This is a very good sign: even Fox News has an editorial up harshly criticizing the appalling Supreme Court Decision today.
The decision was 5-4, with the conservative wing entirely in the majority opinion. Anthony Kennedy, the semi-swing vote, obviously went with the majority on this one. The liberal wing was entirely in the dissent. A 90-page dissent was written by 89 year old Justice John Paul Stevens.
To have FoxNews opposing this decision as a sign of a deteriorating democracy is perhaps a ray of hope that it can be reversed.
Every time I hear something like, "the President took the oath of office," I just smile and feel happy. He's now "the President." Finally. The Iowa Caucuses were over a year ago. I feel quite proud to be an American. Over the last eigth years, I found my president to be an embarassment, and I was often quick to explain that he didn't speak for me whenever I traveled or met people from other countries. A part of me now feels a little sorry for Bush since he has finally shown some remorse and admitted some errors. Too bad he didn't admit errors earlier or have the foresight to know how wrong his direction was. A least, in admitting errors, he seems more sympathetic, like he was in over his head. Dick Cheney, on the other hand, remains defiant.
Different topic:
Interestingly enough, Obama, who has shown quick wit and skilled oration over the years, totally stumbled through the oath of office, with the help of stumbling Chief Justice John Roberts. I guess they both were a little nervous.
I also noticed that most news outlets were optimistic and excited about the election. So I went over to FoxNews to see what they were reporting. Some of the headlines conveyed this optimism, like "Historic Moment Cast as Victory of Hope Over Fear." Some commentators, however, like Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, and Glenn Beck were skeptical. Hannity could be right that it is the most expensive inauguration ever, but he doesn't cite any numbers.
What was quite interesting to me was a piece about the unhealthiest presidents. Turns out JFK was a health disaster. Eisenhower was also in bad shape, and even developed Crohn's Disease while in office.
There are several key differences between the FoxNews "1/2 Hour News Hour" and The Daily Show. As I mentioned in the last post, The Daily Show uses actual people and has them defend their beliefs, as well as criticizing both conservatives and liberals. One other major difference is that The Daily Show uses actual news clips and critiques them, catches people in lies, and makes a point of showing dishonesty and prejudice. Here is one such example of TDS using actual footage to demonstrate a point about how Republicans are attacking Democrats. Note that Jon Stewart analyzes the way Romney presents his resignation speech (around the 2 minute mark, Stewart begins addressing Romney's resignation speech, and at about the 3 minute mark, he gets the part about the Democrats):
Now this is a nice piece of journalism that catches Romney implying that supporting the Democrats is akin to supporting the terrorists. This is downright offensive to Democrats and completely unsupported by evidence. By broadcasting this clip and analyzing it closely, Stewart is holding Romney accountable for his claims. He then goes on to address Romney's claims about faith in god and how that affects a country's government.
The viewers have been primed and are now ready to bash Mitt Romney for his comments. The Daily Show then segues into a segment with Jason Jones in which they discuss Mitt Romney being a douchebag.
I suppose it's also worth noting that The Daily Show at least shows some self-deprecation and Jones calls himself a douchebag, as well as Jon Stewart. Clearly, had The Daily Show not preceding the Jason Jones segment with clips of Romney demonizing Democrats, it would have come across as baseless slander. Instead, I think most viewers feel little sympathy for Romney.
If the "1/2 Hour" program wanted, they could use a similar format to promote conservative ideas. For instance, one major claim of conservative media is that mainstream media has a liberal bias. So, the "1/2 Hour" could try to find clips that demonstrate liberal media bias and analyze them. They could show clips to present evidence to the audience, and then crack jokes. However, I have not found any clips of "1/2 Hour" using real media segments. Here is one way in which FoxNews has promoted the idea of liberal media bias:
I think that this segment could be much stronger if they could actually find a clip of a reporter blatantly demonstrating liberal media bias. If liberal media bias is as rampant as conservatives claim, it shouldn't be too hard to find. Instead, they go straight for the jokes. As for actual evidence, they do loosely paraphrase a Democrat, Representative James Clyburn of South Carolina, who did say that if the surge works, it'll be a problem for the Democrats to pass legislation to set a timetable to end the war. True, what Clyburn said wasn't particularly well phrased, but it was taken out of context. However, FoxNews can't claim this as evidence of liberal media bias since he is a Democrat and not part of the media.
All told, it is a weak attempt to demonstrate liberal bias in the media. Most critical viewers watching this FoxNews program will not be able to take it seriously or consider it a watchdog program on par with the Daily Show without some evidence. Perhaps that's why it didn't last very long.
As I mentioned in the last post's comments, the FoxNews channel briefly had a satire show called the "1/2 Hour News Hour," which was, in the words of creator Joel Surnow, meant to be a sort of "Daily Show for conservatives." So I looked up the show online to see what it was actually about and see how it and the Daily Show compare. I found a couple of clips for you to look at; I chose these based on what I could find on Youtube and won't take up too much of your time.
This first one is about Barack Obama.
As you can see, the show gets humor by mentioning things like his drug use as a teenager, a Marion Berry reference, making up a nickname "Gassy," his middle name Hussein, his initials BO, etc. The Daily Show also makes fun of stupid things, like Condoleezza Rice's name ("a starchy side dish often served with beans"). However, the Daily Show also regularly makes fun of Democrats, and recent examples include Hillary Clinton and Edward Kennedy. I have yet to see a single criticism of conservatives on this FoxNews show. Once again, this is based on a small sample of clips that I've seen.
The Daily Show and Colbert Report frequently have real conservatives on their shows and press them to defend their opinions and actions. John McCain and Bill Kristol are two of the most frequent Daily Show guests. I haven't seen any real people defend their beliefs on the "1/2 Hour News Hour," only actors. The only "guests" seem to be caricatures of liberal opinions.
I think that this show could have done a much better job by actually interviewing a gun control activist and trying to find holes in his argument.
Here is another, similar example:
The Daily Show or Colbert Report would actually interview real authors, both conservatives and liberals.
Although I don't find these clips particularly entertaining or funny, I do think that it is valuable to see them. As I watch them, I can pick out tons of things I disagree with or think are plain irrelevant or irreverent. Being able to recognize this issues can help you to look at The Daily Show with a more critical eye. Not all that Jon Stewart says is perfect and not everything they make fun of is deserving of criticism. For instance, making fun of CNN's Election Center and all of their fancy television screens and floating pie charts isn't very useful, nor is it funny. Sure, CNN may be a little proud of their fancy studio, but that doesn't mean they're doing a bad job of reporting. In the next post, I'll directly compare a couple of clips from The Daily Show and 1/2 Hour News Hour.
