We Deceive, You Decide | Ctr for American Progress on Faux...

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We Deceive, You Decide
After Kerry's strong performance during the debate Friday night, it was no secret that Republicans and the right-wing media were desperate to find a way to criticize Kerry. But no one knew they were this desperate. Carl Cameron, the top political reporter at Fox, made up ridiculous quotes which he attributed to Kerry and posted on Fox's website as news. Cameron – who bills himself as an objective journalist – falsely quoted Kerry saying, "Didn't my nails and cuticles look great? What a good debate!" and "Women should like me! I do manicures." Coincidently, Cameron's quotes parrot Republican talking points that aim to depict Kerry as patrician and Bush as a man of the people. Another Cameron doozy attributed to Kerry: "I'm metrosexual – a cowboy." Fox pulled the story from its website after journalist and blogger Josh Marshall exposed it as a complete fabrication. Fox spokesman Paul Schur said that Cameron "made a stupid mistake which he regrets. And he has been reprimanded for his lapse in judgment." But Schur refused to say what discipline Cameron faced, later saying "we're simply moving on." Cameron has declined to discuss the incident and continues to report from the campaign trail. Write Fox and tell them that Cameron lacks the objectivity to cover the presidential race.

FOX NEWS DOESN'T LEARN: The day after the Cameron incident, Fox News posted an interview with a group called Communists for Kerry, which it presented as a legitimate, pro-Kerry organization. Fox quoted 17-year-old Komoselutes Rob, a member of the group, as saying, "We're trying to get Comrade Kerry elected and get that capitalist enabler George Bush out of office." The report concluded, "it is unclear whether the Kerry campaign has welcomed the Communists' endorsement." What Fox didn't mention: Communists for Kerry is a parody by a Republican front group. Fox News later retracted the article and claimed it wasn't at fault because "FOXNews.com's reporter asked the group's representative several times whether the group was legitimate and supporting the Democratic candidate, and the spokesman insisted that it was." If Fox would have bothered to click the "About Us" link on the group's website, it would have discovered "Communists for Kerry is a campaign of the Hellgate Republican Club, a tax exempt non-partisan public advocacy '527' organization that exists for the purpose of; Informing voters with satire and irony."

CAMERON PALS AROUND WITH BUSH BEFORE INTERVIEW: This isn't the first time that Carl Cameron's objectivity has been called into question. In a scene captured in the film "Outfoxed," Cameron is caught palling around with Bush moments before an interview during the 2000 presidential campaign. Cameron: "My wife has been hanging out with your sister." Bush: "Yeah, good." Cameron: "She's been all over the state campaigning, and Pauline has been constantly with her." Bush: "Yeah, Doro is a good person." Cameron: "Oh, and she's terrific. When she first started campaigning for you, she was a little bit nervous, but now she's up there—" Bush: "Getting her stride?" Cameron: "She doesn't need notes, she's going to crowds and she's got the whole riff down." Bush: "She's a good soul." Moments later, the cameras turned on and Cameron slipped instantly into his "objective journalist" persona. Cameron later said that "The whole thing is, in retrospect, an embarrassment that I feel really bad about."

CAMERON REPEATEDLY DESCRIBES KERRY AS OUT OF TOUCH MILLIONAIRE: On July 3, Cameron "reported" that "The problem for Kerry may be who he is. An Ivy League millionaire, who has rubbed elbows with the world's wealthiest sophisticates, while most of rural America is considered Bush country." Cameron made no mention that Bush attended Yale, is a millionaire, and has spent as much time as anyone rubbing elbows with "wealthy sophisticates." On June 29, Cameron similarly noted that "Kerry has always been one of the haves, educated at the finest schools a billionaire wife." Find out more about how Fox News anchors' "reporting" often becomes indistinguishable from Bush campaign propaganda.

CAMERON PUSHES MYTH THAT BUSH NEVER SAID MISSION ACCOMPLISHED: On Sept. 27, Carl Cameron "reported" that "Though the banner said mission accomplished, the president never actually use those words. Nonetheless, a new Kerry attack ad repeats the charge." One problem: Bush did say "mission accomplished." On June 5, 2003, Bush said to troops in Qatar, "America sent you on a mission to remove a grave threat and to liberate an oppressed people, and that mission has been accomplished."

BRIT HUME SAYS CAMERON IS FAIR TO KERRY: Days before Carl Cameron presented fake Kerry quotes as news, Brit Hume, Fox's Washington managing editor, said, "our day-in, day-out coverage by Carl Cameron has been extremely fair to Kerry." Of course, Hume himself isn't the most objective observer, either. In June, July and August, Kerry's evaluations on Hume's show, Special Report, "were negative by a 5 to 1 margin."


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[Joylaughter]

1. We distort you comply

FUX NETWORK!

[Killarney]

2. great summary.

[TahitiNut]

3. Pox Newz exists as a cover for the only slightly less extreme ....

... media propagandists. After all, who'd bother paying attention to the many, many smaller piranha when this clumsy, brain-damaged shark is lurching around in the harbor of our liberties?

Imagine the happy surprise on the right that this clumsy shark has fed so well. There is no discretion or reserve remaining on the extreme right - only excess and radicalism. There has been no penalty, only the 'benefit' of a continuing lurch to the fascist right - a seemingly boundless feast for political predators.

As testimony to the success of the strategy of right-wing extremism, consider the steadily eroding definition of 'progress' on the left - the mere retardation of the march to the right of the body politic. Kerry is, for all intents and purposes, an Eisenhower Republican. We've gotten to the point where our highest "reasonable" aspirations includes the mere recovery of a pale imitation of the Fairness Doctrine of the 70s - reasonably envisioning nothing beyond that. Who, for example, within the so-called mainstream, advocates and plans for the edicted disgorgement of media empires by global corporatists? Who, for example, is promulgating an active strategy for the radically increased fragmentation of media corporations akin to a Sherman Anti-Trust theme?

Our aspirations have been lowered to the point of dreaming for mere crumbs of the cake that was once thought to be within our reach.