(Strange to see someone posting from powerlineblog besides me. What attracted me to their blog before 2005 was their scholarly insight into the political situation and their ability to control the English language as precisely as they did. Paul Mirengoff has moved on, unfortunately....
The reason Fox is doing so well is a reflection of the number of people that flock to it seeking comfort, solace and relief from the social and economic chaos that the current administration is sowing across this country. Does it bode well for the Republicans this November? Quite possibly. Can it counteract the almost iron fisted control the Obama Administration wields across the Fourth Estate and its slavish collusion with the president? Can it counteract Obama's billion dollar re election war chest? You can buy and spread a lot of lies with a billion dollars.
Suppose Obama wins re election but the Republicans gain an impeachable majority in the Senate and retain or even augment their control of the House? Most assuredly, impeachment will be the order of the day for the first two years with precious little time to devote to anything else.
Most Fox viewers, though turn to Fox for relief and refuge from this, something that had been completely unavailable when Walter cronkite announced "The War is lost!" after he'd spent years and thousands of dollars agitating against it)
"Those of us who follow the news closely often forget that probably 80% of the adult population (seen as 85% some time ago, but likely lower than that thanks to New Media and the Tea Party movement) is relatively disengaged. They are, at best, passive consumers of news who either legitimately don’t have the time to do their own independent research, or don’t care to.
If we had a responsible establishment press dedicated to informing the public in a fair and balanced way, this would not necessarily be a big problem. But we don’t, and it is.
In 2011, passive news consumers were extremely ill served, as the leftist legacy media seemed to almost completely abandon any pretense of objectivity or fairness left over from its disgraceful collective performance in 2010.
Why did this happen? Beyond the normal factors, 2011 saw White House thuggery directed at a press corps already inclined to reflexively parrot its positions reach previously unseen heights.
To name just three examples:
•In March, Orlando Sentinel reporter Scott Powers, sent to cover a fundraiser involving Vice President Joe Biden and Florida Senator Bill Nelson, was confined in a closet “to keep him from mingling with high-powered guests.” Sentinel editors “dropped the story.”
•In April, the White House banished San Francisco Chronicle reporter Carla Marinucci “for using a video camera to capture an event.” The paper was “threatened with more punishment if they reported on it.” Chronicle Editor at Large Phil Bronstein called the White House’s subsequent attempt to deny it all “a pants-on-fire moment.” Press coverage elsewhere was scant.
•In May, the White House Press Office “refused to give the Boston Herald full access to President Obama’s Boston fund-raiser” because it objected “to the newspaper’s front page placement of a Mitt Romney op-ed.” The shutout was virtually ignored.
In a mid-May editorial, Investor’s Business Daily called out the press for failing to stand up for it own, and correctly characterized the White House’s actions as baby steps “toward state control of the media, using the carrot of access against the stick of exile.”
Nothing has changed. In December, a Washington Post item noted that “when a reporter gets something wrong or is perceived as being too aggressive, the pushback is often swift and sometimes at top volume” (including heavy doses of profanity). What do you guys expect when you just sit there and take it — something you would never do under a conservative or Republican administration?
It’s reasonable to believe that the constant threats of White House pushback and especially of access denial significantly drove this year’s extraordinarily negligent coverage of the administration’s scandals, corruption, policy failures, and misleading statements. What follows are just ten out of dozens of this year’s worst examples of media malfeasance. Except for the final two, which are clearly this year’s most egregious, they are in no particular order. In most cases, there was no press coverage, or no further coverage, of the items cited.
1. “I am (possibly) the greatest.” In a 60 Minutes interview with the president which aired on December 11, CBS failed to include Obama’s preposterous claim about his accomplishments to date: “I would put our legislative and foreign policy accomplishments in our first two years against any president — with the possible exceptions of Johnson, F.D.R., and Lincoln — just in terms of what we’ve gotten done in modern history.” Note well that the superiority of the three other gentlemen cited is only “possible.”
2. “Taunt a Republican for me.” In early December, an Obama for America campaign email asked supporters to in effect taunt their Republican acquaintances when donating by providing their email addresses so that OFA could do it for them in their name. Two days later, OFA added the ability to taunt anonymously"
PJ Media » Ten 2011 Examples of Major Media Malfeasance
(And refuge from this. But Mike Lupica, in the NY Daily News said exactly the same thing in todays paper. Are these Liberals eating out of the same bowl of Cheerios, sucking off the same sow's teat, or reading from the same script handed down from on high? Well I did flunk all the mind reading courses I took in school. Maybe that's why?)
"Why do I get the feeling Obama’s infamous “bitter clingers” quote resonated strongly with Mitchell?
“The rap on Iowa: It doesn’t represent the rest of the country, too white, too evangelical, too rural. Still here, politics are personal,”"
Weasel Zippers » Blog Archive » NBC News’ Andrea Mitchell Not Hiding Her Elitist Liberal Views: Iowa “Too White, Too Evangelical, Too Rural”…
Yes,smart Liberals are too busy watching Whoopie Goldberg farting on The View and that 'Thrill up my Leg' freak on NBC to pay attention to facts. They're so smart.
