I’d like to make a quick comment on NPR’s coverage of the AZ shooting, and specifically today’s segment on On The Media about the validity of questioning angry political rhetoric.

I’ll have to say, first, that the coverage has been irresponsible at best. Don’t get me wrong. I listen to NPR continuously, and until recently have considered its work some of the best. The coverage of the oil spill was top-notch!

The problem with the recent coverage of the AZ shooting, besides letting off unconfirmed information, was how your people were so blatantly on the “Liberal” side of the Conservative political rhetoric blame-wave. Compare this coverage to the Fort Hill shooting coverage. You guys were first-class on that one: slow to blame and later thorough and even.

I finally had to write today after listening to On The Media. The premise was sound: It’s valid to question angry rhetoric after a violent incident even if there is no evidence linking that event to the rhetoric. But – again – the whole focus was on Conservative media personalities. This leaves me with the conclusion that NPR isn’t concerned about the rhetoric going in the other direction. I seem to remember some fairly serious vitriol against Bush. And Sarah Palin – regardless of the crazy things she says – I think the vitriol against her, before she had a chance to say anything, was unprecedented.

So, in summary, I can’t defend you guys anymore. In the past I’ve argued that you weren’t Liberal, or that if you were you weren’t bias. Elitist? Sure, but not bias. I can’t honestly say that anymore. Not after this, and not after that crazy lady fired Juan Williams. I mean, seriously, Juan was great!

I’m afraid you guys just got put in the same drawer as MSNBC… Just kidding. But seriously, it’s out, you’re a Liberal organization.

I’m disturbed by the Whitehouse response. First, Obama needs to crack down on these idiots like Napolitano – they are always going on TV with their own ideas of policy and reality, trying to spin everything as usual and people are seeing though it now.

The knee-jerk response for this attack was the same as the Fort Hood shooting: Oh no, not a ‘terror’ attack. Oh indeed, the system worked out well, we have everything under control. We’re all so safe and cozy we can get right back after redistributive change.

But they know damn well if a major terror attack get’s through it spells the end to the Democrat resurgence. Oboma was betting on luck, the way he campaigned against anti-terror measures. And now that he’s in charge the only change he’s made is planning to move Gitmo – and of course his rhetoric, now he’s pro-preemptive.

It’s funny though too, after all their – “It’s all good baby, things are smooth, we got it so totally covered” – we find out the only reason the airliner didn’t turn into a fireball is that the terrorist was too incompetent to maintain an effective detonation system – but he was DAMN close. And there might have been a second explosive in the cargo hold I’ve also heard.

The Whitehouse seriously made fools of them selves this weekend. Obama wasn’t even informed for 3 hours. MSNBC is even in on it – so glad they gat past that serious bought with their chronic news constipation. This one isn’t going to get squashed like the Hood incident. LOL – No one is calling this kid a poor sufferer of air travel fatigue.

No one is touching the patriot act after this. lol

If you haven’t seen it, you have to watch it above.

It’s so funny, “The passengers and crew did exactly what they were supposed to.” LOL Yeah airline passengers. Good work. You must have all touched the skin of the aircraft before boarding, and Obama’s lucky fucking horseshoe reserve finally paid off. There was way too much good luck on that plan for the detonation device to have worked. And then you guys stayed cool and did the right thing – you panicked and scrambled for water and fire extinguishers while others dragged the kid out into the aisle and beat him down.

With this story it’s like shooting fish in a bucket.

I can’t believe MSNBC just scooped FOX on some terrorist news – this little shit was a rich kid.

Anyway, it was a powered explosive and he had a siring full of some kind of chemical catalyst to serve as the detonator. It didn’t work though and the powder just burned.

I wonder if he burned the hair off his balls? If so – no worries. I’m sure the Obama administration will humanly supply him with one of those toupees for your wank.

This is great. I watch the news online and listen through the radio. Since the Obamania hit my news sources degraded down mainly to Fox news (online) and Michigan Public Radio. Throughout the day I usually catch the Fox latest videos. This evening I did my normal dabble over on some other cable new websites. I do this mainly just to get a feel for the far left – so I usually go right to MSNBC.

I figured I’d get fed what they’ve been feeding all this year: how wonderful Obama is, how perfect the legislation the Dems are forcing through is, and how hateful, racist, and ignorant everyone is who won’t fall inline behind the President.

Well, I got a little shock today. I usually see two very different worlds on Fox and NPR than I see on MSNBC. But to day, I watched Fox’s videos, and now I’m watching MSNBC’s, and they’re all covering the same thing! Yeah, the op-ed goofballs have a very different tone on each channel, but they’re covering the same bad stuff.

Basically we have some democrats who have suddenly said: “This isn’t healthcare reform man – this isn’t even real healthcare reform!” (Boogie Nights reference)

You all know how I’ve been bitching about Obama’s promise for bipartisanship and CSPAN coverage, then allowing the bills to be written in a locked room full of Dems and insurance people making brazen vote-purchasing deals. So now we have this big obnoxiously ineffective wad of legislation only the most party-line jackass is supporting.

The ideologues are all pissed. Everyone wanting actual healthcare reform and can smell the difference are pissed. And MSNBC is actually covering bad news for Obama! They’re actually showing the same polls Fox was showing. Holy shit hughmiddle? I knew the vague play-the-middle would start catching up with old Barak. Shit, MSNBC is showing that 47% approval poll AGAIN. They’ve showed it like twice as much as Fox I think.

With hind sight it’s easy to see that handing healthcare reform and cap and trade over to Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum to ram through while real American are panicking about the economy was a big error. Pelosi and Reid spent the old man’s political capital almost as irresponsibly and they like to spend tax payer cash – and magically created cash for that matter.

Good crap! Maybe the pendulum has finally unstuck from the ceiling over on the left? If this momentum keeps up we’re going to have cheese-stuffed moose sausage at the Whitehouse. Shit – they’re even showing the pro 41% Tea party poll. Crazy.

Indeed, it sounds like something out of a satirical skit, or a paranoid Libertarian’s therapy session. We’ve known Obama is sensitive to criticism. For the longest time he simply didn’t have any. Everyone thought Hillary was a certain bet for the nomination so the mainstream media felt free to shower him with adoring coverage.

Months ago Obama alluded to the idea that Fox was against him by saying, “I have a one television station that is entirely devoted to attacking my administration.” This is understandable. Fox pundits have been critical of Obama’s policies and Fox news has run stories that were damaging to Obama’s efforts – just like news organizations are supposed to do – while most of the other media companies were helping Obama tow the party line, especially NBC. In retaliation Obama appeared on all the cable news channels in one weekend except for Fox.

Until recently Obama’s tension with Fox was semi-latent. Anita Dunn, the White House Communications Director, changed that when she told Time that, “It’s opinion journalism masquerading as news.” And later on CNN when asked about the comments she went further in describing Fox as an ideological opponent that uses inaccuracies (Fox News is very accurate.) and bias (She brought up Chris Wallis doing a fact-check on his interview with Tammy Duckworth. It’s not common to fact check interviews with Whitehouse officials – or something. But the reason Wallis did the fact check was because there were just so many blatant false statements – according to Wallis – more than he’s ever had.)

Soon after Dunn’s comments, John Axelrod and Rohm Emanuel made comments virtually saying the same thing. They both described Fox as not being a real news channel and that other real news channels should not follow their lead. Robert Gibbs, the press secretary, said something too when prompted with questions on the subject, but it was so long, indecisive, and lased with analogy it’s not worth sifting through.

This type of behavior may seem uncharacteristic of Obama, a man who ran on the characteristics of openness, honesty, and a willingness to listen to people with whom he disagrees. Remember? But in reality the Obama administration has been closed, partisan, vindictive to critics, and smug and dismissive to protestors – more so than any administration I’ve seen.

Questions -

So what’s the most shocking thing about this revelation to me? Well, you should notice, as I said, Dunn, Emanuel, and Axelrod all three said essentially the same thing (and I think Gibbs was trying). In other words, THEY WERE ON MESSAGE! For the first time the Obama Whitehouse is acting like they all rehearsed in the same circus tent. One advisor wasn’t saying Fox news was on the table while another was saying Fox news doesn’t exist. They are all saying the same thing:  We proclaim Fox News to no longer be news, and if you want to stay news, don’t follow Fox News.

Of course, the fact that Obama is trying to dismantle free press that he feels is unfair to him is also disturbing. We haven’t seen this type of attack by the Whitehouse upon a media outlet since Nixon. For this level of coordination to come out of the Obama Whitehouse, Obama himself and all his applicable advisors held a meeting on the subject of Fox News and decided on this approach.

Am I worried about the future of free press and opposition to authority? Hell no. The hard Liberals and liberal media companies have been trying to discredit Fox for years – yet Fox still has the best ratings and most diverse viewership of the cable news channels. Obama’s gang is just throwing their lot in with those crazies – and discrediting themselves. Fox is one of the more credible news organizations with the best fact-checkers around. They have straight news, some news from a conservative perspective, Libertarians like Glenn Beck, Liberals like Alan Colmes, guys to arrogant to stick with a party not named after themselves like O’Reilly, and a Regan Republican named Hannity.

This attack, if anything, is giving Fox more credibility because it’s driving viewers there to see what’s going on, and once there many will stay. That’s what happened to me – seriously – my home page was msn.comin 2001. I came to Fox because the Bush-haters were complaining about it. Until then all I knew about fox was they made the Simpsons. You can’t watch Shepherd Smith for five minutes and still call Fox dishonest or partisan, especially when he’s making better arguments for the public option than any of those idiots getting themselves shouted out of town meetings, talking about the statistical fact that the American people favor a public option, or pounding on the table yelling, “It doesn’t matter if it was effective. This is American and America does not Fucking torture.”

There might be a temporary affect. Some of the softhearted journalists might play nice out of fear. But they’re not real journalists anyway. If I ran a media company that this administration felt was a real news organization, I’d feel slighted. I mean – rule of thumb: When the establishment likes your news coverage you’re not doing your job. And I think the other news organizations might be getting that - when they came for Fox I said nothing because I was not a Fox – feeling.

As for strategy… Well… Is this attack on Fox a wise move for Obama? No. Absolutely no. It’s stupid. It’s just plain stupid… It’s unrighteously and ridiculously not-smart. OBAMA – THE GUYS YOU NEED TO PERSUADE WATCH FOX! YOU ALREADY HAVE MOST THE CNN AND MSNBS GUYS, AND FOX HAS TWICE AS MANY AS BOTH TOGETHER! Seriously, pandering to your base won’t help you pass jack-diddly – if that’s what you’re doing even – hell.

Why then? Why is Obama making this odd-ball move? Is he finally putting Fox in its place for its sleazy attacks? No. For one, fox isn’t sleazy. It has better standards than MSNBC for sure. Two, it’s not attacking Obama – it’s doing what media has always done. And three, lets just pretend Fox is an Obama attack wing of the GOP. Well, in that case, Fox couldn’t buy a better promotion with gold wrapped in bacon.

So is this good for Fox? Yup. What do you think will happen? Do you think the other networks will heed the Whitehouse warning about how they present the news? Do you think when Fox breaks the next story that’s damaging to Obama the rest of the networks will ignore it and force their viewers to go off-cable of straight to Fox? No freaking way. The honeymoon is over and we’re seeing that more and more. And I’m betting that maybe, just maybe, some of the Fox-haters will tone down their own rhetoric with this sort of scary anti-media stuff flying around.

Is this bad for Obama? Yes… He’s confirming that the personality he campaigns with is just a front. It also cuts him off from numerous independent voters and from reasonable Conservatives who might like what he has to say.

Probably the worst thing about this attack is how it looks to the foreign democracies we are nurturing and the suspicious and uninformed around the world. It looks like the same old media silencing oppressed people are accustomed to. Why should China, Russia, or Venezuela allow free media? They’re only doing what Obama does, silencing sleazy opponents standing in the way of progress. And who can trust non-Fox real-news media? If Obama likes them they must be saying what he wants them too – US propaganda.