Boehlert writes: "As Republicans jab Romney though, they're missing the larger, more pressing point: They don't have a Mitt Romney problem. They have a Fox News problem."
File photo, Fox News logo. (photo: Fox News)
The GOP's Fox Problem
25 November 12
oor Mitt Romney has become a Republican punching bag as leaders within the party denounce his post-election comments about how President Obama won re-election by promising government-funded "gifts" to minority groups and young voters. As Republicans jab Romney though, they're missing the larger, more pressing point: They don't have a Mitt Romney problem. They have a Fox News problem.
Romney's "gifts" put-down echoed the infamous claim Romney made during the campaign that 47 percent of Americans see themselves as "victims" and are overly dependent on the government. With the campaign concluded, lots of fellow Republicans now feel free to bash Romney:
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"It's nuts," said former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.
- "I absolutely reject what he said," announced Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal.
- "When you're in a hole, stop digging. He keeps digging," complained Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC).
Though prominent conservatives are now lashing out at the former presidential candidate, the truth is Fox News has loudly championed the divisive philosophy behind Romney's "47 percent" and "gifts" comments for months and practically authored them for the Republican candidate. Last week Fox talkers cheered Romney's "gifts" post-election critique, treating it as a universal truth. (According to Fox Business host Stuart Varney, Obama was "buying votes with taxpayer money. Handouts all over the place.")
And it's not just a Fox News problem. Republicans have an even more expansive right-wing media problem (television, radio, Internet, etc.), which now doubles as the face and voice of the GOP and which celebrates the kind of toxic "47 percent" and "gifts" rhetoric that's being condemned within the party. The far-right press is convinced Obama won re-election by "offering" voters a "check" in exchange for their support.
As Media Matters noted:
Fox host Bill O'Reilly said that voters feel economic anxiety and just "want stuff," while Fox host Eric Bolling said Obama is a "maker versus taker guy." Fox contributor Monica Crowley said that the election showed that "more people now are dependent on government than not." Rush Limbaugh compared the president to Santa Claus, saying that "small things beat big things" in the election and "people are not going to vote against Santa Claus."
In fact, O'Reilly and Limbaugh rushed to take credit for Romney's "gifts" comments last week, since both of them had been pushing the "maker vs. taker" narrative in the wake of Romney's election loss.
The split over Romney's "gifts" remark highlights the larger divide within the conservative movement between two distinct camps: activists and politicians who want to get more Republicans elected vs. right-wing media players who want to grow their audience.
Note that after the Republican flop on Election Day, talk radio's Laura Ingraham dismissed conservative hand-wringers who worried about the political future by stressing that "talk radio continues to thrive while moderate Republicans like John McCain and to some extent Mitt Romney continue to lose presidential elections." That's how hosts like Ingraham view the political landscape. That's how they determine success and failure, not by tallying the wins and losses posted by Republicans candidates, but by counting up the number of radio stations that carry their syndicated show.
The same is true with Daily Caller editor Tucker Carlson. Asked why the conservative media completely failed in their attempt to "vet" Obama, who easily won re-election despite four years of hysterical, far-right claims about him, Carlson told BuzzFeed his publication's work had been a success because traffic to the site was up. (Carlson also blamed the "legacy media" for being hostile to his site's supposed "journalism.")
I'm sure that's comforting news to RNC leadership. And I'm sure the Daily Caller chasing inane, anti-Obama conspiracy theories for the next four years will put the Republican Party on firm footing for 2016.
For now, it's easy to blame Romney. That's what losing parties often do after an election, they pile-on the vanquished candidate. The part that would take some guts and fortitude would be calling out the right-wing media that are generating the type of hate rhetoric that Romney embraced and routinely used during the campaign.
Republicans won't because they're intimidated by the right-wing media's power. That's why New Jersey Governor Chris Christie quickly got on the phone with Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch after Murdoch tweeted that Christie, in the wake of Hurricane Sandy and his bipartisan appearances with Obama, needed to re-endorse Romney or "take the blame" for the president's re-election.
Murdoch: Jump! Republicans: How high?
That unhealthy relationship is the reason why, when it comes to the simple question of whether America is divided between "makers and takers," and if the 62 million Americans who voted for Obama represent a decaying nation of moochers in search of handouts, there's a wide gulf within the conservative movement. The right-wing media consider the claim to be a central tenet, while Republican leaders think saying it out loud is completely batty and a prescription for an electoral losing streak.
So yes, those are conspicuous handcuffs the GOP is wearing: Fox News has hijacked the party's communications apparatus and is pushing the type of paranoid, blame-the-voter rhetoric that loses elections, and the type of rhetoric Romney's now being blamed for. But the GOP can't turn it off. In fact, most Republicans can't even work up enough courage to ask Fox News to turn down the volume.
Unwilling to acknowledge the GOP's future poses a long-term media problem (the topic is not to be discussed), Republicans pretend they have a short-term Romney one.
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Comments
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Yes, we made a big effort to get them in, then we think the job is done and go home. WRONG! The minute we are gone from the halls of Congress, the THOUSANDS of paid former politicians (Chris Dodd and Dick Gebhardt, etc.,) move in to take the teeth from any bill that will do us any good. The Congress is only the tip of the ice berg. The real problem is the money in Mordor (DC). Until we get the money out (Citizens United) and put up a firewall (Glass-Steagall ; which BILL CLINTON dismantled,) We the People are vulnerable to the same-old-same-o ld. Getting a change from the Old Guard is only step one. Now, on to step two; get the money out!... and don't forget to Occupy along the way!!!
If I remember right, the Financial Services Modernization Act which repealed Glass-Steagall was laid on Clinton's desk with enough votes to override any possible veto... (not that he intended to do so).
The FSMA was also known as the Gramm-Leach-Bli ley Act in honor of Senator Phil Gramm (R-TX) whose wife Wendy was the bill's architect. See Robert Scheer's "The Great American Stick-up: How Reagan Republicans and Clinton Democrats Enriched Wall Street While Mugging Main Street".
THE FCC has called this news conference to announce the revocation of NewsCorp's license, and the FOX NEWS is OFF THE AIR!!! It's nice to dream, at least.
I am against both the Electoral College and the Senate rules, because both favor conservatives. Senate rules of 60 votes for confirmations means that we will only ever get centrists or right-wing Cabinet, even if we had elected a Dennis Kucinich as President. The conservative states have a much smaller population on average (except Texas and Florida) than the rest of the country, but no matter the size of the population, every state gets 2 Senators (and at least 3 in the Electoral College). This assures that even if there is a slim majority of Democrats in the Senate, the confirmation of liberal Cabinet and also appointments to Justices on the Supreme Court can and do get blocked by those conservatives.
Now the Republicans have found the gerrymander trick: Ohio and Pennsylvania both have Congressional maps that look like intertwined squiggles; almost no Democrat Congressional Representatives despite the fact that Pres. Obama won in both states, and both states are Democrat leaning. The Repubs again play with numbers: they put heavy Democrats together in one district so that 90 percent in that district vote for one Democrat, and the other districts are more spread out giving Repubs all the other seats.
America is so fed up that despite these facts, the Senate has added Democrats, and the House has fewer Republicans than it did.
I tend to agree, tsw, that the country may be finally waking up to what drivel FAUX news has been spouting all these years. They've been growing like an extremely malignant cancer on the consciousness of America for a long time, but maybe, HOPEFULLY, the cure (public awareness of their unmitigated lies and manipulation) has begun. And let's also hope that cure extends to their appendages like Limp-balls (thanks to reiverpacific for that one!) et al.
The GOP problem is that FOX really does represent them. That huge audience they have are the solid 33% or so, rabid right fools, that would vote for GWB all over again. They were there for McCain and they were there for Mitt. And they will be there for FOX, Rush and O'Reilly until they all die. Fortunately, we're talking about a dying faction in America. These truly are the 60+ year old, white males and a small percentage of their offspring in the South, that will try to carry the torch of ignorance and racism into future generations; But they are now, and will continue to lose that battle.
If the GOP could shed the hard right's attitudes and beliefs they would no longer be anything but a watered down "me too" to Democrats. The Dems have moved so far to the right, there isn't any "right" to represent, unless it's the "rabid right".
I watched McCain morph from a reasonable centrist to a rabid right buffoon and we saw it with Romney. The GOP is finished; It's as simple as that. Now all that's left is to push them aside and begin to govern like adults.
With or without political reasons though, that area of the country needs help very soon, or the dustbowl will become so extreme that we will have another Sahara instead of the Great Plains, and forget about food for the billions of people around the world too.
He was a very successful radio and TV repaiman before planned obsolescence gutted the industry. He didn't make any of the TVs and radios he sold, nor did he make any of the parts that factory workers used to build them, nor did he build any of the roads that brought the parts to the factory, nor did ne build any of the machines that people used to build the roads, and so on.
He just sold and repaired the TV sets. He sat at the top of a large pyramid built on other people's labor and sweat and sacrifice, telling himself how independent he was.
At best, he was interdependent, as is everyone. Where would Rush Limp be without all the radio components that built his studio, or the power lines that run power to his studio? Rush is not a maker, he is a taker. Like my dad, he ignores that part of reality.
i think that's called delusional thinking. Anyone who ignores or denies everyone's input in to our very survival is blind or delusional. Or, as Paul Simon put it in "The Boxer," "a man hears what he wants to hear, and disregards the rest."
Yes; It's a fair point to make and I might even feel compelled to apologize for making such a broad statement. The statistics showed something like 84% to 89% of voter in Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas etc, voted against Obama. It's the Representatives from the Southern states that are all GOP and never inclined to vote across party lines. And it was in Tennessee that I personally encountered overt racism in a young person as late as 1998.
But you're right; Even 20% is a lot of people and to paint everyone with the same brush is like painting all of California as "the land of fruits and nuts". Sound familiar?
I'll take your criticism and try to practice more of what I preach :-)
As for the GOP; The surest way to ensure their survival is for Progressives to become "TeaParty-Like" and drive the people in the middle, AWAY from the Democrat brand. As you point out; This is a divided country still. If the policies prove to be good ones, then people may trust Democrats longer than they trusted Republicans but there's no guarantee.
So on that point I agree as well.
Are you kidding? The liberal media is jealous? Please do your part to eradicate nonsensical comments from serious discussions.
"Jealousy"???!! !
"Eahh ---what's up Doc" (Bugs Bunny voice)?
Thou kiddetht methinkth, gadthookth, oddthbodkinth and e'fackinth (Daffy Duck voithe)! You're dithpicable!!
Speakin' strictly for myself, I'd be more likely to be jealous of a matador who has just received a fatal goring, than from such a source of trickle-down scripted nonsense -at least there is a moment of truth!
BTW, there is NO such thing as a "Left Wing Media" (including MSNBC) in this country unless you look hard for "alternative" sources.
Even Canada, hardly a lefty stronghold these days, banned "Fix" from their airwaves for blatant lyin'.
Nice demonstration of the mindset of blinkered dictates until they have to recognize that their reactionary, medievalist posturing is flawed and failed" I mentioned in my post; thanks for the trite illustration.
Quod erat demonstartum.
Bob
Plus, do you remember when Romney, on his own, with no tape cutting by any media source, was asked to name the median wage or middle income and instead of $50,000-per-yea r(the true average) he answered $250,000. Romney wouldn't know the middle class if they shined his boots(which they might in his case, I don't know what he pays his servants).
Don't tell me about doctors or plumbers; they have creative accountants too.
How many of the Americans who don't have jobs are jobless for their own fault? One, maybe two? Did you notice that the present economic situation was caused by the Masters of the Universe, not the poor slob out of a job that went to China or disappeared altogether? Do you have any idea how many people line up when some business announces that it's hiring? If there were jobs available, do you think WalMart could get away with the way it abuses its workforce?
Do you support the Texas republican party's war against critical thinking?
NO you would not have,stop the lying.
If someone is collecting a benefit to which they are entitled, because they already paid for it (Social Security, for example), why do you care if they work or not?
In fact it is an entitlement in the literal sense, but not in the bastardized Republican lying definition of the word. You're entitled to it because you paid into it your entire life. A real entitlement is the far too low tax on capital gains, which should be taxed at the highest rate of any taxes unless from starting a business from scratch. Stock market profits shouldn't qualify, nor should any investment that doesn't increase jobs.
In federal budgeting, entitlements are distinct from discretionary spending, in that the former are commitments that must be honored and cannot be withheld or cut at whim.
Please don't embrace the Republican distorted worldview; we already know how it warps the ability to reason clearly.
You would NEVER have voted for President Obama so stop giving us stupid/insipid reasons for your republican vote.
More like they BOTH have an Ayn Rand / Makers v. Takers problem.
That disgusting "philosophy" doesn't do well in the light of day, which is what happened in the election.
Sticking to that sicko path will drag down the R's and Fox at the same time. In the long run, neither can survive without the other.
We should give them KA,OK, Ark, & 1/2 TN. Give other 1/2 back to Native Americans. Then build a wall....
The red states get far more from the federal government than they send in. It's the blue states that are supporting them. The least you can do is understand that our problems are a direct result of Republican actions.
And many of them work at Walmart.
What they do sometimes is bring in some weak kneed supposed liberal nobody ever heard of and beat up on him/her. When MSNBC has conservatives they bring in prominent ones and treat them with respect as they destroy their talking points. They even had Pat Buchanan on staff for years.
When he asked during the 1984 campaign "Are you better off now than 4 years ago?" and most people agreed with his assessment. However the facts showed the exact opposite. People looked at interest rates and believed. but that was a small part of the problem and trickle down is just the rich pissing down your back.
And not even enough of a trickle to wash off the shit they piled on us.
8^)
Carter tried the "wage-price freeze" which hurt those of the baby boom who were just getting out of college: that minimum wage job in the summer became the salary forever if a student found work.
Reagan made it much worse, lifting the regulation on prices, but wages were never raised (except a little percent every year). Reagan also played with that marginal rate as you say, but he union-busted, and also ruined pensions with that 401-K idea. The baby-boom, with flat-lined salaries, then had to put money into their 401K, only to have the money disappear in the crash of (the first idiot Bush's) 1987 stock meltdown, and again in (the second idiot Bush's) 2008 meltdown.
The Republicans, again and again and again, have tried to destroy the middle class. Notice it is white males older than 60 who voted for Romney: anybody a little younger than that was caught by Nixon-Carter-Re agan-Bush-Clint on-Bush policies, and now has nothing to retire on.
Possibly there are others in other states, but I'm not aware of them.
Why is Boehlert concerned? We should be celebrating this push by Limbaugh, Beck and Fox personalities to push the Republican Party farther and farther out of The Overton Window. Who are we to complain?
Mr. Boehlert, sit back and enjoy the slow demise of the Party of Wall St. I certainly will since this Party refuses to address climate change. They need to fail, over and over and over until the gov't transforms the fossil fuel industry of Rockefeller into a sustainable system that can support civilization and 7 billion people.
Sound familiar?
My favorite is the "just want stuff" bit!
Yeah, like jobs, burgeoning and successful small businesses so people can self-support, feel useful and part of a productive economy.
"Stuff", like a home, regulated protection from greedy bankers, slum-lords and brokers, progressive and fair taxation to facilitate more "stuff" like a modern infrastructure, universal health care and good PUBLIC education as human rights, a police force that is part of their neighborhoods instead of a Darth Vader militarized, drone-equipped fink-squad for the wealthy, and and efficient, trimmed-down military instead of a lumbering globally-hated behemoth.
Limp-Balls of Clear Channel, "Pill" O'Reilly, Swine Hannity, "Fucker" Carlson and all these well-paid, shiny, gleaming-teethe d bimbos so favored by "Fix" seem to think that "stuff" is confined to the cheap trash flogged to an ever-gullible public by Walmart -those very types who watch and believe Muck-doc's fantasy channel and vote Rethug'.
This privileged minority of scripted cyphers don't get what "stuff" of substance is. They are doomed to blinkered dictates until they have to recognize that their reactionary, medievalist posturing is flawed and failed, hopefully when it's too late.
Great rant, reiver.
I want safe roads and bridges.
I want water lines that do not keep breaking.
I want secure utility lines.
I want a safe and secure citizenry of the US.
Feel free to add to the "Want" list.
THAT says it all, but "they" will never get it cause they believe their own crap.
It's also common for conservative corporations to buy stations that have liberal shows to shut them down. The usual result is losing 90% of the ratings, but it's worth it to them to prevent the truth being told.
The British determined that Murdoch is not fit to run a large corporation.
He is the person must influential int the GOP... and that's the kind of government we can expect with Citizen's United.
I pray I'm wrong, but I honestly feel we've elected the more effective of the two evils... I hope the next four years do not go as badly as I fear they will. But we have a role in that; please don't wait for the next election; get involved in some local grassroots campaign for change; and get organized.
O bsolete
P arty
never going to admit to any wrong thinking.
are demented. They believe the "47% don't pay taxes" crap because they have never heard of property tax, road tax, sales tax, and all the other taxes everyone pays. ???
Check that: Actually they do know, but they are all disengenous, congenital liars with a belief in their own racial superiority due to having inherited big money. Romney's campaign simply confirmed the utter stupidity and greed of the inheriting class...
In fact those people paid an average 17%, far more than Romney.
That lump in my shorts used to be a wallet..
It should be illegal to use the public airways to spread lies. Some people even believe it should be illegal for our elected representatives to knowingly lie. But then 70% of our Congressmen are lawyers aren't they. Looks rigged doesn't it.
I agree wholeheartedly. In fact, I can't think of a better "cause" to champion than the reform of our broadcast media "freedoms". It's a cliche' but it's true; Freedom of speech does not extend to the limit of shouting "fire" in a crowded theater. And propaganda is and always has been an effective "weapon" that is used in war.
By allowing a well funded, broad reaching, media system, to nest lies and propaganda amidst their "entertainment" programming, America has enabled it's own undoing and demise.
For people to vote responsibly, they need true information and they need a good education. Both of these are paramount to maintaining a civil, advanced society. Enable propaganda and you might as well just say "yes" to a dictatorship.
Is there any chance that a law could be passed and enforced to penalize, with broadcast license revocation, fines and jail time, anyone using the public airwaves to broadcast "provable lies" to the public? I'd sure like to see that. Of course, they could always make sure that "entertainment" folks can still do their thing with a clear disclaimer showed at the start of each broadcast and at the beginning of each statement. As in, Jon Stewart saying "now clearly this is just a joke for entertainment purposes but..."
(Maybe it was created in a gloomy castle Transylvania. Somebody shouted, "It's alive!" And Fox News started to kick.)
Now, the monster is crashing around and even the monster's creators are uneasy.
Once you let the thing loose, it makes a mess out of everything.
Today it's part of that $14 trillion debt that Fox News blames Obama for.
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