In the last several months, I’ve found myself in an unusual situation. My wife had both knees replaced [5 weeks apart], and so three days a week, she goes to Physical Therapy. While I’m hanging around, there are two things to do – nothing and watch the big plasma screen television set in front of the treadmills/stationery bikes. Guess what’s on? Fox News. Up until today, it’s been tolerable. I saw Obama’s race speech there. I heard one of McCain’s speeches. Today, there was a Press Conference by Barack Obama from South Dakota – about Bush’s comments in Israel yesterday. Obama seemed tired, but he answered the mostly confrontive questions well. He has a good style with such questions. He goes immediately to the trick in the question and clarifies the point, then he answers. He’s better at picking up the trick part than I knew. He also has a strong fund of knowledge. Example: The Bush Administration pushed for democratic elections in Palestine in spite of Israel’s warnings about Hamas. Then, when Hamas won, they had no plan for what to do. Now they’re accusing Obama for appeasing Terrorists if he talks to Hamas. I didn’t know that. But that’s not why I’m writing.
After the Press Conference, the blonde lady commentator asked some guy named Major to analyze Obama’s responses. He interpreted what Obama said in terms of campaign ploys, but stayed more or less on the topic. But then the blonde woman put on quite a show. She feigned confusion, and reframed everything Obama had said into that he would negotiate with Terrorists and kept up the appeasment talk. In essence, it was a sort of low level job of ignoring everything Obama said and getting it back to the Bush version. It was neither reporting, nor analysis – more like propoganda. I expect that this is the refrain throughout the day on America’s number one news channel.
The only other Fox News show I’ve ever seen was something called Fox and Friends. It’s a morning show where a group of beautiful people sit around and make fun of democrats in the same way as the lady today. In both instances, I had to go for a walk. It was too childish and too transparent. I don’t think I minded the bias today so much. It was the theatrics and the obvious distortions. I guess that stuff runs all day, every day…
Seeing Fox News on every tv set in a store or therapy center, hospital and on last Monday the Animal Hospital in Red Bank,NJ really gets me upset. I’m reminded of the 1966 movie “Fahrenheit 451 starring Oscar Werner, from the novel written by Ray Bradbury. For those that don’t know about the story, it’s about a gov’t that tells you what to think and what to watch on tv and outlaws books etc. If someone reports that you have forbidden books in your house the firemen come and burn your books. What I want to know is who puts Fox cable on all the tvs across America? I live in a blue state and we have 2 Democratic Senators. We voted for the other guy for president in 2000 and 2004 and despite those facts we have Foxs news on all the public sets constantly blaring anti democratic rubbish. With Bush having the lowest rating of any president since polling has been done on presidents, I would really like to know who is behind this channel fixing.
It’s FOX here too, in blue state OR.
Banks, Hospital, Airport…
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