johnny dollar's archive: july-august 2009

The moon, Judge Sotomayor, birth certificates, Wolf Blitzer, the All-Star Game, and white guys: just a hint of the wonders contained in the latest action-packed edition of Fox Haters Week in Review!

Bad Attitude:
We've seen haters rant about "Fox bias" in articles that turned out not to be written by Fox at all. And posts condemning FNC for what some local station did are as regular as the dawn. Now the Blame Fox First movement takes another step forward. Bad Astronomy is on our daily read list; it takes a skeptical view of the paranormal and exposes anti-science myths. So it is with little pleasure that we report the Bad Astronomer himself, Phil Plait, turns out to be a Fox hater. It appears he was asked to appear on FNC over the weekend to discuss the Apollo 11 anniversary. That didn't sit well with BA:

For those saying I should do the Fox interview, I disagree. They are not news, they are garbage and propagandists. Torque them.

What accounts for this attitude? Mr Plait explains:

I told Fox no way. They aired that execrable Moon Hoax show, and told them I only do interviews with news outlets.

Well, BA should know (since he reviewed the original broadcast) that Fox News had nothing to do with the Moon Hoax show. It aired on the Fox broadcast network, not on Fox News Channel. This would be like blaming MSNBC for My Mother, the Car! In fact, today the Moon Hoax show is airing yet again, this time on Tru TV--a channel owned by Turner Broadcasting, home of CNN! We reminded Mr Plait that FNC had no connection with the hoax show, but our tweet went unanswered.

Brodsky's Blarney:
One of the most effective smears from the newshounds is to attack FNC for things that are simply common news judgment decisions--so common that other channels do the same thing. On the first day of Sotomayor questioning, Ellen Brodsky shrieked:

We saw Republican John Kyl's questions for Sonia Sotomayor in their entirety. But the "fair and balanced" network cut away from Democrat Charles Schumer, one of her biggest advocates, in the middle. Bret Baier announced that Sen. Lindsey Graham would be coming up. "THAT should be interesting," he said.

Of course, Ms Brodsky doesn't bother to mention that MSNBC made the same editorial decision:

We are back into live coverage of Sotomayor hearing since Senator Lindsey Graham is questioning her now.

Oh and at CNN? They also cut away from Schumer, only to resume coverage when Sen Graham started his questioning, teased by Wolf Blitzer not as merely "interesting" but as "a highlight"! Ellen added this nugget to her brilliant exposé:

Chris Wallace just told Megyn Kelly that Schumer's "rehabilitation" of Sonomayor [sic] was extremely effective. But not worth showing the viewers?

False, of course. Fox viewers did see the rehabilitation and the bulk of Schumer's questioning. Like on CNN. Later Ellen played the same card, complaining that FNC cut away from the hearings after Lindsay Graham's segment. Of course so did MSNBC, dropping the live coverage for Hardball. Then there's this steaming pile of drivel, starting off with a classic Hound Lie:

Fox News has joined forces with the “birthers,” the fringe who irrationally claim that Obama’s presidency is illegitimate because he was not born in the U.S.

Just who "joined forces" with whom? Who are these conspirators? Name names! When and where did they decide to team up? Give us the details Brodsky, or forever be branded as what everyone knows you to be. The incident that teed off the Queen Bee was a report by Bret Baier; here it is in its entirety:

A U.S. soldier who has been ordered to Afghanistan is refusing to go. U.S. Army Major Stefan Frederick Cook says President Obama was not born in the United States, and therefore is ineligible to be commander in chief. The Columbus, Georgia newspaper, The Ledger-Enquirer, reports Cook has filed a request in federal court seeking a temporary restraining order on his deployment. Cook's attorney is involved in a second case that challenges the legitimacy of the Obama presidency. The Los Angeles Times reports a California judge has agreed to hear the merits of that case.

It is just one of dozens of legal challenges to the president's nationality. At least two of them have already been dismissed by the Supreme Court. The White House press secretary Robert Gibbs again Monday brushed aside the matter, saying: "The noble truth is that the president was born in Hawaii, a state of the United States of America."

Wow, what a biased smear that was! And apparently the LA Times and the Ledger-Enquirer have also "joined forces" with the birthers. Here is another account:

The new questions are raised about the president's eligibility to be president. The latest from U.S. Army Reserve Major Stefan Cook who refused deployment to Afghanistan, proclaimed his orders were illegal because President Obama wasn't born in United States which makes him ineligible to be president and commander in chief. The Major's orders for deployment to Afghanistan were rescinded. An army spokeswoman told us the major volunteered to go to Afghanistan and could rescind his request at any time up to his deployment. This is what the army said. Based on the fact that he no longer wished to serve on active duty and at the request of central command his orders were revoked on July 14.

Now the Major's attorney is challenging the legitimacy of the Obama presidency in court. She joins a lawsuit by former presidential candidate Alan Keys who wants documentary proof the president was born in the United States. President Obama was born in Hawaii according to state officials and copies of his certification of birth, factcheck.org, investigating those circumstances prior to the election and they have a copy of what they say is the original birth certificate posted on their website. It is in fact the so-called short form, not the original document. It is really a document saying that the state of Hawaii has the real document in its possession. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs in May said Hawaii provided a copy of the birth certificate with the state seal that's posted on the internet.

Documentary proof need to run for office, by the way, varies from state to state. The Federal Election Commission, you may be surprised to learn, does not require any kind of certification or proof of citizenship in running for president. They leave that to the state. And in the state of Illinois, for example, where President Obama first ran for office, proof of citizenship is not required prior to the state legislature or to run for congress or for the United States senate.

Aha, another example of "Fox News" deviously conspiring with birthers? Um, no. Actually, it's from CNN.

Whippets Whip Up Whoppers:
Newspooch Priscilla recycles a clip from Jon Stewart (easier than actually watching FNC herself). Stewart attacked Fox & Friends for saying when Obama threw out the first pitch the catcher "dug it out of the dirt". Prissy of course took that as gospel, predictably berating Fox: "they engage in fantasy and making s### up!" But as reported by the Blue Site, the phrase "dug it out of the dirt" means fielding a ball "on or near the ground". Precisely what happened. Then there's this place, hardly a source we would cite ordinarily but of interest for the intensity of their blowback against Priscilla on another subject. Read their blast at the biased bassets and decide for yourself who's right.

A crafty, disingenuous bit of deceit comes to us via "guest blogger Julie". She has a damning tell-all about videos on foxnews.com:

After checking out the categories of news and politics, what I figured out was that if the white male power structure becomes extinct, some of Fox News’ video pages will be largely blank, ‘cause I was nearly drowned in a sea of white male faces. Out of the 36 pictures I saw, only 4-1/2 were non-white males.

"Julie" helpfully includes screengrabs of the 36 pictures, which prove one thing right off the bat. There aren't 36 pictures. There are 32. Does "Julie" think her readers are incapable of counting? Maybe so. Of the 32 shots, four show women, one shows an African-American, one is indeterminable, and two show a Hispanic. By our count that's a bit more than 4-1/2.

But wait, there's more! "Julie" claims she checked out the "categories of news and politics" for her screen shots. But the video page has no "news" category. Clicking on the "news" tab does not display or feature a list of videos; it just opens or closes a list of the real categories underneath (one of which is "politics"). So where did her screengrabs come from? It's anyone's guess.

If all that isn't fishy enough, take a closer look at the screengrabs, particularly the scroll bar at the right. In no case does "Julie" show us all the videos. The scroll bar is at the top in three of the screengrabs (hiding the rest of the videos she doesn't want you to see). In the fourth screengrab, the scrollbar is strategically placed about 2/3 of the way down--hiding both the top and bottom rows and only showing what's in between. None of her screengrabs shows the lower rows, and no combination of any of the four screengrabs from "Julie" shows all the videos from any one category. Why would "Julie" go to so much trouble to prevent stuff from being seen?

Just to put the cherry on the sundae, she adds this bit of newspoodle mendacity:

I’m not sure we can count the photo of Sonia Sotomayor, who was only featured so they could smear her.

The Sotomayor video was featured for a very simple reason: videos appear in chronological order, latest first. As new videos are posted, the older ones scroll out of the featured area and take up residence in the searchable archive. But no, "Julie" insists that the Sotomayor video was there because it was a Fox "smear". Here's a shocker: "Julie" is lying. Watch the smear video yourself:


This is an eight-minute clip of Sotomayor being questioned by Al Franken. So where did "Julie" get the idea that it was Fox smearing her? She made it up! In the best time-honored tradition of the newsliars.

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