By now, everyone who leans left politically (and even many who lean right) already knows that Fox News Channel is decidedly conservative. Rupert Murdoch receives much scorn for his attempt at equaling CNN, and many feel that FNC is shameless right-wing propaganda at its purest.
But let's not forget who Rupert Murdoch is. Yes, it's easy to peg him as a scoundrel because of FNC, but how short is the collective public's memory anyway?
What I mean is: Fox-TV, the revolutionary "fourth network" that brought us such family-values-oriented TV fare as The Simpsons and Married... With Children, made a name for itself by being the opposite of what FNC gets accused of being.
FNC is a cable channel, Fox is on network TV. Many people assume that the viewpoint of each separate entity is one and the same. But is it really?
Tune in to the Fox news at 11 tonight, if you can stomach it. I do every now and then, and I'm always struck by how conservative it is NOT... especially during the Sweeps months, where the ratings count.
Yes, Fox News on network does pander to our worst fears and employs baseless titilation in order to get ratings, but that's not the same as championing Ann Coulter or letting Bill O'Reilly (who rose to fame hosting the scandalous A Current Affair in Fox's early days) spin away into oblivion.
In fact, compared to FNC, Fox the network is downright liberal. And when you look at its humble beginnings and some of the controversies of the past (most notably the crusade of one Terry Rakolta against Fox prime time programming) and compare it to what their cable counterpart is doing, you begin to notice that Murdoch has no real allegiance to any political ideology.
He's a businessman, and he's hedging his bets.
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Our president, George W. Nixon, has based his two terms on pandering to America's fear of another terrorist attack. But lately, he seems to be easing off of that mentality, what with this deal to give United Arab Emirates leeway to guard six of our biggest ports.
He also is admonishing South Dakota, a state that banned ALL abortion outright. He has stated that he supports abortion in the case of incest and rape, or when the mother's life is in danger, and he thinks that an all-inclusive ban is not right.
That's not what he was saying in 2000, or in 2004.
Now, Bush is starting to sound like his dad during the 1988 debate against Dukakis. You know his dad, George H. W. Bush? The man who coined the phrase "voodoo economics" to describe Ronald Reagan's economic plan in 1980 when they competed for the Republican nomination? The man who was pro-choice up until he was picked to be Reagan's VP, after Reagan won the nomination?
Once again, here's a man hedging his bets. And that's exactly what George W. has been doing as well. Over the past five years, the President has been letting small nuggets of (gasp!) liberal thought seep into his agenda. Only problem is, these little gems don't make the front page of the newspaper-- they usually get buried in the back pages.
The whole Dubai port deal should've been one of those things. But I think sitting VP Dick Cheney's recent hunting "accident" caused the media (ever the bloodthirsty sharks that they are) to scour the depths of whatever they could dig up. And that called attention to the port deal.
But no one noticed all the times when Bush was waiving sanctions against Saudi Arabia in regards to human trafficking, a practice the Saudis did NOT disavow nor do anything about; and no one noticed when Bush asked Americans to be tolerant of Islam because it is a peaceful religion.
But I did. And that's why I'm posting this today-- because the question has never been about Left vs. Right, or Republican vs. Democrat.
Well, what IS it about then, you may be asking.
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Before I leave you to make up your own mind about these things, here's an article from 2003, before President Nixon was re-lected, titled "9/11 Propaganda, Hollywood Style".
It makes mention of Viacom's ties to the Middle East:
"Viacom is the junior partner in the Showtime Middle East joint venture with KIPCO (Kuwait Investment Projects Co.), an investment vehicle for certain members of the Kuwaiti royal family. Showtime carries a bouquet of some 16 Western channels plus 10 audio services, and claims some 180,000 subscribers. [Sumner] Redstone spent some of his time in the Gulf being given a guided tour of Dubai by its crown prince, Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum. Explained Redstone, "Showtime here is a modest part of our operation, but it may serve to bring us a greater presence in this part of the world. I am seriously, seriously impressed."
Hedging the bets...
Here's the link.
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