Hen-pecking the Fox house

Try this: define "news" for me.

It's not so easy, is it? New things? It's news to me? That's why I think President Barack Obama and company are way out on a limb declaring that Fox is not a news network.

For myself, I'll just agree with the wag who said "I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it" Okay, the end of the sentence is ", and the motion picture involved in this case is not that." He was talking about pornography, but I'd give news more leeway, even Fox News.

Not that I think the attacks are particularly serious. Every President tries to manage the conversation and discredit opponents, though I wish Obama had a writer who could come up with something as quotable as William Safire's 'nattering nabobs of negativity'. (Or, I suppose, the sense of humor to suggest borrowing it. Use N3 if you're texting or twittering.)

Hurts so good

There's a symbiotic relationship here anyway. Obama probably assumes Fox viewers will oppose him no matter what he does. I thought that before I noticed how many "liberals" follow Fox closely enough to complain about its coverage of issues. In any case, he gets sympathy and support from his base by playing the victim.

Fox, of course, called the bet by declaring its martyrdom. Professional shoe-throwers like Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity know a ratings goldmine when they see it. Their friends chime in, the other side responds and off we go. This little tussle looks like it will have the legs to go through more than one round of the news cycle.

Game on, as long as this quote from the New York Times doesn't indicate where the White House is headed:

In a sign of discomfort with the White House stance, Fox’s television news competitors refused to go along with a Treasury Department effort on Tuesday to exclude Fox from a round of interviews with the executive-pay czar Kenneth R. Feinberg that was to be conducted with a “pool” camera crew shared by all the networks. That followed a pointed question at a White House briefing this week by Jake Tapper, an ABC News correspondent, about the administration’s treatment of “one of our sister organizations.”

A principled stand, says the angel one of my shoulders. The devil on the other reminds me that Beck came from CNN and Major Garrett used to write for Mother Jones.

Irony Alert

That segues nicely into an article in mysantonio.com about local groups joining Basta Dobbs. CNN, like Fox, is in business and I doubt that they think a group with the Spanish name Stop (Lou) Dobbs fits the demographic for his show. Again, however, there seem to be enough critics monitoring him to provide a ratings bump. Even if they succeed, they might just be pushing him right before he jumps. He's been talking to Fox, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

Nicely played

Ready to post, I discovered that Lou Dobbs wants Basta Dobbs on his show. Nice move by CNN; another lob to the backcourt after the Latino in America pieces. Roberto Lovato responded with this backhand: I'll only appear if it's alongside CNN President Jon Klein because "our issue is not with you so much as the network that provides you with a platform." Ooh, game and set, I think. Match? Well, in a word, Fox.

Where does it end? Marc Lamont Hill is fired by Fox because he's too liberal, according to some. Contessa Brewer (nice name for Hollywood) introduces Jesse Jackson as that other Rev. Al Sharpton. They're both going to land on their feet. It's entertainment, and it's news too. So take a deep breathe and buy your ticket to the show you want to enjoy.

I wonder if the housepaint was scratched.
Guam - One of the two suspects in the October 15th robbery and stabbing of a Tamuning home has been arrested.

Ugh. A story that will probably make me mad:
Rape As A Preexisting Condition

Hee. Do I really need to read the story?
Pilot of Plane That Overshot Runway: We Were Not Asleep

How do you say "Garbage In Garbage Out" in Spanish? (It looks like they're blaming the computer.)
Dallas police ticketed 39 drivers in 3 years for not speaking English

Defending Sarah Palin

I'm over my obsession with the Presidential election, but the media just won't let it go. It took Sarah Palin to make me care.

Go figure. On a personal level, her voice came out at a pitch that jangled my blackboard-scratch aural pain center. How much did I dislike her as a candidate? Let me count the ways.

That's all irrelevant; she's got my sympathy. It's not surprising that the worst of the post-election attacks came out on FOX news. Sleazy comments about her thinking Africa was a country* and not knowing the countries in the NAFTA treaty. Anonymous attacks.

That's my problem with FOX: not the political views, but the tabloidy rumors and innuendo it deals in to sell them. I've read conservative commentators for years, even added a cable company mainly to watch Rush Limbaugh at happy hour. That was years ago, before he took himself seriously and, scarily, others began taking him seriously.

It sells. They know that, and so do their competitors. Though they pretend to loathe that proud part of American journalism, they'll pick it up in a heartbeat if they're losing market share.

Who's your Uncle? Sam or Tom

For a moment, Shepherd Smith seemed to be auditioning for a job at another network with his "Joe The Plumber" interview on a Death to Israel remark. I guess not, it's the soundbite, stupid. He followed by highlighting Ralph Nader's loony remark about Barack Obama being an Uncle Tom. Ralph says he's just asking the question. Right, and why should we take you seriously? Did you ask yourself that question, Shepherd?

Mo' maps

The link to the graphic above was emailed by my brother. Yes, I'm tired of this stuff, but it caught me again. What if we map votes with a cartogram weighting population into the election results? From Mark Newman, he's got the same stuff by county and with other interesting manipulations.

* As a group, Americans are abysmally ignorant of geography. There have been dozens of studies proving this obvious fact. Just to pick a group, I'd like to see how many of the 435 U.S. Congressmen could pick out a country in an unlabeled map. How would they do identifying the majority of states? Finding Saipan or the Northern Marianas?

The real Bill

So my brother was telling me about Newshounds. Motto: "We Watch Fox So You Don't Have To." He said he stopped because, well, it was just like watching Fox News.

It will fade for me too, I'm sure. Meanwhile, how about Bill O'Reilly and Geraldo finger-wagging each other over immigration? They could almost be on Saipan, discussing S.2739, now PL 110-229.



BTW, it reminds me of the younger Geraldo who crawled over walls to report on mental institutions. I liked that guy.

The younger O'Reilly? Let's travel back to Inside Edition. It's alright, he says it's okay to rummage through people's past like this.

Update with a sigh: the following O'Reilly rant has been pulled by You Tube for the second time that I'm aware of. Instead of constantly cutting and pasting new links, if it disappears again I'll just refer you to the fine folks at RatTube. This is the Year of the Rat, after all.



A lazy blog; I've got four or five Real Important Things on my mind. But no bloviating, because I'm also short of time, tired and a little burned out by the CNMI's continuing trainwreck.