So, this morning I’m at a Ford dealership to have my car serviced because National Tire and Battery completely screwed up when putting snow tires on my car. I have those locking lug nuts that take a special key to remove them, and NTB 1. broke one of the nuts, 2. broke the key, and 3. ultimately (although this was not clear until I was at the Ford dealer for a while) had broken the shaft on the hub. NTB’s excuse for this exceptional stupidity: “Whoever put the wheels back on last tightened the lug nuts too tight.”
Anyway, while I’m sitting in the lounge I’m forced to listen to/watch Fox News’ morning programming. I can better appreciate why Fox viewers are both so angry and so ill-informed. Much of the discussion was on the omnibus spending bill, the thousands of earmarks in it, and the fact that Republican senators are really angry about the bill, and about the fact that they haven’t had any time to look at the bill. Fox went back to this issue repeatedly, interspersed with discussion of another topic (see below). They had clips of Mitch McConnell, they had clips of John McCain. They cut to opinions from people on other Fox News shows. They asked Kelsey Grammer his opinion on the earmarks in the omnibus spending bill. All of this was driven by a narrative: imply that Democrats have loaded this bill up with pork and are trying to ram it down the Republicans throats. I’m sitting there as they play McConnell and his outraged indignation, saying to myself, “I’m sure that if I looked it up, I would see that McConnell himself has added an earmark to this thing.” Sure enough, he has at least one in there - $650,000 for a genetics lab. While I’m watching, Fox does not once even speculate that any Republicans, let alone any of the ones who are so outraged about earmarks have put their own earmarks in.
One of the other big stories Fox covered over and over during the hour I watched – a shooting that occurred at a school board meeting in Florida. Some guy brought a gun to a meeting, ended up firing the gun at school board members, was himself shot by a security guard, and ended up punching his own ticket. Sure, this story is worth a mention. But they had video! So we had to watch over and over, get updates! from police briefings, talk to multiple witnesses. It’s bad enough that they had to magnify this one incident way out of proportion just because they had video, but they also kept repeating that, because the gunman fired from eight feet away at a council member and missed, God had interceded on his behalf. First they had the potential victim saying this. Then the hosts repeated it. Then they played a clip of the police spokesperson saying it.
All I can say is I’m pleased that God likes old, white Florida school board guys. It’s too bad he can’t spare any time to protect the thousands of others who are going to be murdered by handguns this year.
I know this is a pointless rant. At least, like I said, I have better understanding of why Fox viewers are the way that they are.