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Why Do I Mistrust Fox? Let Me Count the Ways
Leonard Pitts Jr
Perhaps you are familiar with an old saying: even a broken clock is right twice a day. I've found that maxim valuable as I wade through the recent hand-wringing and recriminations among journalists and their critics over the fact that most mainstream media were slow to pick up on the story of corruption at ACORN.
I might join this pity party if I thought Fox a credible news source. I do not. Consider just a few of the network's and its hosts' recent lowlights:
This is wrong. PolitiFact.com has documented 24 instances just since 2005, of O'Reilly referring to the doctor as "Tiller the baby killer."
This is incorrect.
This is false. The program requires the car to be drivable and to have been registered for at least a year.
This is untrue. The claim is based on a textbook
This is inaccurate. FactCheck.org reports this claim is based on a security notice required of "car dealers" who access a secure area of the Web site.
Let me make this next point crystalline; "every" news organization from
But Fox is in a class by itself. In its epidemic inaccuracy, its ongoing disregard for basic journalistic standards of fairness, its demagogic appeals and its blatantly ideological promotions it is, indeed, unique -- a news source in name only. That's not just an opinion: a 2003 study found Fox viewers more likely to be misinformed than those who get their news elsewhere.
Yet because this network that cries wolf, this network of birthers, terrorist fist bumps and tea party promotions, got it right for a change, mainstream media should wear sackcloth and ashes for their failure to take it seriously? No.
What's missing the ACORN story suggests is a need for mainstream reporters to develop more sources among conservative activists and bloggers. But Fox forfeited any expectation of being taken seriously by serious people when it made itself an echo chamber less concerned with reporting news than with affirming the ideological biases of its viewers.
When faced with a broken clock, after all, the person who wants to know the time has two options: try to guess when the reading is right...
Or get another clock.
Culture War, Literally
Leonard Pitts Jr
I don't know who coined the term 'culture war' to describe our political divisions, but I'm reasonably sure he or she intended it only as a figure of speech. It feels like something else in light of a new report which monitors extremist groups. 'Terror From the Right' is a listing of bombers, killers, would-be assassins and insurrectionists motivated by anger over abortion, gays, taxes, blacks, Muslims and illegal immigrants. Which raises an obvious fair and balanced question: What about terror from the left?
The Long War (September 11, 2001 -- )
Paul Greenberg
This long, long war now enters its ninth year, counting from that fateful September morning when everything changed, or was supposed to change. After that terrible morning, not even the blindest could deny that America had been attacked. Yet this war had been going on for years. The same enemy had launched earlier attacks in Somalia, against U.S. embassies in Africa, and off the coast of Yemen against the USS Cole.
Golden Opportunity to Declaw Patriot Act
Robyn Blumner
You remember the USA Patriot Act, don't you? It was that 342-page bill that sped through a supplicant Congress within weeks of 9/11, dismantling our privacy rights like a castoff Hollywood set. A reauthorization in 2006 made some things better and some worse, but mostly the law stayed the same -- really bad for American freedom. Well, it is time to revisit the Patriot act
A Simple Plan for Killing al Qaeda
Alex Kingsbury Interviews Howard Clark
Howard Clark's answer is to both amplify the nihilism of its message and promote moderate Islamic voices. Clark, a former marine who served two tours in Iraq, now works as a consultant on counter-terrorism problems for the Department of Defense. He is also president and founder of Seventh Pillar, a nonprofit that seeks to combat al Qaeda's ideology. He recently spoke about his three-part plan for strengthening moderates and defeating extremists
The Default Power and American Declinism
Josef Joffe
Every ten years, it is decline time in the United States. Declinism took a break in the 1990s, but by the end of the Bush administration, it had returned with a vengeance. The history of declinism shows that doom arrives in cycles, and what comes and goes, logically, does not a trend make. Today, as after past prophecies of imminent debility, the United States remains first on any scale of power that matters--economic, military, diplomatic, or cultural--despite being embroiled in two wars and beset by the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.
Three Dangerous Stooges: Gadhafi, Ahmadinejad & Chavez
Victor Davis Hanson
Recenty, three dictators -- from Iran, Libya and Venezuela -- delivered lunatic hate speeches at the UN General Assembly. Why do these dictators feel so free to damn America from downtown New York? Why do their abettors spurn our requests for help? And why do creepy regimes plot to get nukes, and fund terrorists? Easy. They do not fear, much less listen ...
Available at Amazon.com:
How You Can Kill Al Qaeda: (In 3 Easy Steps)
One Nation Under Contract: The Outsourcing of American Power and the Future of Foreign Policy
Endgame: The Blueprint for Victory in the War on Terror
Why Do I Mistrust Fox? Let Me Count the Ways | Leonard Pitts Jr
Copyright 2009 Leonard Pitts Jr.