Vietnam is a cancer on this nation. Please remind yourselves that no one, your high-minded, morally-superior people included, that no sitting president wants to be the first one to lose a war. None.

He was gung-ho about finishing it, sure. As I recall he ended it as well, and he opened communications with China. (there buy burying the hawkish policy on Communism).

I'm wondering What the scandle has to do with his policies.

@Boo Boo

Those debates where what made me start reading "god is not Great." As a writer he drives me nuts, but his arguments are pretty amazing.

He didn't even need to add "pseudo" in there. For Hannity and a lot of people like him, the word "intellectual" is an insult as it is.

But yeah, they need to start making compilation DVDs of Sean Hannity's greatest hits, that way people won't have to actually watch FoxNews to get them.

It's hard to pinpoint Hannity's biggest douchebag moment. But one time he kicked a guy out of one of his "freedom" concerts for being a liberal. I'll post the vid when I can find it.

EDIT: It should also come as no surprise that Hannity is defending Texas gov. Rick Perry. Which btw, that whole thing? The most retarded damn thing I've ever heard.

Video: Stewart to Wingnuts: Defeat Is “Supposed to Taste Like a Sh*t Taco”

Why Stewart is the man.

A couple things about the Hannity position...

1. The guys in a competition by himself trying to unseat Rush. As much as you may dislike Rush, he's got the right stuff. He may take bizare positions occasionally but he can stick to positions and philosophy on the days he's not entertaining.

Hannity is the John Kerry of conservative talk. Blows in the wind, says whatever is most "right" at the time, interviews Michele Bachman far too often.

He's getting smoked by O"reilly and Rush on a consistent basis despite having near Regis levels of Umbiquity.

2. Best line of that interview: If you gave Jerry Falwell an enima you could bury him in a matchbox.

I think pseudo in there wasn't for the listeners, but more of a direct shot at Hitchens. I think it shows clearly didn't do his homework, I've read Hitchens's books and I can tell you without embarassment I had to read them with a ****ing dictionary.

Speaking of which Ethan, I did read your paper and I thought you should give "Why Orwell Matters" a read.

I will say that Rush and Coulter are the more intelligent and less hypocritical of the neo conservative pundits. But that's pretty much like being the most talented member of the Insane Clown Posse.

O'Reilly is a huge hypocrite, he contradicts himself all the time. He's reached a new douchebag high recently in his constant stalking of a female blogger for "hurting rape victims" when all she actually did was post a video of O'reilly clearly blaming two girls for their own rape and murder.

Hannity seems to be becoming even more obsessive, I think Hannity is trying to out nutjob all the other guys, now that Glenn Beck is a member of FoxNews he has some serious competition in the "biggest neo con psychopath" market, Beck is already rivaling Hannity in the ratings, it won't be long until he gets into primetime, possibly replacing one of Hannity's two shows.

But I will give Hannity and Beck this much credit. NO ONE is as stupid and full of sh*t as this guy.



Future FoxNews employee.

While I don't believe it medicating children save for cases of actual benefit, that is stupid.

Granted he's a talk show host so this is just more press for him, but this breaks that old political rule of "speak only when it improves the silence" or more broadly, whats the return on my investment.

He didn't stop children from being medicated, but he did serve to insult parents and children with actual medical conditions. What an ass.

Speaking of conservative commentators, you guys all say this one, right?

Michael Savage is the worst of all the pundits, he dosent pass what he does off as journalism, I'll give him that, but as far as being a hatemonger he dosen't even try to hide behind a false sense of objectivity and being fair like Hannity, Beck and O'Reilly do. So he never holds back with his generally hateful and moronic views on everyday life. But he's not even as smart as Hannity or O'Reilly, hell, he actually made Glenn Beck the smart guy in an argument. :laughing:

He believes in just about every over the top right wing conspiracy there is, the way he simplifies everything is extraordinary, he says things like "Obama is gonna fire all our white policemen and firemen" which shows that he doesn't even have the basic understanding of politics that Limbaugh, Coulter, Hannity, O'Reilly and Beck have at the very least. Everything he says is downright hateful and slanderous, and completely idiotic. No one else compares, no one comes close. He is the most loathesome human being on the planet. Unlike the others he goes beyond the boundries of being so stupid it's funny to being so stupid it's actually disturbing.

Normally I wouldn't consider some idiot who says stupid sh*t for money to be that much of a threat, then again this guy has the #3 radio show in America.

fox news? hannity? have any of you ever watched keith olberman? that little lapdog no-ball having ****-****? his hair is obnoxious, he has that aloof sense of superiority that you get from typical white liberal douchebags. and NBC, CBS, and ABC don't even try to have balanced debate. frankly i find fox news to be the most watchable, i may not like hannity, but at least they make an attempt at representing both sides of the spectrum. the problem is we've all gotten so used to the lefties in the other major news networks that FOX seems like a nazi propaghanda channel by comparison. i'm sure i'm opening myself up to all kinds of ridicule with this one.

Not with your position, more with your delivery, and the fact that you're a pot-smoker from Canada telling American's whats liberal...

maybe because of that.

If I called you a dope, would that be too clever?

If by attempt you mean let a few liberals on so they can be yelled at for a few minutes then yes.

There's only two kinds of liberals on fox.

1. The kind that are never allowed to speak and always get cut off.

2. The kind that never challange the crazy right wing sh*t that's being spewed.

A good example of the first is guys like Christopher Hitchins and Ted Rall appeared on Hannity, the guy just plain wouldn't let them talk, their only purpose was to serve as a catalyst for Hannity's dumb rants.

And let's not forget the O'Reily/Glick incident.

But the typical FoxNews liberal is a total pushover, they're all moderate and hardly even disagree with the fanatical far right pundits that often.

Jane Hall for example, she's supposed to be a liberal, but her real job is to basically agree with everything O'Reilly says, she just raises her raise and pretends to be arguing with him, creating that illusion of "fair and balanced" debate.

Colmes is gone, so FoxNews fans can't even make the "What about Colmes?" argument anymore.

And then there's D*ck Morris. :laughing:

I will agree with you on one thing, Olbermann is a huge c*nt.

so because i'm from canada and i like weed that somehow de-values my opinion of american media? way to broadbrush a nation, asshat. we're not all socialist pussies up here. i have plenty of problems with the media in my country. but this thread was about fox news, and thats what i think of it. the lesser of the evils.

fair enough, hannity is a bullheaded douche. but everything you've mentioned here about liberals being attacked on fox news is exactly what happens to conservatives on CNN, NBC and other major networks. the only difference is the pundits there rely on their own sense of superiority (smug little laughs, eye rolls at the silly backwards conservative) instead of being a loud mouthed SOB. at least hannity is right out in the open with it when he throws his objectivity to the wind.

and i hate to bring this up, but its too damn relavant not to. THEY TREAT OBAMA LIKE JESUS CHRIST! does anyone else remember when obama made the special olympics joke on letterman i think it was? he got away SCOTT FREE!! if bush would have said that he'd have been crucified by every major network and forced to apologize to anyone who's brother knows a retard. where was reverend al? where was jesse jackson? where were all these civil rights and political correctness vultures then? ****ing nowhere, because the media didn't want to give too much coverage and besmirch beloved obama's image.

so even if FOX has a right-wing lean to it. everything else has a pretty hard left lean to it, so in the end, if you watch both you should be scared and confused. and isn't that what they're all trying to do anyways?

Actually, you don't get a choice as to whether or not you're socialist unless you leave and revoke citizenship. Now I never called socialists pussies, but if you think you're a pussy thats your problem.

Theres nothing liberal about CNN. I remember learning that objective journalism was actually not the standard and that it was created as a marketing ploy to get more readers.

In the early days of this, the New York Times would cover a lynching in the south, and they'd also interview Klansmen to get "their side of the story."

Theres somethings that are generally just wrong. Because Fox news gives a voice to homophobic, racist america doesn't mean their "Fair and Balanced."

No I don't think its a story that his middle name is Hussein, no I don't want to see his birth certificate, no, I'm not afraid he might be a secret muslim.

They also created the entire Tea Bag party "Grassroots effort," its not fair, its bull****.

yes i get a choice, just because i live in a socialist country doesn't shackle me to that political view. but thats besides the point here.
of course they interviewed klansmen, because what's taboo in culture is a transient thing. the KKK wasn't seen in the same light as they are today. and a large number of people in your wonderful nation likely agreed with it. and tell me, who is the real racist? the guy who puts his blinders on to anything and everything negative a powerful black man does, simply because of his skin colour? or a toothless cousin-****er who hates n-words cause thats what daddy told him? BOTH! they are both horribly racist. and yeah i agree with you i could give a **** less about his middle name or his religion. but they (FOX) had no problem questioning his actual policies (some of which make sense) either. and c'mon... the coverage he got for buying a dog... why doesn't wolf blitzer just drop to his knees right there. ugh. but like it or not, homophobic, rascist america is a big chunk of the whole america, and these turds have every right to be heard alongside the hypersensitive overdramatic pansies that make up the rest.

My Fox News Observations

The only people who complain about it's bias as a news organization are equally or more biased in the other direction with their own viewpoints.

It's the top rated Cable News Network and the president and congress are under liberal control. They were also #1 when both branches were conservative.

My question to anyone who complains about the network would be... why not just not watch it?

So you pay for your medical care when you go to the hospital? If you're going to hate an economic system, put your money where your mouth is, like conservatives who hate socialism here. Give up your SS check.

I don't think anyone has a problem with that, even MSNBC questions his policies. Who are decidedly liberal.

If you thought that was bad, you should have seen the coverage for his Burger trip. Its 24 hour news man, get serious for a second and realize they can't cover pakistan for 18 hours a day.

It likely got more coverage because he has young children.

way to broadbrush an entire country, asshat

i pay for my healthcare (and many other peoples) long before i need to go to the hospital, when the government takes half of my paycheque every week. there isn't really too much i can do about that now is there? and we don't exactly get SS cheques here, we ahve canada pension plan. but in reality, i'm 22 years old man, and by the time i'm old enough to start collecting it, i see it as getting back a SMALL PORTION of what i've paid into it over the years. (if theres anything left after the baby-boomers pillage it) come to think of it, its not a bad deal. i love canada and i wouldn't live anywhere else in the world, despite our many shortcomings.

24 hour news is in itself a farce... and yeah you are right there, theres only so much they can yak about. but lets not play dumb, it got way more coverage than it needed because it was a identifiable story about your president to make everyone think he's a swell fellow. it was stupid, pandering dreck like 90% of the stories on obama.

and i'm sorry you interpreted my remarks as broadbrushing americans as racists or PC vaginas, of course it was an oversimplification. but i didn't question the validity of your arguments simply because of where you live.

Well I said it would open you up to ridicule. I don't care where you live. It was more that your name is "half baked."

From my perspective, I don't know why Obama is being as hated as he is. He's barely over the 100 days mark and he's done more work than most in his short time in office. People don't actually think he's jesus, and despite his historic victory, I doubt anyone voted for him because of race. He had sound policies that weren't insanely partisan and despite his efforts, republicans refuse to work with him at all.

People like him because the alternative is literally the people who got us into this mess.

As for socialized programs, like many western economies have, keep in mind that they have quite a few auxiliary aspect that pay off huge. For example our senior citizens aren't dying off alone in apartments.

And the same way the public transit funding, and natural disaster and pandemic precautions don't actually stimulate the economy, the do prevent it from shrinking. Many of the natural services the country needs are because we have a socialist nature to a few programs.

Do you know how many industries would be effected if Social Security was taken away? Willfred Brimley would be screwed.

Because being the #1 cable news network they actually have a lot of power. A lot of people consider O'Reilly's talking points to be the gospel. I consider them largely responsable for spreading a lot of the lies and misconceptions about the Iraq war, and also for being the first to run with the Florida f*ck up that destroyed any chance of Gore taking the election in 2000.

MSNBC while "condemming" FoxNews are actually imitating them in just about every way, in fact FoxNews is rubbing off on every other news network and that's certainly gonna become a problem.

I think you are worrying about nothing here honestly. I see your point, but the days of the Newscaster carrying gravitas and influencing real change are over. Even as the #1 news network, O'Reilly is seen in less then 10% the homes Cronkite was.

I don't want to start the argument, but it's just silly to think anything other then Bush won the election in 2000. The fact that their is no conclusive proof even now nine years after is all I need to now. And if people are dumb enough to take a cable news network talking point as gospel are problems are the puppets not the alleged puppeteers.

The American people are smarter the Bill O'Reilly, Keith Olberman or Stephen Colbert would even give them credit for. It's just that the dumber ones are the louder ones, it's no different then the animal kingdom. The stupider soming is the more loud and annoying it is. Look at Birds.

When did Colbert ever imply that the American people are stupid?

He pokes fun of American culture and politics, but that's what he does, I don't see how he insulted the American people. He's a comedian.

I still disagree with you, the news networks can still carry some impact on how society reacts to things, the whole swine flu scare is a perfect exampe.

I just assume we're coming from different places because none of this has an impact here worth mentioning.

I would ask Boo Boo to explain how MSNBC are just as bad as Fox because you glazed over the point with out any explination.

I have no problem with your stance, I find it perfectly reasonable. In regards to Colbert, O'Reilly, Olberman. I don't think any of them think that Americans are stupid, I just think they all feel they are a lot smarter then the American people.

I would challenge you on something though Swine Flu, to me the media's reaction to it is considerably more fervent the society. A few school closings sure, but that's more a fear of potential litigation then it is Swine Flu I think.

With the expansion of internet media, people, especially those 45 and under who are comfortable with the Internet and media technology in general can now draw information from such a myriad of sources as to form their own relatively educated opinion on just about any issue they have enough passion or motivation to ever do anything about.

In a roundabout way, all I am saying is FOXNEWS and the like are more a symptom of the culture's evolution (or devolution) then is a cause of it. Society will change and evolve around it, not through it.

Just to make this clear, Steven Colbert acts like an unintelligent and uninformed radical conservatives, he isn't really.
There's a video of him speaking at the White House during a dinner in 2006: hilarious.
Serious tension between him and the President's table.

I think most of us have caught on to the joke.

Have you caught on to the joke?
Why are you relating him to O'Reilly?

If you're saying that Colbert thinks Americans are stupid then you're wrong because one of the main functions of his show is to bring up political issues in a humorous light and essentially have the audience laugh at his incorrectness and figure out the situations for themselves.

O'Reilly and Colbert are very similar; they both relay a subjective viewpoint in a manner that specifically targets their networks core demographic. They are both smart, but think they are smarter then they are. Watch their "interviews" with each other neither would let their guard down and break character.

Colbert has a liberal slant

O'Reilly has a conservative slant.

In this regard they are different, otherwise they report on the same issues and Colbert's show is a satire of "The Factor"

Colbert probably didn't let his character down because he's a comedian; it's his facade.
He's mocking O'Reilly, the joke is that his opinions are not real like O'Reilly's; they're jokes.
The audience has to determine what his real views are.
Outside of the facade he isn't pretending to know everything like O'Reilly.

I guess not everyone gets the joke...

JJJ, you seem a little burned by the liberals supposed elitism. Assuming thats true, can you tell me when and where it happened?

These are things I always wanted to ask people, but never knew well enough to ask. Are you lumping anyone on the left together?

As an example, I'd say I'm on the left, but by no means "liberal" (as the other lefties here), but I watched that woman the the Washington Press Dinner act like an ass toward Donald Rumsfeld and I thought, this is why people hate people on the left.

First to preface, I fall a bit to the left. I am very socially liberal and economically more conservative. But my major problem is as you noted with elitism.

I am pretty jaded by the whole process Brennan, but especially by the left wing rhetoric in the last decade. When I lived in California (2003-2005) it was the worst, you were excluded from social circles if you did not fall in line with left wing popular thought. I'd say liberal elitism began to get under my skin right around that time. I consistently heard things like "all those morons in the red states", "Bush is the dumbest president ever", "Torture doesn't work and is never okay" and most of all "they just don't get it" (in regards to right wing thinkers)

I am annoyed by people who tell me need welfare because "what else will THEY do"

I remember during Katrina he anti-bush FEMA crowd saying things like "If you get a group of poor black people together in a large building you know rape and violent crime is going to take place"

Specific to the "Lumping together" question: No, I try to let each persons actions speak for themselves. I was in favor of Obama's election and vote Democrat more often then republican (though rarely do I vote either these days) I will say the Hollywood left is unbearable across the board, Sean Penn, George Clooney etc etc etc. I can't stand their inability to look beyond their myopic perspective and see how different Americans and people in general are all across the globe and the fact they have the tallest soapbox to stand upon really irks me.

You're spot on with my main reason for irritation\disdain. The arrogance some of the left shows, like Colbert, John Stewart, Michael Moore, I think undermines their point more often then not.

I could ramble on for hours but in the interest of saving time and better exploring this dialogue I'll await your response and further questions.

Well its a mixed bag. With certain points, I agree completly; Sean Penn is an absolute douche, Michael Moore, who's been relegated to silence as of late is less so, but he intentionally misleads which might be worse.

The Left crowd also has an alarming degree of racism, that it generally gets away with because they tend to be more supportive policy-wise of minorities. But I find the most arrogant and elitist to be the least intelligent.

Where I'd disagree is how arrogant the Comedy Central crowd is. They use humor, but very few get away with much on their show, regardless of position in the political spectrum.

When I think arrogant humor, I tend to lean toward Bill Mahr.

But arrogance aside, the issue that tends to bother me on these boards, and the one I think that we will come to a head on, is the slant of the media, speciafically the three big ones.

If you want my opinion, this is how I look at it.

MSNBC is the liberal network, Ed Schwartz and Keith Olberman being left in a strong direction. Rachel Maddow, who I think is the standard on how interviews ought to be done, comes in left of Chris Matthews and to the right of the other two.

Keith and Ed are liberal in no matter what they do. The "Psycho Talk" and "Worst Persons in the World/Bushed" segments are testaments to that.

Maddow is left-leaning, but only in her selection of coverage. And these days its hard to hold it against her.

Matthews, who I make a point to watch every night is decidedly moderate. If you go on Youtube, you can find both sides calling for his resignation, he's been offensive in his commentary of both Hillary Clinton and Cheeney. He's tore into just about every guest on his show, and he regulaly features Pat Buchanon.

Their news coverage with Contesa Brewer is the People magazine of news, and I don't know what the **** they do on the weekends, but someone ought to be fired.

With Fox. The most honest folks on there are Shepard Smith, who's relegated to the news desk, and the Beltway Boys who at least pretend to get both sides. There are no moderates on Fox, and after the Tea Party stunt, they should be questioned as a news organization.

Heres where the Brawl comes in...

CNN to me, is Wolf Blitzer, and wolf alone. Lou Dobbs is horrible, he made up the whole act, and he tries to be as snarky as the other guys on other networks, but half his show is him tripping over words on his teleprompter and him trying to insert larger words than is needed.

CNN has been going down a path of panels and the blog/text information superhighway. They generally stay away from anything that lands them in hot water because their trying to be objective. They go out into the people and get what they can.

But Wolf and Cafferty (who is the "people" version of the situaiton room) are often lumped into together (harkening back to my original post) with news media who are't doing anything wrong.

There isn't anything wrong with covering Obama positivly. He's the president, its his first year, he's passed major legislation, he's working to reverse a major crisis, and for the first 6 years, the news media didn't say **** about Bush.

But everyone expects to have the media, who was bullied and beaten by Bush, attack Obama or be called Liberal. The man is a lefty, but he's not a socialist, and CNN doesn't have to question his every move to be "fair and balanced."

I'm not sure we differ much at all.

I do tend to feel like Comedy central has a liberal slant at gets away with it because it is comedy. But it's not something that bothers me that much, it just bothers me when people give it too much credence a news source.

As for the cable news networks, I won't dispute any of that really. You forgot too mentioned Fox has the hottest news girls. I am pretty much apathetic to them however. That was my original contention in this thread. Essentially who gives a fuck. I don't think anyone smart enough to anything about anything takes their cues from Sean Hannity or Anderson Cooper or Mo Rocca for that matter. I don't mind Matthews, but sadly I prefer Daryl Hammond parody of him to the real thing.

As for CNN, I prefer positive coverage of the president as long as honesty is not jeopardized. CNN is fine, my biggest beef is that it's boring. Larry King is deader then Elvis and he's the most controversial figure on the network these days. If you don't count the people waiting for Anderson Cooper top come out of the closet as I don't. My only minor contention would be with the anti-bush stuff. They and MSNBC had guests ripping Bush on a nightly basis following the 2000 election and I can't say for sure but seemed to be pretty Al Franken friendly from 2005 on.

I'm not sure we'll clash on this really.

Those posts were amusing to read.
To JayJamJah, I understand the feeling of disenfranchisement by political elites (left or right).

I would probably classify my own views as falling extremely left, and I've probably practiced political elitism in the past, although I live in a conservative area (justification?).
IMO, the most annoying elitists are probably on the side of the left, but from personal experience I think a lot of elitism comes from extreme liberals having to constantly defend their positions to moderates or conservatives.

A lot of liberals are very sheltered (not counting myself out) but I think this makes a lot of extremely elitist individuals look for very particular characteristics in people.
Example: if you don't look liberal, you can't possibly be liberal. This is probably one of the most aggravating aspects of this elitism.
I have friends who don't care about politics whatsoever, and I also have friends who are moderate/conservative.
One of my friends going to NYU said that for most liberal elites, this is unacceptable: people can only make friends with other liberals.

I understand where that sense of exclusivism comes from too though. It seems totally counter-intuitive to befriend someone who stands in opposition to the very things you value.

Yes, I can see it from the perspective of conservatives too.
But honestly, it's hard enough being an extreme liberal in America without having friends who are against you as well.
I enjoy talking to my friends who aren't political or on the left because they're good to talk to; unlike most conservatives who either call you stupid or homosexual when you divulge your personal beliefs.

I consider myself far more liberal than most, but I'm also weird in that the democrats don't seem socially liberal to me. Liberal in what they're willing to do, but not liberal in what they're trying to accomplish. It seems to me that if you're going to be liberal you have to stand for liberties, and you can't stand for them if you're going to over-regulate them once you get them.

My grandma is conservative as sh*t and she watches Daily and Colbert all the time.

Colbert is playing a character, he's a comedian, there's always a bit of subjectiveness to political comedy, that's just how it is. He pokes fun of O'Reilly and Hannity, but that's his job, he never talks about his real views on anything, and while people assume he's left on everything, that might not even be true. He's satirizing a specific kind of pundit, he's supposed to be similar to O'Reilly in a superficial sense.

At the same time he's pretty fair, he has both democrats and republicans on his show all the time and he treats them all the same way, jovially.

People who spend all their time criticizing the media should do something better with their time (e.g. read a book.) Seriously, bitching about Fox News and the unreliability of the media is so post-Iraq War Jon Stewart aka so 2004.

I'm not really bitching about it anymore. More or less I just like to mock it now.

And when stupid people say stupid things. They should be made fun of, that's all. I'm tired of people making up political excuses on behalf of the idiots in the world.

"Lets not discuss this anymore, FoxNews isn't relevant anymore (which is not actually true IMO), lets not offend the Christians, etc"

If Hannity says something retarded on TV in front of millions of people, I don't think it's gonna be the end of the world just to talk about it. Make an MSNBC thread if you feel like I'm being unfair.

lol, yeah I agree with the yes man on this one. Piss poor journalism complaints aren't exactly a fad.

Just because Obama was elected doesn't mean things are cool again, in fact, i think they've gotten worse since he won.