Fox News wouldn’t know journalism if it bit them in the collective rear, but Bill Clinton pushes back against their propaganda for two seconds — and they howl like stuck pigs.
Fox News chief Roger Ailes says former President Clinton’s
response to Chris Wallace’s question about going after Osama bin Laden
represents ‘an assault on all journalists.
Fox News is an assault on journalism, and in concert with the Republican party it has represented a sea change in journalism to Pravda-style boosterism of one political and social movement over another without regard to anything remotely resembling facts. I’m even happier now that President Clinton pushed back, because it takes someone at his level to bring some notice to this ongoing problem. Perhaps now Democrats will stop acting like nervous nellies because Rove/Fox may say bad things about them and instead embrace the FoxLash and push back.
Ailes makes it sound like Clinton put the sleeper hold on Wallace or something.
“The assault on Chris Wallace”?
Sweet screaming monkeys, if that was an “assault,” Wallace must be the most thin-skinned reporter in the history of the business.
Dems may fight back, but that only fuels the right’s hatred for the left. The only way to win with Republicans is to roll over and worship their ideology.
“Fox News is an assault on journalism”
That needs to go on a bumper sticker!!!!
A more apt description of the New York Times there has never been.
Mr. Ailles claiming an assault on journalists because one of their guests actually defended himself is rather hysterical. The questioning of Mr. Clinton was obviously slanted and hostile, and you sew what you reap. I think their larger problem is that some people will actually defend themselves from the media machine that brought you the likes of Bill O’Rielly (who has never badgered anyone on his show), and guests like Ann Coulter (the embarassment of all womankind). Perhaps if they want the flowers and candy treatment from all their guests they should stick to the right-wingers they usually slurp the buttocks of!
You mean the same NY Times who worshipfully repeated administration propaganda and led us to war in Iraq?
Isn’t it rich that Ailes now touts the sanctity of “journalism” when two of his biggest headliners, Hannity and O’Reilly, expend so much energy and air time trying to tear down many other journalistic institutions. Just the “liberal” ones of course.
In particular O’Reilly’s veiled attempts to appear fair when criticizing “out of control” media outlets always gives his agenda away. He always names names of liberal offenders with the usual supects being the NY Times, LA Times, Media Matters, CBS, ABC, NBC et al. Then he’ll add at the end “some on the right do it too” rarely if ever naming names.
My only question is how did FOX let crazed neo-con pitchman Glenn Beck slip away to CNN Headline News. Has anybody else caught his daily rants about Iran and Islamo-fascism? What’s astounding is that this warmonger is aired three times daily. Is this one of the sure signs that the big war is already slated and we’re being prepped for it?
Clinton didn’t “go off” on journalism, he sharply hit at FOX’s bias. FOX may report through an American prism, but it is surely meant for Republican Americans. It doesn’t bother me that they have their own station. Just do away with the “Fair and Balanced” type of self promotion.
Democrats politicians and operatives should boycott FOX and shun all invitations to appear on the network. They can’t really think that many of their viewers will ever change their stripes and drift left, can they?
Which clip were you watching? I’ve seen harder softballs thrown on Oprah and had Clinton not been in a full-bore rage because Chris Wallace had the audacity to ask a non-scripted question in a news interview, Clinton could have hit it out of the park: “In hindsight we all could have done better. But hindsight doesn’t prevent the next attack…”
Keith has a response, which he has posted on his website:
The results of part of the preliminary tests referred to did not come back for nearly six hours, and the other results did not come in for about 14 hours.
And I made no insistence on a checkup.
The officer in charge of the 18 or so police officers who responded, asked that I follow their protocol: a decontamination shower at the scene, the bagging and sealing of the clothes I was wearing at the time of the incident, and my transportation to an emergency room.
I mean, not to overdo this, but they had to melt my keys and my wallet.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15036633/
You are wrong of course, farris. Wallace did not ask a question at all. His sentence was framed as a question but he was not asking so that he could recieve an answer, he was asking the question so he could basically make the statement “You, Bill Clinton, did not do enough to prevent 9/11″ and phrasing it in such a way that if Clinton addressed the question directly, he’s agreeing that he didnt, but more than that, in the eyes of the FNC audience, is taking the blame for the attacks themselves. So Clinton tries to piece apart that question to get the context (mentioning the ABC movie that attacked him, claiming falsely to be based on the commission report) but wallace keeps asking that question instead of encouraging the discussion, making it obvious that he’s not trying to get to the bottom of anything, he’s not interviewing, he’s not investigating. He’s “asking” the question over and over to help the audience believe the base of it, that Clinton failed stop 9/11. That kind of severely slanted agenda should not be tolerated, neither on the left or the right.
The technical term for that would be a “rhetorical question”, which FOX News frequently uses get their pot shots and smears in. (Actually, I think Jon Stewart just did a little bit about that not too long ago that was absolutely hysterical.) The question was hostile, insulting, and based on faulty information. Wallace expected Clinton to roll over and apologize like some spineless wimp, and instead got a mental bitch-slap that was well-deserved. Too bad every democrat didn’t stand up for themselves like Clinton – perhaps we’d actually have a real opposition party to the “Ministry of Peace” we have now.
I thought the best part was how Wallace tried to hide behind “viewers’ emails,” as though his hands were tied and he had no choice. What a pussy.
I wonder whose “viewer emails” they were; Hannity, O’Reilly, Ailes, Coulter and rupert Murdoch, no doubt.
Keith did mention it last night. Responding to Ailes ludicrous statement, “no, that was an admonishment of journalist, sending white powder to journalists is an attack on journalists.”
Or something like that.
Try doing a search at the New York Times using the phrase “critics say”…
I think he also means the same NY Times that held numerous stories before the election at the President’s request.
Try doing a search at the New York Times using the phrase “critics say”…
I’m sure you did a search, so tell us how many instances a news article cited “critics” without actually quoting from a critic.
Then you should search Fox transcripts for “some say …” and see if any actual “somes” are quoted.
Some say ferris fellates goats. Discuss.
Gee, factcheck, that’s the second time in a week you’ve questioned my sexual orientation. Do you actually have a compelling argument or are you relying on hateful vitriol in absence of actual debate skills?
Questions have been raised, ferris, it would be irresponsible not to debate it.
(Exhibiting FauxNews debating style).
Just so Jay knows…
The NIE says that the war on terror was actually won. Al Qaeda was close to being dismantled. Terrorist funding was drying up. bin Laden was trapped in a cave.
That is until conservatives came along and lost it by having such a hard-on for Iraq’s oil. Now terrorists are bigger than ever, thanks to conservatives. Thaks to conservatives, bin Laden escaped. Conservatives caused America to lose. It really doesn’t matter why – conservatives lost the war on terror.
In short: Clinton’s military had won the war, but conservatives gave it back.
So how does SaveFarris, the bedwetting pantywaist feel about being part of a movement that lost the war on terror because pursuit of conservative ideology was more important than catching terrorists?
squid, I get emails all the time about ferris’ sexuality. I know we’re here to talk about Roger Ailes but the people want to know!
(wondering when ferris will get the irony)
Fact, some say that’s f-ing hilarious.
MJB, there are those that don’t believe that farris has the right to his sexual perversions. I think they are wrong.
(remember that from the pResident?)
Thus Farris and George W Bush have another thing in common, they both profess a fondness for “My Pet Goat”.
*rim shot*
Hateful vitriol in absence of actual debate skills it is!
Don’t let those hateful liberals stop you from delivering your powerful, fact-based, rigorously logical posts, Farris! Don’t let the light go down on me-ee-eee-eee!
Wow- you guys think that Chris Wallace’s question was “slanted and hostile?” Have you ever seen a White House Press Conference lately? You must all just hate how Helen Thomas asks her questions. An affront to journalism.
Or how about Jennifer Loven? Or how about David Gregory?
You think that Wallace’s question was unfair?
Explain.
And how did this subject get changed to Farris’s… well whatever you’re calling it. (I thought you guys on the left were so tolerant.)
You must not really want to talk about the merit of the question.
And what merit does the question have? Whatever the reasons could possibly be why he “didnt do enough”, who honestly, right now, cares what those reasons were? Focus on Lewinsky? Faulty Intelligence? Voodoo Curse? Who gives a fetid shit? The purpose of the question is merely to say, to Clintons face, “You didnt do enough” which itself is a debate worthy topic, yes, but not the way Wallace framed it. The question wasnt weighted, it wasnt even a question. What merit exactly do you think it has?
And a key difference from Wallace’s Rhetorical question and Thomas’ and Gregory’s questions is that, aggressive though they are, they are asking actual questions, looking for facts.
In fairness, if you can point to one of them asking an imflammatory and purely rhetorical question, such as “when the President recieved that fateful August 6th PDB which he failed to act upon, arguably doing more to allow Bin Laden to attack us than any other single action, what did he have for breakfast that day?” then I will condemn them with equal intensity. However if your problem is that they ask aggressive/hostile questions and that you think Wallace’s question-like statement is likened to those, than the problem seems to be your inability to differentiate the two, not ours.
Wow- you guys think that Chris Wallace’s question was “slanted and hostile?”
Of course it was.
Slanted: the question suggested a direct link between Clinton’s anti-terrorism effort and 9-11. As Mr. Clinton pointed out, it’s not a question Fox reporters like to ask anyone in the current adminsitration. So I’d say, yes, it was slanted.
Hostile: If my memory is correct, the question was phrased, “Why didn’t you do more…” That’s a prosecutorial formulation that presumes that more should have and could have been done and the need to do so was apparent at the time.
So I’d say, yes it was hostile.
Am I disturbed that Wallace asked it? No. As you correctly point out, Wallace is not alone in asking aggressive questions.
Do I think Clinton responded approriately. Indeed I do.
That question was the reportorial equivalent of a push poll.