Ladies and Gentlemen, Fox News

feetleet

Also, I don’t remember Hillary looking quite so….blonde. Is that a VLC filter I can get?

dragonfrog

SRSLY? The very first comment, on a story about the Secretary of State being asked about a terrorist attack on an embassy, is about her hair colour?

Well, I guess that’s why we have http://boingboing.net/2013/01/23/objectify-a-male-tech-writer-d.html
- http://profile.yahoo.com/SFW6KAXL2KZN3TEEMAJ5AQBJBU Tyler
  
  ”Lighten up, Francis.”
  
  …and maybe adjust your irony meter.
- http://twitter.com/EnergyFlux VaxvAxvaX
  
  Fox has a history of ‘enchancing’ images to fit whatever narrative they’re pushing. I remember a few years back they had pictures of NYT reporters that were just obviously changed. If they changed Hillary’s picture to be more blonde, WITH these “answers” then I wonder what they’re trying to push to the audience in this case… :P
  - chgoliz
    
    Which is interesting because you can always tell the “female perspective” Republican mouthpiece on TV by her bleached blonde hair and red outfit. They couldn’t be undermining half of their viewership by raising them up on a pedestal only to insinuate they’re dumb as toast, could they?
- feetleet
  
  Oh, that’s not fair. I was picking on Fox for vaseline-ing the lens perfunctorily, even when they’re trying to vilify someone. Hillary is my jam, and women were certainly not meant to be the butt of that joke. Misfire.
  - dragonfrog
    
    Fair enough. That might even have been quite clear to most people here – my only exposure to Fox is that I used to watch the Simpsons, 15 years or so ago.

http://foomandoonian.net/ Foomandoonian

Is it possible that the ‘liberal’ news I watch did the same kind of thing with Sarah Palin and she actually would have been a great Vice President?

hipdadiddy

No. That is not possible.
John Fleming

No. To quote the great philosopher Stephen Colbert, “Reality has a well-established liberal bias”.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Nell-Anvoid/100002383626402 Nell Anvoid

Well…anything’s possible…according to quantum physics. Doesn’t mean its likely.

…Unless you live in the bizarro world of Fox,
- George M. Anderson
  
  These are the same types of people who believe that what ever they say is justified because that is what they believe and that is a reality.
http://twitter.com/markmcan Mark McAndrew

Yup. It’s also possible for an infinite number of monkeys to type the works of Shakespeare.
- http://twitter.com/spockosbrain Spocko
  
  “It was the best of times it was the blorst of times. Stupid monkey.”
  - Fred Cairns
    
    Tsk. They can’t do Dickens yet.
- nachoproblem
  
  Hell, it’s even possible for a finite number of monkeys to write the works of Shakespeare. They tried this with a very large number of monkeys, and it was a very long experiment but one of the monkeys finally did it. His name was Shakespeare.
- http://profiles.google.com/jackofalltirades Steve Vaughan
  
  A finite number of monkeys is the fox news writing staff.
snagglepuss_62629

Except, of course, that Palin REPEATEDLY went on a live mike or before live cameras and proved that there was very little “liberal spin” to her image as a brainless, ambition-crazed twit.
- http://www.facebook.com/people/Ender-Wiggin/100000885624281 Ender Wiggin
  
  “vaccines make retards”
  - http://profile.yahoo.com/65CSAR3QATRNKJW4NYNB2BESZE JohnQPublic
    
    ANCIENT ALIENS!
  - Michael A
    
    That was Michele Bachmann, though i see why you may mix the two up.
    - wysinwyg
      
      Bachmann is scary because she doesn’t seem brainless or a twit but still seems to believe the crazy shit that spews from her mouth.
http://www.gildedgreen.com/ Girard

The Right has a penchant for forming a lynch mob whenever Ms. Clinton has a chance to speak. However, back when Ms. Palin was frequently speaking in public, all the left had to do was supply her with sufficient rope and she would take care of the rest herself.
- Boundegar
  
  But the left would then quote her, which is totally unfair.
  - morcheeba
    
    They also asked her questions, which were also totally unfair.
    - http://disqus.com/Kimmoth/ Kimmo
      
      They also asked her questions, which was also totally unfair.
      
      FTFY
    - oasisob1
      
      It could be correct. The questions themselves may have been unfair.
    - morcheeba
      
      Thanks, my mistake. The asking was unfair, so it is singular. The questions were fair, but if they had been unfair I should have said “They also asked her questions that were totally unfair.”
- snagglepuss_62629
  
  I’ve never forgotten some footage I saw of Palin early on, before we’d all figured out what she really was. I think it was a GOP rally in Ohio, and Palin was stumping when, during a pause in her speech, some non-GOP’er in the crowd yelled out something – The cameras and audio didn’t quite catch it, but Palin sure did, and she went off-script and started addressing the guy in the audience, saying “Welll, god bless yooo. sir – My son is over in Eye-Rack right now, fighting for your right to express yourself, and he -”
  And, at that point, the crowd begins to understand that somebody is pestering their new idol – And they turned on him, but HARD, shouting him down. It looked like there might have been some shoving and man-handling, too. And that’s the moment when Palin started EGGING THEM ON, Cheering and yelling “Yeaahh ! YEEEAAAHHHH !!!”, and shaking her fist approvingly to the rest of the crowd.
  
  My blood ran cold. This mob-inciting moron was praising free speech out of one corner of her yap and encouraging her followers to assault anybody that tried it around her out of the other. There was no mistaking the look on her face, the power she suddenly realized that was at her fingertips. “I may say that I believe in Free Speech, pal, but I’ll be goddamned if I LET you actually get any. Not when I can get these rubes to do my dirty work for me, anyway…”
  
  I never really needed to hear another word out of her mouth after that video, but I was vaguely grateful to see how quickly she went completely apeshit for the duration of the campaign. People who had poo-pooed me when I fist described the video to them, months earlier, started shaking their heads whenever they bumped into me and telling me, “You were right all along, man”….
  - http://disqus.com/Kimmoth/ Kimmo
    
    Wow.
  - http://disqus.com/Kimmoth/ Kimmo
    
    …
  - Jean Baptiste
    
    Great story. Thanks for that :) Is there a link to the video you’re referencing?
    - snagglepuss_62629
      
      I saw it on CNN, minutes after it first happened. I’ve never looked for the video again, but you’ve piqued my interest. Off to YouTube I go…
      
      26 minutes later…I’m back. I give up. Watching Palin blather and lie in all of the other videos made my head hurt too much to keep plowing through them all – And there are hundreds. I don’t have the stomach or the stamina to keep looking…
    - Jean Baptiste
      
      No worries. Plenty of other stuff there from her, as you said :)
    - http://www.youtube.com/user/Freethinkersanon Christopher
      
      I don’t blame you for not wanting to go digging through Palin videos for the specific one you’re trying to find, but this may prove useful:
      
      http://tvnews.vanderbilt.edu/
    - dark
      
      iirc it was at the rally in estero florida…
  - bzishi
    
    This is a pretty big claim and it requires pretty big evidence to back it up. I’m not a fan of Sarah Palin in any way, but claiming that she egged on a crowd to assault a person over what they said is extraordinary. I did a couple of quick searches and pulled up nothing. And it seems to me that the media or blogs would have certainly covered a Vice Presidential candidate doing this. It is unethical to make such a statement without something to back it up so I strongly recommend you retract your claim.
    
    I’m not calling bullshit on you personally, because I think you think you saw this. I just don’t think it ever actually happened outside of your imagination and interpretation.
    - Preston Sturges
      
      Palin’s rallies were exceptionally ugly, and she wasn’t going to do anything like McCain when he corrected the woman who called Obama an “Arab.” And there were certainly democrats that were knocked down or shoved at the rallies of other candidates (remember the woman who had her head stomped by a Rand Paul supporter?)
      
      Speaking of Rand Paul, It’s always interesting to check the opinion of the white supremacists at StormFront. They liked Palin quite a bit even though she was married to a guy who claims Native American fishing rights. They felt her children were not “white.”
  - http://www.youtube.com/user/Freethinkersanon Christopher
    
    Words fail me. Fortunately for us words also failed Palin.
    - snagglepuss_62629
      
      Mind you all, I’m not saying that it turned into a bloodbath or anything – THAT, we would have heard about. Palin wasn’t yelling “GET HIM ! GET HIM !” or anything like that – She simply cheered the crowd on when they all started booing this guy, and shouting him down – Which is still pretty damn bad, especially when she’d been paying lip service to the First Amendment just seconds earlier.
      
      These are the details I remember: The video being shot from stage right, elevated roughly the back of the first tier or the front of the second tier, in a smaller stadium, not an arena-sized venue. It was a football stadium, not a ball park. Maybe a college stadium. Outdoors, Clear, sunny day. There was a big enough crowd that the stage was set up in the end zone, not mid-field. (You could see the stadium curve around behind the stage) The video looked better quality than typical cell phone footage, but certainly not network-quality. I’d say the shooter was about 40 yards from the stage, sitting at roughly the thirty yard line, and the people on stage were small enough that the only way you could tell it was Palin was from the voice and the images on the jumbotron-style screens that flanked the stage. The focus blurred slightly several times, and the whole thing ran maybe five minutes from the start, but the incident took place in the last minute or so, and the video ended while the crowd was still yelling at the guy. The look I saw on Palin’s face was what was being put on the video screens. The guy who got shouted down was about thirty feet in front of Palin, and looked maybe ten or so feet off to her left. You could make out some sort of disturbance going on in that area while Palin pointed directly at him when she addressed him. The on-stage cameras filming Palin did NOT turn to focus on the guy in the crowd, not once. They stayed trained on Palin the entire time.
      
      There were several other people on stage with Palin, mostly women in GOP-style dress except for some stage hands – This was not a national convention-type shebang, more of a roadshow. Several of the women around Palin were blondes. I don’t think any of her brood were there. I think it happened in the spring after Palin had been introduced as McCain’s running mate. She was wearing one of those brick-red power suits that she thought made her look professional and authoritative.
      
      Those are what I remember, along with the incident itself. Maybe I’ll look for the video some more later, but I stand by my memory of the event.
      
      One more edit – McCain hinself was not there. This was Palin, pretty much by herself.
    - Paul McManus
      
      This would seem to be the incident to which you’re referring, but it cuts off too soon…
      
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uurZa3HX5f0
Snig

She couldn’t last for a full term of Governor. She was likely not ready for prime time.
- http://www.facebook.com/people/Nell-Anvoid/100002383626402 Nell Anvoid
  
  Well, that presumes she’d ever be ready. Her “prime time” has long since come and gone.
- Navin_Johnson
  
  But certainly ready for trashy reality shows.
Halloween_Jack

Not in this universe, no. When Palin was brand-new on the national stage, she said, in a speech at the RNC, that being a mayor was different from being a community organizer (one of Obama’s previous jobs) because it involved actual work. Not only was this a massively stupid thing to say from a political strategic viewpoint–community organizers are, of course, very good at getting out the vote, and because of the manufactured ACORN scandal, there were already a lot of them out of work and mad at Republicans–but also a lie in Palin’s case, since one of the first things that she did as mayor of Wasilla was to hire a city manager (almost unheard-of for a town of a few thousand people), and showed up in Juneau as governor so seldom that many members of the Alaska legislature started wearing buttons reading, “Where’s Sarah?” Then, of course, there were the disastrous interviews with such non-hard-hitting telejournalists as Charles Gibson and Katie Couric in which she lost big points not only for being ignorant but for seeming not to care about it. Contrast this with HRC, who seems to put in more work in an average week than Palin has in her entire public life.
http://foomandoonian.net/ Foomandoonian

Ah, the dangers of asking a rhetorical question on the literalnet. Thanks for all the answers!
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  O noes! You asked a question and people answered you!
  - http://foomandoonian.net/ Foomandoonian
    
    Wow, you write a LOT of comments! I hope the pay is good.
    - Antinous / Moderator
      
      Unfortunately, the bottom’s dropped out of banner ad prices, so not as good as you might hope.
- http://twitter.com/coherent_light Scott Elyard
  
  Maybe not what you expected. But personal experience sometimes trumps rhetoric.
wysinwyg

Conceivable, but I can adduce a great deal of evidence that Hillary Clinton is at least somewhat intelligent and competent. Venal, perhaps; probably narcissistic. In fact, she’s probably a pretty terrible person. But from what I’ve seen I’m fairly sure she’s not an idiot.

Have you ever had a reason to believe Palin was intelligent or competent? Honestly curious.
GawainLavers

You mean the former half-term governor of Alaska and failed reality show promoter?

The deep, visceral hatred of Hillary Clinton is, and will always be, the terror over the end of male domination of politics. Rice or Palin could be cunning and venal, or stupid and venal, but always they were obsequious and dependent. Even as the First Lady, Hillary was not.
http://twitter.com/coherent_light Scott Elyard

I doubt it. We watched her be incompetent when she was governor, before she was tossed into the ring of national politics. (And before that, when she was mayor of a small town north of Anchorage.)

grs

Brawndo’s got electrolytes!

http://twitter.com/spockosbrain Spocko

Brought to you by Carl’s Jr.

Peppermint

Real classy, Fox…

The worst is, I can’t decide whether this is incredibly misogynistic, or whether they would do the same with any left-wing person…

Actually, scratch that, even if it’s not intentional, it’s the most misogynistic thing I’ve read all day.

Boundegar

It’s better than the time they referred to Michelle as Barack’s “babymomma.”
- http://www.facebook.com/matthew.urso Matthew Urso
  
  i swear to god i thought i was the only one that heard/remembered that. i was like “wait… baby mama’s husband wants to be president?”
- Peppermint
  
  Ok, my mind has just exploded and my day is ruined.
  
  Urgh.
  
  This is not just misogynistic. This is misogynistic and HORRIBLY CREEPY. Fuck’s sake. *shivers*
  - Boundegar
    
    It also implies that, being Black, the Obamas probably aren’t really married.

GuyInMilwaukee

Fox News: Battling Strawmen Since 1996.
That’s some impressive Powerpoint work for that crew.

http://theladyfingers.blogspot.com/ Ladyfingers

I love a political landscape in which an establishment hawk like Clinton is on “the left”.

http://profile.yahoo.com/5U374XQBP6C5BRWVFPITIGECBI J

It’s the eternal joke.
- awjt
  
  The saw that keeps on giving.
Alex Rudnick

I don’t :-
- Fantome_NR
  
  I’m 99.9999999% sure LF was being sarcastic.
- Samuel Heath
  
  You know what would be a brilliant long-term, deep strategy if you’re conservative? Assume that in the two-party system, the Democrats will naturally drift to a point “somewhat to the left” of the Republicans.
  
  Now, spend several decades deliberately driving the GOP so far to the right that no matter who wins, the conservatives are in power! You’ve reduced the two-party system into a one party system with two badges…
  
  I’m going to go write a conspiracy theory book now.
  - http://profiles.google.com/jwin74 jon winchester
    
    or an even better conspiracy… distract people with the idea that “conservative” and “left/right” are meaningful definitions of anything, all the while narrowing the concentration of wealth and power…
    - http://tryingsense.blogspot.com/ R_Young
      
      Meaningful definitions other than, you know, words, which like, don’t have any meaning bro. Haven’t you read niche?
      
      Either way, get a grip.
  - http://bhtooefr.org/ Eric Rucker
    
    Of course, there is a counter for that strategy, but it requires the Democrats to actually play along.
    
    Wait until the country is right up to the brink of ruin (it’ll take that to get popular support for these policies), then have the Democrats switch to full Soviet Communist.
    
    Watch the Republicans scramble back to the middle.
    - wysinwyg
      
      Could there be a middle ground? Like have the democrats adopt sensible European-style policies that have already been demonstrated to save money and improve social outcomes?
      
      Actually I guess that might be more far-fetched than full Soviet Communism.
    - http://bhtooefr.org/ Eric Rucker
      
      Well, in the US, the “middle” is, essentially, “whatever’s in the center of the Democrats and Republicans”.
      
      So, the idea is, move the middle back to the actual center by radicalizing the Democrats, because the Republicans are already moving the middle right by being radicalized (and the Democrats moving right to stay close to the middle).
    - wysinwyg
      
      Yah, I get it, Overton window. It’s a clever idea but I’d still rather just have the good policies than go through the trouble of organizing an elaborate conspiracy to shift the entire culture of the country overnight.
  - chgoliz
    
    You do realize you’ve just described the last couple of decades in US politics, right?
    - esquire
      
      Please get your irony filter checked before you hurt someone.

http://www.facebook.com/aaron.silva.3979 Aaron Silva

Fox, and WWF, and the same kind of people think both are real….

http://profile.yahoo.com/5U374XQBP6C5BRWVFPITIGECBI J

As an extremely left-leaning, atheistic wrasslin’ fan, I resemble that remark!

gallow

it’s amazing all the anger that is shown towards the evil fox news when you clearly have no knowledge on the subject. see those words in the corner? the five. this is one of the hosts of the show http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greg_Gutfeld

notice the words political satirist and humorist

dirktanzarian

I’m glad it’s a satirical show. I actually thought it was kind of funny. A nice change to the ranting and raving.
- marilove
  
  Ha ha. Politics is too confusing for women! Lulz! So … original!
  - Shane Simmons
    
    Yes, they certainly are consistent on hateful behavior toward women on FOX News…
    
    http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/08/30/why-condoleezza-rice-is-historic-transformational-figure/
    
    Seems to me that they’re consistently hateful toward anyone who isn’t a Republican, and usually paint Democrats as bumbling idiots.
- Preston Sturges
  
  I have never heard The Five described as “satire.”
http://twitter.com/JesseJamz Jesse

Still, you don’t see this stuff on other reputable news networks. Unless of course you think Comedy Central is one.
- gallow
  
  so true. could you just imagine a reputable news network hiring a anchor who was the editor of 3 tabloids?
  - grimc
    
    Golly, you mean tabloids like the one Murdoch hired him to run? Can you imagine what would happen if the owner of sensationalist trash tabloids created a news network? It’d be the most ridiculous attempt at reputable news ever.
captison

Interestingly enough, while Greg Gutfield is one of the hosts, when you look at how “the Five” is categorized…”format: roundtable political debate/current events discussion,” the description on wikipedia seems to paint this show as infotainment more than satire/humor.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Five_(TV_program)
- http://www.facebook.com/people/Ender-Wiggin/100000885624281 Ender Wiggin
  
  i almost made the same comeback, but if you make it to the end of the article, there’s a nod or two towards the fact that it’s supposed to be funny.
  - captison
    
    I did, I figured that was the “tainment” portion of “infotainment.”
    
    From the end of the article, “Frances Martel, examining cable news’ shift toward more personality-driven commentary, praised The Five for adding an element of entertainment to the news: “Beyond having opinions, the new generation of cable news talk shows spearheaded by The Five have personalities, characters and character arcs that are worth tuning in for.”
marilove

Ha ha, women are too stupid for politics. Ha ha ha. So funny. So very funny! What is this, 1952?

Just because it’s a “joke” doesn’t make it okay. Or funny.
- gallow
  
  not all comments about a woman in a position of power or a minority are about race or sex. its amazing how you can no longer criticize someone on their work performance without be called a bigot, racist, or some kind of phobe.
  
  the graphic was made to reflect how the host felt about the answers Hilary was giving to congress, not to her being a woman
  - Antinous / Moderator
    
    not all comments about a woman in a position of power or a minority are about race or sex.
    
    “This stuff is hard” sure looks like a sexist joke to me.
    - marilove
      
      Not to mention, this is Hillary fucking Clinton. Whatever bad shit you can say about her, she does not find politics “hard”. I mean for fuck’s sake, you guys. She’s known as one of the hardest working Secretary of States to have had the job.
      
      The “joke” is totally unrealistic AND sexist.
  - marilove
    
    Math — oops, I mean politics — is hard!
    
    Seriously, this is one of the oldest fucking sexist tropes in existence. AND it’s on Fox News! A Fox News “satire” show.
    
    But it’s not sexist? Really?
    
    I mean, come on.
    
    This shit is so frustrating.
    - Shane Simmons
      
      And yet, the comments on screen are the hosts’ admittedly biased views on Hillary’s answers, not anything to do with her being a woman. For a change. Just because “ha ha women r 2 dum 4 politickin’” is “one of the oldest fucking sexist tropes in existence” doesn’t mean that, in this case, you are correct. I think your bias is showing on this one.
      
      It’s frustrating because you’re trying to force the issue, and someone dares to disagree with your view.
      
      protip: swearing might make you feel authoritative, powerful, and serious, but it often leaves the opposite impression on others.
    - Antinous / Moderator
      
      I don’t suppose it occurs to you that you’re blind to the subtext because of your privilege as a man. Of course it doesn’t. When you’re a member of the privileged group, subtext doesn’t exist.
    - Shane Simmons
      
      I don’t suppose it occurred to you, Antinous, that maybe I’ve been exposed to FOX News enough to know this is how they treat ALL Democrats. They’re not Republicans ‘coz they’re dum LOL
      
      I worked in a newspaper office for about a decade where FOX News was on in the newsroom all the time. I mean, all the time. Yes, I heard sexist comments–good God, how they talked on the air about Nancy Pelosi–and yes, I heard racist comments, islamophobic, homophobic, etc. but this rings more of a Demophobic (frightened of Democrats) comment than anything.
      
      They found Condaleezza Rice to be fairly praiseworthy, so I don’t think they’re against women being Secretary of State.
      
      Ugh. You actually trotted out “privilege” as a way to “win” the argument. I’m more interested in keeping the sexism charges on actual sexism than I am on “proving” everything to be sexist, racist, etc. Everything looks like a nail if you only have a hammer, after all.
    - Antinous / Moderator
      
      You actually trotted out “privilege”… Everything looks like a nail if you only have a hammer…
      
      And if you’ve never been in the nail’s position, you don’t even know what a hammer looks like. You can’t or won’t acknowledge male privilege because you have it.
    - wysinwyg
      
      Dude, chill. All “privilege” means is maybe there’s stuff happening that you’re just not getting. This shouldn’t be a controversial statement. The world is far too complex for our poor little human brains to process in its entirety.
      
      And as easy as it is to find Democrat bashing on Fox news it’s not exactly hard to find misogyny either. Making women out to be flaky and frivolous has been going on for a long time and isn’t prima facie implausible in this instance.
      
      Yes, you’re allowed to disagree. You already did that. Now you’re ranting.
      
      Edit: On the subject of Condoleeza Rice, the “women are flaky” trope is used to discredit and silence inconvenient women. Women who endorse the “correct” views aren’t given the same treatment. Misogyny is about trying to control women as opposed to just irrationally lashing out at them.
    - Navin_Johnson
      
      I’m a man, it’s obviously sexist, and you’re embarrassing yourself trying to dance around it. It’s classic, cliched, sexist “comedy”. It’s the ‘take my mother in law’ of predictable shit..
    - marilove
      
      Also, I totally missed the lecture about swearing. Oh, joy, tone trolling! As a woman, I *never* get that!
      
      lulz
  - Fantome_NR
    
    except when they are. this isn’t just a hilarious coincidence. that persistent ringing in your ears is called cognitive dissonance. a fancy term fir you are lying to yourself.
  - chenille
    
    not all comments about a woman in a position of power or a minority are about race or sex.
    
    Absolutely not! However, the ones that just so happen to look exactly like sexist tropes are, almost all the time.
    
    Nowadays sexists, racists, and so on like to phrase things so that they can hide behind the tiny chance of coincidence. You see the same defense you’re offering all the time.
    
    An even superficial glance at the track record will show you just how honest that is. Fox has worked very hard not to deserve the benefit of any doubt.
  - http://www.facebook.com/heather.cristofaro Heather Cristofaro
    
    “its amazing how you can no longer criticize someone on their work”. This is such a load of bullshit.
    
    Criticism is a healthy part of my career and I’ve never felt like I can’t criticize someone because of their race, sexual orientation or gender. Maybe it’s because the first thing that pops into my head isn’t an old stereotypical insult based on those things, it’s the fucking content of the critique instead.
    
    Interesting that you claim to have some special insight into the writers of Fox News and their intentions of using an old misogynist joke as not an old misogyny joke.
  - http://tryingsense.blogspot.com/ R_Young
    
    Fox news: “Go suck a watermelon blackie!”
    
    Conservative denial tour: “Racist? It’s not racist! its amazing how you can no longer criticize someone on their work performance without be called a bigot, racist, or some kind of phobe.”
- Shane Simmons
  
  What’s your view on the press’s treatment of Sarah Palin in the 2008 election?
  - Antinous / Moderator
    
    I’ll give you my view. It was gross and sexist in many cases, and I spent a lot of time removing creepy sexist comments about her from BB. There were about a million horrible things that you could say about her that were true and not based on sexist tropes or crude stereotypes, but people still went for the cheap, easy insults. There are plenty of legitimate criticisms that you could make about Hillary Clinton, but “this stuff is hard” is just a sexist cheap shot.
    - http://www.facebook.com/people/Nell-Anvoid/100002383626402 Nell Anvoid
      
      And that, good sir, is the heart of the matter. It’s plainly wrong and unethical to use misogynistic attitudes and words to cast someone like Ms. Palin as a shallow, vapid, opportunitistic, publicity hound.
      
      …That’s what her own attitudes and words are for.
    - marilove
      
      The heart of the matter? How so? Palin isn’t even the subject! No one was being sexist toward her in these comments! Probably because … THIS IS ABOUT CLINTON, not Palin!
      
      How is this the heart of the matter when it’s 100% irrelevant?
  - Preston Sturges
    
    >What’s your view on the press’s treatment of Sarah Palin in the 2008 election?
    
    Does the Special Olympics have the high hurdles? Just because she’s stupid she is not entitled to special treatment or a “participation trophy.” It was a tragic waste of the nations time to pretend that Palin was a more viable candidate than Honey Boo-Boo. And they left out her demon & witch exorcising church, her ties to violent militia groups, the house that appears to have been built as a bribe etc. This country continues to be in danger as long as any idiot can be solemnly treated as a viable candidate. But she did a lot of damage to the GOP, and for that we thank her.
    
    I did like when they visited Wascilla and spoke to the current mayor. they asked her “What’s your job?” and she said “I come in every other Thursday to sign the payroll checks.”
http://www.facebook.com/people/Ender-Wiggin/100000885624281 Ender Wiggin

No no, we hated Fox news before, for the endless lists of bullshit and crazy (and outright lies) that are constantly fed to the public through a 24 hour series of tubes. Also why we had no problem believing this was a seriously meant segment. Given that it’s siphoning from the glenn beck show audience which it replaced, i wonder if any of them know it’s satire?
- jackbird
  
  Hell, I’ve met people who were unaware Colbert is satire.
http://twitter.com/AbelUndercity Abel Undercity

Yeah, Ann Coulter thinks he’s a riot.
http://disqus.com/Kimmoth/ Kimmo

Phew, I was hoping it was a photochop or something…

But the Fox hate isn’t the slightest bit amazing; that vile, stinking turd of a parasitic entity is so amazingly crass and base that reality is almost impossible to distinguish from parody.

The distinction is almost broken. In other words, most of us wouldn’t put it past these fucktards; and given the direction they head, this will probably be Fox with a straight face in a few years anyway.
Preston Sturges

I’ve Skimmed “The Five” a couple times and it’s no different than the usual blather they put on. It’s a little dumber.

It’s hosted by Dana Perina, a former Press Secretary for Chist’s sake.

But it’s tough to tell with conservatives sometimes, because their “humor” is so opaquely stupid, and when they do something truly offensive (usually in a threatening violent way) suddenly they claim it was all a “joke.”
wysinwyg

Instead of the sarcastic comments about how those critical of Fox news are obviously just irrational partisans I’d love to hear your sincere opinion. What do you think of Fox news?

medontlivenoprahsworld

It was the Republicans last shot at someone named Clinton.
BTW it is hard to tell when Fox is kidding. Their reality is so warped.

Scratcheee

Nice try. This is just a bullet list of one of the host’s humorous takes on the testimony. “The Five” is not a news show and is full of smack talk and grab-ass.

marilove

Doesn’t make it any less sexist and awful. It’s also not “humorous”.
- http://www.theartolater.com/ Jeff
  
  May not be funny, and it’s pretty awful, but sexist?
  - marilove
    
    Women find politics so confusing! Math — excuse me, politics — is hard!
    
    It’s one of the oldest sexist tropes in existence. Seriously, dude?
    - http://www.theartolater.com/ Jeff
      
      Yeah, in this case, seriously. I know the left found her testimony to be strong, but for those of us on the right who were hoping for some answers, it was rather shifty and all over the place.
      
      If a man was the secretary of state and gave the same answers, it’d be the same result. It’s not always an -ism.
    - chgoliz
      
      “If a man was the secretary of state and gave the same answers, it’d be the same result.”
      
      No, actually, it wouldn’t.
      
      Show us an example in which a Democratic male’s “shifty” responses were labeled as “this stuff is hard! and confusing!” on Fox, ever.
      
      They’d come up with other lies and derogatory comments, sure, but they wouldn’t use common misogynistic tropes to structure the story.
    - wysinwyg
      
      It’s not a question of whether her testimony was strong or not. Of course it wasn’t. That is feature, not bug. And if it was Condoleeza Rice or someone on the right there the testimony would be likewise unsatisfying.
      
      Of course, pointing out that the political class in general has far more incentive to dissemble and mouth platitudes than to inform the electorate would make your side look almost as bad as those godawful liberals and we can’t have that, can we?
      
      I somehow doubt it would be the same placard up there if a man made similar statements. Even if he was a Democrat. Unless he was gay; I’d expect something even a little trashier in that case.
    - Navin_Johnson
      
      Hilary Clinton is a horrible establishment hawk (as mentioned above), but at the very same time nobody believes that any of you care about “answers”. “Bengazi” as a gotcha moment has to be one of the weakest things conservatives have ever tried to latch onto and puff up into something meaningful.
    - marilove
      
      Care to share an example with me? I am WAITING!
    - Shane Simmons
      
      Because, hey, they’d never use that “so confusing” thing to skewer a man, would they? Never happens. Insult to intelligence goes in, sexism comes out. Can’t explain that.
    - wysinwyg
      
      Once again, accusing women of being flaky and frivolous is a very old, very tried, and very successful means of discrediting and silencing women with inconvenient points of view. It’s really not terribly implausible.
      
      Look at it this way: the creator of the slide doesn’t necessarily have to be sexist for the slide itself to be. It could be that a fair segment of the Fox news audience is sexist and the slide was intended to be ambiguously sexist so as to appeal to the attitudes of these viewers but still leave a nice wide gap of plausible deniability for folks like you to get upset that we’d dare impugn the stellar reputation of such a daring, forward-thinking, and fundamentally honest news organization as Fox.
    - Navin_Johnson
      
      Men’s rights now!
      
      Right?…….
- BunnyShank
  
  It could be humorous, if they were making fun of themselves and their biased perspective towards women in reporting. Not that I think it will work out that way if I watch it in context, and also I don’t care.
social_maladroit

So, it’s pretty much like the rest of Fox News, then.

BarBarSeven

Hindsight is 20/20! LIfe is hard! Terrorists are crazy! No easy answers exist! Yada! Yada! Yada!

http://twitter.com/spockosbrain Spocko

Sen. Clinton taking questions from Republican’s, reverse view.

http://twitpic.com/bxq83t

Jean Baptiste

“With all due respect, the fact is we had four dead Americans. Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night decided they’d go kill some Americans? What difference, at this point, does it make? It is our job to figure out what happened and do everything we can to prevent it from ever happening again, senator.”

Regardless of your political orientation, there’s some real idiocy in the above statement. She’s basically saying “Maybe it was this, maybe it was that. What does it matter? We need to find out what happened?” Sentence two, obviously, conflicts with sentence three. Or vice versa.

Xof

I think you may have a somewhat idiosyncratic definition of “conflicts.”

She is saying, quite clearly, that focusing on whether or not it was a planned protest versus a spontaneous one is less important than four Americans died, and the job of the State Department is to make sure that it does not happen again.

You can agree or disagree with her thesis, but it’s perfectly coherent.
- Jean Baptiste
  
  Yes, I agree: that’s exactly what she quite clearly says. If you leave out the “What difference, at this point, does it make?” part, that is…
  - Jake0748
    
    So tell us. At this point – what difference does it make? Dead ambassador and more dead state dept. workers. Honestly… what the fuck difference does it make NOW? They got killed. The situation was misreported at the time. So, what’s the solution to this?
    
    Hint: there is none. Get over it.
    - grimc
      
      Because ZOMGITSACLINTONGITHER!, that’s why.
- aikimoe
  
  It’s incoherent because you can’t “figure out what happened,” and “prevent it from ever happening again,” if your attitude about what caused it is, “What difference does it make?” This is not just true for this case, but in all cases where mistakes were made and people died because of them.
  
  Beyond that, as long as we intend to have a U.S. presence wherever in the world there is instability (because, basically, we’re the U.S. and we can do whatever we want), it’s ridiculous to think that we can “prevent it from ever happening again.”
  - Xof
    
    It’s incoherent because you can’t “figure out what happened,” and “prevent it from ever happening again,” if your attitude about what caused it is, “What difference does it make?”
    
    That’s silly. If I’m defending my property against high water, it doesn’t make much difference if the surge is caused by a distant earthquake or a distant storm; the defenses are largely the same. That’s her point, and it’s a reasonable one.
    - aikimoe
      
      I see what you’re saying, but I’m afraid that’s not a good analogy because earthquakes and hurricanes are unstoppable natural disasters. Unlike natural disasters, hostility to the U.S. presence and U.S. violence in the Middle-East is actually something that is controllable.
      
      And it certainly does matter if the attack was caused by a spontaneous reaction to a blasphemous video which happened to originate in the U.S. or if it was a planned (and predicted) attack by fighters who oppose U.S. actions in their countries.
      
      Clinton’s exact quote is actually very misleading…
      
      “The fact is we had four dead Americans. Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night and decided they’d go kill some Americans? What difference at this point does it make?”
      
      There is a huge difference between a planned, organized attack by soldiers with military weapons and “guys out for a walk one night” deciding “they’d go kill some Americans.” Being prepared for one is quite different from being prepared for the other.
      
      I would also say that the way one’s government department communicates with the people makes a lot of difference as to the level of trust and respect the people have for that department.
      
      And let me just add that I don’t think most of the questions posed by the Republicans were in good faith, as they are, mostly, pathetic hypocrites when it comes to foreign policy (very much like the Democrats). And the “analysis” by Fox was as immature and dishonest as it usually is.
Preston Sturges

But would you care to let us all in on whatever point the GOP is trying to make? An overwhelming majority has no idea WTF the GOP is trying to say here.

The GOP did have the one guy in the AIr National Guard who said that F-16s can be used for crowd control. I sure would have liked to have heard more about that. I had no idea they were so versatile. Maybe he knows how to use an f-16 to rake my leaves.
- wysinwyg
  
  Well yeah. You just fly it over your yard. The leaves get sucked up in the vortex.
  
  Crowd control — the best I can come up with is that with the armaments removed the weapons bay could be used as a very small “free speech zone”.
- http://fieldguidetohummingbirds.wordpress.com/ Sheri L. Williamson
  
  “Control” is a euphemism.

medontlivenoprahsworld

The republicans can’t accept that this was a terrorist attack and not a grand scheme by the state dept. or the white house.
They just seem to want to huff and puff about something, anything.

class_enemy

Of course it was a terrorist attack. What it was not was a “spontaneous response to a youtube video”.

The one valid criticism of the administration here was their sticking to that story for days after they knew it was complete bullshit.
- dd36
  
  I don’t know what has changed but months ago didn’t we all learn that there is a difference between classified and unclassified information? The information reported in the news was the unclassified info. Sometimes the unclassified story has a strategic purpose to affect enemy behavior while still trying to extract info. You don’t tip your hat until you’re reay to. I still do not understand what harm was supposedly done.
  - class_enemy
    
    Some of the reactions within and without the administration to the completely bullshit video story carried a subtext that Americans need to self-censor what they say lest they cause some douchebag to start a riot.
    
    IMO that subtext does harm.
    - dd36
      
      And that is wrong why? Some video did cause protesting in the Middle East, perhaps even rioting (I don’t remember and I don’t really care), and pointing out the harm that it can do to American interests would be one of the jobs of the State Department. If they actually forbid you from making that speech then it’d be different.
    - wysinwyg
      
      “This radical Wahabbist thinks you should shut up. We agree.” You would find that reassuring somehow?
    - Graceless
      
      More importantly, attributing the protests to a YouTube video makes the civil unrest easier for a Western audience to dismiss. In reality, the Cairo protests (which preceded the Libya protests) concerned US imprisonment of Blind Sheikh Omar Abdul Rahman, one of the 1993 WTC bombers.
      
      If the Obama administration knew this, their initial response could be interpreted as an attempt to suppress information about widespread anger towards US foreign policy in the region.
      
      See: http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrybell/2012/12/02/muslim-brotherhood-fox-was-hired-to-protect-our-benghazi-consulate-henhouse-interview/
      
      “The primary reason for the focus on the video was likely to caste the Americans’ deaths as an unfortunate and unforeseen incident resulting from an inflamed crowd. That video story redirected the debate from scrutinizing our Libyan policies that were supporting known extremists, to a debate centered on blasphemy.”

http://blog.doomsdayzen.com agonist

Fox News is theater. They entertain their audience and they outrage their critics. They have a perfect formula for success.

class_enemy

Indeed. There are those on both left and right who cherish and carefully nurture their feelings of being aggrieved. I do love to watch them when they are appropriately stimulated.
- Navin_Johnson
  
  There’s no equivalent to Fox (or any major news outlet for that matter) on the “left”.

picaflor

After reading these comments I admire Clinton even more. This “humor” is an example of the blonde bimbo trope. This woman is the US Secretary of State, and one who knows her shit. Not a fan? Fine. But she still knows her shit. She did not whine. She was not confused (except maybe at that weird conspiracy about Turkey just like the rest of us). To not see the obvious sexism at play here is to be willfully obtuse.

Preston Sturges

After all these months of yammer from the GOP I have no idea what point they were trying to make. But if you think of the most neurotic person you ever booted out of your life, they probably sounded a lot like the GOP on this issue – everything PROVES……….something. It’s never clear what they’re going to analyze the way you tie your shoes to PROVE….something….. AWFUL…. whatever it is…..

Republicans are always let down when they expect their guys to “take off the gloves,” because even they aren’t willing to look completely insane in hearings.

http://redesigned.com redesigned

The title in that screen capture should have read:
“Summary of the answers from Hillary that the fox news reporter was capable of understanding.”

In all fairness it is hard to hear someone’s responses when you head is so far up your own ass.

Off White

Fox News: like a hyena eating an elephant

flickerKuu

Fox who? I thought the election was over.

peregrinus

I’m amazed at this Fox News of America.

Here’s some equally weighty Fox News, from today in London:

Fox bites woman’s Ugg boot in Putney
- Nanny left shocked and scared after attack
- Fox may have thought boot was an animal, says expert
- Woman has second pair of Uggs ruined in bizarre attack on Putney Bridge

For completeness and reputational audit trail, the link is:http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/fox-bites-womans-ugg-boot-in-putney-8462578.html?origin=internalSearch

http://www.facebook.com/dave.e.rogers David E Rogers

Fox – Network for the minimally literate.

Roose_Bolton

Ugghhh. 2 steps forward, 1.999999999999 steps back.

http://twitter.com/chrisjimson chris jimson

Summary of a typical day’s Fox News coverage:

1. Liberals!

2. Communism!

3. Muslims!

4. Oh no!

Preston Sturges

At one point the urgent question about Libya is why the CIA security people werent sent to the embassy annex a half mile away to rescue the staff. But they were private contractors and probably nobody had the power to order private citizens to go on a shooting spree in another country. Even if someone had ordered them they could have said “Sorry we’re going on break.”

Then of course is the obsession with the idea that the ambassador was raped, that there is video of him being sodomized, and presumably Obama watched this in real time. That shows a lot about the sick minds of the conspiracy nuts.

http://msmith13.wordpress.com/ Mark

I think it would require supernatural powers to detect which Fox News features are satirical and which aren’t.

Navin_Johnson

All these comments and nothing about this mysterious “CRIME RAT”

http://www.facebook.com/art.fugue Art Fugue

Right-wing Summary of Failure to Find WMDs in Iraq:

*We take no responsibility.

*Go Fuck Yourself.

*Now enjoy this five year super-recession (which is totally the next guy’s fault).

http://www.facebook.com/people/Steve-Abbott/100000540094117 Steve Abbott

“At the time, former weapons inspector Scott Ritter said: “Sen. Joe Biden is running a sham hearing. It is clear that Biden and most of the Congressional leadership have pre-ordained a conclusion that seeks to remove Saddam Hussein from power regardless of the facts, and are using these hearings to provide political cover for a massive military attack on Iraq.” http://www.accuracy.org/release/ten-years-after-iraq-war-vote-will-biden-and-ryan-be-asked-about-yes-votes-and-false-statements-on-wmds/ . Thought Biden was a democrat. check the voting record and see how many dem Vs rep voted for the war. As well as funding it,

Ladies and Gentlemen, Fox News

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