I sent the following e-mail (written by me) to friends and family after watching 15 minutes of Fox News at at dr's office: (This is my first diary, so be gentle)
"I was sitting in the dr's office about 11:30 AM and I was being forced to watch Fox News on two big screen TVs. They're talking about earmarks and claiming that Obama/Biden have been making it a huge campaign issue.
First of all, that's false. Obama and Biden have not made any case against earmarks. They have, however, been making a case about lobbying for a large number of earmarks and then LYING about it and claiming you haven't, which Palin has done.
Fox, then proceeds to talk about all the earmarks the Obama and Biden have gotten for their states in the last year. Fair enough, being against earmarks is a perfectly good policy position and McCain is justified in fighting them. They then proceed to talk about the fact that McCain has pushed for no earmarks for Arizona within the last year. Then they change to the next subject with no mention of Palin's lobbying for earmarks!
This is not a campaign doing this! It is a news network that is blatantly framing and spinning issues! I saw this in 15 minutes of watching this network. 15 minutes! Fox is pretty much acting as a surrogate for the McCain campaign at this point. I was astounded at how blatant it was. I thought it was worth a warning. If anyone feels I'm wrong on this, please let me know.
PS The other issue they talked about in the 15 minutes was Obama using the phrase "lipstick on a pig", one I'm particularly fond of. For those that don't know , it means dressing something up that's not very pretty underneath doesn't really change it, usually an issue. Fox claimed it was an attack on Palin for being a woman. That's not even worth commenting on."
UPDATE: Reminder that this was an e-mail sent to all sorts of people, some of whom watch Fox News. Please keep that in mind when you see my gentle tone.
Also, people that think I'm overreacting, please state how so in the comment section. Do you feel that the way they handled the topic was not blatant?