Fox News Channel Is Dead

Abraham Lincoln, arguably our country's favorite president but certainly the 16th, said "It is true you may fool all the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all the time; but you can't fool all of the people all the time." The fortieth president Ronald Reagan said "Fortunately, we can fool enough of the people enough of the time." Thus was born the driving philosophy of the ultra conservative schemers who have dominated the media for over a generation. It is no minor co-incidence that the fairness doctrine that attempted to keep public airwaves politically neutral, was killed by the Reagan administration. Likewise, he began the dismantling of media ownership limits under the guise of freeing up the broadcast market, but knowing full well that his cash rich supporters were ready to monopolize that market.

That fun loving guy Keith Ruper Murdoch has been watching the Comedy Channel with a growing, fiery envy of the comedy channel. "Here's this upstart John Stewart doing a half hour of satire on the news, Murdoch said, "Hey, who do they think are trying to edge into my territory? I constantly push my producers to make the funniest shows on TV, but those morons out there think it's "real news" and "fair and balanced". What? Isn't Sean Hannity the best comic since Lou Costello? I even found that Colmes guy, the perfect Bud Abbott. I put lots of pretty faces up for people, especially the guys to enjoy. I covered the ladies too, and yanked Bill Hemmer away from CNN. Don't you love it when the "news anchor" biffs and bimbos stare down earnestly at a screen pretending they are at the heart of news central!!! The most brilliant thing my writers came up with was never letting their liberal guests complete a statement. We run our show on sound bites, those dems come off looking so weak, because they can only speak in sentences and paragraphs. One of my personal favorite insider jokes is ordering all the news people to say "homocide bomber" instead of "suicide bomber." Here at Murdoch headquarters we get a lot of laughs reading letters aloud from angry families complainiing we're not giving their children credit for blowing themselves to smithereens. And if all that wasn't enough to seal the deal of Fox as the funniest channel on our dish, we've given you the perfect joke, the ultimate buffoon, the baboon of babel, Bill O'Reilly. Our private joke at Fox is that Bill thinks what he does is serious, now that's a true bozo." I wish we could have gotten Rush Limbaugh in his heyday, but his ship has sailed, and besides we couldn't afford to support his habits and keep his ass out of jail."

I'm reporting all this now, in honor of President's Day, actually I'm not. This is a review of the Fox News Channel's new show "The Half Hour News Hour". If you set aside for the moment the fact that everything in the show is a lopsided, extreme right wing propaganda ploy, and if you set aside for the moment the fact that the material is absent of any sign of intellect, and only look at the quality of the humor, you realize you've been had. There's no humor in this show. Adolescent teenage boys make funnier jokes any day of the week. So why make a show that's so bad that even the performers showed extreme discomfort with their lines, and a total lack of delivery style. The story goes they've only scheduled two shows, which I'm sure the anchors are breathing a sigh of relief. They may be able to salvage their careers yet. It's possible that since their news shows and commentary ranters are so laughable, they thought to try the opposite and make a satire show that's not satire. Now if we go back to the points we set aside, we find its propaganda as naked as in the book "The Third Reich" and every bit as racist and bigoted, and we find not one shred of throught provoking insights. Making an attempt at pun by turning Obama's name into "BO" (oh, duh, I get it...body odor!) is stupid and beneath contempt. Their concept of edgy is to use racism and homophobia, and attack those who defend individual liberty and fight government fraudulent use of power. Even the laugh track sounded phony, just some control board lackie turning up the knob labeled dull roar. I must conclude that Fox set out to do a news satire show that's completely unlike the very funny, intelligent, and entertaining John Stewart and "The Daily Show." Congratulations guys, you succeeded!

P.S. Why do I say Fox News Channel is Dead? Easy, they are described in the book idolized by George Bush's faith, "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness. (Mathew 23:27 KJV)