Fraters Libertas

Deranged, Unstable, or Intoxicated?

I bring you the latest from St. Paul Pioneer Press entertainment columnist Brian Lambert. In his column today promoting Al Franken’s upcoming book of criticism of the conservative media, he had the following to say about Fox News Channel:

Franken, the St. Louis Park-born satirist, has achieved full warrior status in the pitched battle between the forces of cartoon righteousness and the decimated remnants of sanity. The latter are in an Alamo-like defensive position at the moment, surrounded by cutthroat opportunists and firing in every direction.

Sadly, humor of any self-deprecating kind is alien to the suits and circus performers at Rupert Murdoch's "news" empire.

Have Fox's lawyers ever watched their own channel? It's essentially programmed by and for the shrill, unstable and depthless. If Roger Ailes, Fox News' svengali, ran the place with any concern for journalism and none for shrill, unstable hype, spin and marketing, CNN would be eating his lunch, instead of vice versa.

But the sight of Fox News, a plump, consensual parasite on the rump of the Republican National Committee, accusing anyone else of being "deranged," "intoxicated," "shrill" and "unstable" is like Saddam Hussein filing for a restraining order against U.S. Special Ops.

Remember, Brian Lambert is not a political columnist, he reports on news from the world of television and radio. He’s the only one at the paper tasked to do this, there’s no counterbalancing voice in these matters.

And in the course of one column he characterizes the single non-liberal voice in mainstream news reporting as: cartoonly righteous cutthroat opportunists, circus performers, shrill, unstable, depthless, deranged and parasites on the rump of the RNC. Note, he doesn't even make a differentiation between someone like O'Reilly and someone like Brit Hume. He just lumps them all together under this hateful slur. As a bonus, he also characterized the viewers of Fox News (the people that made Fox News far and away the ratings leader in cable news) as “shrill, unstable, and depthless.”

Also remember, Brian Lambert doesn’t believe there’s anything such thing as liberal bias in the mainstream media.

Charitably, maybe what’s quoted above really isn’t bias at all. Maybe it’s just a temper tantrum thrown by an insecure elitist afraid his ideology is being marginalized in the free marketplace of news and opinion. Now if only his kind could control ALL the media again, then maybe he’d get back to updating us on the latest developments with Dharma and Greg.