Fox News Makes You Dumber

Really, though.

Just the Facts, Speaker Boehner

Speaker John Boehner was on Meet the Press yesterday.  Interviewer David Gregory brought up the persistent notion within Republican circles that President Obama was not born in the United States and that President Obama is a Muslim.  Mr. Gregory points to a clip on Fox News where half or more members of a Republican study group believe that President Obama is a Muslim.  Mr. Gregory challenged Speaker Boehner to decide if he has a responsibility to tell the American people the facts.  Speaker Boehner said it’s not for him to tell people what to think, he then said the state of Hawaii has said President Obama was born in that state.  He also said he will take the President at his word when he says he’s a Christian.

I was flabbergasted by this response.  His answer was not an assertion of the facts, it was a statement of faith.  But the discussion wasn’t a matter of faith, it was a matter of fact.  President Obama was born in Hawaii.  President Obama is a practicing Christian.  These are facts and it’s disappointing that the Speaker of the House, the man who will need to work with the White House to address the policy needs of this country, can’t simply say that.  People will say I’m nitpicking, and maybe I am, but when you watch the video you can see Speaker Boehner trying to rhetorically discredit the position he says he believes in.  It was a pathetic display.  Then again, maybe I should be unsurprised.  Paul Krugman has been spending some time in his columns recently to address the Republican party’s rejection of facts and analysis time and time and time again to score some cheap political points.  Maybe I should be thankful Speaker Boehner even said Obama was a Christian, but his half-hearted defense in the face of blatant falsehoods was pathetic and cowardly.  We should be able to expect more.

You can watch the full exchange to make up your own mind here:

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NPR = Nazis?

According to Roger Ailes, the news chief for Fox News that little math equation is accurate. He since apologized for using the word "Nazi" (and can I just say it seems like everybody virulent conservatives don't like are Nazis these days. Also, while "socialist" was in the full title of the Nazi party, they were in fact facists, but I digress)

Matthew Steinglass takes a moment to reflect on the absurdity of Ailes quote. And it is absurd, not only in citing Nazis, but in grammar.

My beef is this taken as word supposition that NPR is some virulent leftist broadcast station schilling liberal propaganda on the government dime. Come'on man. Really? Does NPR lean left? Oh maybe, but when I listen to NPR it seems to lean intelligent and reasoned rather then a specific direction. Maybe what makes Ailes and other conservatives so angry is that NPR fact-checks the often groundless statements pundits and politicians make.

As to whether or not NPR should receive any federal dollars, I'm ambivalent. Ambivalence is of course the death knell of a blog such as this one, but I've been listening to the dulcet tones of Michele Norris' voice for the last couple hours and everything seems alright.