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I have lost a lot of respect for Bill O'Reilly. Reilly claims that he's neither conservative or liberal (which, in my opinion, is just out and out bullshit). O'Reilly divides America into two categories, creating, in typical conservative fashion, a false dichotomy: you're either a traditionalist (what else is a conservative but a traditionalist, Bill?) or a secular progressive. But notice here that he deliberately qualifies the progressive as being secular. This implies that traditionalists are rooted in religious faith. But what about religious progressives? What about secular libertarians? You know, those free-market capitalists who are not religious? The mere existence of these other groups is enough to put the lie to O'Reilly's false dichotomy here. O'Reilly implies that secular progressives want to see America defeated. What crap!! I am a secular progressive and the last thing I want to see is America defeated.

Matthew

O'Lielly likes to pull stuff out of his ass, and it's a real shame more people don't see this. But his audience is comprised of older people, and as they die off newer viewers aren't coming to him. MSNBC has been kicking ass in the ratings, even competing with CNN and maintaining a solid footing. Before, the big cable news channel was CNN. Then Fox came along with its shamelessly right-wing editorializing, and got ratings through promoting entertainment and fluff over news reporting. CNN has adopted that as well, which is a shame.

I wish Fox News would stop with this "fair and balanced" nonsense. It's clearly right-wing. I would have no problem if they came out and said that they believed that every other major outlet was liberally biased and so they were going to provide the conservative counterpart to that. I would have no problem whatsoever. This "fair and balanced" mantra, in my opinion, is just dishonest. Besides Alan Colmes, who the hell on Fox News is a liberal? I am willing to grant that Colmes is a liberal but I have to question how liberal he is. He seems to me to be left-of-center. He seems to praise Thomas Jefferson, Franklin Roosevelt, John F Kennedy, and Lyndon B Johnson for their liberality but also seems to praise Bill Clinton. Let's get something straight here- Jefferson was a liberal but I doubt that Jefferson would have endorsed the New Deal liberalism of Roosevelt whereas Kennedy and Johnson were definite New Deal liberals. Using the government to help solve problems would've seemed a bit too Federalist for Jefferson's taste (whereas Alexander Hamilton would've smiled at New Deal liberalism). Clinton was a centrist and not really a New Deal liberal like Roosevelt. In fact, Ted Rall argues that Bill Clinton was not a liberal at all, and neither was Jimmy Carter for that sake. Therefore, I conclude that Colmes is more of a left-of-center liberal and not a mainstream Schlesinger liberal as would, say, Paul Krugman would be.

Getting back to Fox News; they're clearly biased to the right. If they were fair and balanced, why not have just as many liberals as conservatives? They seem to have two different news segments, one with Shepard Smith and the other one with Brit Hume. I am guessing that both Smith and Hume are conservatives. If so, why not have one who is a conservative and one who is a liberal? St. Sean (my sarcastic nickname for Hannity) now has two programs on television! WTF?? He needs a debate show with Alan Colmes and his own program "Hannity's America"? Hannity is proving to me to be a loathsome fellow and the more I hear from him, the more I cringe. Would they give a liberal two programs? Hardly! But St. Sean the Wonderful is one of their biggest guns on the network. If they were fair and balanced, they would give a liberal his/her own show.

Matthew

It's Fair and Balanced ™, not fair and balanced, that's what it's all about. Do the hokey pokey and spin yourself around.

One of the things that most irritate me about Fox Noise is that they do create a false illusion of non-ideological analysis. MSNBC talking heads make no such pretense; Matthews, Russert, Scarborough, Buchanan (who's on there so much he ought to just be given his own show by now, if only to drop the silliness of presenting him as some kind of political expert), and Abrams are all openly conservative. Or, if not openly conservative, at least make no pretense of being fair or balanced. And MSNBC is kicking ass all over the ratingsphere.

I remember when Fox News first started advertising--and they had billboards all around Seattle. They had written in white text on a black background, "We report, you decide." Within a week, almost every one of them had the comma and the word "decide" blackened out. Some group of people sure didn't like the way they reported.....

At least it would be more stretch-truths-honest if they said, "We TRY to be fair and balanced."

They try?

Note: "stretched-truths-honest"

I agree. Unfortunately, most conservatives seem to me to live in this world where you're either a good godly conservative, or you're an antitheistic Communist. I have heard people refer to CNN as the Communist News Network. Last night, I was watching a video clip of Brian Lamb from CSPAN read angry viewer mail from the fans of right-wing radio show host Michael Savage. The majority of these letters accused CSPAN of being Communist and a few of them even name-called Lamb. I am not sure why Lamb felt the need to dignify such letters with a response but Lamb was very professional, level-headed, and calm about the whole thing. He read the letters and even had a camera looking at the letters while he traced over the typing of the letters with a pen and read the contents out loud. He would then either pause at a particular statement and correct the viewer or he would comment at the end.

What is disturbing about this is that many of them accused CSPAN of being Communist. I have come to think that "Communist" to these conservatives is anything that is not conservative! To them Communism and fascism seem synonymous and Communism has become a label to attach to anything that is authoritarian, controlling, abusive, and takes away freedoms and rights. My mother once got upset with Target ( I think it was) because they didn't want their employees saying "Merry Christmas" to customers. My mother said that they were Communists and defined it as stripping people of their freedom. "Taking away people's rights- that's Communism". I thought that was so stupid of her because it's obvious that she's never read anything on Communism, anything by Marx or Engels. When I rebuked her for it and asked her if she believed that anything that wasn't Christian was Communist, she then started whining to my sister that I "hated Christians". That wasn't true. I hate it when ignorant and stupid people make bullshit statements and then get offended and hysterical when their bluff is called for it.

Matthew

I have to ask, how is it that the hatred and bigotry of goons like Savage manage to turn a profit?

Oh, I think it's easy: Savage appeals to the conservative white rage. Never underestimate how many angry white conservatives are in America and how much they resent the Left. Alternatively, read some of the e-mails that Alan Colmes gets in his book Red, White, and Liberal. Savage is a hateful bigot and his audience base are hateful bigots, too! It's also the reason Ann Coulter is such a hit and an icon. They appeal to angry, self-righteous conservatives who hate their enemies with a bitter passion! I think we are underestimating how much anger many of these conservatives have, especially the religious ones who are angry at the perceived feelings of persecution by these damned liberal heathens and their godless lifestyle!

Matthew

But what business do white guys have being angry? Why do they have this rage, to the point where it boils over and spews out?