Posts Tagged ‘Fox News’
November 5, 2010
President Obama leaves Friday for a ten-day trip to India, Indonesia, South Korea and Japan. His trip will cost $200 million a day, or $2 billion for the trip, on which. he will be escorted by 34 warships, twelve percent of the United States Navy. All this according to Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Michael Savage, and Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-MN).
Except it’s as false as Obama’s Kenyan birth, his Muslim faith, his secret importing of “small quantities of Muslims,” and the death panels in his health care act. The story was reported in an Indian newspaper, quoting an anonymous provincial official.
The White House response was that the “numbers are wildly inflated.” The Pentagon dismissed the report as “absolutely absurd” and “just comical.” And the non-partisan factcheck.org summarized its findings this way:
“This story has spread rapidly among the President’s critics, but there is simply no evidence to support it. And common sense should lead anyone to doubt it. For example, the entire U.S. war effort in Afghanistan currently costs less than that — about $5.7 billion per month, according to the Congressional Research Service, or roughly $190 million per day. How could a peaceful state visit cost more than a war?” (more…)
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Tags:Afghanistan war cost, Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, death panels, ethics, factcheck.org, Fair and balanced, Fox News, Glenn Beck, health care act, India, Kenyan birth, lies, Michael Savage, Muslim faith, Newsweek, Obama Asian trip, Pentagon, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, talk radio, warships
Posted in Ethics-general, Government, Media | 3 Comments »
October 21, 2010
“Juan Williams, Martyr to Tolerance.” That’s the title of a provocative Ethics Alarms piece by Jack Marshall. Juan Williams was fired by NPR for saying this on to Bill O’Reilly on Fox News:
“I mean, look, Bill, I’m not a bigot. You know the kind of books I’ve written about the civil rights movement in this country. But when I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous.”
Marshall excoriates NPR’s action as the intolerable “intolerance of the self-righteous heralds of toleration.”
I’m conflicted over this one. I don’t think Juan Williams should have been fired, but I find his statement very unfair, and somewhere between ignorant and bigoted.
Ignorant, because Muslims wear all kinds of garb, including the sporty American look that the 9/11 hijackers apparently tried to present. Bigoted, because it’s bigotry to assign stereotypical characteristics to individuals, whether to assume that Jews are money-grubbing, that Irish are drunks, that black men are sex-crazed, or that evangelical Christians are gay-bashers.
For Americans in 2010 it’s particularly hurtful to stereotype Muslims as terrorists, as many on the political right are now doing. A scary portion of the population is buying into the idea of Muslims as “other.” It’s horribly unfair to people who are (more…)
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Tags:9/11 hijackers, al Qaeda, anti-Muslim comments, anti-Semitism, “other”, bigotry, Christ-killing, Edward R. Murrow, ethics, Ethics Alarms, evangelical Christians, firing, Fox News, gay-bashers, intolerance, Irish, Jack Marshall. Bill O’Reilly, Jews, Juan Williams, Muslim garb, National Public Radio, NPR, political correctness, political right, stereotypes, terrorists, tolerance, war with Islam
Posted in Ethics-general, International, Media, Tolerance | Leave a Comment »
October 18, 2010
Chris Matthews and Chris Wallace each earned a (mythical) Reinhold Niebuhr award* for bringing good temper and integrity into the political fight. The highest level of political ethics is to call out members of one’s own party, or people whose politics you’re in general sympathy with. We expect to see MSNBC commentators like Matthews ripping Republicans, just as we expect to see Fox News commentators like Wallace ripping Dems. Ho hum, no surprise there, and no contribution to the integrity of the political fight.
But when California Republican Senate candidate Carly Fiorina came on Fox News Sunday Wallace grilled her about her plan to close California’s huge budget gap, finally exposing her as an empty suit. And when Kentucky Democratic Senate Candidate Jack Conway came on Chris Matthews’ Hardball show, Matthews grilled him about his campaign ad questioning his opponent’s Christianity, exposing Conway’s ad as baseless and scurrilous.
Our civic society is being ripped by the bitter antagonism between left and right, the worst since the bad old days of Senator Joe McCarthy, red hunts, and leftish defenses of Soviet spies. It’s made worse by the ease of getting all one’s news from a kind of “Daily Me,” an assortment of media that reflect only one’s own bias. Fox News Sunday and MSNBC’s Hardball took a step away from the cartoonish view of them as mouthpieces for liberalism and conservatism. The two Chris’s interviews are in the highest traditions of Niebuhr’s goal of a healthy society.
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*Christian theologian Reinhold Niebuhr wrote, ‘The temper of and integrity with which the political fight is waged is more important for the health of our society than the outcome of any issue or campaign.”
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Tags:Carly Fiorina, Chris Matthews, Chris Wallace, Daily Me, Fox News, Fox News Sunday, Hardball, Jack Conway, MSNBC, political ethics, Reinhold Niebuhr, Senator Joe McCarthy
Posted in Ethics-general, Government, Media, Politics | 3 Comments »
August 27, 2010
It’s often hard to distinguish between Fox News commentator Sarah Palin and comedian Tina Fey. I try to distinguish because Fey is supposed to be funny and Palin is not. Palin is now seriously arguing that real Americans won’t have any truck with Democrats, or collaborate in any way in governing.
She ripped Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown when asked on Fox Business network whether Brown should be on notice for siding with Democrats on the financial reform bill. She explained that real Americans wouldn’t stand for that, but Massachusetts was, perhaps, different.
“Perhaps they’re not going to look for such a hard-core constitutional conservative there, and they’re going to put up with Scott Brown and some of the antics there. But up here in Alaska, and so many places in the U.S. where we have a pioneering, independent spirit, and we have an expectation that our representatives in D.C. will respect the will of the people and the intelligence of the people. Well, up here, we wouldn’t stand for that.”
It’s difficult to decide whether Palin is unethical or just moronic. I don’t think she’s moronic—she couldn’t have gotten elected governor or made some sensible comments if she were a moron. Rather she’s a mixture of uninformed and hostile to the very idea of government actually governing. So I suppose that leaves unethical. The one thing I’m certain of is that John McCain was profoundly unethical when he picked such an unqualified running mate.
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Tags:ethics, financial reform, Fox Business network, Fox News, governing, John McCain, Massachusetts, Sarah Palin, Scott Brown, Tina Fey
Posted in Ethics-general, Government | 5 Comments »
July 20, 2010
Until Monday Shirley Sherrod was a low-level political appointee working in Georgia for the Department of Agriculture. A right-wing website posted a videotape appearing to show Sherrod saying she refused help to a farmer save his farm because he was white. Fox News played it endlessly, with all the fair and balanced commentators screaming racism and demanding Sherrod’s head.
The NAACP bit and denounced Sherrod’s apparent racism, and Agriculture Tom Vilsack pushed her out—all the way out—of government employment. The White House announced that the President supported Vilsack’s decision.
As the old saying goes, it was all lies, including the words an and the. The video had been edited to turn Sherrod’s remarks 180 degrees. She had been telling her personal tale of growth out of racism. She had thought of not helping the white farmer, identified in several news reports as Roger Spooner, then realized that the issue was rich and poor, not white and black, and had gone to great lengths to help him save his farm. And the whole thing took place 24 years ago, long before she entered government service. (more…)
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Tags:Department of Agriculture, Fox News, lies, NAACP, Obama administration, racism, Roger Spooner, Shirley Sherrod, Tom Vilsack, White House
Posted in Ethics-general, Politics, Tolerance | 5 Comments »
June 17, 2010
Congressman Bob Etheridge (D-NC) was walking down a Washington sidewalk when a short (half-a-head shorter than the Congressman) young man in a suit approached him with a camera—perhaps in a cell phone—and asked him if he supported the Obama agenda. “WHO ARE YOU?” the Congressman demanded, before he lunged at the camera, grabbed the young man’s arm, and then his neck, before letting go.
My favorite ethics blogger, Jack Marshall, labeled Etheridge an “ethics dunce” in his EthicsAlarms.com. Shamefully, some in the liberal media, including MSNBC’s Chris Mathews the Washington Post’s Chris Cilizza, and the Charlotte Observer, defended Etheridge. Worse, Politico reports that the DNC is blaming the Republican party.
The story on the right from Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, and their friends, is that the mainstream media don’t cover bad behavior on the left. Not so in this case: The incident was immediately covered by CBS News, CNN, National Public Radio, the Los Angeles Times, the (more…)
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Tags:Bob Etheridge, CBS News, Charlotte Observer, Chris Cilizza, Chris Mathews, CNN, DNC, Drudge Report, ethics, ethics dunce, EthicsAlarms.com, Fox News, Huffington Post, Jack Marshall, liberal media, Los Angeles Times, mainstream media, MSNBC, National Public Radio, New York Times Washington Post, Politico, Republican Party, Rush Limbaugh, Salon, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Washington Times
Posted in Ethics-general, Politics | Leave a Comment »
April 14, 2010
Many Americans yearn for a return to civility in our political life. We’re saddened by politicians of all stripes demonizing people they disagree with, and even demonizing people they agree with when there’s a political edge to be gained. This column has long admired the political philosophy of Christian theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, who wrote, ‘The temper of and integrity with which the political fight is waged is more important for the health of our society than the outcome of any issue or campaign.”
This week Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) raised the temper and integrity of the political fight at a town meeting with his Oklahoma constituents. When a woman complained bitterly that the IRS was going to put people in prison for not purchasing health insurance, Coburn rebuked her:
“That makes for good TV news on Fox, but that isn’t the intention. I’m disturbed that we get things like what this lady said and others have said on other issues that are so disconnected from what I know to be fact. (more…)
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Tags:civility, CNN, demonizing, ethics, Fox News, health insurance, IRS, New York Times, nice lady, Oklahoma, Pelosi, political fight, politicians, Reinhold Niebuhr, Reinhold Niebuhr award., Sen. Tom Coburn, town meeting, TV news, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post
Posted in Ethics-general, Politics, Tolerance | 2 Comments »
President Obama leaves Friday for a ten-day trip to India, Indonesia, South Korea and Japan. His trip will cost $200 million a day, or $2 billion for the trip, on which. he will be escorted by 34 warships, twelve percent of the United States Navy. All this according to Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Michael Savage, and Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-MN).
Ethics Bob 
NPR fires Juan Williams for anti-Muslim comments: intolerance, political correctness, or a stand against bigotry?
October 21, 2010“I mean, look, Bill, I’m not a bigot. You know the kind of books I’ve written about the civil rights movement in this country. But when I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous.”
Marshall excoriates NPR’s action as the intolerable “intolerance of the self-righteous heralds of toleration.”
I’m conflicted over this one. I don’t think Juan Williams should have been fired, but I find his statement very unfair, and somewhere between ignorant and bigoted.
Ignorant, because Muslims wear all kinds of garb, including the sporty American look that the 9/11 hijackers apparently tried to present. Bigoted, because it’s bigotry to assign stereotypical characteristics to individuals, whether to assume that Jews are money-grubbing, that Irish are drunks, that black men are sex-crazed, or that evangelical Christians are gay-bashers.
For Americans in 2010 it’s particularly hurtful to stereotype Muslims as terrorists, as many on the political right are now doing. A scary portion of the population is buying into the idea of Muslims as “other.” It’s horribly unfair to people who are (more…)
Tags:9/11 hijackers, al Qaeda, anti-Muslim comments, anti-Semitism, “other”, bigotry, Christ-killing, Edward R. Murrow, ethics, Ethics Alarms, evangelical Christians, firing, Fox News, gay-bashers, intolerance, Irish, Jack Marshall. Bill O’Reilly, Jews, Juan Williams, Muslim garb, National Public Radio, NPR, political correctness, political right, stereotypes, terrorists, tolerance, war with Islam
Posted in Ethics-general, International, Media, Tolerance | Leave a Comment »