Just listened to Fox News radio snippet on my drive home. It reported McCain with a huge lead over Rommeny (28 pts) and Hillary 10 pts over Obama.
With a jocular sound in her voice, the speaker ended the very brief news bite with this:
Clinton is seen as the most likely to embarrass the country.
OMG.
(I started this as a comment to an open thread but found my comment getting longer and longer...so here 'tis as a diary.)
I couldn't believe how that line deliberately polluted the news bite.
I went to Fox News web site to see if I could find that "embarassment" factoid to write this comment, and, boy, it wasn't hard to find. The two lead paragraphs are:
Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican John McCain are the national front-runners for their party’s presidential nominations, according to a FOX News poll released Friday, and Clinton is seen as the candidate most prepared to begin leading the country on "day one."
That’s the good news for Clinton. The bad news for the former first lady is she is also seen as the candidate most likely to "do anything — including something unethical — to win," and most likely to embarrass the country.
Godawful Fox News where editorials pose as reporting. The radio bite and the web article could have highlighted many different poll results.
The radio news bite didn't tell us that Clinton is seen as the candidate most prepared to begin leading the country on "day one."
The radio news bite didn't tell us their own poll shows Bush at 60% disapproval rating, just a few days after his SOU speech. (I'd like to hear that reported with a jocular tone.)
And tell me that this poll wasn't baited to go fishing for negative results on Hillary.
- If Hillary Clinton were elected president, who do you think would really be president -- do you think Hillary would really be in charge, Bill Clinton would really be in charge, or would there be a co-presidency? [59% HRC in charge]
- If Hillary Clinton were elected president and got into a difficult foreign policy situation with a world leader, would you expect Bill Clinton to jump in to defend her the way he has been doing on the campaign trail? [66% yes]
Absolutely no other question was as focused on any other candidate. Yep, it was a fishing expedition but it didn't catch anything controversial. Except, perhaps, to put the question out there in a issue in a push poll manner.
And perhaps what should have been the essence of the news bite was the results of this poll question:
- Have you personally felt a downward trend in the economy or do you think that’s just something news reporters are talking about?
73% have personally felt a downturn.
Zowee. I think this had the highest response rate of all the questions. Yet neither the news bite nor the web report mentioned that result. (Hmmm... the results remind me of a campaign slogan from 1992, "It's the economy, stupid.")
Fox News and its talking head hacks must be salivating at the possibility of Hillary becoming the nominee. kestrel9000 had a diary this morningthat depicted the Fox talking heads environment where just mentioning the possibility of voting for Hillary (as an anti-McCain vote) evokes reactive derisive on-air comments.
I know, I know, this is Fox News I'm writing about. What can one expect from one of the most dishonest news bureaus since Pravda of the Soviet era?