Nothing says hypocrisy like the Foxies….

Fox News has been droning on for weeks about the secular war on Christmas.  It seems that they are part of the war.

From the Washingon Examiner:

And strangely enough, for a network known for reporting on the “War on Christmas,” all the Biblical references have been stripped out of the song “Joy to the World,” and instead replaced with Fox-friendly lyrics. Here’s a taste of the song: “Joy to the world for Fox News Channel, consistently number one, we are the network that viewers choose, fair and balanced news, see our ratings we don’t lose, beating the rest in TV news,” reads the first stanza. Later ones give kudos to Fox News personalities Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, Shepard Smith, Megyn Kelly, Neil Cavuto, Bret Baier and the folks on “The Five.”

So, is  this a lot of reindeer crap or what?  How does Fox News get ahead with their mock war on Christmas.  Their card is funny.  I have no problem with it.  Good healthy competition is always fun.  But…why act like the President and his family are held to a higher standard regarding Christianity, of all things?
Shame of the Fox News Channel for this one.

Longer version:

Gretchen disavows his remarks about the president.

Hank Williams Junior mouth flashed on Fox and Friends. He compared President Obama to Hitler. In addition, he said that Obama and Biden were the enemy. His bosses at ESPN didn’t like it and they fired him from singing “Are You Ready for Some Football,” his Monday night theme song.

From ESPN.com:

The Hank Williams Jr. song that has opened Monday Night Football for 20 years was not part of the opening of this week’s Indianapolis-Tampa Bay game after Williams made controversial comments about President Barack Obama.

Williams compared Obama to Adolf Hitler on Fox News Channel’s “Fox and Friends” show Monday morning.

ESPN, in a statement, said: “While Hank Williams, Jr. is not an ESPN employee, we recognize that he is closely linked to our company through the open to Monday Night Football. We are extremely disappointed with his comments, and as a result we have decided to pull the open from tonight’s telecast.”

Williams issued a statement through his publicist, saying: “Some of us have strong opinions and are often misunderstood. My analogy was extreme — but it was to make a point. I was simply trying to explain how stupid it seemed to me — how ludicrous that pairing was. They’re polar opposites and it made no sense. They don’t see eye-to-eye and never will. I have always respected the office of the president.”

Williams, whose song “All My Rowdy Friends” has been the Monday Night Football theme on both ABC and ESPN since 1991, told “Fox and Friends” that he thought Speaker of the House John Boehner playing golf with President Obama “would be like Hitler playing golf with (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu … In the shape this country is in?”

In the first place, what was he smoking?  That guy is just an embarrassment.  Even the Foxies looked embarrassed.  Why was he on ESPN in the first place.

Folks are divided about issues like freedom of speech, employer rights, employee rights etc. Last week we discussed a teacher who called a tea party member a Nazi in response to a discussion they were having. Some people here have compared the two incidents. Are they similar or very different. Does ESPN have the right to fire someone they feel does not represent them well?

In The Five, Greg Gutfeld and Bob Beckel both manned up and admitted that they pulled punches when it came down to talking about Palin because she worked there. Beckel basically clarified and said really that it was because he got a paycheck. Do we interpret that as Palin is under the protection of Fox News?   Perhaps she will never declare and will have no one criticize her ever on Fox News.  That’s one way to keep things quiet. 

On the other hand, Palin does not disappoint.  She predictably threw out her victim card in the video.  Don’t you love someone that easy to predict?  Whine, Sarah, Whine.  Show a little tooth there, Mama Grizzly!  No one does victimizaton any better.

The Daily Show – Exclusive – Juan Williams Extended Interview Pt. 1
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Juan Williams feels we don’t have an honest exchange of ideas.  He feels we have a niche media landscape.  People seek their own media sources that affirm pre-existing opinions.  There is little effort to get outside one’s comfort zone. 

Williams makes excellent observations. 

Extended interviews  with Williams

The Guardian reports that Sean Hoare, the former News of the World reporter who first claimed that Andy Coulson knew of phone hacking by his staff, has been found dead at his home. The police told the Guardian that they do not know how Hoare died, but do not believe the cause of death to be suspicious.

Hoare gave an interview to the New York Times in 2010 that bolstered allegations the phone hacking was a widespread and accepted practice at the tabloid. He also said that Coulson encouraged the practice. Hoare was let go from the News of the World for problems related to drinking and drugs.

Hoare had been in contact with the Guardian and the New York Times only last week, stating that the News of the World staff used police technology to track phones.

Here is the 2010 BBC interview with Hoare speaking about the phone hacking.

So why do people just die but nothing is suspicious?  The guy doesn’t look old enough for it to have been from natural causes.  In fact, he looks downright chipper.  The more that is turned up, the more suspicious all of this story is beginning to sound. 

It can’t all be about phone hacking.  As nasty of a habit as that might be, it isn’t worth the head of Scotland Yard resigning and the Prime Minister (or 2 or 3) ducking and heading for cover.  Was Sean murdered to protect some big muckety muck in England?  Will the Murdoch scandal cross the Big Pond?  Will Steve Doocy continue to make up excuses and exclaim that the media is ‘piling on’ poor Rupert Murdoch?  Are the friends at Faux News getting a little nervous over their jobs?  If Murdoch crumbles, can their godfather be far behind?

Inquiring minds want to know. 

Murdoch's desk?

As the tale of the  tabloid, the News of the World implodes over scandal, law-breaking, dead girls, hacking, and other disreputable acts not worthy of the name journalism, it will take a long time to sort it all out.  NOTW will go to press for the last time on Sunday.  Robert Murdoch, owner, has pulled the plug.  Murdoch has even more influence in the UK than he does in the United States.  He has refused to comment. 

Should we be surprised?  Faux News certainly has done things for years that are questionable in the ethnics department.  They seem to make up their own rules, all while pointing fingers at everyone else.  The buck has to stop with Robert Murdoch.  Maybe his world will come crumbling down.  Maybe he will decide there is more to journalism than making money.  The American press has always seemed like a gentle, well-mannered giant compared to the irreverent junk-yard dog habits of the British press.  Faux News continually pushes the envelope.  This would be a good time for American journalists to re-evaluate what the word professionalism means and perhaps do a little house cleaning of their own.  Meanwhile, Faux News needs to do a lot of damage control before I call them by their rightful name. 

The buck stops at Robert Murdoch’s desk. 

Despite his monster ratings, Fox News is bidding farewell to Glenn Beck as tensions between the incendiary host and the top-rated cable news channel have led to a near-total divorce.

I say near-total because the two sides announced a deal today in which Beck’s production company will produce occasional content for Fox. But insiders say this will amount to a handful of specials and that many senior Fox executives are relieved to be rid of Beck, whose ratings have dropped 40 percent.

Beck, too, has tired of the friction with Fox and is said by people close to him to be happy to end the partnership.

Whatever the genesis, for Beck to give up his daily 5 p.m. program, which at its peak drew more than 2.5 million viewers, is a case study in how even the most successful broadcast personalities can become too hot to handle.

In the end, the man who drew a huge crowd to the Lincoln Memorial, but also became a lightning rod after calling President Obama a racist, lasted less than three years as a daily Fox host. More than 300 advertisers fled the Beck show, but he still delivered a huge lead-in audience for Bret Baier and others who followed him on the Fox lineup.

This news was predictable.  Glenn Beck has been under fire for some time now for his incendiary remarks.  Since the last election,  his shows have gotten boring.  His outlandishness has become a drone.  Did he quit trying or was mission accomplished?  Now he sounds like he is just trying to advance Mormon ideas.  I stopped listening several weeks ago. 

Glenn Beck won’t be starving to death.  He has his radio show and he will start a production company.  The details are sketchy.  He and Roger Ailes both exchanged pleasantries about each other, according to the Beast:

The news release papers things over with friendly quotes. Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes said: “Glenn Beck is a powerful communicator, a creative entrepreneur and a true success by anybody’s standards. I look forward to continuing to work with him.”

Beck responded in kind: “I truly believe that America owes a lot to Roger Ailes and Fox News. I cannot repay Roger for the lessons I’ve learned and will continue to learn from him and I look forward to starting this new phase of our partnership.”

No blaze of glory for Glenn Beck.  He is influential and he is incendiary and radical.  I sort of  like having him on Fox News.  He will be somewhere.  Fox News is easy.  I don’t want to have to go hunting for him to see what pot he is stirring.  And speculation?

Big difference in this interview and the one done by Brett Baier.
I probably wouldn’t have said Obama-care.

The Washington Post reports:

A coalition of rabbis wants Fox News chief Roger Ailes and conservative host Glenn Beck to cut out all their talk about Nazis and the Holocaust, and it’s making its views known in an unusual place.

The rabbis have called on Fox News’s owner, Rupert Murdoch, to sanction his two famous employees via a full-page ad in Thursday’s editions of the Wall Street Journal – one of many other media properties controlled by Murdoch’s News Corp.

The ad is signed by the heads of the Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist movements as well as Orthodox rabbis.

“We share a belief that the Holocaust, of course, can and should be discussed appropriately in the media. But that is not what we have seen at Fox News,” says the ad, signed by hundreds of rabbis and placed by the Jewish Funds for Justice, a nonprofit advocacy group. Earlier this month, the group organized a letter-writing campaign asking Murdoch to remove Beck from the air.

The rabbis were prompted by Beck’s three-part program in November about liberal billionaire philanthropist George Soros, whom Beck described as a “Jewish boy helping send the Jews to the death camps” during World War II.

Soros was a young teenager in Nazi-occupied Hungary during the war and hid with a Christian family to escape the Holocaust. He once described accompanying his surrogate father while he confiscated property from Jews deported by the Nazis.

The Jewish Funds group has received financial support from Soros’s Open Society Foundations.

Ailes, in a November interview with the Daily Beast Web site, called NPR executives “Nazis” for their decision to fire Juan Williams, also a Fox commentator. He later apologized to the Anti-Defamation League, but not to NPR, saying, “I was of course ad-libbing and should not have chosen that word, but I was angry at the time because of NPR’s willingness to censor Juan Williams for not being liberal enough.”

Beck trotted out a rabbi or two right after his really horrible words about Soros as a child.  That made it even tackier. 

Nazi is probably just one of those words that needs to be shelved unless one is speaking of Germans during the WWII era.  That term has been just been thrown around too much and needs to be reserved for the monsters of the time. 

Liberation of Auschwitch

Auschwitz Video