There is no argument that most of the Fox News pundits are Conservative or lean that way. Some aren't such as Geraldo Rivera, but most are, such as Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck. There is nothing wrong with that. You know up front that they are Conservatives and that is the slant you will get from their commentary. There's nothing wrong or evil about that. In the cable news business these days, it's de rigueur.
Fox's hard news reporting differs little from anyone else's. At the top of the hour, you'll see the same headlines as most other news outlets. There's no particular slant - or at least no more than anyone else.
The difference is, as I said, in who they hire for political commentary. They are definitely conservative or conservative leaning. Does that make them wrong or evil? Hardly.
You will never see accusations and complaints in the media about MSNBC and their slant. There are no calls from anyone to shut them down. Their line up of liberal talkers make Hannity and Beck look absolutely tame. Keith Olbermann is one of the most odious of their line up. His Countdown is nothing more than a conservative character assassination show. Olbermann is probably the second worst in the business. The absolute worst is probably the other MSNBC superstar, Ed Schultz. That man is absolutely brainless.
Of course MSNBC is usually found in the basement of most ratings while Fox is consistently in first place with their prime timers.
The Obama administration, it seems, is more Nixonian than Nixon in their attempt to silence their enemies. They've attempted to silence Glenn Beck (and others) and since none of that has worked out well for them, they are now on the warpath to demonize the entire network.
"What I think is fair to say about FOX -- and certainly it's the way we view it -- is that it really is more a wing of the Republican Party," said Anita Dunn, White House communications director, on CNN. "They take their talking points, put them on the air; take their opposition research, put them on the air. And that's fine. But let's not pretend they're a news network the way CNN is."
It's not a wing of the Republican Party of course, at least no more than MSNBC or CNN is for the Democrats. It's just rhetoric and by this time, most people know it.
The White House should be above such nonsense. This kind of stuff is usually left to surrogates, amateur hacks and the fever swamps of the teenage playground called the Democratic Underground. This just shows you how amateurish this administration is.
This is probably going to work out as well as their "Hush Rush" efforts. Rush's audience has actually grown because of their adolescent attempt to demonize him so let them go. If their attempts to isolate Fox go beyond the verbal sparring, then we'll have to deal with that from a free speech perspective. I'm sure they'd love to shut them all down, but that pesky first amendment just keeps getting in their way.
VW
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