Fox News: The Republican Propaganda Machine

I made a brief post earlier about Clinton's appearance on Fox News Sunday but now I can't stop thinking about just how smoothly the Fox News Propaganda machine works and how easy it is for them to obfuscate the truth in order to spread their lies, mischaracterizations, and disinformation to an audience so anxious to receive.

Their current sleight of hand is to make a really big deal out of the fact that Clinton was Angry during his interview. Look everyone, just look at how angry Cinton was! Just like Dean and Gore and those crazy people at Daily Kos... boy, he sure got Angry! Can't you just hear the pithy banter on Fox and Friends? Isn't it a wonderful addition to the Angry Democrat meme?

But what they're really trying to do is keep anyone with a few living brain cells from thinking too much about the content of the interview. This is a classic trick... throw in a little ridicule to entertain the masses and distract them from a more substantive discussion. Make fun of Kerry's tan or Howard Dean's scream or Al Gore's beard. I don't want to give the Republicans too much credit here, though... after all, it was the Roman emperors who first thought to placate the masses with cheap entertainment.

But back to the interview.

To kick it off properly, Wallace employed a variation on the infamous Fox "Some people say" lead-in: "I got a lot of emails from viewers, and I gotta say, I was surprised most of them wanted me to ask you this question: Why didn't you do more to put bin Laden and Al Qaeda out of business when you were president?" As a serious journalist I would never stoop to asking a question phrased like that, of course... it was our viewers who wanted me to. In fact, I was surprised our viewers would even think to ask it!

It didn't take long to get to everyone's favorite talking point, our lack of response to the Cole. The fact is, the attack happened on October 12, 2000. The US elected a new president on November 7, 2000. The Navy Jag released their report on the Cole on January 19th, 2001. Bush's inauguration was January 21st. The Clinton administration left Bush a 20 page response plan that Bush decided not to implement. See how simple and straight-forward that is? Here's Rice herself on the topic:

Myers: You named in the spring of 2001 that Osama bin Laden was behind the attacks on the U.S.S. Cole. Why didn't you retaliate?

Rice: The U.S.S. Cole was a terrible, terrible incident. And it demonstrated yet again that Osama bin Laden was a threat to the United States. We really felt that after 1998 when they had bombed the embassies and the response had not been an overwhelming military response that, in fact, it had a tendency to embolden the — the terrorists.

And we were worried, particularly since in the campaign we had said we wouldn't have pinprick strikes using military force. We were concerned that we didn't have good military options. That really all we had were options like using cruise missiles to go after training camps that had long since been abandoned and that it might have just the opposite effect. It might, in fact, embolden the terrorist not — not frighten them or not think that they were being taken seriously. Our response to the U.S.S. Cole was to get a strategy in place that could finally eliminate the threat of al-Qaida to the United States.

So there you go. Bush decided it would be better not to retaliate in a direct fashion but rather in a future, distant, indirect way. Yeah, that'll teach 'em!

And what of the Black Hawk Down incident? Clinton got riled up while trying to refute Chris Wallace's distortion of the truth -- and who can blame him? Wouldn't you be angry about these shenanigans too? Glenn Greenwald took the time to help fill in the memory gaps from which Chris Wallace is apparently suffering:

GOP Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson, speech on the Senate floor October 6, 1993

I supported our original mission, which was humanitarian in nature and limited in scope. I can no longer support a continued United States presence in Somalia because the nature of the mission is now unrealistic and because the scope of our mission is now limitless. . . . Mr. President, it is no small feat for a superpower to accept setback on the world stage, but a step backward is sometimes the wisest course. I believe that withdrawal is now the more prudent option.

GOP Sen. Dirk Kempthorne, speech on the Senate floor, October 6, 1993

Mr. President, the mission is accomplished in Somalia. The humanitarian aid has been delivered to those who were starving. The mission is not nation building, which is what now is being foisted upon the American people. The United States has no interest in the civil war in Somalia and as this young soldier told me, if the Somalis are now healthy enough to be fighting us, then it is absolutely time that we go home. . . It is time for the Senate of the United States to get on with the debate, to get on with the vote, and to get the American troops home.

GOP Minority Leader Sen. Robert Dole, Senate speech, October 5, 1993

I think it is clear to say from the meeting we had earlier with--I do not know how many Members were there--45, 50 Senators and half the House of Representatives, that the administration is going to be under great pressure to bring the actions in Somalia to a close. . . .

GOP Sen. Jesse Helms, Senate floor speech October 6, 1993:

All of which means that I support the able Senator from West Virginia--who, by the way, was born in North Carolina--Senator Robert C. Byrd, and others in efforts to bring an end to this tragic situation. The United States did its best to deliver aid and assistance to the victims of chaos in Somalia as promised by George Bush last December.

But now we find ourselves involved there in a brutal war, in an urban environment, with the hands of our young soldiers tied behind their backs, under the command of a cumbersome U.N. bureaucracy, and fighting Somalia because we tried to extend helping hands to the starving people of that far-off land. Mr. President, the United States has no constitutional authority, as I see it, to sacrifice U.S. soldiers to Boutros-Ghali's vision of multilateral peacemaking. Again, I share the view of Senator Byrd that the time to get out is now.

President Clinton's speech, on October 8, 1993, arguing against withdrawal

And make no mistake about it, if we were to leave Somalia tomorrow, other nations would leave, too. Chaos would resume, the relief effort would stop and starvation soon would return. That knowledge has led us to continue our mission. . . .

If we leave them now, those embers will reignite into flames and people will die again. If we stay a short while longer and do the right things, we've got a reasonable chance of cooling off the embers and getting other firefighters to take our place. . .

So, now, we face a choice. Do we leave when the job gets tough or when the job is well done? Do we invite the return of mass suffering or do we leave in a way that gives the Somalis a decent chance to survive? Recently, Gen. Colin Powell said this about our choices in Somalia: "Because things get difficult, you don't cut and run. You work the problem and try to find a correct solution." . . .

So let us finish the work we set out to do. Let us demonstrate to the world, as generations of Americans have done before us, that when Americans take on a challenge, they do the job right.

Sen. John Kerry, Senate floor speech, 10/7/93, supporting Clinton's anti-withdrawal position

But, Mr. President, I must say I have also been jarred by the reactions of many of our colleagues in the U.S. Senate and in the Congress. I am jarred by the extraordinary sense of panic that seems to be rushing through this deliberative body, and by the strident cries for a quick exit, an immediate departure notwithstanding the fact that what we are doing in Somalia does not bear any resemblance to Grenada, to Panama, to Iraq, and most importantly, to Vietnam. . . .

We must recognize that any decision that we make about Somalia is not just a decision to get our troops home. It is not just a decision about looking out for the interests of the United States. There are extraordinary ramifications attached to the choice that we make in the next days in the Congress and in this country. . . .

Mr. President, we are in a situation now where withdrawal would send the wrong signal to Aidid and his supporters. It would encourage other nations to withdraw from the U.N. effort in Somalia and no doubt would result in the total breakdown of the operation and possibly the resumption of the cycle of famine and war which brought the United States and other members of the international community to Somalia in the first place.

Rightly or wrongly, the Bush administration committed us to this operation. We, as a nation, have accepted this responsibility. We should not panic and flee when the going gets rough. If we are going to withdraw, we have an obligation to do so in a responsible manner, in a way that does not undermine the operation or leave the Somali people to a worse fate. I think the President's plan, as currently outlined, will allow us to step aside responsibly.

New York Times article, October 6, 1993, by then-reporter Thomas Friedman

As hundreds of additional United States troops with special weapons and aircraft began heading to Somalia, a wave of hostility toward the widening operation swept Congress. . . . But Mr. Aspin and Mr. Christopher were besieged by skeptical lawmakers, who scorched them with demands for a clear road map for an exit from Somalia, coupled with bitter complaints that the policy goals were unclear or unrealistic.

It is not clear whether the critics can assemble sufficient votes to pass a law requiring Mr. Clinton to stop the operation. But Congressional anxiety, already high, has been fueled by a wave of constituents' telephone calls reflecting outrage over the prospect of a new hostage crisis, and television pictures of Somali crowds dragging a dead American servicemen through the streets. . . .

Mr. Christopher said the United States wanted to withdraw its forces when possible, "but not before our job is done of providing some security."

New York Times, October 6, 1993

A wave of hostility toward the military operation in Somalia swept Congress today, forcing the White House to send two Cabinet secretaries to Capitol Hill to try to calm critics and plead for additional time to formulate a new policy.

"It's Vietnam all over again," said Senator Ernest F. Hollings, Democrat of South Carolina, who is in a group of conservatives calling for quick withdrawal from Somalia. . . .

Mr. McCain, a prisoner of war in the Vietnam War, said of Mohammed Farah Aidid, who has been blamed for attacks on United Nations peacekeepers: "We should tell Mr. Aidid that we want the Americans back. Otherwise he will pay sooner or later. Then we should come home."

The most egregious, bold faced lie of all, though, was when Chris Wallace denied softballing their Bush Administration guys on Fox. Fortunately we have the folks at Media Matters who spend all day digging up the facts so we don't have to:

In a taped interview with former President Bill Clinton that aired on the September 24 edition of Fox News Broadcasting Co.'s Fox News Sunday, host Chris Wallace asked Clinton why he failed to "do more" during his presidency to put Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden "out of business." Clinton responded with a vigorous defense of his administration's anti-terrorism policies, noting that he instituted a "comprehensive anti-terror strategy" during his tenure in the White House and that many conservatives had accused him at the time of being "too obsessed with finding bin Laden." He then told Wallace: "I want to know how many people in the Bush administration you've asked this question of. ... Tell the truth." Wallace replied, "Have you ever watched Fox News Sunday, sir? ... We ask plenty of questions." Clinton later stated, "[Y]ou people ask me questions you don't ask the other side," to which Wallace responded, "That is not true." In fact, in dozens of interviews over the past five years with senior Bush aides, Wallace and former host Tony Snow have repeatedly failed to ask pressing questions regarding the Bush administration's efforts to pursue Al Qaeda in the eight months prior to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks -- and in the years since.

Here is a list of senior Bush administration officials interviewed on Fox News Sunday since September 11, 2001. (White House press secretary Tony Snow previously hosted the program. Wallace succeeded him in December 2003.):

• Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice; 9/10/06
• National Security adviser Stephen Hadley; 8/6/06
• Rice; 7/16/06
• Rice; 6/4/06
• Rice; 5/21/06
• Rice; 3/26/06
• Rice; 12/18/05
• Hadley; 12/4/05
• Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld; 11/20/05
• Rice; 10/16/05
• Rumsfeld; 6/26/05
• Rice; 6/19/05
• Hadley; 5/15/05
• Then-White House chief of staff Andrew Card; 5/1/05
• Rumsfeld; 3/20/05
• Hadley; 3/13/05
• Vice President Dick Cheney; 2/6/05
• Rice; 1/30/05
• Rice (then-National Security adviser); 10/10/04
• Rice; 6/27/04
• Rice; 6/6/04
• Rice; 4/18/04
• Rumsfeld; 3/28/04
• Card; 12/7/03
• Rumsfeld; 11/2/03
• Rice; 9/28/03
• Rice; 9/7/03
• Rice; 7/13/03
• Rumsfeld; 5/4/03
• Rumsfeld; 3/30/03
• Rice; 2/16/03
• Card; 1/26/03
• Rumsfeld; 1/19/03
• Rice; 11/10/02
• Rice; 9/15/02
• Card; 6/9/02
• Rice; 5/26/02
• Cheney; 5/19/02
• Rice; 5/5/02
• Card; 4/14/02
• Rice; 2/3/02
• Cheney; 1/27/02
• Rumsfeld; 11/11/01

In the March 28, 2004, interview with Rumsfeld, Wallace did press him on whether the Department of Defense should have "been thinking more about" terrorism prior to 9-11 and asked him to respond to the "basic charge that, pre-9-11 ... this government, the Bush administration, largely ignored the threat from Al Qaeda." Referring to Rumsfeld's testimony before the 9-11 Commission regarding the Defense Department's anti-terrorism efforts, Wallace remarked, "[I]t sure sounds like fighting terrorism was not a top priority."

But beyond this exchange, the Fox News Sunday interviews listed above have almost entirely ignored several key questions regarding the Bush administration's efforts to pursue bin Laden and Al Qaeda.

Hardly a shocker... accuracy has never been a virtue at Fox news.

So what does it matter? Because for some reason people believe everything they hear these assholes say.

Take, for example, the deliberate insinuation of a tie between al Qaeda and Saddam. Like a little energizer bunny, Fox News keeps pimping the story, and pimping it, and pimping it. Despite all information to the contrary, they continue to mislead their viewers. I know several very smart people who have fallen for this -- both avid Fox News watchers. In fact, I will never forget traveling with one of the upline managers from work in the months after 9/11. There was still a military presence in the airports back then and we watched the soldiers from a lounge barstool, admiring their machine guns and contemplating the recently introduced idea of invading Iraq. I told him I did not think the invasion was in our best interests for the long term and he looked at me in utter disbelief. "How can you say that?" he asked. "He [Saddam] just killed 3,000 of our people!" I tried to explain to him that it was an al Qaeda job but it was too late -- he had already been convinced otherwise.

I don't understand why otherwise intelligent people continue to watch this network except that it reinforces their view of the world in a comforting sort of way... it's like the macaroni and cheese of news. Making Fox your trusted news source is about as smart and healthy as making mac and cheese your primary food source.

p.s. On a slightly unrelated topic, I can't resist throwing in this Bill O'Reilly link because, well, I hate Bill O'Reilly.