Up is Down. Night is Day.

Fox News is …grilling Republicans for lying?

Will wonders never cease?

G.D.

G.D.

Gene "G.D." Demby is the founder and editor of PostBourgie. In his day job, he blogs and reports on race and ethnicity for NPR's Code Switch team.
G.D.

Latest posts by G.D. (see all)

  • quadmoniker

    I actually have violent feelings toward this Tucker idiot. Um, yay Fox News?

  • Pingback: links for 2008-09-16 at Racialicious - the intersection of race and pop culture()

  • I just looked out my window… and saw a pig in the air.

  • alexfelipe

    oh. wow.

  • ac

    Holy cow – is it April 1st again? This is fox right? Candid camera? No way.

  • LaJane Galt

    Maaaaaan, that chick is soooo getting fiiiired…

  • Now Dana Carvey will have to return to SNL to portray this witless weasel.

  • Miz JJ

    YOu know buddy was not expecting that. At all.

  • Macks

    The reflections are all wrong…

  • scott

    Maybe now Keith Olbermann will grill some liberal Democrats about their fibs.

  • scott: to which lies are you referring? and are you suggesting that brazenness and volume of McCain’s lies is matched by the Obama camp’s?

    Do you really want to say that Obama’s ‘John McCain believes everyone making under $5 million is middle class’ dig is the same as the ‘Bridge to Nowhere’ garbage even after it’s been debunked, or the ‘Obama wants your kindergarteners to have sex’ nonsense?

    Oh, I’d love to see this argument made.

  • scott

    G.D.

    All I’m suggesting is that what is good for the goose is good for the gander. If Fox can grill Repubs for lying then a someone like Olbermann can grill the Dems for lying. Are you really suggesting that only Repubs lie and that Dems never do?

  • scott: where did i suggest that Democrats don’t lie? I said that there’s a false equivalence in suggesting that the Obama campaign omits facts that would weaken its points is the same as the torrent of untruths from the McCain camp has trafficked in over the last few weeks. Nothing they said has been true. Nothing, from their ‘explanation’ of Obama’s tax plan, Sarah Palin’s stance on the bridge, McCain’s supposed vetting of Palin, McCain saying that Palin didn’t take earmarks, the lipstick-on-a-pig embarrassment, Palin’s pledge to cooperate with investigators in Troopergate…

    i can keep going if you like..

  • scott

    I never said anything comparing or contrasting the candidates on the quality and quantity of their falsehoods. I just said that I’d like to see someone from the left grill some of the Dems. The whole point of post, I thought, was that some people seemed to be surprised to see Fox grill a Repub, as if Fox’s ideology would prevent them from asking hard questions of a Repub.

  • ladyfresshh
  • scott

    ladyfresshh:

    The Slate article is interesting. The gist of it seems to be that both are liars but McCain is worse. Hardly the ringing endorsement of Obama’s veracity that some people might like to see.

    All of that aside, I’d still like to see someone from the left grill some of the Dems.

  • quadmoniker

    Scott: Why? I feel that you’re making some points just to be contrary. Almost every independent fact-checking organization has called McCain out on the campaign’s blatant lies, the repeatedly asserted falsehoods which go far beyond the normal shaving of inconvenient facts that politicians do. Why do you want to see someone grill Obama? In what specific ways does he merit it?

  • scott

    quadmoniker:

    Why what? I’d like to see someone from the left question Dems on some of their fibs for the same reason that folks enjoy seeing Fox question Repubs. To me, if you can ask hard question of someone with the same ideology as you, that shows some hint of intellectual honesty.

    It was others that turned this into a comparison of McCain’s and Obama’s various falsehoods. As the Slate article points out, both candidates have told lies. Just b/c one candidate may have told more lies or a bigger lie doesn’t excuse the other from telling lies, or does it? That seems to be the sense I get, McCain has told more and worse lies so we are going to overlook Obama’s lies. To me, both candidates should be condemned equally, can you say the same?

  • scott: “That seems to be the sense I get, McCain has told more and worse lies so we are going to overlook Obama’s lies. To me, both candidates should be condemned equally, can you say the same?”

    Uh, except that they haven’t transgressed equally?

    yeah. intellectual honesty, my ass.

  • scott

    G.D.

    So Obama gets a pass on his lies b/c McCain has lied more, yes or no? Either all lies are as equally bad or they are not.

  • scott: this is some simplistic-ass logic you’re employing. for real.

    you’re assuming all lies are EQUAL. McCain and Palin tell lies even after they have been roundly debunked and repeat them over and over again. The difference between Obama/Biden and McCain/Palin is that nothing the latter has said in the last few weeks has stood up to scrutiny. Nothing.

    There’s a difference between being occasionally misleading and never being in the vicinity of truthfulness. You can point out Obama’s lies if you want, but pointing out McCain’s lies would result in a much longer list.

    there’s a difference between ‘balance’ and journalistic honesty, homie.

  • scott

    Yes, I think all lies are equally as bad, what is wrong with that? If you don’t think that all lies are equally as bad then what subjective scale do you use to rate them? Is it I like candidate X, so his lies are not as bad as the other candidates lies? Or is it, candidate X doesn’t lie as often as candidate Y so I will ignore candidate X’s lies?

    Rating all lies as equal is different than saying one candidate lies more frequently than the other candidate, it seems to me that you are mixing the two.

  • scott: are you secretly Tucker Bounds? you’re bad at this.

    No one’s saying that both sides haven’t stretch the truth. but let’s assume that for any given lie by a presidential campaign, there is a fixed and uniform amount of media pushback.

    now, let’s pretend that Candidate X lies 5 times over the course of two weeks and assume Candidate Y lies 50 times over the course of that same period. Even if we buy the idea that each of the lies by each candidate is of equal brazenness — if that’s possible or quantifiable — the media response to Candidate Y will be more pronounced because the frequency of that candidates lies invites more individual opportunities for pushback.

    McCain has resorted to falsehoods and distortions to the point where it’s clear that it’s a guiding principle of his campaign. Over the two weeks, he hasn’t even hinted at a concrete policy position, and so, the stories CANNOT be about his policies. The narrative has to be about what he and Palin HAVE said and suggested — the overwhelming majority of which is provably untrue .

    to pretend that there is some equity in the deceit in this campaign would be, well, dishonest.

  • quadmoniker

    Scott:
    Obama has gotten called out on his distortions as well. As you noted, the Slate article talked about the dishonesties in both campaigns. Obama’s claims that don’t stand up to scrutiny are called out on the same fact-checking organizations.

    Obama’s spokespeople haven’t been grilled in the same way because, frankly, they seem to have a different philosophy when it comes to the media. Bounds, if you pay attention, sidesteps the questions by talking about an ENTIRELY different issue. They repeat the lies to the face of journalists who are calling them out on it. That’s a fine strategy to have if they want, but when they become really blatant it will only turn into what looks like grilling. That’s their strategy, since they want to portray the media as elitists who care about “truthiness” more than the emotions the campaign is trying to elicit.

    Obama’s camp is much more likely to engage in a conversation with some back and forth. You probably won’t see a grilling like that because an Obama spokesperson won’t let it turn into that, they will either answer the question or sidestep it in a much more nuanced way. That has nothing to do with journalist failures and everything to do with the campaigns’ strategies.

    And, since you seem to think none of us is neutral, I’ll let you know that McCain’s strategy is obviously the more effective one. Americans, it turns out, don’t care so much about truthiness either. To have journalists challenge the campaigns with pesky things called facts are only going to reinforce a person’s support of the candidate they’re more inclined to believe.

  • ladyfresshh

    Scot for someone who chooses to weigh lies equally you seem to care little about McCain/Palin’s response to their lies.

    So what is your reaction to someone who lies, is confronted with lies and continues to lies blatantly, boldly and without remorse?

    To me it seems you question everyone and everything around the lies except the liar, bemoan the state of lies in general but care little about truth in particular.