? Don't make me laugh.
Having eclipsed the real "liberals" now these last 20 years, though, "progressives" are beginning to dust off the name "liberal" and, in another of their patented Huge Lies, apply it to themselves. They are Stalinists, not liberals. Which is why they want the liberal label, for cover.
Liberals will take any chance they can to go against Hannity...Fox figured nobody paid attention to what Colmes was saying anyway so they tested to see what Hannity does on his own.
I predict he winds up with a co-host sometime in a year or so to shake things up. His panel is a good idea after you sit through Beck and O’Reilly his show becomes a recap. O’Reilly is the one that should be moved to 9 PM and Beck to 8 with Hannity at 10 and Greta at 5.
Time for a full court press! I’ve said all along that Obama is a leftist, racist COWARD, and today it was proven!
Hey Jay, get a grip. Obama’s reaction to the Commie Harvard professor’s outrageous behavior was RACIST — pure and simple. If you can’t see that you have your eyes closed.
The problem with that is that there is nothing "progressive" about the policies they advocate. The fact is their ideology is old, outdated, and has been tried and failed everywhere--even in America!
The following essay, reprinted with permission, illustrates that point.
The Miracle of America
from
axes and hoes to high technology;
log cabins to air-conditioned condos;
horsedrawn wagons to autos, planes, and rockets;
scarcity to abundance; &
from tyrannical government rule to individual liberty
HOW DID IT ALL BEGIN?
Most of our history books don’t tell us that, in the beginning, the pilgrims established a communal economic system. Each was to produce according to his ability and contribute his production to a common storehouse from which each was to draw according to his need.
The assurance that they would be fed from the common store, regardless of their contribution to it, had a peculiarly disabling effect on the colonists. Taking property away from some and giving it to others bred discontent and retarded employment. Human nature was the same then as now, and before long, there were more consumers than there were producers, and the pilgrims were near starvation. Governor Bradford, his advisors, and the colonists agreed that in order to increase their crops, each family would be allowed to do as it pleased with whatever it produced. In other words, a free market system was established. In Governor Bradford’s own words:
“This had very good success; for it made all hands very industrious, so as much more corne was planted than other waise would have bene by any means ye Governor or any other could use, and saved him a great deall of trouble, and gave farr better contente. The women now wente willingly into ye field, and tooke their little-ons with them to set corne, which before would aledg weaknes, and inabilitie; whom to have compelled would have bene though great tiranie and oppression. . . . By this time harvest was come, and instead of famine, now God gave them plenty, and the face of things was changed. . . . and some of ye abler sort and more industrious had to spare, and sell to others, so as any generall wante or famine hath not been amongst them since this day . . . .” (Wm. Bradford, “Of Plimoth Plantation,” original manuscript, Wright & Potter, Boston, 1901)
Those who, today, favor central government planning, common ownership and redistribution of the earnings of others are advocating a system that Americans tried and rejected over 350 years ago. Their wisdom gave birth to the great American miracle!
Are we as wise today?
You Can Do Something About This!
(This message originally published in the mid-1980’s by Stedman Corporation’s Government Affairs & Free Enterprise Education Program – a former NC textile firm. For more essays in this series, visit www.ouragelessconstitution.com )
Yes, Hannity has done lots of great work. When he or Glenn or any of the other good Fox folk have “progressives” on as “foils” to provide “balance,” these useless guests often waste perfectly good Fox broadcast time. *They* are the people I only want to hear *about*, not *from*. As another sad fact, Kirsten Powers, Juan Williams, and others too often do the same filibustering as the admitted progressives.
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