This is Historic Times » lying

Weiner of Mass Distraction

deephurting — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 14:00:22 +0000

I avoided doing anything on the recent Anthony Weiner Twitter scandal basically for its entirety. There was enough nonmentary throughout the media that I didn’t figure there was any sense in me adding to it unless I happened to come up with a perspective that was unique, or at least not being explored very much.

In my opinion, the important thing here isn’t what Weiner was accused of in the first place–it’s that he lied about it. That’s the part of this story that’s bigger than one man. It’s the latest incident illustrating how some members of Congress and other governmental institutions think they can be flagrantly dishonest to their constituents and suffer no consequences for it.

What baffles me is that people who can howl for blood and run a person out of office over lies about his or her inconsequential fetishes and affairs couldn’t get so worked up about having the nation plunged into economic disaster and hundreds of thousands of lives pointlessly extinguished by a war based on fabricated threats. I’m sure many of those who called for Anthony Weiner’s resignation (or demanded such from President Clinton when he was embroiled in his own scandal) are the same ones who defended the lies and treason of the Bush Administration, and probably do so to this day without any awareness of the irony.

When I mentioned this to a friend on Thursday, shortly after hearing about the Congressman’s resignation, he said, “Well, it’s too late to impeach Bush and his cronies now.” That may be so, but as long as they live it won’t be too late to punish big liars like them, both for the purpose of justice, and to send a message to other big liars, and smaller liars like Anthony Weiner: When you speak to the public, speak the truth, especially when you’re working at the public’s behest.

Crossed Signals

deephurting — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 03:12:07 +0000

Hi Diddly Die

deephurting — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 20:58:26 +0000

This cartoon comments on the White House’s recent dismissal of Fox News as not being a legitimate news agency. Fox has responded by framing it as an attack by the Executive Branch on the “Fourth Estate” of journalism, and other news outlets have apparently taken the bait.

Quite a few people have said that even if the White House is right (and they are), this is political suicide on Obama’s part. To be quite honest, if this is true, I think it’s something to be proud of him for doing, because that would make it a sacrifice on his part for the betterment of truth in journalism. Perhaps the White House shouldn’t have gone after Fox by name, and instead attacked all “news” agencies that have gone to court arguing their right to lie, but that would still single Fox out specifically, so why split hairs?

The issue here is not that Fox is “conservative,” as if objective news has a political slant–it’s that Fox contributes directly to the mass-circulation of lies, and that is their primary business. One needs to only Google foxnews.jpg to see a huge collage of headline screencaps demonstrating how truly poisonous Fox is to the national discourse–I mean, “Is Mr. Rogers Ruining Kids?” Really?

Fox has asserted that the White House is improperly conflating their opinion programming with their news programming. This is typical misdirection. Fox blurs the line between opinion programming and news programming so much that even if any distinction exists, it’s impossible to identify where it begins. MediaMatters has a very good article citing many examples of opinion bleeding over into Fox’s “news” segments. It’s like having a newspaper where almost every section is opinion reporting, and the news section takes up no more space than the comics–and even that has opinions slipped in here and there.

I wanted my cartoon to symbolize Fox’s dishonesty while also explaining why the White House might want to distance itself from them. Fox questions the President’s legitimacy as a US citizen, stokes racial tensions, funds and supports “tea-bagger” protests, says Obama is a Muslim (while making this out to be a bad thing), and tacitly encourages violence against both the President and other liberals, so it’s not unreasonable to consider their lies a direct threat to his safety, and even his life, nor is it much of a surprise that he wouldn’t want people taking them seriously.