Picking the Fox scab, & finding lots of pus

What's been going on for over a year is now beginning to pick up steam - the Swiftboating of Barack Obama. There is so much crap and misinformation floating about on the Internet now, and I just hope Obama's campaign (or Hillary's, if she is the nominee) acts swiftly (pardon the pun) to refute the lies and misinformation. Anyway, the people over at Fox Attacks have put together a number of insightful videos that are great montages of the attacks against Obama over the last year and a half or so by Fox and its talking heads.

Evidence of Fox's smear campaign against Obama is not hard to unearth - the difficult part is documenting it all, since there's so much of it: the bogus madrassa story, lies about his not putting his hand over his heart during the Pledge of Allegiance, and his egregious offense of not wearing an American flag lapel pin every minute of every day, and so on. In many ways, Fox and its disciples are like the ocean tides - it just keeps on coming. But that doesn't mean the truth should remain hidden behind the network's blatantly obvious partisan and biased reporting.

This one's a blast from the past - Part I from February '07...

(I know I just posted Part I last week, but in case you missed it (or even if you didn't), it's worth another look.)

My personal favorites from Part I:

"Barack Obama in a bathing suit!"

"...The network America trusts for fair and balanced reporting." *Snicker*

All of the "he's a black candidate" crap, as well as the fact that Obama is "surrounding himself with white people."

"Barack... HUSSEIN... Obama"

"He is, get this... a cigarette smoker" [Emphasis in Original]

"Apparently when he was a little boy, he attended a Muslim school, a madrassa... THIS... IS... HU-YOOGE!" [Emphasis in Original]

"We're gonna be the headquarters for the 2008 election..."

Um, yea, maybe the '08 headquarters for intellectual midgets and right wing neo-cons who want to practice cognitive dissonance by listening to O'Lielly blathering about the Nazis, or Sean Insanity blubbering endlessly about Obama's middle name. I don't know many people outside of those categories who take Fox seriously. But, there are enough people who do for it to be necessary to refute these distortions and outright lies.

And here's Part II, just released by Fox Attacks...

Yep, the latest installment has some pretty good highlights, too. Here are my favorites, in no particular order:

"He's a 'half-rican' anyway..." Really? This Rush Limbaugh-ism is so overtly childish and racist it defies description, but I'll try. Of course, some would say, "but Obama is!" but that doesn't necessitate bringing it up. For instance, I don't hear anyone calling Limbaugh "Limbephant" because of his pachyderm-like appearance. Bringing up Obama's ethnicity, that he's half black, is the same reason that all Fox announcers never miss an opportunity to say "Barack HUSSEIN Obama"; it's to exploit people's fears and prejudices about race and religion, PERIOD.

"People are literally passing out at Obama rallies." First of all, I haven't heard that, but if it's true, it's almost as if the talking heads at Fox are jealous of Obama's surging popularity. Even if it is true, it still contrasts pretty nicely to McCain rallies, where people pass out because they haven't had their afternoon nap. Okay, that was low, but hopefully you get my point.

"...the kind of popularity that Chairman Mao only dreamed of." Which is it? Is he a Muslim or a communist? Maybe both? I haven't heard of many Muslim Communists, but I guess the do exist. Far-right Repubes really need to come up with better material than calling someone a communist; that's so, um, 1950.

"Will President Obama blame America first?" This was in the aftermath of Michelle Obama having the temerity to say that she wasn't proud of her country. In the aftermath of this, it also became an "issue" that Obama doesn't consistently wear a "flag lapel pin." (the faux "necessity" of wearing something representing an American flag reminds me of something else [at right], at the risk of inciting Goodwin's Law.) Obama has sagely pointed out on numerous occasions that you "don't have to wear a lapel pin to be patriotic," and he's absolutely right. Brit Hume's assertion that outright displays of patriotism for the Obamas is "a little icky" is, sadly, exactly the type of churlish comment I've come to expect from a once-respected journalist. I really wonder how these people at Fox look at themselves in the mirror every morning - making no doubt hundreds of thousands if not millions to intentionally distort, deceive and lie. I couldn't do it.

However, my personal favorite from the above vid - the "Jeremiah Wright" mention by college drop-out Sean Hannity. I guess it's not enough that Obama has repeatedly distanced himself from and denounced Wright's controversial comments. Since when does a church member follow or believe everything that his/her member of the clergy practices or preaches? It's ridiculous. For example, the pastor of the church I went to when I was young had a sexual affair with a young staffer, and as a result, his wife divorced him and he was kicked out of my church. Does that mean I support or believe in adultery? No. Put differently, should certain Catholic congregation members be accused of supporting or condoning pedophilia because their priest has a penchant for altar boys? Please. This is simply a sad, pathetic, transparent attempt to find dirt on Obama - sadly, this "controversy" seems to "have legs" as the saying goes, in the non-Fox mainstream media - it's been all over the news lately, including NBC News, Time Magazine, CNN, etc. Here's hoping that Americans who think for themselves (non-Fox viewers) will see it for what it is - a network with an agenda that will stop at nothing to smear Obama. It's Bill Clinton all over again. Sadly, many will believe what they see and hear on Fox.

Our soldiers are dying in Iraq, there are a record number of mortgage foreclosures, oil is trading above $110 a barrel & our economy is collapsing, yet Fox wants to insult its viewers with tales of what Obama's pastor said years ago? I just don't believe these "Karl Rove" tactics are going to wash in 2008. I pray I'm right. But, Democrats cannot and must not take anything for granted - there are millions who believe all of this stuff. Speaking of Rove, is it ANY SURPRISE that Fox has hired this guy? The "network" really is a disgrace.

I find it astounding, but not surprising, that Repubes consistently whine and complain about the "librul media" (Bush pronunciation) when the highest rated cable news network is Fox, and one of the most visited Websites on the 'Net, and definitely the most visited political site, is the Drudge Report. Both of these propaganda media drive the rest of the media - Tim Russert taking his cues from Fox News in Part II above is a stark example of this.

And the Russert example above is not an exaggeration - it happens all the time. There are numerous examples of stories that first appear on Drudge, and it quickly makes its way into the rest of the media, reported as news.

By the way, guess which current federal office holder holds the record for Meet the Press appearances - it's John McCain, with 52 appearances. The media must be librul, right?

Yet, despite these truths, even some smart people drink the Fox Kool-Aid. I received this e-mail from one of my best friends yesterday about Obama:

Coming Home to Roost

Jeremiah Wright = Swift Boating 2008

As I said in my last e-mail - Obama needs to somehow sidestep his 20-year relationship with this time bomb, and even if he does, this one is not going away. What was a whisper is not being shouted from major networks.

First, he mentions "Swift Boating 2008" as if it's a good thing. My ill-informed friend no doubt has not seen the video comparison above, nor has probably seen any of the Democratic debates. Even if he has, his mind has no doubt been polluted by the intellectually dishonest snake oil salesmen at Fox, and its disciples.
~~~
However, the best interpretation of just what Fox, Roger Ailes & Rupert Murdoch are up to comes from the aforementioned Fox Attacks in a recent blog entry:

I had a very disturbing talk with my dad about Barack Obama.

I was on the phone with my parents telling them about the video I was working on, FOX ATTACKS! Obama Part 2: Spreading the Virus, and brought up how FOX (Sean Hannity, in particular) has been desperately trying to create a connection between Louis Farrakhan and Barack Obama because a magazine founded by Obama's pastor, Jeremiah Wright, and run by Wright's daughters recently gave Louis Farrakhan an award. I told my parents how Hannity went from saying the magazine gave Farrakhan the award to claiming Wright gave him the award (which he didn't) to saying that Obama "associated" with Farrakhan (which he hasn't). Hannity would mostly use these "stories" so he could rattle off some of Farrakhan's most offensive comments and mention Obama in the same breath, effectively linking the two in the minds of FOX viewers. He just wants to say, "Obama — Farrakhan — racist — anti-Semite" over and over again until they are linked, just as FOX did with "Iraq — Al Qaeda — 9/11 — terrorism" in the run-up to the Iraq war.

Of course, Hannity almost never mentions that Obama has repeatedly denounced Farrakhan's racist, anti-semitic, and inflammatory remarks, has called for more cooperation between the black and Jewish communities, has spoken before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), and has been defended by the American Jewish Committee, the Anti-Defamation League, the Simon Wiesenthal Center and other prominent Jewish organizations. But Hannity doesn't want his viewers to know this. He just wants them to have a vague impression that Obama is an anti-semite and a black separatist.

When I mentioned this example to my parents, my dad said, "Wait, didn't Louis Farrakhan give Obama an award and Obama accepted it?" When I told him that this was completely off, he said, "Oh, I guess I must have heard it wrong."

Somewhere, Sean Hannity, Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch are poking holes in an Obama voodoo doll, laughing.