Caribou Barbie Reporting, Now Back to You Glenn

 

This week FOX “News” hired Sarah Palin to be an on air commentator.  No, this is not the first line to a really bad joke.  It is actually true.  They really did hire her and I say good for them!  What better way to show that you are a credible, “Fair and Balanced” news network then to hire an extreme right wing nut job who believes that the decision to place the words “In God We Trust” closer to the edge of coins is part of a conspiracy by the Obama administration to remove religion from our lives.  Also she didn’t know that North and South Korea were separate countries.  You know I don’t really have a problem that FOX “News” isn’t fair and balanced.  What I have a problem with is that they keep saying they are.  I listen to the local progressive radio station during the day and they are justified in calling themselves progressive radio because that is what they are.  I am puzzled why FOX "News" can’t just step up and call themselves what they are.  So if they ever want to I have some suggestions for a new tag line.
  

Fox News – Fair and… Oh Who Are We Kidding
Fox News – Bushariffic!
Fox News – Your Official Tea Party Station
Fox News – We Make the Facts
Fox News – Because You’ll Believe Anything
Fox News – And by “News” we mean Lies

 
At least Rush Limbaugh doesn’t claim to be in the center.  He says what he thinks and doesn’t claim that he is anything but an ultra conservative right wing commentator.  (You see I was nice there.  I could have called him a fat arrogant, woman hating, gay bashing, right wing blow hard…but I didn’t.)  When Sarah Palin took this job with FOX she said that she is proud to be with a news organization that is so Fair and Balanced.  Oh come on Sarah.  Fox “News” is about as fair and balanced as you are smart.  I’m not saying you’re stupid but…well yes I am…You’re stupid.  I don’t mean this as an insult.  I mean, to be fair and balanced and everything, you’re just an idiot.  It’s a fact.  It’s like saying global warming is real, or President Obama does not have Death Panels, or our current economic situation is due to the faulty policies of George W. Bush and the billions that we spent on the Iraq (not Iran Sarah, Iraq) war and never included in a single budget.  It just is what it is.  Not that you believe any of those things to be true, but they are.  The weird thing is that Sarah Palin seems to appeal to a demographic that is about as stupid as she is.  Sarah Palin’s base is the uneducated, religious white trash that will believe anything that FOX “News” or Rush Limbaugh through at them without checking it out for themselves to see if it is true.   But then that would require using that new fangled internet that all the kids keep talking about.  Recently I watched a video of Palin Heads lined up for a signing of her book that you can now get in the closeout sections for $4.95, and it was amazing how stupid these people were.  Person after person was asked what are the issues that Sarah Palin supports, that you support as well.  Not a single person could give a intelligent informed answer.  They would just start to giggle nervously, or turn to their friends and ask, “What’s her issues?” or as one women said, “Now you’re asking for specifics, Oh I don’t know I just like her.”  It was like watching Sarah getting interviewed by Katie Couric.  But what is scary is that these are her supporters and there are millions of people out there like them.  They see themselves in Sarah and they really don’t care what the issues are.  All they know is that she is like them and they are happy to let Fox “News” and Rush tell them what to think, no matter how wrong and twisted it is.  The scary thing is that there may be enough of these people to actually get someone like Sarah Palin elected President. 
 
Sarah Palin is part of the Ultra-conservative religious right.  These are the people who make it their mission to continuously push their religious beliefs and agenda down our throats and damn us all to hell if we don’t repent and find Jesus.  These are the people who protest abortion clinics and refuse to condemn the murder of a doctor shot at those clinics.  Palin herself was asked in an interview with Brian Williams, with John McCain sitting right by her side, if she would consider the bombing of an abortion clinic an act of domestic terrorism.  Her answer, to what should have been the easiest question of her campaign, was that she finds the bombing to be unacceptable, but "I don’t know if you’re going to use the word ‘terrorist’ there." (Watch the video)  Her response showed exactly how extreme to the right this woman is, and how out of touch she was with the Presidential candidate sitting next to her.  I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall in the McCain camp when that came out of her mouth as the collective expression of "Oh Crap! She did NOT!" filled the room!  This is a woman who believes that abortion is wrong even in the extreme cases of rape and incest.  In an interview that she just did with Glenn Beck, to the question, which is your favorite founding father her answer was, “All of them…” to which Beck replied “Bullcrap.” (Watch the video) The problem with anyone, including Palin who is on the far religious right is that they represent religious extremism and any type of religious extremism and politics just don’t mix.  Religious extremists can use their religion to justify any action.  A Christian religious extremist can gun down an abortion doctor and claim religion as a justification.  Sarah Palin can push to deny woman there right to abortion in extreme circumstances and claim religion as a justification.  Muslim Terrorists can fly airplanes in to buildings and claim religion as there justification.  A Jewish extremist can gun down the Prime Minister of Israel in the name of religion.  Extremism breeds intolerance and in this society in which we all must live together we must have tolerance.  Homosexuals can’t marry each other because of intolerance.  A doctor can’t legally practice abortion because of intolerance.  And then you have Pat Robertson who said of the tragedy in Haiti, that Haiti has a pact with the Devil, “they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, we will serve you if you'll get us free from the French. True story.  And so, the devil said, okay it's a deal."  Apparently according to Pat Robertson the Christian thing to do is blame the Haitian people for their own tragic situation.  I suppose Pat Robertson would blame the Jews for what happened to them in the Holocaust.  According to Pat Robertson, “the U.S. is under a cloud of divine wrath and is headed for financial ruin.” He said, “G-d won’t bless an America that institutionalizes homosexual rights and abortion while prohibiting prayer and Bible reading in public schools.”  Also according to Pat Robertson, 9/11 is the fault of “the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way -- all of them who have tried to secularize America -- I point the finger in their face and say: "You helped this happen." (Watch the video) This is the extreme religious right.  And what is truly scary to me is that thousands of people believe this craziness.  Thousands of people listen to a man who actually stated that he does not believe that the Separation of church and state exists is in our constitution.  Whether the extremism comes from the religious right, or the radical Muslims, it is all intolerance.  They can cloak themselves all they want behind a veil of religious righteousness, but any group or person whether religious or not that is intolerant of the others around them, or lays blame with the victims of tragedy or injustice should look only at themselves for whats wrong with society.  If I have learned one thing in this life it is to accept others for whom and what they are and not who we think they should be.  Whether you are gay or straight, black or white, Christian, Jewish, or Muslim, male or female, young or old, we are all people, with one world, on one planet and we must all be tolerant of each other, and that my friend is fair and balanced.