O'Reilly/FOX/GOP Still Don't Get It

[The Comrade]

[Indy]

[J.K. Gregg]

The point that I'm making (and I think Prof is making too) is that while the GOP and Fox News mimic each other's positions in great degree, they aren't "reflections" in that one speaks for the other 100% of the time, and for a variety of reasons, first being that the GOP is a political party fueled by votes while Fox News is a news organization fueled by ratings. This means they, at times, diverge in purpose. Fox News has much more leeway in saying bombastic and partisan things than GOP candidates.

It's not that Fox and the GOP are "divorced" or in no way "parrot" each other’s positions at times. They certainly do. It's that by their nature, they are different things capable of saying and doing different things. A GOP candidate would be ruined if at a news conference she insinuated that Asians should have voted for Romney and was surprised that a stereotypically hard working ethnicity didn't vote a certain way. It's a subtle difference, and you may think my goal is to excuse the words of Fox News as "bad apples" or "fringe lunatics" or that I’m playing with semantics, but I'm not and nor have I ever presented myself as a defender of conservatism, Fox News, or the Republican Party. All I'm saying is that one has much more power to speak their mind, and get away with it, than the other.

To lackadaisically equate (without caveat) that everything Fox News does and says reflects the heart and soul of a political party is just dishonest and an exercise in lazy observation.

[The Comrade]

nebulous distinction

[Kane]

The entire thread is nebulous. We've been over these topics repeatedly.

[J.K. Gregg]

Dishonest equivocating.

[The Comrade]

[The Comrade]

[exploited]

It is pretty nebulous. You don't see much outrage from Republicans when yet another Fox News commentator says yet another awful, disgusting thing. In fact, you see the opposite, usually by calling those who were offended PC, or by saying "Yeah but MSNBC said..."

It is entirely accurate to say Fox reflects the sensibilities of a pretty huge chunk of the Republican base.

[Indy]