Nixon's Head
03-29-2007, 08:42 AM
The extent of my contact with Fox News usually is limited to hearing about the latest egregious “Faux News” spin and disinformation pointed out by MSNBC’s “Countdown” anchor, Keith Olbermann.
Tuesday offered up more than the usual fare — things like Olbermann demonstrating how Fox commentators incessantly repeat the White House talking points of the day or ridiculing the latest bombast from Bill O’Reilly.
The first thing to get my attention was how two U.S. military operatives compared Fox News to the Arab news channel, Al-Jazeera, on an episode of the PBS program, “Frontline.” The military spokesmen casually noted that Fox and Al-Jazerra operate similarly — they clearly package news with a point of view that their viewers want to hear.
Go ahead. Snicker the next time Fox calls itself “fair and balanced.” Just like Al-Jazerra!
The second thing I found interesting Tuesday was a commentary from Fox News program host John Gibson. The subject was that day’s arrest of an aide to Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va. for inadvertently carrying a firearm and ammunition into the security screening entrance to a Senate office building.
The aide, Phillip Thompson, said he didn’t know the gun and two magazines of ammo were in his briefcase. He was, nonetheless, arrested, charged with a felony for carrying a handgun without a license and jailed overnight.
Gibson, the Fox commentator, asked viewers to consider what would have happened if a Republican were caught in a similar situation?
“Now let’s just imagine that particular Republican senator had an aide who was caught carrying the senator’s loaded pistol around, revealing the fact that the senator routinely packs a gun,” Gibson said, according to a Fox News transcript. “Couldn’t I expect a great hue and cry about this senator who is so paranoid and demented he thinks he needs to carry an automatic pistol and two extra clips because he’s going to need to fight his way out of, what, the Senate cloakroom?”
Naturally, the incident rekindled memories of John Hostettler, former six-term Indiana 8th District Republican congressman, getting busted at the Louisville International Airport for having gun in his briefcase. Hostettler, a congressman, not an aide.
The arrest did indeed make news, as it should. Hostettler explained that he’d been traveling through the Bloody 8th (c’mon, I had to get that in there) and simply forgot that the gun was in his carry-on. Local and federal law enforcement officials detained Hostettler for about one hour and charged him with a misdemeanor for attempting to carry a deadly weapon onto an airplane.
Some people — me, for example — got a good laugh out of the incident. And I did wonder why J-Ho needed to be packing heat in the friendly local congressional district that had sent him to Washington for five terms at the time of his April 2004 arrest.
But “hue and cry?” It never happened, despite the fact this was a congressman and not just an aide.
Hostettler wound up pleading guilty to a misdemeanor charge and given a suspended sentence. His permit to carry a handgun in Kentucky was suspended for two years.
What happened after that? Voters returned Hostettler to Congress for a sixth term that November. Two years later, he was ousted by Democrat Brad Ellsworth, the Vanderburgh County Sheriff who is at least as anti-gun control as Hostettler.
But it was just like Fox News to make up a stereotype of a liberal “hue and cry” should a Republican get popped on a weapons charge. And it was typical of Fox to underplay if not ignore the fact that Senator Webb, whose aide spent the night in jail, was a lifelong Republican and Navy secretary under Ronald Reagan. He only left the GOP, to quote another former Republican, basketball great Charles Barkley, “after they lost their minds.”
Source (http://www.heraldtimesonline.com/stories/2007/03/29/news.qp-275086.sto).
Tuesday offered up more than the usual fare — things like Olbermann demonstrating how Fox commentators incessantly repeat the White House talking points of the day or ridiculing the latest bombast from Bill O’Reilly.
The first thing to get my attention was how two U.S. military operatives compared Fox News to the Arab news channel, Al-Jazeera, on an episode of the PBS program, “Frontline.” The military spokesmen casually noted that Fox and Al-Jazerra operate similarly — they clearly package news with a point of view that their viewers want to hear.
Go ahead. Snicker the next time Fox calls itself “fair and balanced.” Just like Al-Jazerra!
The second thing I found interesting Tuesday was a commentary from Fox News program host John Gibson. The subject was that day’s arrest of an aide to Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va. for inadvertently carrying a firearm and ammunition into the security screening entrance to a Senate office building.
The aide, Phillip Thompson, said he didn’t know the gun and two magazines of ammo were in his briefcase. He was, nonetheless, arrested, charged with a felony for carrying a handgun without a license and jailed overnight.
Gibson, the Fox commentator, asked viewers to consider what would have happened if a Republican were caught in a similar situation?
“Now let’s just imagine that particular Republican senator had an aide who was caught carrying the senator’s loaded pistol around, revealing the fact that the senator routinely packs a gun,” Gibson said, according to a Fox News transcript. “Couldn’t I expect a great hue and cry about this senator who is so paranoid and demented he thinks he needs to carry an automatic pistol and two extra clips because he’s going to need to fight his way out of, what, the Senate cloakroom?”
Naturally, the incident rekindled memories of John Hostettler, former six-term Indiana 8th District Republican congressman, getting busted at the Louisville International Airport for having gun in his briefcase. Hostettler, a congressman, not an aide.
The arrest did indeed make news, as it should. Hostettler explained that he’d been traveling through the Bloody 8th (c’mon, I had to get that in there) and simply forgot that the gun was in his carry-on. Local and federal law enforcement officials detained Hostettler for about one hour and charged him with a misdemeanor for attempting to carry a deadly weapon onto an airplane.
Some people — me, for example — got a good laugh out of the incident. And I did wonder why J-Ho needed to be packing heat in the friendly local congressional district that had sent him to Washington for five terms at the time of his April 2004 arrest.
But “hue and cry?” It never happened, despite the fact this was a congressman and not just an aide.
Hostettler wound up pleading guilty to a misdemeanor charge and given a suspended sentence. His permit to carry a handgun in Kentucky was suspended for two years.
What happened after that? Voters returned Hostettler to Congress for a sixth term that November. Two years later, he was ousted by Democrat Brad Ellsworth, the Vanderburgh County Sheriff who is at least as anti-gun control as Hostettler.
But it was just like Fox News to make up a stereotype of a liberal “hue and cry” should a Republican get popped on a weapons charge. And it was typical of Fox to underplay if not ignore the fact that Senator Webb, whose aide spent the night in jail, was a lifelong Republican and Navy secretary under Ronald Reagan. He only left the GOP, to quote another former Republican, basketball great Charles Barkley, “after they lost their minds.”
Source (http://www.heraldtimesonline.com/stories/2007/03/29/news.qp-275086.sto).