Fox Hunt

A couple of times in recent years my liberal friends have offered without any prompting from me, a disparaging comment about Fox News. In both cases I responded, “How would you know? You’ve never watched it.” That ended the debate because, of course, they never had tuned into Fox News.

In the past week the White House and George Soros funded Media Matters all came out attacking Fox News, the latter with a “Fight Fox Campaign”. White House advisor and former campaign manager for President Obama, David Axelrod, appeared on one of the Sunday talk shows and opined that Fox was not actually a news organization. Rahm Emanual, White House Chief of Staff appeared the same day on another show and uttered essentially the same exact words. Anita Dunn, White House Communications Director said the same exact thing. Gee, what a coincidence. The previous Sunday Obama appeared on all five morning talk shows…. Except Fox.

What the Hell is going on here? Actually it’s quite simple. Fox is the only network reporting on some of the radical people Obama has chosen to be part of his collection of “Czars”, positions within the White House reporting only to BHO, unconfirmed by Congress and accountable to no one. They have also reported on the unlawful activities of ACORN, the community organizer and receiver of government funds and SEIU, the radical union that heavily supported BHO’s election.

None of the other news organizations bothered to report any of this stuff. In fact, readers of the NYT and viewers of the major networks were confused when Van Jones, the “Green Jobs Czar” was forced to resign because of videos of Jones admitting he was a communist and other racist and absurd comments. They were confused because the major outlets had completely ignored the controversy and had failed to report that the guy was on his way out!

Messrs. Axelrod and Emanual both observed that Fox has a “point of view” ie. They are conservative and therefore should not be taken seriously. What a joke. Like MSNBC, CNN and the NYT do not have a distinctly liberal point of view? ABC, NBC and CBS are similiarly left wing and all were cheerleaders for Obama during the election and haters of GW Bush during his Presidency. They failed in their job of vetting this man during the election and since Obama took office the MSM have been fawning over him like a love struck teenager. None of the late night comedians do any jokes about Obama and when SNL did a mildly critical skit about Obama it caused the Left to go crazy. CNN even did a “fact check” on the skit.

Only Fox and talk radio have been questioning what he’s doing and looking into the CVs of the radicals he’s appointed to be his “Czars”. BHO has appointed 30 of these folks at recent count. Here’s a sample of some of the people closest to Obama and the positions of power and influence that they hold:

Valerie Jarrett: Senior Advisor and closest confident to BHO. Former advisor to Mayor Daley in Chicago. She has ties to communist Frank M. Davis and has been linked to left wing radical causes.

Van Jones: Former “Green Jobs Czar”. Embraced communism when in prison. Professional radical. Resigned.

Ron Bloom: “Manufacturing Czar”. Former union executive, has made anti-capitalist statements and said Mao Tse Tung is a political guide.

Anita Dunn: White House Communications Director. Also said Fox “… is not a news organization”. Quoted as saying Mao is “one of the two political philosophers she turns to…” (Mao, you might remember, was the dictator of China responsible for the death of 70 million Chinese.)

Carol Browner: “White House Director of Energy and Climate Change Policy”. One of 14 leaders of Socialist Internationals “Committee for a Sustainable World Society” calling for One World Government.

Cass Sunstein: Head of “Office of Administration and Regulatory Affairs”. Argues for bringing socialism to the US and lends support for communism.

Kevin Jennings: “Safe Schools Czar”. Homosexual who has worked to teach gay topics in schools including elementary schools. Ties to NAMBLA (you can look that up).

Mark Lloyd: “Diversity Czar for the FCC”. Praises Hugo Chavez for his stifling of the press during Venezuela’s “great” revolution. Big fan of Saul Alinsky and government control of all media.

And this is just a partial list.

In one of my blogs right after Obama was elected, I said he would surround himself with radical leftists from the fringes of society. Even I had no idea he would be brazen enough to recruit a bunch of left wing kooks this far out of the mainstream.

It seems pretty clear that this attack on Fox News is an attempt to intimidate the rest of the media into continuing to keep silent and not question what the Czars are up to. With Obama’s approval ratings falling rapidly (51% as of 10/28/09) they want to keep the news of their radical agenda under wraps long enough to ram through socialist policies unpopular with the electorate. And, of course, with his Czars he can use regulations and mandates, avoiding the messy business of passing laws.

This guy is even more dangerous than I thought.

Ann Coulter: Too High Above Cayuga’s Waters

Generally I enjoy watching and reading Ann Coulter, the conservative author and commentator. She’s often quite funny and I do relish that she gets under the skin of liberals with ease.

On the other hand, she occasionally drifts into the outrageous just, it seems to me, to get attention. Ann also seems to be too impressed with her own considerable intelligence and suffers under the illusion that she is just as attractive as the “info-babes” on Fox News. Sorry Ann.

When Coulter decides to go after someone she becomes caustic and very, very personal. She displays outright distain for Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., the publisher of the New York Times.

Of course, Sulzberger, whom she calls by his nickname “Pinch”, inherited his position at a young age, the NYT having been controlled by his father and grandfather for the past 150 years.
In recent years under the leadership of Pinch the Times has lost its position as the “paper of record” by becoming a left wing rag.

Along with credibility the Times has lost readership and boatloads of money. Bankruptcy has only been avoided by the $250,000,000 infusion of cash by Carlos Slim, a Mexican billionaire.

OK, Pinch is a lousy businessman and a schmuck. But, Coulter’s attacks have been very personal, calling him stupid for failing to get accepted to Harvard and getting into Columbia only because of family connections. Out of bounds? Yeah, I think.

Coulter has also focused her sharp tongue on Keith Olbermann, the host of MSNBC’s “Countdown with Keith Olbermann”. Before I get going here, let’s be clear. I think KO is a dip shit and an extreme liberal bomb thrower. I believe MSNBC has sold its soul to the Democrats and should be ashamed to call themselves a news organization. Having said that, I think Coulter’s attacks on Olbermann are too personal and over the top.

Chief among Coulter’s charges is that Keith’s frequent references to his Ivy League education at Cornell ring hollow because he went to the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Cornell. She calls the college a “bovine management school” and claims the only people who can legitimately call themselves “Cornellians” attended the College of Arts and Sciences. This likely shocked those folks who attended the Engineering, Architecture and other fine colleges that comprise Cornell.

It certainly came as a surprise to me, a graduate of said College of Agriculture and Life Sciences in 1964. While yes, the CALS does offer courses in agriculture and related fields, it also offers majors in pre-med, pre-vet and dozens of other majors including: biology, sociology, economics and engineering. I got my own degree in Marine Biology. Olbermann got his degree in Communication Arts.

Ann also ignored that students in the CALS School take many of their courses in the “Arts School” where they compete head-to-head with the “real Cornell students”. Note to Ann: We often kicked their Asses, thank you.

The big advantage for students who are residents of New York State is that you can attend the CALS and other state supported colleges at Cornell and pay 1/3 of the nearly $30,000 per year tuition for the same education. For guys like me who were self-financing a college education, this is an opportunity not to be ignored.

Coulter also conveniently overlooks that acceptance to Ivy League schools may not always be based on pure academic achievement alone. Legacy students, those whose parents attended the university are given special consideration, as are minorities and athletes. The Ivies pride themselves in not giving athletic scholarships but let’s get real. If a great high school running back with less than stellar grades applies… Well, adjustments and exceptions can be made. When I was there nearly our entire hockey team was comprised of Canadians. Great students? Maybe.

Ms. Coulter’s attacks on Olbermann are justified on the basis of his view, opinions and some of the asinine things he says. But, denigrating everyone who attended the other fine colleges at Cornell except the “Artsies” smacks of snobbery and the very elitism she so often disparages.