Al Franken rules, FOX News chokes trying to suck own wiener

A few weeks ago, FOX News did something stupid. No, not that. No, not that either. No, try again. No, the other stupid thing they did. Okay, so maybe I should be more specific, since FOX News does something stupid and unethical roughly every five minutes. I'm talking about their lawsuit against Al Franken for using the term "fair and balanced" in the title of his new book.

In case you've been stuck in the gap in Condoleezza Rice's teeth for the past two weeks, and haven't heard about the lawsuit, FOX News lost the case, and the judge did everything short of shoving his foot up the ass of each of their employees. Here's some fun quotes from the judge about FOX News and its pathetic lawsuit:

"This is an easy case in my view and wholly without merit, both factually and legally."

"I don't know if Fox is arguing that its viewers are less sophisticated than buyers of Mr. Franken's book."

"It is ironic that a media company, which should be seeking to protect the First Amendment, is seeking to undermine it . . ."

This is a rare moment of painful reality for FOX News that is well overdue. I'm not going to go as far as some people, saying FOX News panders to the right. Their opinion makers, like Bill O' Reilly or Hannity and Colmes, are merely that: opinion makers. Opinion is separate from news, so I won't hold the biases of those people against them. Especially since a lot of other news sources, especially print news, tend to pander to the liberal side with their editorial sections.

But sadly, the news on FOX News is just as opinionated as O' Reilly. Earlier this year, FOX News released a poll asking viewers whether they thought Syria was harboring Iraqi officials. One of the choices in the poll was "Yes, we already caught one Iraqi official in Syria". The problem was that we hadn't caught any Iraqi officials in Syria. Of course, nearly 90% of the voters in the poll picked that option, assuming it was true. FOX News misled a lot of people on the issue, and their ethics and journalistic skills haven't gotten any better since.

Remember when our troops found hundreds of boxes of human remains in a warehouse in southern Iraq, and FOX News anchors reported that it was "possibly" another brutal attack by Hussein against his own people? (There's no room for the word "possibly" in honest journalism. You give the facts, nothing more.) Remember how the FOX News anchors said there was a room in the warehouse with "meat hooks where people were tortured"? Not true. As it turned out, those remains were of soldiers from the Iran-Iraq war in the '80s. The bodies had recently been returned by Iran. FOX News reported the story correctly the next day, but by then the damage had been done. Every right-wing blog on the Internet was spreading the false story.

That's what's sad about FOX News. While most right-wingers rip the media for being liberal, most of those people are referring to the opinion sections, and not the actual news. But for FOX News, the news is filled with opinion. Their anchors make their own analyses of stories, and repeat the opinions of "experts on the subject" as fact. In real journalism, that's called persuading the audience, not informing them.

So it's about time FOX News got a fresh kick in the ass. Perhaps the Franken lawsuit will show FOX News viewers that the station is a lot more interested in making themselves look good than they are about doing what's right.

The other benefit of this lame lawsuit is already known. Many new people have been introduced to Al Franken's hilarious books. Not that Franken needed the help. His last three books have been bestsellers, even the ones that didn't get much publicity. The release date of Franken's new book was moved up to last Friday, and the results are just as expected:

Now that's what I call justice.

Perverted Poll. It's not as perverted as the poll FOX News misled people with, but my website's weekly poll is still pretty good.

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Dec 31, 1969 • 4:00pm        Dec 31, 1969 • 4:00pm   badboyhms@yahoo.com      Dec 31, 1969 • 4:00pm        Dec 31, 1969 • 4:00pm   Think_on_your_own@wake_up.com      Dec 31, 1969 • 4:00pm        Dec 31, 1969 • 4:00pm        Dec 31, 1969 • 4:00pm        Dec 31, 1969 • 4:00pm        Dec 31, 1969 • 4:00pm        Dec 31, 1969 • 4:00pm

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