The Globe and Mail continues its jihad against Fox News. We lay bare Simon's slant. Updated!

The Toronto Globe and Mail has an excellent tennis writer, but their Simon Houpt could have worked on Outfoxed, so brazenly does he adopt their technique of lying by omission:

Fox acted like its favourite presidential candidate, offering strong words and unyielding moral resolve, bombastic production values and swirling doubts about John Kerry....In the lead-up to Bush's speech, Fox stuck to its regular prime-time lineup, including an hour with the conservative bully Bill O'Reilly. During an interview with the Fox news analyst Dick Morris, the former Clinton adviser who is now a conservative favourite, O'Reilly spoke excitedly about the previous night's attack on Kerry by the Democratic turncoat Zell Miller...

But our Tivo doesn't lie:
BILL O'REILLY: I'm not rooting for anybody. I'm watching this guy [Zell Miller] going...
DICK MORRIS: Spitballs
O'REILLY: Boom, boom boom.
MORRIS: And I know Zell. He was a client; he's a great guy.
O'REILLY: I believe what Gingrich said is true. He was genuinely angry and he wanted to show it.

Mr Bill doesn't sound all that excited, but Mr Houpt isn't done yet:

...then asked about Dick Cheney's speech. When Morris replied, "God knows why Cheney is on this ticket. He does no good for Bush," O'Reilly cut him off, saying, "Now let's not deal with that." CNN had Larry King hosting a down-home Bush family reunion...

Sounds like Mr Bill just cut off the conversation changed the subject--obviously that is what the writer wants his readers to believe. But is Mr Houpt telling the truth, or is he deliberately phrasing his report to mislead the gullible? Tivo reports, you decide:

O'REILLY: But he [Miller] did overshadow Cheney. Is that a good thing or a bad thing?
MORRIS: God knows why Cheney is on this ticket. He does no good for Bush.
O'REILLY: But let's not deal with that, I mean...

Note: O'Reilly is trying to get Morris on topic, talking about the speeches rather than the strategy of having Cheney on the ticket. But Mr Houpt says O'Reilly "cut him off". Did he?

MORRIS: Cheney was Cheney. He was terrible in that speech.
O'REILLY: He was terrible?
MORRIS: Didn't do anything. I don't think he picked up half a point for Bush. Miller picked up a little, Schwarzenegger picked up a lot, Laura picked up a lot, Giuliani a lot.
O'REILLY: Why was Cheney terrible?
MORRIS: Because he was Dick Cheney. He was kind of a, he was sort of your image of...
O'REILLY: But he was "cerebral". [quoting Newt Gingrich from earlier]
MORRIS: He was your image of an elderly white male Republican.
O'REILLY: Yeah, but there are a lot of elderly white male Republicans out there.
MORRIS: He looked like Daddy Warbucks. But listen, we were going to talk about what goes on...
O'REILLY: No, no, no, when you're telling me he's terrible, I gotta find...

At this point, Morris is trying to get the object off Cheney, but O'Reilly wants to stay on it. (A little different from what Mr Houpt would have us believe, no?)

O'REILLY: I didn't think he was terrible, I don't remember what he said because of Miller, I just thinking about what Miller said.
MORRIS: It was just so canned. It accomplished no strategic purpose. But Cheney accomplishes no strategic purpose.
O'REILLY: All right, but it didn't hurt any?
MORRIS: No, it didn't hurt.

Simon's sermon also takes up the post-speech analysis, and that's where he exposes his leanings:

The differences between the channels spiked following the president's speech, when Fox immediately jumped in with supportive words. Brit Hume reported that Bush's address had been "interrupted 108 times by applause." CNN's Wolf Blitzer chose that moment to remind viewers of the numerous protests that had cast a shadow over the convention....While most Fox commentators praised Bush's speech, over on CNN it fell to the Time magazine columnist Joe Klein to pour some cold water on the Bush fire. Noting that the President is seeking to make the war on terror the central issue of the election, Klein said, "Face it. We didn't hear about Fallujah this week..."CNN's Aaron Brown followed up his balanced panel of reporters by interviewing the New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, who suggested that the convention equalled "an Orwellian masterpiece."

To Mr Houpt, fair reporting is having Wolf Blitzer, Joe Klein, and Maureen Dowd come on minutes after the speech to "pour water on it" and criticize Bush. Fox did nothing like that after John Kerry's speech (in fact Brit Hume called it the best speech he's ever heard from Sen Kerry) but why bring that up, when you can use an article on television coverage to advance your own agenda?

Update: Greta van Susteren has identified even more mistakes and lies in this shoddy piece of writing.