(li’l quickie HuffPo crosspost)
This is one of those things that really doesn’t need commentary, as it truly speaks for itself…
But really, how can one resist?
By now you’ve read plenty about the Chris Wallace interview with The Daily Show‘s Jon Stewart — probably you’ve watched at least a clip, if you’re a blog reader. But do you wonder how the Fox News crowd is responding to Wallace’s ineffectual rhetorical blitz against the impenetrable Stewart?
Here’s a glimpse from Fox News’s Fox Nation website, proudly borrowing from a piece on Andrew Breitbart’s website. The scribe is especially perturbed that Stewart repeated the finding that Fox News viewers are the most consistently “misinformed” of what’s actually going on in the world (emphasis added):
Does this sound misinformed to you?
• 91 percent believe the stimulus legislation lost jobs
• 72 percent believe the health reform law will increase the deficit
• 72 percent believe the economy is getting worse
• 60 percent believe climate change is not occurring
Uh. Okay. This won’t take long:
1. According to sources such as IHS Global Insight, Macroeconomic Advisers and Moody’s, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 created or saved at least 1.8 million to 2.5 million jobs (and the Congressional Budget Office considered that figure conservative).
2. Repealing the health care reform bill would increase the deficit by $230 billion over a ten-year period.
3. It’s hardly a recovery to brag on, but on the binary question of whether or not the economy is improving or getting worse, that’s not really debatable: it is gradually growing, even if the pace is “frustratingly slow.” The latest group to come to this conclusion based on the recent round of economic indicators is the Economic Advisory Committee of the American Bankers Association.
4. God help us.
Since the answer to the question from the Fox National (“Does this sound misinformed to you?”) is pretty self-evident, I’ll ask another question: What will it take to make Fox viewers look beyond their reactionary bubble and confront reality?
The sad thing is how so many Americans believe in Fox News. I’ve heard believers call it “the truth”
Roger Ailes rode with Paul Revere to warn the British that they couldn’t come in here and take away our ignorance.
According to Fox ‘News’:
Ignorance is Strength
War is Peace
Freedom is Slavery
Just in case you didn’t know…
Fox Nation: a self contained “reality” experience.
Same deal remember back in the golden age of the boy king George W. Bush when a senior aid said
The Bush bit seems ages ago.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10…
“Well I’s got this hear call from FOX News ta ask me to do some a that there commentatin’ stuff for them cause they said I was the regular voice of the forgotten rich American and they be wantin’ a guy like me who could speak in real simple homespun talk to all them Americans who ain’t rich but thinks they are a gonna be if they watches me on FOX TV. Hot Dang! I sehs. What with being a Double-Nought, runnin’ for office next year, and now this, I’m gonna have ta get Mr. Drysdale ta gets me one a them personal assistants to helps juggle all my chores, including the ones Granny wants me ta do. One thing I want to know is, this hear commentatin’ stuff–is that anything like ciphering? Cause I’m gettin’ better ats my ciphering and maybe I’s could help these FOX people with theirs.
The stimulus lost jobs? The economy getting worse? Are you kidding me? Don’t they know how successful the stimulus was and how unemployment is down? If they were watching MSNBC they’d know that Barack Obama, our President, has turned this economy around and it’s full speed ahead for “yes we can”. Just ask anyone competing for a job out there. Here’s a good one: How can you tell if the economy is getting better or worse? Corporate profits are up, Wall Street is raking it in. The Fox News folks just aren’t looking at the right numbers.