What the Fox!

On October 28th, as reported by Mediaite ,a tête-à-tête was held between Fox news channel's Micheal Clemente and press secretary Robert Gibbs. Both sides apparently agreed to an uneasy peace. The truce came after the white house tried to exclude FNC from a press pool and was forced to back down due to the solidarity shown by other News networks in the pool. Fox is obviously taking this as win but acknowledges the battle benefits both sides in the short term which, at least for Fox, is clear by the boost in their ratings :

On the other side of the spectrum Rachel Maddow defended the White House's move observing that Fox, among all the new stations, is the only one that actively encourages and organizes protest against the government and that this, not their opinion journalism, separates them from other news stations:

The White House also claims it has accomplished its goal by directly challenging Fox in this interview with an unnamed aid. Their goal, he says, was to build support and "energize their base". Analyzing the White house strategy the New Yorker released this article in their November 2nd issue observing that the White House's intention was more to send a shot across their bow than to attack.

Pakistan Car Bomb Toll Passes 100.

The death toll from a car bomb in northwestern Pakistan city of Peshawar has risen to 105, a day after the blast.

At least 200 other people were wounded in the attack. Overnight, more bodies were said to have been recovered and some of the injured had died.

Similar attacks have killed hundreds of people in recent weeks, as the army carries out an operation against the Taliban militants in south Wazinistan. The government has blamed the Taliban , but they have denied responsibility.

The attack happened at a time when Hillary Clinton was on her visit to Pakistan; meanwhile, she continues her visit in the country, arriving in Lahore.

By Victor.

Source: BBC

Pakistan Cr BombToll Passes 100.

Police Arrest Over Iraq Bombing

Iraq has arrested over 60 security officers including 11 senior members over Sunday's twin bombing in the capital, Baghdad.

Those arrested include the commanders of 15 checkpoints near where the attack took place. It is reported that the attack killed about 150 people, and wounding more than 500 others. The attack is said to be the deadliest since 2007.

The attack has raise questions over the competence of the security forces since American forces handed over security issues to Iraq. Investigations are still going on cconcerning the attack.

By Victor.

Source: BBC

Beck Throws a Frog into Boiling Water

If you think this is ridiculous your missing the point. Of course its ridiculous. It's also genius in it's own way; sensationalist but also making a valid point about commonly accepted wisdom. I elect Beck to be the 21st century's Aristophanes.

Rules for Radicals: Find the Jew

In a time honored strategy of finding the mastermind behind every conspiracy, Saul Alinsky has graced the sidelines of conservative rhetoric. With his name that sounds vaguely Russian and thoroughly semitic, and his involvement in Chicago community organizing from the 1930s-1970s he has been occasionally cast as the Jew/Bolshevik brain trust behind the President- for example in Hannity (notice how they say Alinsky sneers, because of course thats what Jews do, and the picture at the top of their article in case you had any doubts) the National Reveiw, and this more recent article in the Wall Street Journal.

Okay, be that as may, it is interesting how much Obama's team is following Alinsky in the latest battle with Fox (as the biased but clear WSJ proposes). We've seen them attempt to target, freeze, personalize, and polarize ideological opposition.

The "War" Between Obama and Fox News

When communications director Anita Dunn characterized Fox News as the "research and communications wing of the Republican Party" it set off a virtual war between the administration and the network. Watch:

Much commentary has been devoted to it of late with news orginizations and journalists picking sides. With some on the one hand, like Jacob Weisberg of Newsweek, going so far as to call FNN

un-American, and others, like Jake Tapper of ABC and more surprisingly Clarence Page of the Chicago Tribune openly defending them, most shied away from being so direct and chose to analyze the conflict with a semi-objective tone (NYT)

This conflict raises a lot of questions. Firstly "is Fox in fact news?" (videos of The Ten Most Egregious Fox News Distortions on Huffington Post) begs the question what is news and who has the responsibility of reforming it when it goes out of its bounds. In countries like America where, except for PBS, all news organizations must survive on ad revenues, the moral standards are set by shareholders and ratings. Within the groupthink that develops out of competing in this framework even the most high-minded journalists are forced to make a choice between emotive journalism and marginalization. So Fox plays the game without really pretending that its not a game, and they play extremely well. Others are forced to follow suit though they can't be quite as honest in their dishonesty. Fox took a sublte hypocrisy and turned it into blatant, in your face irony. For example take Charles Krauthammer, a frequent contributor and commentator on Fox, whose recent article said this about the Obama Administration's tactics of late:

Factions should compete, but they should also recognize the legitimacy of other factions and, indeed, their necessity for a vigorous self-regulating democracy. Seeking to deliberately undermine, delegitimize and destroy is not Madisonian. It is Nixonian.

Their commentator Glenn Beck can go on a morning show and say "Obama hates white people", they often fanned the flames of the birther debate, and Roger Ailes, the CEO of Fox, actually worked for Nixon and set many of those policies. They say Obama is Nixonian when he makes a move against them.

Obama Aide Anita Dunn Reveals Media Manipulation Strategy During 2008 Election

Politics and Political Pundits

So I should put a disclaimer on everything I've said up till now. The partisan divides touted by the media are by no means as clear in the actual political spectrum as they seem to appear from the outside. The two party system is seen as an effective way to summarize debates to the public and force compromise within and between parties. In reality there is no left and right. There are a plethora of issues and perspectives that betray such a two dimensional portrayal. I don't have the time or knowledge to do justice to the complexities of each debate but a rough and incomplete outline of guiding ideologies would look something like this:

Foreign policy: neo-liberalism, institutionalism, constructivism, realism, neo-realism, and neo-conservativism

Domestic economic policy: interventionist (industrial policies, supply-side economics, redistribution of wealth...) non interventionist (libertarianism, deregulation...)

Jurisprudence: natural law, legal positivism, legal realism, and critical legalism

Many more could be included in this list each with its own innumerable subcategories and further they can exists together on different levels. For example, as it has been suggested in a Washington Post article, while Obama pursues distributional policies on a tactical level his strategic goal is free market libertarianism. Moreover on top of this there are lobbies in each district, state, and on the federal level each with competing or colluding interests with which each politician must contend.

Of course you'd never guess at this complexity from watching cable news where up to 195mil Americans get there news each month (Pew research poll). Here its all about personality and they benefit from keeping the debate as emotive and two-dimensional as possible. the media sanctioned "leaders of opinion" by viewership (with analysis at the right):

On the left:

Keith Olbermann (MSNBC) The New Yorker

Rachel Maddow (MSNBC) The Observer

Chris Matthews (MSNBC)

On the right:

Bill O'Reilly (FOX) Rolling Stone

Sean Hannity (FOX) CBS

Glenn Beck (FOX) Time Magazine

Lou dobbs (CNN) New Yorker

To better summarize their views I'll put up this video by Charlie Brooker from BBC4's Newswipe. Enjoy: