Fair and Balanced

The Apple had a fever this morning, so I couldn't take him to daycare. Fortunately, I am unemployed, and officially no longer studying for the bar exam, so I was able to stay home and keep an eye on him, give him tylenol, etc. We went to the Y this morning, because I needed to get back to working on getting back into some sort of shape. While I was on the elliptical machine (THE best exercise machine ever made), I listen to the various televisions that are on through my earphones. First, I listened to Fox News. The lady on Fox News used a segue similar to this:

"this may be the season of vacation for many of us, but one group that isn't taking vacations is Al Qaeda. A recent report shows that Al Qaeda may be preparing to make a summertime attack on the United States. All this going on while the debate continues on whether or not we should be allowed to wiretap terrorists."

In about 15 seconds, she spat out exactly what it is about Fox News that so many people don't like. Start with a veiled threat ("We're taking our guard down for the summer, but the bad guys aren't"), then explain how the threat applies to us ("They may be preparing to do something someday") and then tied it to a Neocon talking point, with a remote implication that those who oppose warrantless wiretaps support terrorists, even though the wiretaps are not being used exclusively to listen in on TERRORISTS, but whoever the CinC determines may be a terrorist, or may be supporting or connected to a terrorist, without, apparently even a reasonable suspicion standard, let alone probable cause.

This is not "fair and balanced" reporting; it is scare tactics with an agenda. And the worst part about it is that agenda has an end aimed at limited the liberties of all Americans in the name of security. That just scares me.

Why should this matter?

I don't care for Mitt Romney. I don't think he would make a good president. I think he's polarizing. I think he played both sides of the gun issue.

But all of my opinions are based on my impression of Mitt Romney, not Mitt Romney's Great- or Great-great grandfathers. Seriously, I could give a crap if his great grandfather had five wives. That does not mean that Mitt supports polygamy; in fact, he has gone on the record as being against it. He doesn't practice it. I don't see how what his ancestors did has any bearing on his qualifications to lead this nation. In my mind, this is as asinine as it would be for an article to come out saying "so and so, a candidate for the presidency, has in his (or her) family tree members who owned slaves. Candidate, however, has spoken out against slavery." It would be seen as stupid, which it should.

As idiotic as this article's topic is, I'd almost be willing to believe that the Romney camp had it released to garner airtime to attack its relevancy in his campaign for president, to get people talking about him, in his defense, to garner support... almost.