Tag Archives: Fox News Channel

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Clinton vs. Christie in 2016

I know it’s early. I shouldn’t even be thinking like this. But I’m starting to lick my chops at the prospect of a 2016 presidential campaign between Hillary Rodham Clinton and Chris Christie.

Neither of them has declared their intention to run, although both are beginning to act ever so slightly as though they’re interested in seeking their party’s nomination. Clinton already has run once for the Democratic nomination. Christie has been the Republican governor of New Jersey for three years.

Both are dynamic presences within their own key constituencies. They’re fierce defenders of their records. They’re politically savvy.

Why Clinton?

She might have the most comprehensive resume for the job since, perhaps, George H.W. Bush. Former first lady, former U.S. senator from New York, former secretary of state. Prior to all of that, she was Arkansas’s first lady and at one time was an accomplished lawyer. She’s been close to the center of power, given her marriage to one Bill Clinton, the 42nd president of the United States.

Some pundits have compared her White House inevitability with that of General of the Army Dwight Eisenhower, who was deemed unbeatable during the 1952 presidential campaign. Turns out they were right about Ike.

Why Christie?

He is a no-nonsense guy. Christie is unafraid of the ideologues within his own party. He rolls up his sleeves and works for New Jersey. My favorite moment of the 2012 political season occurred when a Fox News Channel talking head, Steve Doocy, asked Christie if GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney would visit the Jersey Shore, which had been battered by Hurricane Sandy … on the heels of President Obama’s tour of the destruction. Christie’s response, in effect, was: I don’t give a damn whether he comes here or stays away; I’ve got a job to do. He added that he wasn’t the least bit interested in how it might affect the presidential campaign.

I ought not to engage in this kind of speculation. I’m doing it anyway with the hope that it comes to pass.

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Global war on terror far from over

The standing down today of 21 U.S. embassies around the world because of so-called terrorist “chatter” has opened up a bit of a debate over whether President Obama said the “global war on terror is over.”

It also illustrates how headlines can be, well, a bit misleading.

http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/05/23/obama-global-war-on-terror-is-over

The headline on this link illustrates the point.

It tells of speech Obama made in May in which he declared a significant change in U.S. strategy in fighting international terrorists. He vowed to end drone strikes, restated his intention to close the U.S. terrorist prison in Guantanamo, Cuba and declared that the global war as we’ve known it since 9/11 has come to an end.

But as I read the story contained in the attached link, I read that the president declared his intention to keep looking for bad guys, to keep searching for their hiding places and to kill or capture them whenever possible.

Yet, the president’s many critics in the conservative mainstream media keep harping on half-truths and keep trying to put words in his mouth in the wake of the embassy stand-down.

I’m pretty sure we’re going to remain at war with international terrorist organizations throughout the remainder of Barack Obama’s time in office and we’re going to keep fighting that war well into the next administration’s tenure in the White House. Heck, we might still be fighting them for the rest of all of our lives.

Our strategies do change, though, as circumstances warrant. That’s what I’m hearing the president say about the global war on terror.

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Foes ignore Obama successes

The link attached to the blog attacks Fox News Channel for virtually ignoring some positive economic news.

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2013/08/01/fox-doesnt-have-time-for-landmark-low-in-unempl/195174

I get that FNC – particularly the hosts of the “Fox and Friends” morning talk show – often ignore good economic news when it speaks to the success of President Obama’s economic policy.

However, such reaction is not really unique to this president and his foes. Other media outlets have done so over many decades of reporting. Left-leaning MSNBC wasn’t too keen on reporting successes during the George W. Bush administration – although looking back on it now it’s difficult to recall any specifics.

And Fox’s ignoring of this data mirrors Obama’s political foes on the right who’ve done the same thing. Any tick in the wrong direction and those critics are all over the president with loud and forceful critiques. Any movement in the right direction you get … well, silence. Yes, it cuts both ways.

What makes the Media Matters tattling on Fox so troublesome, though, is that the network calls itself “fair and balanced.” I keep scratching my head over that self-description. It’s neither fair or balanced. Is MSNBC fair and balanced? Well, no, but that network doesn’t trumpet itself so loudly as possessing either characteristic. To be sure, Media Matters is clearly a left-leaning watchdog organization.

CNN is another whipping child for political conservatives. CNN’s “sin,” according to the mainstream conservative media, is that the network doesn’t shill for the right wing the way Fox does. Instead, it reports the news with, shall we say, fairness and balance. It also offers a wide range of ideological punditry – with the likes of Newt Gingrich and Rich Lowry on the right and Paul Begala and Donna Brazile on the left.

My only advice to Fox and its supporters is this: The network should stop using the false “fair and balanced” public relations ploy. Using such language to describe itself only exposes FNC to critics who can see through the network’s thinly veiled ideology.

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Interview says it all about right-wing media

There is virtually nothing anyone can add to the video linked to this blog post that explains or analyzes completely the utter incompetence of this Fox News Channel interview with a religious scholar.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/is-this-the-most-embarrassing-interview-fox-news-has-ever-do

The interviewer is trying to put words into her subject’s mouth, trying to get him to admit to some kind of anti-Christian bias – which the subject, author and scholar Reza Aslan, says does not exist. He said it many times during the course of this 10-minute segment.

It is a stunning display of attempted “gotcha journalism” from the network that purports to be “fair and balanced.”

I’ll just let the video speak for itself.