The party leadership would like to get the moon-howler chorus to toe that line, but after the Akin fiasco they have no leverage with which to do so.
I mean, if you were running a day care center and one of the kids acted out and you told him “Stop that or no ice cream for you!” and he stubbornly continued and you gave him the ice cream anyway, what kind of behavior would you expect next time?
Fox’s call was priceless as they went on a bash fest 10 seconds after announcing Obama would be re-elected.
Dick Morris is admitting today he was wrong.
And then he says it was Hurricane Sandy.
Here’s the facts; the polls were essentially the same before the hurricane as they were afterwards. There was extremely little movement towards Obama during or after the hurricane, as you would rightly expect, since it’s unlikely such a thing would chance people’s minds at the last minute (and in the case of early voters could not change their minds.) According to the real analysts, Obama was already a heavy favourite just before the hurricane. Furthermore, the states actually hit by it were in the tank for Obama anyway.
Morris can’t even get a mea culpa right.
You say that like up until last night there was still some doubt. Of course Fox is a Republican operation and has been for a decade. This is not exactly news. Outrage over the fact that Fox is pretending not to be a Republican operation is pretty stupid, since they don’t exactly expend very much effort pretending not to be Republicans, do they?
They way they pretend to not be an arm of the Republican party is to grin and say “We’re fair and balanced. We report, you decide.” You know they do that just to annoy you and your kind, right? It is literally trolling, and it works, because the Republicans who watch Fox love that sort of trolling. The watchers know it isn’t true, Fox News knows it isn’t true, but they say it anyway just to piss you off, because pissing you off is fun. That’s 65% of Rush Limbaugh’s schtick.
Lemur866,
And that’s the best you can come up with for a defense of Fox. “Yeah, the charges are true, and they know they’re true, and they’re not even trying to hide it.”
You think that excuses them somehow?
What do you mean, “excuses them”? They are a partisan media organization, and are an integral part of the Republican right wing media-industrial complex.
This is a simple fact that one should not find oneself astonished to discover. Fox News is a right-wing propaganda outfit. This is obvious.
They are what they are, they don’t try to hide it, and no one from their watchers to their critics think otherwise. The only reason people watch Fox News is precisely *because *it is a right wing propaganda organ. Nobody who watches Fox News is confused and thinks they’re watching mainstream news, except in the sense that they think right wing conservatism is mainstream.
So what exactly is your point? That doesn’t mean that it’s awesome that they are a right-wing propaganda outfit. Excuses them for what? What excuse am I making for them? I honestly don’t get what you mean.
Of course I know it. I pay attention to reality, so it’s easy to see where reality and Fox News diverge.
However, your response is one of the first from a right wing partisan that frankly acknowledges this. Most of the time, it’s outright denial. Sometimes, it’s dickering about Fox entertainment from Fox News.
I do not agree that it is commonly acknowledged by the right.
I was hoping for sort of a redux of Election Night '92, with Ann Romney doing her impression of Barbara “Mad Enough to Chew Glass and Spit Sand” Bush.
But this is good too. 
I agree. Most people I know who watch Fox think it is honest-to-goodness a “spin free” zone of some kind. That MSM is heavily liberally biased and Fox is the “truth.” I should know, as used to be a Rush Limbaugh fan, and I really thought he was reflecting a more objective reality.
That’s been my experience, as well. They like the fact that Fox fits their world-view, but they don’t see it as intentionally slanted propaganda – they believe that all the other news media are the ones spewing propaganda.
:dubious:
They already have, and it’s the same one every time:
Five ways the mainstream media tipped the scales in favor of Obama
And you may laugh at the article, but this is reality to many Conservatives.
We liberals need to understand that “Fair and Balanced” isn’t just Fox’s slogan. It represents a fundamental strategy for the Conservatives, which is to make people believe that their media outlets are the only balanced sources of information, and everyone else has a liberal bias. It’s something conservatives actually believe.
I disagree. In their very motto, which they state 50 times an hour, they claim to be “fair and balanced”. And most people I’ve talked to who watch Fox News exclusively believe that they are the sole media outlet that’s willing to tell the truth, and that the entire rest of the media is biased. So, pretty much exactly the opposite of what you said.
Thank you! That is delightful.
Ever see The Money Pit? The scene where the bathtub falls through the floor and smashes to bits, and Hanks has a spazz-out laughing fit? Feel kinda like that, but with joy.
You damn betcha. I have that laughing fit saved as a sound file, and play sometimes for my own giggles.
The media is so biased, they let people know what Mitt Romney said. Don’t they know the bro-code?
Nope, no laughing at all.
And of course they need to blame the MSM, who got it right because they listened to facts and math and statistics. The goal of FoxNews is to retain an audience. The size of the audience reflects the size of their paychecks.
To retain the audience, they MUST convince them that FoxNews is right even when they are wrong.
To do otherwise would be to risk losing audience and therefore money.
So, it’s like the professional wrestling of the news world? Everyone knows the outcome is predetermined, but it’s exciting to watch the moral agility and strength of bullshit needed to make beating the crap out of the facts look realistic. What would be the point?
Then again, I don’t really get wrestling either.
When did I become a right-wing partisan again? I voted for Obama twice. Maybe I did that because I’m a conservative, and Obama is the first conservative president since Eisenhower, but that doesn’t make me a right wing partisan does it?
Of course the right-wingers who watch Fox News say that it’s the only unbiased news channel, because it’s an explicitly right-wing news channel and so they agree with it. And they say it’s fair and balanced because they’re right wing and Fox News is right wing. All the other lamestream media organizations are biased to the left and are therefore obviously unfair and unbalanced, while Fox News is biased to the right and so is fair and provides the balance.
To this sort of person, right wing media is the only sane normal media available, everything else from Hollywood and New York and DC and San Francisco is crazy unamerican nonsense.
So I don’t believe there’s a contradiction between the viewers of Fox News knowing it’s an explicitly right-wing channel, and also believing it to be the only reasonable truthful unbiased channel. Being right wing is what MAKES it unbiased in their view, because right wing is normal and everything else is crazy.