By your logic, Dancing With the Stars must be even more informative than Fox. I never said the viewers numbers were low. I said that the programming is grossly slanted to convince rather than inform, to dazzle with superficial reflection and canned conclusions rather than pursue critical ideas through open debate. If you read my comments, you will see that I don’t get my news from television. I don’t even have a television. I stay informed from a variety of internet sources, radio, or going there and seeing for myself what is going on.

My conclusions have nothing to do with my owm views – I am not debating issues here , just the presentation of them , and regardless of right or wrong and the assumptions thereof , I simply found more info from both sides presented from Fox than from others – their viewership numbers say others agree.

By the way , despite rarely agreeing with him , I found Combs to be an incredibly sharp , knowledgable proponent of his views and had developed a respect for him per his astuteness.

And when debates among “experts” are presented , pretty much equal time is given to outside debaters – hard to not gain an insight on all views presented.

But I guess you find Katy Couric , Dan Rather – and Keith Olbermann the true essence of “fair and balanced” instead.

Hey , one thing I wont argue with – it’s a free country , you’re welcome to your conclusions.

Fox news puts up a stooge like Colmes to provide a smarmy pencil necked pin headed stereotype as an amusing foil to whatever the conservatives have to say. The formula is very simple: search out facts that seem to substantiate a popular conservative view, present those facts thunderingly and authoratatively in a superficial segment, then pan to Colmes to squirm and muse on it for a few minutes before cutting back to O’Reilly, who says, see folks, Fox news is Fair and Balanced. Colmes is nothing more than Fox News’ house negro.

Thus I was exposed to the opposite of what may have been the “house view” , more than anywhere else. Are you saying that Olbermann is where to go for balance , not Fox?

Second , it is no surprise to me that your initial philosophical lecture saying basically nothing was the prelude to “how dare they mock Obama , but
it’s ok to defile Bush.”

BUT – its Fox , not you , who lacks objectivity.

Bush didn’t kill anyone – Saddam gassed an entire Kurdish town to death.

The Shites and Sunni’s killed each other instead of celebrating freedom , and if you bother to check official statistics instead of the hate media you obviously believe , you’ll find that the “million” you refer to that they tell you is ridiculous.

But your politics , deducing that it’s ok to defile Bush but off limit to mock Obama , eliminates any possibility of logical objective discussion with you -

You are that which you are complaining about -
Subjective.

My point is – reread my initial post on this –

That FOX , while not trying to disingenuously feign neutrality like the pathetic Katy Couric types do so embarrassingly , nonetheless provides information directly from alternate points of view for viewers to consider.

Why do you think that they are #1 and their viewership is higher than the rest COMBINED , even when Conservatives are out of favor?

You might consider that you are missing something because you refuse to consider the facts objectively per your emotional bias.

Do you believe that you actually said anything?

Christine didn’t agree with me , and she said that she doesn’t agree.

You provided an esoteric lesson on the abstract that sounds like you found an old stash of hash , still potently intact – and tested it out!

Per your reference to O’Reilly or others , I had acknowledged that there is a “house view” , and I agree that some hosts there dominate , but Combs was the best you could get IMO to counter Hannity’s point of view , and no stupid lackey yes man.

And I’m not referring to the FOX segments without balance – I’m referring to the ones with it.

I have learned/listened to very influential , knowledgable , and well versed proponents of views on both sides in Fox debates , I dont know where you guys were when I was watching this (haven’t watched in awhile – has that changed?) -

But go try to get an opposing point of view watching Olbermann.

Any news you watch needs to be thought of as part entertainment, I watch CNN. It isn’t perfect, but they do have several commentators from both sides. They are doing a decent job of showing both sides of the issues. They also show a clearer line between the news and the commentary.

You should be careful with that — values can be as fallacious and misleading as they are compelling to whoever holds them. There is a need for some degree of compromise over values for there ever to be a consensus on any issue of ideology. At best, ideology is a reflection of what you see. But remember: you see with your mind, not with your eyes. And how your mind interprets what you see can be extremely deceptive, objectively, even if you believe it to be true.

So I think we would need to look at some of the specifics of this question to have a meaningful discussion about it. I also think there is no point, because you have already demonstrated that you have closed yourself off to any possibility that anyone else might be right, or that you yourself may not be infallible.

As another cautionary statement about fallacies, you refer to the media as an entity. The media have many individuals and many organizations, many vehicles for disseminating ideas, and many different types of editorial directives. I remind you, or perhaps you did not know, that the word “editor” comes from the same word in Latin that was used to describe the person responsible for orchestrating the gladitorial games and contests for the amusement of the people.

People are generally not amused when their ideas are rationally and factually challenged: so I am willing to conclude that you prefer Fox news because it does not require you to have any conflict of belief or any necessary crisis of conflicting evidence. You seek not to be informed, dave, you seek to be reassured. And fox does that. It’s comforting like smoking a joint. And the happiness is just as short lived and illusory.

Any normal person can easily tell that the media is not biased towards Obama , and learns oh so much more of both sides of an issue listening to Keith Olbermann , or Katy Couric , than a debate on FOX by proponents of both sides of the issue..

Except for me – because I’m high.

http://www.businessinsider.com.....you-decide

How do you support only those who are unbiased when the entire structure has been biased?

Fox is probably the best , and I’m not saying that because they are Conservatively biased , which obviously they are.

I am saying that because regardless of their “house view” , I have heard more honest debate from knowledgable proponents on both sides of an issue , and learned more about both sides of an issue via debate there , than any other news source.

I usually get my news from a variety of internet sources, and attempt to sort out the conflicts myself to determine what is really going on. I think the media in general do a pretty good job, I just don’t think Dobbs did, nor do I think Fox does because one hour of prime time is news and the rest is views. People take the opinions for facts, and that is a very critical error.

Christine , I’m just curious -

After this great start , who do you think should be the next few targets?

on December 22nd, 2009 at 10:12 pm
“We don’t have to say that the birthers are racist. All we have to do is to ask them, why do they think that this President should be held to any higher standards of proof than any other President”

Not “any other President” , Allen – rather , any other candidate for President.
The fact that info was not provided prior to election as requested does not reflect a claim against a sitting President – it simply reflects a continuation of the unfulfilled request to a candidate , blindly elected anyway with questions still unanswered.
Any candidate where a question existed would have been similarly scrutinized – I can only imagine a Republican candidate having similar questionableness , considering that even Palin’s clothes were hyped as an issue by the Dem smear machine!
Not to mention McCain actually being scrutinized because he was born in Panama to a military parent , that being used to question his viability to be President!
Obama is not being held to any higher standard , and not only is bringing race into this a despicable tactic , but it ignores the great support Powell , Rice , and Thomas were given by the same Conservative/Republican people now being accused of racism. How stupid is that tactic?
And are there some extremists who are racist ?
Of course. But they are on both sides of the aisle ,
and seeking them out to try to make a point is silly – Should I claim Dems were against the three above I mention because of their race?
Of course not , I dont believe that for one minute – it was their politics only which the Dems rejected- and I’d be wrong to think anything else , and nobody did. But we coulda pointed to some Dem extremists and yelled “racism” . Couldn’t we have?I’d be curious as to your position on the comments made by Reid considering your , and others , jump to a ridiculous charge of racism per this issue with zero reason to do so.

This is a “hatewatch” blog. The blog links to left-wing websites. It doesn’t take a degree to connect the dots and see that the SPLC is not politically unbiased, and dare I say, left-wing.

His innaccuracy was hateful? Haha, ok then. I always assumed you’d have to do something intentionally in order to be hateful, but ok

on December 19th, 2009 at 8:57 pm

There would be no discussion at all about birth certificates if there wasn’t virulent racism in our country. The birthers hate Obama because he is an African-American. That’s behind it all. ”

Yeah , by the lunatic , skinhead fringe on the Right , just like you Lefties have extremists.

I got beat up twice as a teenager by White gangs defending , on one occasion , a group of Black friends , and another a Black stranger who was accosted getting off a bus for no reason.

And I wasn’t glad Obama was elected on a policy basis , but I was proud of it on a racial basis – just as with Clarence Thomas and Condoleeza Rice and Colin Powell , who I supported , and were ignored by the Left as groundbreaking because they didn’t support them politically.

I’m not saying Obama wasn’t born in Hawaii – I’m saying we have a right to the release of all verification documents per conflicting info.

So – I’m a racist? I hope those that voice that opinion are just plain ignorant , because at least that would be honest as opposed to a disgusting purposeful political tactic.