The Glenn Beck Report

Monday the White House press team did something that has been a long time coming. They called a spade a spade. They repeated the obvious, a fact known by most reasonable people in the world, the fact that Fox proves and re-proves on a 24/7 continual basis, the fact that Fox is not a reliable news source because it is functionally a part of the GOP.

Anita Dunn, White House Communications Director, was interviewed by Howie Kurtz of CNN’s Reliable Sources program. Here’s what she said, in part:

The reality of it is that Fox News often operates almost as either the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican Party. And it is not ideological… what I think is fair to say about Fox, and the way we view it, is that it is more of a wing of the Republican Party.

Let’s be realistic, here, Howie, they are widely viewed as a part of the Republican Party: take their talking points and put them on the air, take their opposition research and put it on the air. And that’s fine. But let’s not pretend they’re a news organization like CNN is.

… What is true, though is that you do not have to be a passive bystander when your opponents are seeking not to have a debate on the issues but simply to tear down the President and his presidency. And that’s what we’re not going to do: we will push back.

Here is the full interview conducted by Howie Kurtz of CNN’s Reliable Sources:

Oddly, Fox News doesn’t even appear to dispute the claim at all. The segment above includes this statement from Michael Clemente, Senior VP of Fox News:

An increasing number of viewers are relying on FOX News for both news and opinion. And the average news consumer can certainly distinguish between the A-section of the newspaper and the editorial page, which is what our programming represents. So, with all due respect to anyone who might still be confused about the difference between news reporting and vibrant opinion, my suggestion would be to talk about the stories and the facts, rather than attack the messenger…which over time, has never worked.

Clemente doesn’t dispute the right wing bias of Fox; he simply claims that they are both a news and opinion network. In reality, news is reported with a right wing filter, and what they present as news is a carefully selected group of stories interlaced with blatant, prejudiced opinion.

The mistake that the lefties make regarding Fox is trying to debate the facts. Facts are facts, and they are not debatable, they just “are”. It is well-documented that Fox is biased and inaccurate. Just Google “Fox News Bias” and you’ll get 2.5 million hits. So if Michael Clemente isn’t going to argue the point, how does Glenn Beck, part of what Clemente would call the “opinion” part of Fox, react to Anita Dunn’s comments?

Glenn Beck goes ABSOLUTELY WILD, and in the video below you’ll see him attempt to mock Anita Dunn. He pulls out a map of New York and purports to show where the “enemy is”. Glenn thinks that the White House believes that Fox News equals all the real national security issues facing the nation. Watch:

I especially appreciated the agitated music he has playing under the first part of the narrative before he tries to go sarcastic. His attempt at humor is based on a false equivalence, namely that a fair statement about Fox News right wing bias is a declaration of war by the White House, which puts Fox in the same category as the Taliban, Iraq, Afghanistan, and so on. Don’t puff yourself up, Glenn, you’re just a pimple on the bum of the entertainment/news world enjoying his 15 minutes. Nobody is trying to curtail your right to free speech, even though you wail like a child in a grocery store checkout line that they are.

Glenn promises to run a whole series on this topic, and I will follow it. He has already conflated a straight-talk slapdown of his phony “news” network into an “issue” of Constitutional, epic magnitude. What a moron.

The whole world is laughing at the news-clown. See the clown laugh. See him cry. See him jump and see him fly. I’m sorry you didn’t win the Nobel, Glenn, maybe you can win an Emmy for best supporting actor in a tragicomedy. Don’t forget the Vapo-Rub.