<p>" Their commentators don’t just act this way; that is how they approach news. This isn’t news, it’s PROPAGANDA. "</p>
<p>Can you cite examples? Do you even personally watch Fox?</p>
<p>Waist deep in the big muddy…</p>
<p>clever reference. for all of you who do not understand, it is a a vietnam war protest song. unfortunately, you need to step into the 20th century. while i appreciate your ability to enact the deep recesses of american counterculture, please burn your flag somewhere else.
isn’t it funny how i was able to get a seemingly lifeless, condemned thread to push on for 3 pages in a little over a day. while, of course, everyone realizes that FoxNews is conservatively biased, the other news is biased too. Why? ratings. advertising. program self-sufficiency.
my question is: why are you so against feeling good about your country for just a brief second of every day. sure, you can go outside those walls in your thinsulated jacket, being bombarded by the artillery that is criticism of this administration and its goals. however, if you don’t open yourself up to some small piece of pride in your country. if you don’t at least try to be supportive, you might as well abandon the whole american political process (which i would not suggest). we (maybe not “you”, but we) voted for this (and yes we did). if you lose all faith and respect for the presidency, gov’t and its process, you have lost faith in what it means to be american. yes, you can just go around hearing all the doom-sayers, but why would you want to always live like that?</p>
<p>…and you fools say we should stop</p>
<p>(very early in the morning, not sure if that was articulated)</p>
<p>Zoosermom, I don’t watch Fox News - or any other TV news programs, other than to see things like vote results on election day. But in 2003 the Program on International Studies at the University of Maryland released a study of the extent to which Americans who got their news from different sources were misinformed. [World</a> Public Opinion](<a href=“http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/international_security_bt/102.php]World”>http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/international_security_bt/102.php)
Fox News viewers were more likely to believe objectively false things about Iraq - such as believing that weapons of mess destruction had actually been found in Iraq after our invasion of that country - than people who got their news from any other source. I’d call that food for thought. </p>
<p>Serious thought.</p>
<p>ExplorerCY:
This is what’s called a “straw man” argument. You state a false belief, accuse anyone who disagrees with you of holding that belief, then point to the falsity of that position as “evidence” that you’re right and they’re wrong. It’s cheap, intellectualy dishonest, and a staple of the right wing. </p>
<p>I feel good about my country all the time, for lots of reasons. But that doesn’t mean that our policy in Iraq isn’t dumb. So have a cup of coffee, check your math (20th century?) and engage the issues, instead of throwing mud at anyone who doesn’t echo your opinions.</p>
<p>Kluge, that wasn’t the point of my question. I was just personally curious as to whether a poster who had such in-depth knowledge of what happens on Fox actually watches it. Because I generally don’t. (Remember, buddy, I’m not that deep!)</p>
<p>If that study was reported in 2003, it would have likely been done in 2001-02? Kind of old now and in that time period it was stil unclear what the truth actually was in Iraq. One can say lots of things in hindsight, but the current context has to be taken into account. I’m sure the survey is accurate but question its present relevance. </p>
<p>But as I said, I don’t generally watch and was fascinated by the possibility that a Fox News disliker actually watches it so as to know so much. I can’t imagine watching any channel that I so disdain to that level.</p>
<p>Zoos - the study was based on a series of polls conducted in the spring and summer of 2003, after the invasion. It’s an interesting study; worth reading.</p>
<p>Kluge, it was and I look forward to reading it. But that does’t mean I can’t wonder if things have chaged in five years.</p>
<p>Foxnews is the only responsible television news network in America. Fox offers two types of information - news reporting and opinion. Its news reporting is the most accurate of all the television networks. Unlike other news organizations, its commentators are clearly identified as either liberal, conservative or somewhere in between. For example, on Hannity and Combs, Hannity is clearly identified as a conservative and Combs is identified as a liberal. Other television news organizations are saturated with liberals pretending to offer objective and unbiased opinions. There is little balance in those organizations and their news opinions are unreliable.</p>
<p>Regarding the accuracy of FNC’s news reporting, FNC is the only television news organization not “in the tank” for Obama. Just ask Terry McAuliffe.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>[Political</a> Punch](<a href=“http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/05/clinton-chair-p.html]Political”>http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/05/clinton-chair-p.html)</p>
<p>razorsharp — that is what i was trying to get at earlier. well said.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>You are a tool of extraordinary proportions.</p>
<p>kluge,</p>
<p>Could you point me to a reference from the Bush administration that indicates that Saddam played an important roll in 9/11?</p>
<p>bandtenhut, i actually thought that was quite clever.</p>
<p>“We know that Iraq and the al Qaeda terrorist network share a common enemy – the United States of America. We know that Iraq and al Qaeda have had high-level contacts that go back a decade. Some al Qaeda leaders who fled Afghanistan went to Iraq. These include one very senior al Qaeda leader who received medical treatment in Baghdad this year, and who has been associated with planning for chemical and biological attacks. We’ve learned that Iraq has trained al Qaeda members in bomb-making and poisons and deadly gases. And we know that after September the 11th, Saddam Hussein’s regime gleefully celebrated the terrorist attacks on America.” - President Bush, October 7, 2002</p>
<p>“There’s overwhelming evidence there was a connection between al Qaeda and the Iraqi government.” - Dick Cheney, January 22, 2004</p>
<p>By September 2003, 70% of Americans had been led to believe by the Bush administration that Hussein played a personal role in the 9/11 attacks.</p>
<p>That’s not what was asked BandTenHut.</p>
<p>Kluge, does this document mean WMDs have NOT been found in Iraq after the invasion?</p>
<p>See: <a href=“http://www.foxnews.com/projects/pdf/Iraq_WMD_Declassified.pdf[/url]”>http://www.foxnews.com/projects/pdf/Iraq_WMD_Declassified.pdf</a></p>
<p>kluge,</p>
<p>Any response to #50?</p>
<p>P2N did you bother to read the excerpt? The part which refers to “munitions which contain degraded mustard or sarin nerve agent. … While agents degrade over time, chemical warfare agents remain hazardous and potentially lethal.” “WMD” means “weapon of mass destruction.” To be a WMD it has to be a “weapon” and also capable of “Mass Destruction.” Here’s what our military said about the 25 year old “filled and unfilled munitions”:
</p>
<p>So it looks like the answer to your question is: Yes. That’s what it means. The old shells which were found aren’t “weapons” any more, and while “hazardous” they’re not capable of creating “mass destruction” - and if that’s too complicated an analysis, our own military says they’re “not the WMD we were looking for.”</p>
<p>But you know that. The better question is, why do you even remotely think it is a question worth even asking? These aren’t “the WMD we were loking for.” They’re left over junk from the 1980’s that it’s not the slightest bit surprising was still left lying around in Saddam’s chaotic Iraq. And what’s more, why did you and FF suddenly start spamming every thread on CC with this same bit of tripe?</p>
<p>FF, I’ll ask you a question in response: Are you claiming that the Bush Administration did not intentionally try to convince America that Saddam was somehow involved in 9/11? Without actually saying so?</p>
<p>kluge,</p>
<p>I can understand your reluctance to answer directly. As a matter of fact, I recall several instances where Bush or Cheney were asked about any connections and they both denied it. Yet, this is how one of the questions was phrased in your famous study “proving” the disinformation that FOX spreads:
and then it goes on to give possible responses.</p>
<p>It should be evident from this that either the creators of the study were ignorant of the facts and hence in no position to “grade” the response of respondents or they were incredibly and blatantly trying to bias the result to get to the conclusion that they wanted for an audience such as yourself to then pass around as proof that Fox news watchers were just a bunch of rubes being lead by the nose. I’d say that those who continue to reference such garbage are the rubes being lead by the nose.</p>
<p>FF, here’s a non-exhaustive selection of comments made by members of the Bush Administration six months after the invasion of Iraq, put together by BBC News:
If you went back to the drumbeat period of 2002 you’d find many, many more in that same vein. I’d say the authors of the study were doing no more than making an obvious and true statement: the Bush Administration made a clear effort to link Iraq and 9/11 in numerous ways to justify the war, despite the complete lack of any evidence to support that linkage. It’s no surprise that many Americans accepted that disinformation and internalized the message quite intentionally communicated by them. The interesting thing is how long it took for the most indoctrinated Americans - i.e. Republicans who relied on Fox News as their primary information source - to realize that the message was a lie. From your recent posts on the Iraqi documents, you still cling to the illusion to this day.</p>
<p>Dick Cheney, September, 2003:
</p>
<p>kluge,
Note that nowhere are there any quotes that are remotely consistent with what your “study” asserts - the the Bush administration has stated that Iraq played an important role in 9/11. And, the BBC did some clever editing to try to make their case that the Bush administration did try to make such a statement. Since when does: “we don’t know” or “We’ve never been able to develop any more of that yet, either in terms of confirming it or discrediting it.” translate into “Iraq plated an important role in 9/11”. </p>
<p>I recall the interview with Tim Russert on Meet the Press when Russert first asked Cheney if there was a connection to Iraq. Cheney’s answer was effectively, “we don’t know, but we haven’t seen any evidence that it was.” Then, a few months later, Cheney was back on Meet the Press. In the interim, the issue of the Atta meeting in Prague had surfaced. In his typical gotcha style of questioning, Russert played back the Cheney statement from September and then said, “There now appears to be evidence that Atta met with IIS in Prague, how can you be certain that there is no connection between Iraq and 9/11”. In Russert-speak he was essentially saying, “How can the administration be so clueless in investigating this obvious link?” Of course, now the deception comes full circle with the BBC taking snippets of interviews such as these and trying to claim that it was Cheney who was trying to make the case for the linkage.</p>
<p>“From your recent posts on the Iraqi documents, you still cling to the illusion to this day.”</p>
<p>Well, I see that some people will never take their head out of the sand (or wherever they keep it). Even when documents confirm the reality of a complicit/“de facto” relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda when dealing with mutually agreed to objectives, you stick to your guns that this could never happen “because they are enemies”. You can continue in this fairy tale if you want, but I shudder to think that an Obama administration would continue in such a naive belief. You probably also cling to the Obama notion that Iran would never work with al Qaeda because of the Sunni/Shiite rift - despite the many reports that contradict that simplistic notion.</p>