Fox News wimps afraid of Ron Paul

Roger Ailes, the dude who runs Fox News, is a big buddy of Rudy Giuliani, which explains this.

Why does Fox News hate Jesus?

Just asking. Here's why.

Let's leave Fox News advertisers alone

I've raised this issue several times in the past, and it's time to raise it again.

I got an e-mail today from Moveon.org urging me to bring pressure on a certain Rockford company that buys commercial time on the local cable channel that carries Fox News. The e-mail message did not include the word "boycott," but let's not kid ourselves. The people behind this effort want to scare off advertisers with thinly veiled threats of a boycott. That was the case earlier this year when Daily Kos and certain other liberal blogs targeted Fox's advertisers.

I'm sorry, but this kind of thing is just plain wrong.

Let me be clear. I hate Fox News as much as the next guy. Its blatant bias and its Orwellian claims to fairness and balance are appalling. But I think there's something terribly illiberal in organizing an advertising boycott against any news outlet or purveyor of political opinions. If the threat of boycotts makes advertisers wary of being even remotely associated with controversial political opinions expressed on radio or television, the networks and local stations, in turn, will offer us only pablum.

If you choose not to buy a car from a dealer who runs ads on Fox News, that's your business. But it's wrong, I think, for anyone to mount a broad campaign or otherwise put pressure on that car dealer.

You'd think my so-called liberal friends would understand this. Some, I'm sad to say, don't.

I stood by Moveon.org during the controversy over the Gen. Petraeus ad, but I part company with these people in the matter of advertiser boycotts.

It's Nancy's fault

The folks at Fox News, always dedicated to fairness and balance, have decided that high prices for gasoline should be blamed on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Why hasn't anybody else made this brilliant connection?

(H/T to Talking Points Memo.)

Fox News Channel -- The place for soft porn

Fox News is not really a champion of family values:

Some black people aren't so bad

Illinois Commerce Commission Chairman Charles Box served three terms (1989-2001) as mayor of Rockford, an impressive record for a black man in an overwhelmingly white community.

Box, a graduate of Dartmouth University and the University of Michigan Law School, faced surprisingly little race-baiting during his tenure at City Hall. There was, however, one episode about which he told me but which drew no public attention. It involved a School Board member whose racism was so deep-seated that the guy probably didn't even recognize it in himself.

The prejudice came to the fore when this guy said to Box that he was the "smartest black person I've ever known."

I was reminded of this matter when I read the other day about how Fox News blowhard Bill O'Reilly expressed great surprise at having had a pleasant experience in a New York restaurant operated by black folks.

Bill O'Reilly is quite the scamp

I don't know for sure what was going on when this photo of Fox News Channel blowhard Bill O'Reilly was snapped, but I now have a pretty good idea.

I knew that O'Reilly was hit with a sexual harrassment suit a few years back, but I never knew the details. Well, thanks to a few links to TheSmokingGun.com provided today by Atrios, I've come across the full text of the initial complaint. It's a doozy.

(Start here and then follow the subsequent links at the bottom of each page.)

No matter how much you previously disliked this guy, you'll never think of him in the same way again.

These people are just plain wrong

As I said here yesterday, efforts to mount an advertising boycott of Fox News Channel are illiberal and potentially destructive of free and open expression of controversial political opinions on commercial radio and television.

A broader view of the matter is available here.

UPDATE: Lowe's has caved.

Some liberals can be rather illiberal

I raised this issue a few months ago, and it's time to raise it again in light of this.

The folks at Daily Kos and certain other liberal blogs are trying to bring pressure on national and local businesses that buy ad time on the Fox News Channel or on cable companies that carry Fox. And their efforts are wrong.

Let me clear about this. I hate Fox News as much as the next guy. Its blatant bias and its Orwellian claims to fairness and balance are appalling. But I think there's something terribly illiberal in organizing an advertising boycott against any news outlet or purveyor of political opinions.

If the threat of boycotts makes advertisers wary of being even remotely associated with controversial political opinions expressed on radio or television, the networks and local stations, in turn, will offer us only pablum.

If you choose not to buy a car from a dealer who runs ads during local cable breaks on the channel that carries Fox, that's your business. But it's wrong, I think, for anyone to mount a broad campaign or otherwise put pressure on that car dealer.

You'd think my so-called liberal friends would understand this. Some, I'm sad to say, don't.

Has Dennis Miller EVER been funny?

The man is an embarrassment, as evidenced in this video, wherein his case against Harry Reid rests mostly on Reid being old and having a less-than-great speaking voice.

For comedic chops, Miller pales in comparison to his leftist counterpart, Bill Maher.

Truth be known, I think Dennis became mentally unstuck when his gig on "Monday Night Football" humiliatingly failed.

But, hey, he fits in nicely on the Fox News Channel, where nobody's funny (at least not on purpose).

How dumb can you get?

Bill O'Reilly, the dim-witted commentator on the Fox News Channel, waxed offended the other night because a liberal blog site had referred to Pope Benedict XVI as a "primate."

O'Reilly seems not to know that one of the definitions of "primate" is: a bishop of highest rank.

Read about it here and follow the links therein.

Why does Fox News hate Mister Rogers?

The cable news network that finds itself on the wrong side of almost everything (the Bush presidency, the Iraq war, et al) is now suggesting that Mister Rogers is bad for America's kids -- even four years after his death.

Is it any wonder that regular watchers of the Fox News Channel are not very knowledgeable on national affairs?

Sign of the times

I saw a guy in his driveway yesterday peeling a "Bush/Cheney 04" bumper sticker off the back of his SUV, and I almost was tempted to stop and ask if this was a sign of a rat leaving a sinking ship. But I thought better of it.

I don't expect that the erstwhile Bush loyalists who only now are giving up on him are in good humor these days. They probably have felt isolated and politically out of touch with the American mainstream over these recent days and months.

And the situation for Bush is only getting worse. The latest CBS poll has his approval rating at an all-time low and shows that a solid majority of Americans want to see a reduction in the number of U.S. troops in Iraq or a complete withdrawal. The results are much the same in all the other polls, even the one sponsored by Fox News, the pro-Bush channel.

Bush's only hope for even a little political gain in the near future rests on the chance that some folks might begin to feel sorry for him. But there's not likely to be much of even that.

Is Wolf Blitzer the worst or what?

From his ever-present, phonus-balonus pen and note-paper props to his monotous droning to his...well, to almost everything about him, CNN's Wolf Blitzer is the worst news host on national television.

(Well, OK, some of the creeps on Fox are worse. But still...)

As a moderator in presidential campaign debates, Blitzer's beyond bad. On that score, Madison blogger Griper Blade adroitly nails the Wolf man.