My disdain for FOX News is well placed. Here you have a network that has the audacity to not just call their channel a news network when it would be more accurately called entertainment (infotainment?), but to have as their slogan "Fair and Balanced" when they are anything but is unbelievable. Don't the laws against false advertising apply here as well? They have some of the most highly rated shows of the three 24 hour news networks. I attribute this is primarily to their dramatic music, flashy graphics, and the penchant of their anchors to sensationalize. Perhaps it is also due to their pro-Bush, pro-America message. Let's face it, patriotism is "in". I have no problem with this, as long as they don't lie and say they're striving for objectivity in their coverage. All that being said, however, if people want to be lied to every day by watching that channel, then they have that right.
This brings me to Rush Limbaugh.
His problem is not that he pretends to not have a bias, for he wears it on his sleeve. His problem is that he lies and misrepresents anything and everything that is going on in favor of the Right and people take what he says to be the truth. Many people listen to Limbaugh's 3-hour long radio program and take him as their primary source of news. The inability or unwillingness of so many people to see through his exaggerations and baseless tirades is truly sad.
Here is what Limbaugh had to say about the Iraqi prisoner abuse:
"This is no different than what happens at the Skull and Bones initiation, and we're going to ruin people's lives over it, and we're going to hamper our military effort, and then we are going to really hammer them because they had a good time. You know, these people are being fired at every day. I'm talking about people having a good time, these people, you ever heard of emotional release? You [ever] heard of need to blow some steam off?" (quote)
This illustrates Limbaugh's technique pretty well: take sometime that is going on that is having a negative effect on the Right and try to spin it and misrepresent what occurred to try to minimize the damage. To compare what went on to a fraternity initiation is ridiculous. Dozens of these prisoners died while they were in custody. The horrible photos we have seen, the number of which seem to grow day after day, seem to only hint at the horrors that were carried out by U.S. interrogators in Iraq. We claim we are bringing democracy and the "rule of law" to Iraq, but we are not living up to our own high ideals. How can the Iraqis believe us when we behave in ways that aren't much better than the way Saddam Hussein did?
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