In Bentonville, USA on a business trip to Wal-Mart. This town is, like its largest employer, very patriotic. Ate dinner at my favorite restaurant here, The Station Café. (Chicken a la King, very tasty.)
The restaurant’s two TVs were tuned into the Fox News Channel, and Bill O’Reilly was vomiting up the following “news”: some of the Big Newspapers (i.e. The Washington Post, The New York Times, etc.) had the nerve to suggest that the war wasn’t going as well as we had planned. These admissions, of course, betray their liberal, anti-war agendas. Quel scandale!1 Hearing Fox News Channel accuse anyone of being “slanted” in any direction is like the pot calling the kettle black. All this while O’Reilly’s show and Fox News Channel claim to contain “no-spin” and be “fair and balanced”. Does anyone who watches this channel actually believe that they are getting true unbiased journalism?
At any rate, I really wish someone would post the transcript for the exchange between O’Reilly and the fellow from Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR). O’Reilly was outraged when the guy from FAIR suggested that the Post and the Times weren’t acting out against the Bush administration, but were in fact acting as a part of the establishment by softening the public’s expectations regarding the war with respect to duration and coalition casualties, just as Bush and Co. have been doing in the last few days.
Elsewhere, Bill Hartung of the World Policy Institute expresses his outrage at having his mic cut off mid-debate on O’Reilly’s radio program.
1 Yes, I’m using French. So sue me. I ate French Fries recently, too. I have no use for French’s mustard, but that’s not due to the name which, as the company who makes and sells it is quick to point out, has nothing to do with a certain country which refuses to fall into step as a member of the coalition of the willing.