"I weep for the species..."

WARNING: RANT HELMETS NEEDED BEFORE ENTERING THIS POST. Ye have been warned.

I've had this idea knocking around in my head for a while but I didn't write it down and figured I'd just let it go, the moment had been lost. Luckily (or not) the people in question are just TERRIFIC at coming up with new ways of pissing me off, so it looks like we're back on!

I know a lot of people don't like pundits from any network. Really, they have issues with punditry in general, and I understand their point. It seems rather ridiculous to listen to someone who is paid to tell you their opinion. I mean, look at this, I am telling you my opinion for FREE! Yet people take up television time with their thoughts and a lot of people get rubbed the wrong way by this because it seems useless and vain (and yet Rush Limbaugh makes HOW much money?!). I am alright with punditry, though, and especially appreciate what I take as the social benefit of the Daily Show.
People talking about people talking about people talking about the news.

This allows me as the viewer to have to think about the issues on at least three different levels and forces me to take a stand on it. Sure, it is also possible to say "Well, this is a really complex issue, and I'm just not going either way", which I've done several times, but I think that this is a mistake to do all the time. Philosophically (or morally), I could be opposed to something that I'm not practically trying to change, simply because I recognize that change would not help or would have its own inherent problems.
My point is that I like watching pundits from both sides because it allows meta-analysis and most of the time, it's just dang entertaining.
I've also realized there are implied issues with the perception of pundits. That is, there is the assumptions that they 1) Totally ignore some parts of the news and only talk about others and 2) are attempting to tell you what to think. These are both wrong for the most part, though there's certainly a few salt speckles of truth to it.

First of all, as far as I can tell, both Fox and MSNBC (who have apparently taken it upon themselves to be the FIGHTERS FOR JUSTICE of their particular side) talk about the same stories. They may even report the same facts most of the time. The difference is the INTERPRETATION. And this isn't really a bad thing per se. Most news worthy issues can be interpreted more than one way, and it is good that there is a multiplicity of voices out there to give light to them. I will come back to this point later.
The other part is that I do not feel that by watching MSNBC more than FOX, I must by definition be a dirty, hippie liberal. Just because I like Keith Olbermann more than Bill O'Reilly does not mean I swallow everything Keith says without questioning it or deciding that I think differently. I only bring this up because I am going to choose for the rest of this article, as I have done in my day to day conversations with people that EVERYONE is like that. It doesn't matter to me if someone watches Fox or even if Fox or Huffington or WHATEVER influences his/her way of thinking as long as I can tell she/he is thinking for him/herself. This will also come up later.

So first, on a light hearted note.

I happen to find it tons of fun to analyze the Soap Opera that is PRIMETIME PUNDITRY!
Now, admittadly, this is because I am most influenced and informed by the Daily Show which has built much of its following on pointing out the ironies, inconsistencies and all around goofiness that is the news. If you want to jump down to the rant, feel free to skip this part, because it is mostly just me being silly.
First, there is our cast of characters.
On the baby-killing, America-hating liberal left:
Keith "Sh*t gets real when I wear the pinstriped suit" Olbermann
Chris "I bend over for Obama" Matthews
Rachel "You just wish I was straight" Maddow
On the gun-toting, witch-burning, intolerant conservative right:
Bill "I'm a journalist. Wait, what's a journalist do?" O'Reilly
Glen "Paranoid that the government will try to take away the voices in my head" Beck
Rush "Crush the little guy...with my weight" Limbaugh
Sean "The Walking Blow-Job" Hannity

From here on, it is pure speculation.
As mentioned, I tend to watch Countdown (with Keith) way more often than say The O'Reilly Factor, though I have seen both to get a feel for the way it usually goes. I think that Keith was raised somewhat religiously conservative. I say this because I think the way he responds to Fox news is very similar to the way I do and I think it is for the same reason. I think he was raised to believe (and possibly still believes) in what the good people at Fox claim to believe but they make it looks SO bad that he is offended to even claim he thinks the same. That is...Conservatives made him ashamed of being Conservative and so he went to the other side. I think Stephen Colbert is a lot like this too. The entire purpose of his show is to parody Fox news, and I think some of that stems from him being angry that they've raped his ideals.
I also think that Bill O'Reilly should take it as a compliment that Keith hates him the way he does. I think it shows a level of respect. I believe (and think that Keith does too) that Bill O'Reilly was a good man with good intentions who is smarter than watching his show would lead you to believe. He is over inflammatory for the ratings and I think that angers Keith more than anything else. This would be in contrast to listening to Keith talk about Glen or Sean who he just holds in contempt and disdain. They are not even worthy of hatred, most of the time he is just laughing at them.
I should say that I am not against Fox news in general. It's good to have a conservative voice, I appreciate that they represent a portion of the population not always spoken for. To be honest, I like MSNBC more for the same reason I prefer Horde to Alliance. There are more people/races I like on one hand than the other. (To translate: One of the MANY reasons I don't play Alliance is because I would only be willing to play a Night Elf or Drenai because I hate all the other races and think they are ugly. But I would be willing to play any Horde race even though I don't care much for Orcs). I like Rachel Maddow a lot, I really appreciate how she doesn't often pick on PEOPLE so much as a generalized Other, even if you know exactly who she is referring to. I think part of the reason that Republicans like talking to her more than to other MSNBC'ers is because she is a bit more moderate, more centrist as it was and she is just all around nice to everyone.
...at most I can say I don't HATE O'Reilly. I somewhat respect him for reasons you probably read in my previous post.
Glen Beck and Sean Hannity? I want to kick those guys in the balls. Like, seriously...WHY are they allowed to talk on television? I will come back to this in the rant section. However, what I wanted to say now was how much it seemed to me (and this is just my perceptions, feel free to disagree) Sean Hannity was taking it up the butt from the Bush Administration before. Apparently he has moved the "orificial" opening to accommodate Rush Limbaugh, since the job of Presidential Fellatio-giver seems to have fallen on Chris Matthews who I can't stand either.

Moving on.

I want to say right off the bat that I do NOT hate America. I am not ashamed of being American. The very FACT that I HAVE to say this as a disclaimer makes me angry. When did disagreeing with someone suddenly make you a hater? When did we stop being able to have reasoned discussions based on beliefs and ideas for the betterment of both parties and were instead giving pissing contests of who's daddy sucked more?
I bring this up because the other day on Facebook I posted a Huffington Post article about how the women on the View didn't question Bill O'Reilly about the controversy surrounding his involvement in a rape victim assistance foundation. The point of the post, and the reason I was putting it up was because I think the hostess' SHOULD have said something, if ONLY to give him a chance to defend himself. But it was never even mentioned. This was also linked to two Fox news reporters tracking down a woman while she was on vacation and calling her names, accusing of her things because she said in a blog (much like this one) that O'Reilly shouldn't be at this conference. Someone on Facebook took this as a good opportunity to start flaming anyone who had ever questioned O'Reilly's legitimacy in talking about rape victims when he'd made some pretty strong comments about them before.
Here's what I got out of the mini-debate that followed:
1) Huffington Post is biased. Well, I already knew that. Or at least, the writers on Huffington are biased. Well, duh, EVERYONE is biased. Huffington is just a forum for people to put their thoughts, just like this blog is. Totally dismissing anything any of those people say however is unjust because the same could be said of any news organization, any magazine, any ANYTHING.
2) There are apparently people who DON'T think for themselves at the level I thought they did. The detractors were accused of taking O'Reilly out of context. Do you know who told the public the O'Reilly was taken out of context? O'REILLY. Hmmm....
I said that I'd seen what O'Reilly had said in context and that I agreed with those who had issues with him talking at the "It Happened to Alexa" foundation. No, he did not come right out and say "She had it coming" but everything he DID say led to that conclusion. It was a very small jump, because he implied it pretty strongly. But here we have an interpretation issue. Two people read/saw the same thing and took it to mean two different things. Fine, I can accept that.
What I canNOT accept is that if someone disagrees with you, they must automatically be "nuts", which is what the woman who was harassed was being called. They said that she was "hurting the rape victim [Alexa Bianchi, whom the foundation is named after]" by saying O'Reilly should not be there.
First of all, Terkel (the woman in question) wrote this on a blog. Remember how we live in America? That means we get the freedom of speech. It means we get to say what we want, even if other people disagree with us. This is a GOOD thing! Yes, it means that stupid people get to say stuff too. It does NOT mean you should shove a mike in their face.
This is just a huge example of unprofessionalism. If O'Reilly wanted to honestly have a discussion about this, he should have invited Terkel on his show and they could have talked about it like reasonable individuals. But he didn't. He sent goons to harass her when she was on vacation. Journalistically, that is never acceptable. When I mentioned this, it was just reiterated that Terkel was "nuts".
I guess I must be nuts too.

Other stations have done similar unprofessional things and I would certainly not single Fox out for this. But I remember O'Reilly blasting another station for not being respectful to a celebrity or political head when he has done the same thing!
Which brings us to my biggest issue: The sheer hypocrisy of Fox News, the Republican Party and a significant portion of Conservatives in general.

I was raised Conservative Republican, I even believe most of their core values. Limited government, conservative values, etc. But that ISN'T what they are arguing for these days. Half the time I can't even tell what they ARE arguing for because they are so contradictory and unintelligible that I get completely lost.

I think Jon says it best.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
Baracknophobia - Obey
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis Political Humor

This is what I'm talking about!
Republicans have no right saying that they are going to be guardians of morality when for the last eight years they have allowed so much crap to not only get by them but be PRAISED FOR IT! If they want to be the party that "sticks it to the man", they should have "stuck it" to their own man. Now, I'm not saying they are alone in this. Democrats are just as bad, but recently the Republicans have decided that it is better to be LOUD than to be fair. These are the same people who were like "If you don't like what Bush is doing, move to Canada, we don't want you here."
This is America. YOU (not you, readers, but the people who say crap like that) do NOT get to decide who we do and do not want!! That's why we're a fscking democracy. the MAJORITY decides what we do, that's how it works. Now, there are problems with this system, one of the reasons I think maybe parliaments are a bit more effective than we are, though as Canada shows us, that doesn't always work either. But the point of a democracy is that it recognized that there are differences, there are numerous desires and goals, not all of which can be met, so take what the most people want.
And the most people wanted Obama. By...quite a significant margin compared to previous elections. So seriously guys, stop saying he's a tyrant because we bloody well put him on the throne. THAT'S DEMOCRACY. You don't have to like it, but you do have to run with it.
Now I'm certainly not saying we should not question, should not disagree, not even saying we should not sometimes attack choices, decisions and words of our leaders. We absolutely should and I would praise Fox and those like it for doing so IF THEY HAD DONE IT ANY OF THE APPROPRIATE TIMES BEFORE. But they didn't, and if they are going to pick and choose when they stand up for what they say they believe in and when they just take it lying down...then they are douchebags who have lost credibility in my eyes.
I know it seems like I'm generalizing and I don't mean to. There are very good Conservatives and very good Liberals and...I mean, there's always exceptions. Like I've said, I'm generally disposed to being a Republican. But the loudest of these voices...well, they are not the people I want representing my ideals.

Take Rush. The man makes millions of dollars a year. And he bashes Obama and the liberals for being too nice, too to soft with this or that group, for making life harder for Americans...and he gets angry because Obama taxes the wealthy?
I don't know, it could be my poverty pride, the chip on my shoulder from having lived in the vast majority of poor in this country but someone like Limbaugh can STFU about having to pay taxes because he sure as hell can afford it better than I can. It makes me so angry that schools are so underfunded when a bloated walking, talking welding torch can be paid so much money for spouting off his nonsense on the radio. Democracy is suppose to encourage fairness. Fairness means that the rich pay taxes just like the poor do, and yes they have to pay more because they can.
And for a station that prides itself on being Fair and Balanced, Fox news seems to think that balance means "whatever is good for rich, white republicans who don't want to pay taxes". Kind of like how "democracy" means "choose the guy we want you to". You know, like how we knock off a dictator and give nations democratic elections and then when they elect say...the Taliban, well obviously they are doing democracy wrong and we have to step in. I'm not saying that they SHOULD have elected the Taliban, especially because of the scare tactics used to make them. But there have been cases where leaders have been elected whom we didn't like, and we felt the need to step in, knock them off and have new elections.

Again, Democrats have done many of the things I have problems with too. Both sides are human, both have problems. MSNBC has surely skewed facts to go towards their conclusion, as well. But I have found that while MSNBC can have somewhat singleminded intrepretation, at least they get more of the facts right. So often I've watched Fox, and done the most basic of checks to find that what isn't outright fabrication is a gross distortion.
Sean Hannity said that Obama was ashamed of America and practically apologized for our unjust arrogance. This is so not true, Obama said that at times America had been arrogant (which we have) but that Europe is often Anti-American when it shouldn't be (which they are). This is the same station that rails whenever any of their correspondents are so called taken out of context, yet Sean is clearly doing just that.

Let's review:
Conservatives in the guise of Fox News talk about:
Integrity and Professionalism...when they have taken others out of context, when they harass those that don't agree with them, when they find the current administrations horrifying, yet equally (if not worse) crimes perpetrated by the last administration were worthy of applause and when they get their facts wrong way more often than many other stations and skew things to an even further degree.
Morality and fairness...when they apparently want tax breaks for the rich, when they became incensed that anyone would question President Bush, when they are the ones who claim that someone is Un-American for standing up for their beliefs in opposition to the government, who talk about the total bulls**t that is the notion of "Real America".

What really turned me off to the Republican party during the election was that it seemed to me that they cared more about talking character than issues. Obviously this is a staple of any election and certainly the Dems did the same but at least during the Presidential Candidate debates, it seemed like Obama spent more time arguing issues and policy and McCain was just going 'Nuh-UH!' or 'Yeah but you did this!'. Now I'm not saying character is not important, it absolutely is but there's a time and a place. And that verse that says you can't take the splinter out of your neighbor's eye without taking the plank from you own really seems to apply to the Rep's these days because all of the things they accuse others of doing, they themselves are guilty of. Their tactics these days seem to be to incite paranoia and divisiveness.
And that leads to my last point, about Consequences.

I remember someone saying that the Democrats weren't letting anything get done in Congress when the Republicans were in power. Yet the Republicans now hold the record for most Filibusters in a certain amount of time, ever. We're talking THREE TIMES more often. So now, when our country is basically fscked and we need to do SOMETHING...they are not letting anything get done. We're stuck, stalled and going no-where fast. Yes, people should say no to things they don't believe in, but there has to be SOME kind of compromise. This is a problem from both sides, and the real issues lies in the just ridiculous level of partisanship we've got going on. There are non-life threatening issues that one side or another could give on so we could at least get SOMETHING done, but noooo, if we did that, the Enemy would be winning.
...When did our fellow Americans become our enemies?
Just...get over yourselves.

When it comes to interpretation, the basic philosophy is a good example. Conservatives are known for not compromising, and holding their positions. This can be good, shows strength of character, a willingness to stand up for beliefs. Unless it makes you completely unreasonable and close-minded. Liberals tend to be thought of as more tolerant, more interested in including more groups, but this can also be seen as being wishy-washy, as having no real position. Obviously, there are merits and downsides to both but it makes me angry that the loudest Republicans are these racist intolerant jerks. You don't have to think Islam is the correct religion to be respectful of Muslims. Islam is not our enemy, individuals are our enemies. Gay people are not going to destroy our country and not all abortion doctors are the spawn of Satan himself. Treating these people with respect and taking their views seriously is not the same as agreeing with them, which is a notion apparently lost on some people.

Fox has a lot of followers, as one might imagine, especially among the older crowd. As mentioned, as long as people are following up, are checking facts and thinking for themselves, I have no problem with this. But so often I've seen people ONLY getting their news from Fox and just believing everything they say and it makes me so sad because...it is so one-sided and so extreme. The language used gives off the impression that if you question what Sean, Bill or Glen say you must be a hater, which, though this may be subconscious, still makes people disinclined to critically analyze what's being said. The same could be said for any other station but most other stations aren't trying to say that Obama is the anti-Christ/Hitler/Muslim/Alien/Tyrant/Any-thing-else-we-can-think-of-to-incite-fear-into-the-general-public.
With all the other crap going on, fear of our democratically elected leader isn't really one of them. Wariness, sure, true of anyone, but...at least give us a REAL reason to be worried, not this satanic panic.

Glen Beck said that Obama was going to take our guns away so when some Policemen approached a guy, he killed three of them. Should Glen be held responsible? No, it is fully on that man who killed the police, but people should make sure that they are careful what they say to a scared and desperate public. Talking about us being on the road to tyranny...for doing what the last president did and lied about for years...is not being responsible.

I just wish people would think things through better.

~~~

Final Word: Part of the reason I'm doing this is that it honestly does make me angry and I don't get angry often. So this is therapeutic for me. Part of it is that I want to generate discussion. I have this blog so that I can throw out ideas and we can discuss them but there hasn't been a lot of discussion lately and I thought if I brought up some controversial stuff, even if we disagreed, at least we'd be talking about it. This was a long post I know and I appreciate you going through all of it. I probably forgot some points and was probably not as clear as I could have been so feel free to ask for any clarification.

Thanks again.