Tag Archives: fox news

Politics Schmolitics

Sarah Palin Defends “Murder Congress” Campaign

palin2.jpgWASHINGTON–Under fire after the shooting of Arizona Representative Gabrielle Giffords, Sarah Palin defended the fundraising efforts of her SarahPAC organization during the recent midterm elections. Her group received criticism for using the campaign slogan “Murder Congress.”

“We reject the notion that we’re to blame in any way for the tragedy this past weekend,” said Palin aide Rebecca Mansour. “We merely meant the sweeping changes we have planned for Washington would be the metaphorical equivalent of mass murder, in that it would ‘slay’ many of the liberal member of Congress. I don’t understand how you can take a perfectly innocent motivational phrase like ‘murder Congress’ and twist it into somehow advocating violence.”

Mansour also denied the campaign’s artwork was inflammatory “The symbols we drew over certain congresspersons’ heads are being interpreted by some PC types as bullseyes, simply because they are circles with crosshairs, partially colored in with red blobs that vaguely resemble blood. This was simply our homage to the title sequences of the classic James Bond movies. How on earth you could mistake that for anything else is beyond me.”

Palin’s campaign efforts are now drawing scrutiny because Giffords was specifically targeted by SarahPAC. The former Alaska governor appeared at an event for the congresswoman’s opponent, Jesse Kelly, that was advertised in local newspapers as “The Someone Should Probably Shoot Gabrielle Giffords, Just Sayin’ Festival and Tractor Pull”.

“The word ‘shoot’ has many connotations,” Mansour said. “We meant someone should shoot her with a camera, and those photos would show her for the Obama-loving neo-Socialist she is.”

The campaign event featured a firing range where guests could take target practice on life-size effigies of Giffords, with weapons ranging from Glock handguns to grenade launchers. But Mansour insisted, “It takes quite a leap of logic to insist this was anything other than a fun carnival game. Naturally, the liberal media is blowing this all out of proportion. I’m sure it won’t be long before they read something sinister into the fact that the winners of the target practice contest won free Colt .45s and maps to Giffords’ house.”

“Frankly, I’m shocked at how many liberals are seeking to politicize this tragedy. As far as we know, this terrible act was committed by a lone nut, and as we all know, lone nuts are in no way affected by the general political atmosphere. I don’t see how an unstable person could be influenced by anything Sarah may have tweeted or put on her web site.”

Mansour would not comment on any particular tweet or other web content produced by Palin because “all this completely non-incendiary, innocent comment has been removed in the last 24 hours.”

A FOX News spokesman says it will continue to feature Palin on its programs, despite the controversy, but is looking into suing Giffords for defamation of character.

Boob Tubery, Politics Schmolitics

FOX News Denies Responsibility for Burglary

ailes.jpgNEW YORK–FOX News chairman Roger Ailes denied that the network bore any responsibility for the burglary of the Ames, Iowa home of Frank Smith on Sunday. The denial came despite the fact that for the last two weeks, several FOX News hosts had wondered aloud if Smith’s house should be broken into.

“We are simply reporting the news,” Ailes told reporters. “The debate over whether or not to ransack Mr. Smith’s house is raging right now, and we would be remiss in our duties as journalists if we didn’t discuss this issue on our programs.”

Critics charge that FOX News is virtually the only network to treat the potential burglarizing of Mr. Smith’s house as a political issue. They also note that even fewer news organizations have given detailed instructions on how the house might be broken into.

For instance, the morning show Fox and Friends broadcast from outside Smith’s home, making note of exactly when he left for work and how long he’d be there. Glenn Beck sketched out a detailed schematic on his chalkboard, pinpointing the house’s major entry points and where some of the more valuable items could be located. Sean Hannity and guest Newt Gingrich discussed at length the shift schedules of the local police department, noting when law enforcement would be least equipped to respond to an emergency.

“Go back and look at the tapes,” a defensive Bill O’Reilly insisted. “Nobody on this network has ever said Smith’s house should be broken into. We’re just talking about what everyone else is talking about! Oh, by the way, he doesn’t lock his garage either. And sometimes he’ll leave the keys to his Civic in one of the drawers of his tool bench.”

Other news networks have been measured in their criticism. “On the one hand, FOX News clearly baited the public, then tried to act innocent,” said CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer. “You could even make a case that some of their on-air personalities could be charged as accessories to this crime. On the other hand, we have to pretend there’s another side to this issue for some reason.”

The incident is similar to one from 2005, when FOX News devoted a week of programming to giving out several thousand social security numbers, while debating exactly what could be done with them.

NYC

New York to GOP: Drop Dead

In the current political landscape, the Republican party is like a really bad prop comic. They reach into a trunk full of hut-button issues, pull one out, and rattle it in front of the crowd for laughs, because it’s a lot easier than having ideas.

The latest prop being used by the Blueberry Heads in the GOP is the Ground Zero Mosque. A more accurate name would be The Couple of Blocks from Ground Zero Muslim Cultural Center, but no good comedian lets the truth get in the way of a good punchline.

The joke, I mean, argument goes something like this: Ground Zero is hallowed ground and therefore can not abide the presence of a Muslim-y thing in its vicinity. My counterargument is this: Go fuck yourselves, you hypocritical human garbage.

The real prop here isn’t the mosque itself. It’s New York City. Neocons have used New York as a prop for the last nine years, and will doubtless continue to use it for as long as they can. The terrorist attacks were the rationale for everything on the Republican agenda during that entire time. Flash pictures of Twin Towers collapsing, then tell everyone we need to invade Iraq. We need to curtail civil liberties. We need to waterboard suspects. We need to shoot elderly men in the face. Why? Because LOOK WHAT HAPPENED TO NEW YORK IS WHY!

Of course, this concern over the fate of New York doesn’t extend to making sure the state gets its fair share of federal money, particularly when it comes to Homeland Security funds. Hey, why would we want to protect the city that’s already been attacked and will surely be the number one target for future attacks? And it certainly doesn’t extend to ensuring the health and well-being of first 9/11 responders.

The Republicans don’t give a shit about New York. They hate it, because it’s full of dirty foreigners and liberals, the kind of people who don’t really care if there’s a Muslim center two blocks from Ground Zero. They just recognize that this issue can galvanize people and maybe win a close election or two this November. If the GOP could gain one Senate seat by nuking all five boroughs, they’d do it this afternoon.

I was in Manhattan on September 12, while the streets were still filled with eye-stinging smoke as far north as 14th Street and you needed a face mask to breathe and I was more terrified than I’ve ever been since I was a child. And a Muslim community center near Ground Zero doesn’t bother me in any way.

If you lived in New York then and were directly affected by it, I won’t tell you how to feel. But people who don’t live in New York, and weren’t in New York on 9/11 have no right to dictate what happens here. Don’t tell me you have to stop this project from going forward because of some Magic Heroic Dreamspace that Ground Zero occupies in your brain. For most of the people who are upset by this news, downtown New York might as well be Narnia.

You’re like Star Wars nerds arguing over what George Lucas did in the prequels. Actually, you’re worse, because Star Wars nerds had to see the prequels. I don’t give a shit if you don’t like the idea of a mosque near Ground Zero when YOU WILL NEVER HAVE TO SEE IT.

Why don’t I pick a random construction project I don’t like and protest it? Boo, Waffle House being built in Charleston, South Carolina! There’s already a perfectly good Waffle House just up the road! I will probably never go to Charleston but this angers me deeply! My personal feelings trump your ability to decide what’s best for your own town!

And boo to Harry Reid, who’s apparently trying to win his election by kowtowing to these morons. If you’re trying to out-crazy Sharron Angle, don’t bother–it can’t be done.

Not to mention that the area immediately around Ground Zero is about as un-hallowed as New York gets. Fast food restaurants and OTBs and strip clubs, and all the other kind of garbage that litters the touristy areas of Giuliani’s Manhattan. The tourists who flock there are so humbled by the sacred ground that they buy cheap t-shirts and postcards and prints and coloring books about 9/11 sold within in its glowing aura.

I remember going to a printer’s conference in the Midwest. This was at least two years after 9/11. When I told other people on the conference that I worked in New York, they got all quiet and whispery. What was it like? they asked, low and conspiratorial, as if curious about some strange sex act they’d never tried before. It, in this case, was That Day, which they couldn’t even bring themselves to say.

They wanted all the gory details I could provide, just so I could assure them that living in some place safer was the correct way to live. Like I had chosen to live on some terrorist fault line. Oh you know, I could never live in New York, what with the traffic and the noise and the Islamo-fascists flying planes into things…

That’s all this “debate” is. A way to dredge up the Terror Envy that every other city felt in the early 2000s. Scare ourselves with the reflective horror of 9/11 one more time. And then forget that New York still has a huge gaping hole in the ground and thousands of people who died and became ill when that hole was made.