Monday, November 22, 2010

Jimmy Carter vs. Fox News (and MSNBC)


I like Jimmy Carter, I really do. But:

Jimmy Carter said Sunday that Fox News commentators including Glenn Beck have "deliberately distorted" the news.

Speaking on CNN’s "Reliable Sources" Sunday, the former Democratic president took aim at the cable news channel climate, often a target for President Obama as well who says he tries to avoid the cable chatter.

"The talk shows with Glenn Beck and others on Fox News, I think, have deliberately distorted the news. And it's become highly competitive," Carter said. "And my Republican friends say that MSNBC might be just as biased on the other side in supporting the Democratic Party, the liberal element."

The ex-president said opinions about the two channels was "part of give and take" in politics in the United States. Carter also believes CNN has suffered from trying to remain nonpartisan in comparison to Fox and MSNBC. 

"And I think CNN, more than others, has kind of tried to play the middle to their detriment as far as viewership is concerned and profits are concerned," Carter said.  

First, it doesn't take an ex-president to realize that Fox News deliberately distorts the news. Thanks for stating the obvious.

Second, Carter shouldn't say anything at all about MSNBC if he doesn't know what he's talking about, which would seem to be the case. MSNBC is not the Fox News of the left. There are liberal opinions expressed on MSNBC, just as there are conservative opinions expressed on Fox News, but MSNBC does not distort the news and is not the propagandistic mouthpiece for the Democratic Party as Fox News is for the Republican Party.

Third, CNN is an appallingly crappy network. And if you think it "plays the middle" by trying to be objective, you haven't been paying attention. CNN regularly pushes Republican narratives and talking points and allows the extremism of the Republican right to be presented as equal to the centrism of the Democratic right, as if the "center" is somewhere in between, while ignoring (or treating as extreme and unworthy of consideration) the progressivism of the left altogether.

But thanks for coming out, Mr. President.

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9 Comments:

  • I can't remember the last time I watched CNN for any time longer than a few minutes, and I don't even know what number it is on my cable line-up. I think what did it was Wolf Blitzer asking for the umpteenth time, "Is America ready for a black president?" to which I shouted, "Hey, Wolf, are you ready for your Clorox enema?"

    By Blogger Mustang Bobby, at 4:06 PM  

  • "Hey, Wolf, are you ready for your Clorox enema?"

    Gee thanks - now I'll never get that image out of my mind.

    By Blogger Capt. Fogg, at 10:31 AM  

  • Jimmy Carter is and has been delusional for some time. He has become an embarrassment to himself and his old party, he is the worst President and post President America has ever suffered. These are not my opinions but those of every recent poll of the kind. Both sides of the aisle cringe when he goes on one of his rants, everyone runs from his association. Who cares what he thinks, if MSNBC tries to get ratings from his latest embarrassment, let them try.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 9:18 PM  

  • Jimmy Carter has been delusional for several years, he is by all poll information, the worst President and worst post President in history. Everyone on both sides of the aisle cringes when he decides to go on one of his rants, they all run from his association. He is trying against hope to rehabilitate his image, he can't escape his own history. Let's thank him for Habitat for Humanity and let it go. MSNBC is trying to get a few rating points for their failing ratings, they'll even trot out this tired old curmudgeon.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 9:27 PM  

  • Jimmy Carter is and has been delusional for some time. He has become an embarrassment to himself and his old party, he is the worst President and post President America has ever suffered. These are not my opinions but those of every recent poll of the kind. Both sides of the aisle cringe when he goes on one of his rants, everyone runs from his association. Who cares what he thinks, if MSNBC tries to get ratings from his latest embarrassment, let them try.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 9:29 PM  

  • "he is by all poll information, the worst President"

    That's an interesting confusion of opinions and reality. There are a lot of people who have told pollsters that WW II was fought in the 19th century and that in it, Germany and the US were allied against the Russians. Since Obama's poll ratings seem higher than Reagan's at the same career point, will you be consistent and rank Obama higher than no-stick Ronnie?

    You can poll dance all you like, but was it Carter who allied us with Hitleresque Argentinian torturers and murderers and Nicaraguan butchers, drug pushers and other Central American Nun rapers and death squads - who sold weapons to Iranian Mullahs to use American hostages as political pawns? He's one of the few presidents moral enough to have refused to back the era's worst tyrants and butchers, but then morality means something entirely different to you, doesn't it? If it means anything at all, that is.

    You seem to have a real problem distinguishing between truth and political pronouncements of pre-fabricated opinion, not that it's an uncommon substitute for brains these days.

    By Blogger Capt. Fogg, at 11:04 AM  

  • Fogg, that's so apropos, that's where Jimmy lives too. Did you see your president BHO summon support from Mr. Carter. The Dems, the news media, the comedians(Jimmy) was doing it for them) all distanced themselves. He gave away the Panama Canal, runaway inflation, highest interest rates, how did the hostage crisis workout? Gas was over $2.00 a gallon thirty years ago. He had no national or international experience, nor did the people he surrounded himself with. His recent trips overseas are an embarrassment to our country, he has shown he's anti-semetic, even BHO's staff has told him to get lost. I could go on but why?

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 12:06 AM  

  • I don't feel burdened by the need to expatiate on your gross and tendentious oversimplifications. I've done enough fishing to recognize bait, so why go on, indeed? Why not just go? You're not going to make a case for "worst ever" anyway if all I have to do is reference Nixon or Reagan or Little Bush. Is that what all the sound and fury is about in the first place? Your name George or something?

    Our country has much to be embarrassed about, but again, I suspect I'm addressing the binary mind who would portray honesty as unpatriotic and all things as either best or worst than face the truth. I'm not going there, sorry.

    Hostage crisis? Did he topple a democratically elected government in Iran to assure control of the oil fields and support a tyrannical monarchy? Did he sell weapons to a terrorist, theocratic tyranny and use the illegal profits to create a slush fund to wage a secret and illegal war, support and train death squads and get countless innocents murdered, or did he attempt a rescue?

    Did he bomb the bejesus out of a country and kill hundreds of thousands based on a story he knew was false and set up deals to cut up Iraq for the profit of himself and his cronies? Did he topple democracies, support tyrants and murderers and torturers all over the world? It's obvious that your little Carter fit has other origins than his actual deeds and probably other objectives I'd rather not speculate on so soon after breakfast.

    No, you could indeed go on, and I can go on longer, but I'd rather you just go play with your voodoo dolls in private.

    You know there are Presidents who have done far, far, worse than relinquish control of a canal whose strategic importance to the US is a shadow of what it was to Teddy Roosevelt and for what it's worth, We still retain the power to defend it against a takeover or attack by anyone we don't like. Hell, we've already exercised it.

    O yes -- it's Semitic, not semetic. That sounds like a pimple cream or something. And of course that accusation is another cheap and flimsy gambit. Criticism of Israel is certainly due and overdue -- and that's not a criticism of being Jewish as much as you'd so fondly wish others to think. Perhaps you'd like to call me anti-Semitic as well? Why not the worst ever anti-Semite in all of history, while you're on a hyperbolic roll?

    By Blogger Capt. Fogg, at 11:39 AM  

  • Foggy, you make a good point, I apologize for saying Jimmy was the worst ever, Obama is definitely in the running. Funny how you condemn me for my opinion and then you go off on one of your empty rants and you think I'm on a hyperbolic roll. You're not going there? Why don't you just go? Sorry about an errant key stroke on Semitic, geez I think I'll use that pimple cream on my hiney......
    Captain, rather than you coming unwound, send me any reference published anywhere that shows that Jimmy is regarded as a top President. Your anger on this and every other site that you're on wears me out. I touched on just a few of the reasons why you won' find that chart, unless you sneak one of yor own in there. Enter that info here I'd like to see it.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 1:56 PM  

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