Fox News Ate My Brain (I Swear!) - Of Chaos Theory & Roland Burris

I don't know who pays to get public places to play Fox News instead of CNN, but it is everywhere you turn, a car-chase-punctuated, bimbo-model-hair-pulling, right-wing infomercial from Hell.

I was getting my car fixed. The auto outpatient center was crowded. They had Fox News on the 35" flat screen in the waiting room. As much as my hand moved reflexively towards the controls on the bottom of the panel, I could not just go over and use the down arrow button to terminate that nimrod Bill Hemmer with extreme prejudice. Other people were watching.

So I sat like Alex in Clockwork Orange, strapped in, toothpicks holding open the old eyelids, for two hours of Neo-Con propaganda.

The spin of the morning was intense focus on the supposed Democrat "disaster" of Roland Burris and The Capitol Steps doing their rendition of Eddie Money's "Let Me In."

Their morning of bucolic happy-chat was punctuated by frequent checks on the Capitol Steps for the arrival of Burris, who was going to make a completely futile attempt at being admitted to the Senate even though he lacked paperwork with a signature from Illinois secretary of state Jesse White needed for his admission. It was shameless showboating of the lowest order of Democratic politics, and Fox was there for the kill.

Rather than spend the morning taking the Secretary of State to the Illinois high court to compel him to execute the document, then showing up at the United States Senate on Wednesday with some decorum, Burris continued to perform his role as graft-alleged Governor Rod Blagojevich's middle-finger salute to the Illinois legislature and President-Elect Barack Obama.

Something to disrupt the opening of the Democrat-controlled 111th Congress is a bigger jolly for Fox News president Roger Ailes than a Sarah Palin feature in Playboy and a double-wide handicap-capable stall in the Fox News executive washroom. The full-court press was on.

Both Hemmer and Megyn Kelly, Barbie to his empty-headed Ken on Fox's America's Newsroom rolled out prime FoxThink on Burris by dropping lots of inneundo, and suppositions on top of this alleged news event.

The buzzword "chaos" was dropped frequently into the description of the opening day of the Senate. The Fox gang was working particularly hard to slam Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, essentially blaming him for failing to admit Burris, and even suggesting that there was a tinge of racism in failing to bring Burris, who would be the lone African-American in the Senate, in for the swearing in.

Of course, had Reid admitted Burris, the spin would have been that he caved to let in the lone black guy in the Senate and back-stopped the allegedly-corrupt governor Blagojevich's play. That's kind of the beauty of Fox, where the facts are like Silly Putty: Make an imprint then mold them to your liking.

Fox cameras faithfully captured what they kept calling a scrum of reporters, sending nearly no one in the waiting room to their pocket dictionaries. In a hopeful sign that someone might be paying attention, one older gentleman blinked, though.

Interspersed with the video were frequent misstatements of the event, trying to weave in the racism angle, or trying to paint Reid as the bad guy in one of a dozen ways.

At least some of their telephone "guests" from real news sources like the Chicago Tribune who were asked about issues like Reid and racism, corrected their hosts. That is, until Ms. Kelly got bored with the reality lesson, ignored the comment and moved on to another way to twist the story hard to the Right.

Not to be left out of the "embarrassment" of the Senate's first day was a note of Al Franken's absence at the swearing in as well. Sticking to Fix News dogma, everyone went out of their way to point out that the Minnesota race was still "yet to be decided," save Kelly's one slip of the tongue when she almost used the "W" word (WON) to describe Franken's 225 vote lead that sealed the recount in his favor while doing a segment on the Minnesota race.

After nearly an hour of video footage of the Washington press piranhas stumbling over each other, and five talking heads sputtering Neo-Con slams of all things Dem, Burris emerged from the Senate building.

The melee of journalists swarmed the alleged Junior Senator of Illinois like shipwrecked Shriners discovering a floating crate of Pamela Anderson inflatables.

Burris, the Senate version of legendary groundhog Punksatawney Phil, came out in the rain, and saw his shadow, which, if it were up to Fox, would mean four more years of political winter for the Dems.

"My name is Roland Burris, the junior Senator from the State of Illinois," he said leaning into the microphone. "I was advised that my credentials were not in order."

The newsflash was hardly newsworthy. Everyone including Burris knew that his paperwork was not in order. The anti-climatic end to Fox's histrionics of a morning laced with innuendo, speculation and mis-statements was nearly an hour and a half to explain a two minute story at best. Here is my abridged version:

Roland Burris went to the senate today and was greeted by senate sergeant-at-arms Terrance Gainer who escorted him to the secretary's office where he went through the motions of enrolling with incomplete paperwork. Burris was told he could not be admitted, and left the building.

The purpose of this gross exercise in distortion from Fox News was to show that the Dems are still the same screwed up mess that they always have been over the last thirty years, and that, in spite of Mr. Obama and his promises, the six left feet of the Democratic Party will continue to trip over themselves.

I took away a slightly different spin. The system worked.

Mr. Obama and Mr. Reid expressed their disapproval of the Blagojevich appointee last week, but that had nothing to do with it. Burris' troubles were internal to the State of Illinois.

Should the Senate accord him special privilege to enter without the proper paperwork simply to pander to the media spectacle?

Of course, it being Fox News, 99% of those watching just nodded along mindlessly anyway. Most of the people in the waiting room were near comatose as I was writhing in my chair, my brain boiling in ways that it had not since those early days of Republican publishing when I found out the ugly truth that Ann Coulter, the hot chick on the cover of the book in the political section of my Barnes & Noble, was a raging facist.

I had to go outside for a sanity break. Thankfully my car was done. On the ride home, I detoxed on some NPR, leveled out on twenty minutes of XM's POTUS channel, then gradually eased into CNN's Keeping-Up-With-The-Joneses coverage of the Blago & Burris Circus.

Fox News ate my brain. (I swear!)

Comments

[scared4ALL]

Help save & secure our nation by boycotting the Fox Network. Do this in the name of justice, since it's known fact they were the mouth piece for the outgoing administration. Because of the likes of Bill O'Reilly & Sean Hannity, many of "US" believe we need a national boycott of the Fox network.

Since "We The People" probably won't be seeing charges filed against anyone in the Bush administration, maybe the Fox Network should get their just reward? To be fair & balanced we need an elimination of the "spin" masters & perpetrators who stood with the past administration & the man who should go down in history for what he really was. Please pass this idea along by word of mouth at your favorite blogs & such if you think it a good idea. Contact Fox's advertisers, too, if you want to help keep America safe & secure from those who don't have the best interests of middle class America at heart. Here's where you can updated lists>

http://www.newshounds.us/2007/07/24/advertisers_on_the_oreilly_factor_update_707.php

[alnc]

Fox is useless!!!! They have nothing to say.....they have ruined this country and will continue to do so if we let them.

Next they will hire Joe The Plumber as a reporter......oh...wait....they already have hired all the plumbers....and plumbers blonde girl friends as reporters.

[Brian Ross - Huffpost Blogger]

Joe the Plumber is actually being hired as Joe the War Correspondent, going over to Gaza for Pajamas Media, a right-wing e-pub.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5ifkn8yQXgPnDHKzwHgre1CdU69qw

[pplove32428]

I occasionally get tired of Fox, too. Then I turn over to Chris ( my legs are tingling) Matthews and quickly remember why I watch Fox in the first place. You'd be surprised to know that in military base medical facilities I have been noticing that CNN has bee the forced news fare.

[EtTuBrute]

I understand your antipathy to Fox "News", but lately I have also been avoiding CNN and MSNBC more. While not as blatantly biased as Fox, they also indulge in breathless oversimplification and the "happy talk" format for any subject, no matter how grave (not to mention the ludicrous selection of subject matter).

There was a period last year during the Russian invasion of Georgia, in fact, where I almost went ballistic watching CNN in the morning, due to Kiran Chetry"s lack of background and education on a wide variety of the subjects she was covering, not to mention her inability to pronounce, repeatedly and over a period of weeks, the names of the places she was "covering". Little did I know at the time that she is an alumnus of Fox"s bimbo-journalism training. Surprise.

The "anchors" for all these organizations vary in professionalism and objectivity, but if you are of a certain age, think back to CNN"s "Turner" days, and the differences in selection of subject matter, level of maturity in reporting, and professionalism of the staff. Then compare it to today"s "news". No contest.

The constant repetition of Fox"s "Fair and Balanced" theme reminds me of a used-car salesman: "Trust me, would I lie to YOU?". But, (back to Fox), what else do you expect from an organization which asserted in court that it was under no obligation to allow its reporters to report the truth? No, really, I"m totally serious. Google it.

[LoganL]

All of you liberals love to complain about Fox News, but you still can't understand why they beat CNN and the pathetic MSNBC in almost every category for most of their shows. Go figure.

[Buddy McCue]

To suggest that higher ratings means better news is a logical fallacy.

Just because more people believe a thing doesn't make it any more true. It's called "Argument Ad Populi," I believe.

[hey0there]

Rush was desperately reaching today trying to turn Burris' press comments into something about race as well. Before Burris spoke, Rush kept talking about how we were going to be hearing his comments live, saying things like how long would it be before Burris made comments about how it isnt about race, said it several times and then when Burris finally spoke he said nothing at all about race. It was Rush who was all hung up on race. hilarious

[Brian Ross - Huffpost Blogger]

Burris is an old-line politico. Much more to the dittoheads understanding and liking. They didn't get Obama. Still don't. They want to make it about last year's causes because they're known quantities that are easy to manage.

[sdskelton03]

Heaven forbid you are have to listen to a different point of view than your own.

When I was a kid we had three choices for news, and they were all liberal. We watched anyway and somehow managed to do so without blowing a gasket.

[Brian Ross - Huffpost Blogger]

Point of skew is more like it. Nothing wrong with having a point of view. Just be honest about it. Fox calls themselves "Fair and Balanced" Bushwa!

[MTGradwell]

"Everyone including Burris knew that his paperwork was not in order".

Maybe, but who knew this would result in Burris being turned away? Not even the person responsible for the deficienct paperwork, Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White, thought this was a good reason not to seat Mr. Burris. "They could have seated him without my signature; my signature is not required," he told WGN-720AM. And doesn't he have a point? If faulty paperwork was sufficient grounds for turning away, Obama could be kept from the presidency simply by misspelling his name in the inauguration documents, or in thousands of other ways.

If a validly appointed senator is turned away from the senate, clearly *somebody* is at fault. *Somebody* must be breaking the law, and it's not Blago. Mr. Blagojevich is performing the function which his position requires him to perform. He woulf be breaking the law if he declined to perform that function.

the Senate points a finger at Mr. White. White points a finger at the senate. Since the Senate leader said in advance that Burris would not be seated, apparently without considering even for a nanosecond the legality of this stance, I think the blame most plausibly falls on the senate - but there's plenty of blame to go around. The only ones relatively untainted are Mr. Blagojevich and Mr. Burris. And you say the system worked??? Well, it might work in the end, but it's hardly a shining example of political propriety.

[shrinqrap]

I'm still stuck on the first sentence:

=="I don't know who pays to get public places to play Fox News instead of CNN, but it is everywhere you turn, a car-chase-punctuated, bimbo-model-hair-pulling, right-wing infomercial from Hell."==

Great question. Out here in the Golden State, FOX is everywhere, from Indian casino gift shops, to 7/11's, to car wash waiting areas, to airport bars. I suspect it's playing in the background at Sunday schools too.

This constant drone of phony patriotism and pimping for Bush with endless red white and blue flashing neon graphics, is now making the seamless transition into high-volume divisiveness, unrepentant losers attacking an administration that has not even been inaugurated.

Isnt there a state-sponsored propaganda apparatus in "1984", with newspeak blaring constantly throughout the land, over ubiqutous loudspeakers? Just the lowest common-denominator, hyper-emotional pap, appealing to the worst animal instincts in its audience.

[Bompa]

Faux News used to be on every morning with breakfast at a Holiday Inn Express I stay at a lot... After having my meal, such as it is , made worse many times, I went to the management and asked them in very clear terms, that if they wanted me to keep coming back, they needed to get rid of the propaganda. The next time I stayed there... no more Faux News.. now they show a local channel or CNN.
Stand up and bitch.. and if it doesn't work, find a new place.... vote with your pocketbook!

[Brian Ross - Huffpost Blogger]

Right on! And while you're at it, tell 'em that CNN people don't steal the towels or short-sheet the beds either. ;)

[SantaFeConservative]

Actually, Burris does not need the SoS's signature to be seated. It is customary, but not law. And now Obama wants Burris seated. So, your quote (taken out of context) "...the Dems are still the same screwed up mess that they always have been over the last thirty years..." seems to hold true.

Now you know how conservatives feel having to watch the liberal mainstream media's bias all the time.

[Buddy McCue]

There's no "liberal mainstream media bias." What in the world makes you say such a thing?

[Brian Ross - Huffpost Blogger]

Obama had no objection to Burris per se. He objected to Blago making the appointment after he tried, allegedly, to sell the seat. Most of the change of power rules are custom, not ordinance. What was clear was that Burris needed to get right with his state people prior to hitting DC. The paperwork should have been filled out fully. Failure to do so is an allowable reason for adhering to the "custom" of denying admission to the senate.