Fox News hosts use ignorance and terrible rap impressions to relate to their viewers

If you have a minute that you want to spend on something that will make you regret that you will never have that minute back, there’s a video of former Bush press secretary Dana Perino rapping about, well, I don’t know what.  I think she’s trying to start a rap war with Jay Z, which from my perspective sounds about as sensible as North Korea trying to start nuclear war with Russia, China and the United States all at the same time.  But I digress.

More importantly for understanding how hosts and guests like those in the video relate to their viewers over at Fox News, I have a hint.  It’s a one word hint: “ignorance”.  The post mentions her appearance on Wait, Wait…Don’t Tell Me! (the highest quality of news programming) where she revealed she had to be told what the Cuban Missle Crisis was….while she was working for the Bush Administration (why she never asked Russia expert Condoleeza Rice at the time is beyond me).  Here’s the tale:

Appearing on National Public Radio’s light-hearted quiz show “Wait, Wait . . . Don’t Tell Me,” which aired over the weekend, Perino got into the spirit of things and told a story about herself that she had previously shared only in private: During a White House briefing, a reporter referred to the Cuban Missile Crisis — and she didn’t know what it was.

“I was panicked a bit because I really don’t know about . . . the Cuban Missile Crisis,” said Perino, who at 35 was born about a decade after the 1962 U.S.-Soviet nuclear showdown. “It had to do with Cuba and missiles, I’m pretty sure.”

So she consulted her best source. “I came home and I asked my husband,” she recalled. “I said, ‘Wasn’t that like the Bay of Pigs thing?’ And he said, ‘Oh, Dana.’ “

Uggh.

Happy Friday, Everybody: Even Fox News Can’t Make Obama’s Nine Point Lead Go Away

I’m not a mathtometrist. How many Voter ID bills does it take to erase a nine point lead?

Mitt Romney has had a tough couple of weeks on the campaign trail — and it shows in the latest Fox News poll. After a barrage of campaign ads, negative news coverage of his overseas trip and ongoing talk about his tax returns, Romney’s favorable rating and standing in the trial ballot have declined. As a result, President Obama has opened his biggest lead since Romney became the presumptive Republican nominee.

The president would take 49 percent of the vote compared to Romney’s 40 percent in a head-to-head matchup if the election were held today, the poll found. Last month, Obama had a four percentage-point edge of 45 percent to 41 percent. This marks the second time this year the president has had a lead outside the poll’s margin of sampling error.

(That’s from Fox News, which explains why it’s the “negative news coverage” of Romney’s overseas trip that caused his numbers to slip, and not simply Romney’s overseas trip.)

As Greg Sargeant points out, CNN also has Obama up considerably, and for the second week in a row*, which means it looks like Romney’s whole “You didn’t build that” line of attack amounted to squat. That doesn’t mean they’re not going to try again:

The Drudge Report wins this week’s Lee Atwater award for Distinguished Achievement in the Field of Blatant Misrepresentation. Here’s Obama’s original quote, in Colorado yesterday:

I said I believe in American workers, I believe in this American industry, and now the American auto industry has come roaring back and GM is number one again. So now I want to do the same thing with manufacturing jobs not just in the auto industry, but in every industry. I don’t want those jobs taking root in places like China. I want them taking root in places like Pueblo.

As Media Matters notes, Drudge’s headline on this was “Let’s Repeat Auto Bailout ‘With Every Industry’,” even though the context makes clear the president was saying he wants to replicate the auto bailouts’ssuccess with every industry. The RNC is now pushing this falsehood as well. (via)

Keep at it, guys. Maybe next week, Obama will be up by 11.

(Eternal poll caveats: national polls are meaningless, margin of error, etc.)

Attention, Workers: Your Paycheck Is Now A Handout

Michelle Malkin on Charlie Rose:

MORRIS: Right, I mean, let’s be honest. Whether you’re running Walmart, Coca-Cola, Nike, your job is to make money. A byproduct is often creating jobs. My question as a follow up would be, does working in the public sector for your entire career, does that qualify you to run the economy?

MALKIN: Well, bingo. I think that the question answers itself and you know, there’s a very popular contrast and description of the difference between Romney and his supporters and Barack Obama and his supporters. And that is that the Romney types, of course, are the ones who sign the front of the paycheck, and the Obama types are the ones who’ve spent their entire lives signing the back of them. (Via)

1) Huh. I thought they were “job creators.” Apparently, they’re profit creators, and jobs are incidental. Isn’t that what the Democrats have been saying this whole time?

2) Pierce, on those who sign “the back of the paycheck“: “If you can treat someone’s salary like a welfare check, and then sell that nonsense to the American people, then we’re well on our way back to having to poach our meals from the forests of the Duke.” The Republican animosity toward anyone who’s not wealthy now extends to those who actually work for a living; I guess, since you’re technically reaching your hand out when given your hard-earned paycheck, it’s a handout. Which means, as Crooks & Liars points out, Michelle Malkin sure has been getting a lot of handouts from Fox News over the years.

#schadenfreude

The choicest cuts from conservatives who are beginning to realize that Fox News’ content is manufactured.

* “I used to feel that I got it straight, and I got an independent conservative view. Now, what I get is some wholly owned subsidiary of the RNC.”
* “To tell you the truth, a lot of conservatives see Fox News as being somewhat skewed on certain issues.”
* “Conservative points of view are becoming more rare on Fox and/or treated with scorn.”
* “It is my belief that Fox News is hoping to become acceptable enough to the Left in this country to gain big corporate accounts.”
* “Let’s face it, cable news is a notch above just being on the Internet.”

Sentence of the Day, Irony Division

“To tell you the truth, a lot of conservatives see Fox News as being somewhat skewed on certain issues,” said Patrick Brown, who runs Internet marketing for The Western Center for Journalism.

Holiday in Arizona

You know you’re too conservative when even FOX Nation is telling you to cut it out.

Logic: A Still Life

I know it’s Saturday night, but…

All three guests on FOX News right now are from the Wall Street Journal. #balance