Zel Miller @ Republican Convention

Casey,

Damn good explanation, and you are exactly correct, both about the political leanings of the country, and the social leanings.

OneNut,

Seldom do I read a post and agree with every sentence, especially a political one. But I agreed with everything you wrote, and second your opinions.

Bigger

BTW,

Concerning the topic: I think Zel is honestly and completely pissed. He has been a democrat in state government for a long long time. I truly believe him when he said, after taking a national office, he could not believe the opinions and stances of his fellow democrats in Washington. Then, with the controversies over the Iraq war, everything came to a head.

You kind of have to admire him for putting country before party, whether he is right or wrong. Used to be, a lot of people in government did that. Last I remember, it was the Repubs coming down on tricky dick. If they had backed him, he might have been able to hang on. But they did the right thing and kicked him out.

I guess Zel is not the only dem with a backbone though. Ed Koch is a strong Bush guy. Can you believe it? Also, John Breaux is pretty strong on Bush. But, Ed is old and retired, and Breaux is leaving the Senate, so I guess they have nothing to loose.

Bigger

OneNut said:

That is about the only pro-Republican TV news outlet. There's no way that someone on the left can deny that ABC (Peter Jennings), NBC (perky Katie Couric), CBS (Dan Rather and the entire 60 Minutes cast (well, most of them), CNN -- come on. CNN fair to the right? -- Chris Mathews? These by name folks can barely contain their detest for the Bush Administration. And the networks have their own pair of glasses only they are a Liberal shade.

Yes, Fox is biased, but there are a lot more television networks on the left. Fox has Hannity, but he doesn't try and hide his bias. You watch him knowing full well where he stands. What is disingenuous is that the other networks don't even have the balls to admit it. The only true guy in the middle (or at least, not overtly left or right) in my opinion is Tim Russert.

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No Fox has more than a bias. They have a clear agenda. And that is to twist the news as best suites the Repub Party, George Bush, and religious righteous wing of the Repub Party.

That stuff about CNN, and Chris Matthews being biased just isnt true. Your making that up to justify FoxNews. And Fox DOSENT admit it. Not one percent. Bill O'Reilly wouldnt even admit Fox was a "conservative" channel. Since you made that opinion about Russert (who is non-partisan, but so is C. Matthews), is that you got that opinion from Bernie Goldberg. I saw him say the same junk when he was promoting his bullshit book.

Fox having their own channel is like MoveOn.org having their own news network and claiming to be non-partisan. And you all know moveon.org is biased. Even if CNN had liberal anchors or newsman (which they dont) it dosnt effect their ability to read a telepromter. But Fox changes the telepromter and asks misleading questions like, "Can John Kerry really beat GWB, is he's ranked the most liberal member of the Senate?" Or things like "is John Kerry outta the mainstream for most Americans?"

It should literally illegal for Fox to lie every single day by saying "FoxNews: Real Journalism, Fair and Balanced". Where the fuck is the FCC? Oh, thier bought out by lobbyists and dosnt want to piss off major corporate donors? Too bad.

Casey,

What about the polls within the recent past that show 89-90% of main stream media people vote democratic? IMO, the network channels are very liberal, and show a liberal bias, on or off the teleprompter. It comes not only in the copy they read, but in their off teleprompter comments. I do not watch them very much, but I was on ABC for a bit after Zels speech, and heard Jennings going very negative on Rudy and the Yankees. No reason for it. Just an obvious prejudice.

CNN is probably not as bad, but Wolf has his liberal moments. Also, there conservative commentators are not very strong. They do get shouted down quite a bit. Matthews is liberal. No doubt. PBS, for a publicly funded station, is obviously left of center. That is a shame.

Of course, all of this is relative to the stance of each individual viewer. A hard right guy will think they are all liberal, including FOX. There are some of these guys. Then, someone from the far left might think they are all right wing. It is just perception.

Relatively speaking, FOX is very right wing, but this is in relation to the networks, CNN, MSNBC, etc. Are they actually right wing? Probably. But they do present both sides. Just sometimes the right is more forceful than the left.

I do find it odd that you seem to want to quash their ability to present things by their own lights. Free speech is free speech. It all depends on who's bull is being gored.

Bigger

all your doing is falsly justifying Fox's bias by claiming everybody is biased too. thats just not true, and very reminiscent of Bernard Goldberg. Matthew is not a liberal, you made that up. PBS has conservative programs like how Tucker Carlson has his own 1hr show to spew his bullshit.

you should of seen Fox's coverage of the Democratic convention. they showed the least of any station, and constantly criticized and tried to rebutt democratic speeches. Like I said before, it should be Illegal for Fox to say that they are "fair and balanced" every day. Thats a flat out lie and the FCC should get involved.

Casey,

I guess you can't see the forest for the trees. Chris Matthews not a liberal..? How about Christiane Armapour (sp?) on CNN? She's not liberal? Aaron Brown not a liberal? Judy Woodruff not a liberal? You are either not watching CNN (that would be a good thing) or you don't know the meaning of the word "liberal."

Just because PBS has one conservative it doesn't mean they don't lean left. Does the presence of Alan Colmes make you think Fox isn't leaning right?

Saying that Fox lies is unfair. They tend to report from a right point of view but they don't lie.

Here's an example of left leaning and right leaning reporting:

Say the job numbers for Jan were 150,000 and for Feb they were 140,000.

Fox would say: "The economy continues to grow jobs creating nearly 300,000 jobs over the last two months. The tax cuts are working!"

CNN (or any left leaning network) would say: "Job growth is slowing with 10,000 less jobs being created last month than the month before. What's wrong with the Bush economy?"

Both are factual but the listener receives a completely different message.

Surely you believe that the country is pretty evenly divided between the left and the right. You can't tell us that the media is evenly reporting from a left and right point of view. I think the reason Fox News kicked all of the other channels asses last week during the Republican convention was because of the left was split viewing all of the other channels. Those on the right chose to watch the convention via a less hostile channel.

Reporting from another point of view does not mean they are lying.

But is does mean that they are PARTISAN and BIASED. None of those people are self-proclaimed liberal, neither Aaron Brown, Judy Woodruff or Chris Matthews. There is no proof of them being a liberal or saying that they are. They are objective to both sides. Especially Chris Matthews.

To say that they are "left-leaning" is made up. There is No proof of that. There is proof of Fox being rightleaning though. Countless studies and surveys have been done to affirm that.