One Week Later...

Thankfully, my week was capped off by the big Tea Party Convention with Sarah Palin giving the keynote speech. All day today I have looked in on coverage, interviews and commentary about how Ms.Palin got them all fired up, and—if my mental and physical health allows-- will be writing about her soon. Meanwhile, this might be the incentive I have needed to keep me moving forward.

I think I was beginning to feel beaten down by FOX, and the incessant negativity they beam out into the air waves. One week’s worth of this FOX diet has made this endeavor feel weightier than it seemed when I flippantly said I could do it as part of my Face Book status update. Watching FOX has become an aerobic activity for me, and has given me cause to call upon Zen breathing exercises I learned in my martial arts classes over the years. I watch Bill O’Reilly, or Glenn Beck, or even their hourly news updates, and I can feel my chest contract and my pulse race. So, I force myself to breathe deeply, slowly, and remember that I am an outside observer. Things come under control, and I am to view the shows objectively. Six days of this has become come close to being exhausting, and certainly a chore, but it has brought about a few insights. But first…

A Typical Day

As I said, I couldn’t throw myself into the deep-end of the pool, and decided to pick and choose amongst what Fox has to offer. My focus for the first week was the Fox & Friends, Bill O’Reilly and Glenn Beck—hmmm? Maybe this WAS the deep end?

Morning Tea

Earlier I have given my opinions about FOX & FRIENDS, and have seen nothing to change my mind—this is a show that slips back and forth between light morning fare and pretty biased coverage of hot topic political issues. For example, this week I watched:

 An interview with Rush Limbaugh in which he said that the best thing that could happen to this country would be if President Obama’s agenda failed.

 A segment on Super-Bowl food and drink recipes.

 A “fair and balanced” debate on terrorism which began with the question, “Are we LESS safe?”

 The 4 Troops, combat veterans singing patriotic songs.

 “Terror in the Sky” continuing coverage of the Nigerian “Underwear Bomber” with an accent on the criticism of the Obama administration for charging him as a criminal instead of an “enemy combatant.” This was one of the first times I was tempted to check in on some “real news” to find out what was really going on.

 A piece on a cat who is supposed to be able to predict who will die at nursing homes.

 Steve Doocy presented a story about a school in Berkley, Ca that is cutting funding from “advanced” science labs. I watched as he kept referring to it taking from the “white students” and benefiting “black students.”

 Coverage and interview with the MTV reality series “The Buried Life”

 Continued coverage on healthcare reform, and how it just isn’t needed. Today they presented a story about the Premier of New Foundland, Danny Williams, coming to the United States to have heart surgery. There was lots of joking amongst the three hosts about how this proves that the U.S. has the better healthcare system. All I could think of was, “Thank goodness this guy could AFFORD our healthcare!”

Bill O’Reilly

Honestly, Bill O’Reilly has been a relative surprise to me. Prior to watching his show, I saw him as a cartoon super-villain (an area in which have some degree of expertise) who was the symbol of all things I despised FOX.

The surprising thing was that he just didn’t make me as angry as I thought he would—at least not for long.

I find his bloviating annoying and his incessant interruptions of his guests frustrating (though I can think of at least one MSNBC anchor does that) enough to cause me to suggest he drop the whole “fair and balanced” moniker. But he turned out to NOT be the caricature right-wing republican-party shill/ super-villain I was expecting.

I was surprised to hear him(and later Glenn beck) disavow the “birthers”—the fringe elements of the country who believe President Obama was not born in the United States. I was further surprised to watch him criticize the far right wing of the Republican party. So, I have already learned something while watching FOX news. I had a few assumptions about Bill O’Reilly, and just by watching his shows they have been put to rest.

Toward the end of the week I had a welcome breather from my experiment—or at least the illusion of one— when John Stewart, of the Daily Show, was interviewed by Bill O’Reilly. Stewart continues to impress me with his quick wit and assessments of current events. Mr. O’Reilly seemed respectful of Stewart, and it was fun to watch the back and forth banter between the two. It seemed like there were a few times that O’Reilly tried to get Stewart to criticize the Obama administration, and Stewart was having none of it. Asked for a mistake that Obama was making, Stewart replied, “He has decided that Congress is an equal branch of government,--huge mistake."

I thought it was a great interview, and did not seem to be typical of the stuff I have seen O’Reilly do. He was treating Stewart as an equal. Normally O’Reilly is all about instructing his audience about the truth according to Bill O’Reilly. He presents himself passionately about his convictions, and appears dismissive of any other point of view.

Even though John Stewart called O’Reilly the “voice of reason” on FOX, I still believe his show is anything but “fair and balanced”, and that he comes across as a bully.

This leads me to…

GLENN BECK

I am fascinated by Glenn Beck.

And now I am disturbed that I even wrote those words. I would suggest that anyone who has not watched a Glenn Beck performance—and it does come across like some of bizarre performance art—check out his show.

Watching the first episode of the Glenn Beck show was painful. A typical show is Beck, a blackboard, a screen behind him, and an hour of his talking, mugging, preaching, screwing up his face as he leans into the camera, citing “facts”, raising his eyebrows, and pleading with the viewers to listen to what he can teach them about how the government—the Obama administration in particular—will cause the end of America and threaten your children’s future. My mouth fell opened the show with a quote from Benjamin Franklin :

"Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety"

I was surprised that he used this quote in regard to the Obama administration. Prior to this I had only heard it in regard to the Patriot Act under the Bush/Cheney regime. I then watched Beck talk to his viewers through the cameras lens for what seemed to be forever. When he finally broke for a commercial I was exhausted and thought, “Well that show is over!” Unfortunately, when I looked at the clock, only 15 minutes of his hour long show had passed. He continued along with his essential question, presented after the Franklin quote, “How secure is the freedom of your children?” His saying to the camera, “there is not enough Zoloft in the world to make me happy!” seemed very telling.

What followed was 45 minutes of attacks on Obama’s budget, unions, red-tape and college football—and “science”. Yes, he used air quotes to refer to the science of Global Warming. It was a conspiratorial rant of the first order in which he outlined (on his blackboard) Obama’s strategy for “taking over the country”, and how we would all “lose our freedoms.”

It wasn’t quite like watching a train wreck, and I really did come to appreciate what he does. In an insane way it is like watching a madman—posing as the only voice of reason--perform for the audience about how crazy everyone else is for not seeing what he sees.

I found it impossible to get angry at him, or the things he says. At the end of that first hour I wanted to watch more. I thought it would be impossible for him to keep it up. I was wrong. He does this night after night, and week after week. I was relatively impressed by this feat, until I started to remember those paranoid schizophrenics I would see sitting in the corner of subway stations. They would be scribbling page after page in college ruled notebooks. Notebooks were stacked in their shopping carts. The pages were filled with the gibberish of their fevered and damaged brains.

One night he opened the show—and went all Dan Brown/DaVinci Code—and had a photo of the Statue of Liberty and an artist’s rendering of the Colossus of Rhodes on the screen. He spent a bit of time drawing comparisons between the two. Without going into the details of his diatribe, he was drawing comparisons between the Statue of Liberty and an ARTIST’S RENDERING of a statue of which all traces disappeared close to 2,000 years ago. Even a quick search of the internet turns up dozens of artist’s renderings. He found one that suited his needs, and presented it as fact. This is what he does—he inserts just enough possible truths into his rants that one is left thinking, “Hmm? Maybe…” That is what all conspiracy theorists do.

The only deviation from his standard format was the one night in which Beck interviewed Bill O’Reilly. It was less an interview than a promotion for their two man show, A Bold Fresh Tour— which appears to be a two man stand-up routine that Beck and O’Reilly are performing around the country.

In the course of the interview, journalist Joe Klein’s name was mentioned. O’Reilly said he was not sure why Klein demonizes FOX. Beck responded, “He never watches us.” O’Reilly, “Sure he looks in… but you give an opinion, I give an opinion… so what?” O’Reilly went on to say that the overreaction to Beck is fascinating, “You’re just a guy who gets paid a lot of money to give an opinion. They FEAR you.”

IF he is as popular as he claims to be. IF people are listening to him, and trusting what he says as being based on anything resembling fact. IF he continues to call for a revolution… perhaps he Glenn Beck should be feared.

Next: A little more O’Reilly, a little more Beck, the Anti-Christ, Ms. Palin, and my discovery of actual NEWS on FOX.