Or “I can see Washington from my seat as a Fox News analyst”.
Make no mistake about one thing – while the mainstream now admits that Sarah Palin is a political force to be reckoned with, a 2010 mid-term election dominated by Tea Party successes would not have been possible without the fair, balanced, and uniquely honest coverage of Fox News. If any one entity emerges from this election “with more clout”, it’s Fox.
Every maintream media outlet in the nation attempted first to starve, then ridicule – and when that didn’t work – to destroy the Tea Party. Every network but Fox.
Yes, talk radio and the internet played a huge role, but despite their growing influence, radio can’t convey the images and internet can’t reach that still largely passive portion of the political audience in the way that television can.
This was Sarah Palin’s night, but it was just as much Glenn Beck’s, Sean Hannity’s, and Bill O’Reilly’s – along with the news reporters and editors who chose to report on Tea Party rallies across the nation, to allow American conservatives see themselves, and for themselves, that they were not in the minority.
They were never in the minority.
h/t RSP
Update.
Fox brings some balance in the whole media spectrum utterly dominated by the left, but Fox itself is not “balanced”. Come on.
In terms of mainstream media, Fox is far more balanced than any of the others.
But wouldn’t an opinion like that make you a racist?
But wouldn’t an opinion like that make you a racist?
Guesstimating: FoxNews’s leftie on-screen pundits outnumber all rightie voices on CNN, MSNBC, NBC, ABC, CBS, and CBC combined.
Saw Palin sitting next to Ferraro on Fox last night. When Ferraro said a few slightly snotty things, Palin silently raised her eyebrows.
When her turn came, Palin said seeing Ferraro run for VP was a huge inspiration for millions of young women, including herself. And she added that if she and Ferraro could have a nice conversation like this one, wouldn’t it be wonderful if everyone else could?
She was so gracious and impressive I got a little tear in my eye.
Sadly, the Borg-like MSM is too inflexible to make the necessary (and simple) changes to save themselves. Condescension, arrogance and this really annoying habit of confusing their political ideology for those of all Canadians/Americans is too deeply ingrained to allow them to see other points of view as valid and newsworthy.
How many sleeps ’til we can have FOX north?
Please! Please! Make it soon.
I suspect Sunny Fox TV News North will follow a similar pattern, in both clout and success.
As someone who reads the news only, I won’t be watching, but I’m looking forward to the days where the Canadian media cannot ignore, downplay or disparage inconvenient news. The Foxy Sun Stars will FORCE the legacy media to address what their willful blindness does not see, and will hopefully awaken Canada’s silent but somnolent majority.
Which of course is what makes the Canadian left scream and hurl insults, but they would do that anyway.
“The capital awoke — if it ever slept — to a new political order, the largest House turnover in 70 years. With their lopsided win, Republicans are ushering in a new era of divided government and dethroning Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a prime target of their campaign.”
Yep that is what I would describe as a good old ballot box ‘WHUPPIN’.
Of note the the ‘gay marriage’ Iowa justices got the boot, in a first since they adopted those rules in 1962.
The California “Up in Smoke” resolution was defeated.
Obama’s Illinois Senate seat was lost to the Republicans in the ‘rebuke-a-thon’ for the Obama-Nation(tm) agenda.
Notably, almost all the Democrats on the House Armed Services Committee were swept away in the Republican red tide. Further,a significant number of Tea Party candidates made rather large inroads, with three of their number picking up Senate seats.
The starch is most decidedly out of the Democratic collars with a pick of reportedly 65 seats in Congress.
I would describe that as a high dudgeon backhand to the Obama agenda.
I enjoyed watching the results on Breitbart’s Fox News feed via the internet.
Prosit
Hans-Christian Georg Rupprecht, Commander in Chief
1st Saint Nicolaas Army
Army Group “True North”
Fox News is only popular because there is a market for their (Beck, Hannity, et al) opinion. And it is opinion. As much as we, on this side of the spectrum, consider Fox “balanced”, the opposite side of the spectrum considers is horribly biased and outright slanderous.
I ask myself, how such a large conservative (or right leaning) market or audience developed? I thought that it had a lot to do with ‘we the people’ (the audience) being allowed finally to contribute to the news pieces (comments on MSM articles, collection and publishing of news according to our own tastes, the formation of huge networks of blog contributors, etc). I read a supremely idiotic column by Gwynn Dyer the other day about Geert Wilders. Before, that would be it. Now, I can write about it and ridicule it on my blog or post a link to it on someone else’s incredibly popular blog and invite them to publicly mock and ridicule it. Now instead of only Gwynn’s twisted point of view, we have contributed our own.
All this has freed the people (the audience), who are in fact naturally right leaning people, from being spoon fed their political opinion. I think the market got big and then Beck and the rest of the Fox News crew tapped into it.
“left” as in “is there anything left?”
I think it’s important to note that the ‘time-out’ period when the GOP was marginalized and/or hated, was a vital period for the GOP.
What we are seeing now, is an emergence of a new generation of conservatives and conservativism within the GOP – something that had been lost during their Washington-in-power era. We are seeing young new politicians, such as Paul Ryan (a budget whiz), Eric Cantor, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio and others…who are beholden, not to the Washington infrastructure or the old guard of the GOP – but to the people.
That was obvious in the speeches of such, last night, of Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, Paul Ryan, which all emphasized that they represented the American people..not the Washington establishment.
The Democrats, on the other hand, are trapped within an authoritarian agenda of Obama and his henchmen (Pelosi, Reid, old guard such as Franks, etc)..and all Obama’s unelected czars appointed by him and beholden to him. Obama doesn’t allow questions or dissent or debate. Heck, he won’t even allow ‘his’ Congress to read His Bills.
This prevents debate, questions, analysis..and new blood. The Democrats will decay from within because of this.
The GOP was open last night, acknowledging that the wins – which were significant, with that majority in the House, a deadlocked Senate, and a majority of State Governors – did NOT mean a vote for the GOP. Instead, it was a public repudiation of Obama and the Democrats. The GOP know they must now develop policies and make decisions that represent, not rule over, the will of the American people.
Remember, that the whole House was up for election last night but only 1/3 of the Senate was. I think it’s best that the GOP did not take the Senate; they need time to acknowledge the new blood and ideas and develop new policies.
What will Obama do? Well, as pathological, he’ll be unable to accept that the votes were against him. He’ll blame the Democrats and he’ll blame the electorate who were ‘confused’, angry, didn’t understand’.
And, he’ll probably set up a situation where he’s going to put the onus on the GOP to follow His Wishes and do as He says. As he’s already said, they have to ‘sit in the back’. He’s the driver. He simply doesn’t understand that he is not a Sovereign, he’s an elected president – and the American people are the driver.
You’re hilarious. Sarah Palin won the election?!? The GOP takes back one of two houses and all of a sudden the majority are the equivalent of hard right Kates or Coulters?’. Ummm nooooo. Read into it whatever you wish but most voters just want the economy to work, they could care less about the tea party. Oh and Kate if you feel so strongly about that dunce Palin, why not start the Canadian arm the Palin 2010 campaign? Throw her in the ring with Obama and she’ll pull an O’Donnell guaranteed.
One word can sum-up the coverage on MSNBC yesterday: Snarky!
ET’s batting .1000 with Obama, so I won’t disagree with her now; but I’ll just add this, if we thought America was polarized yesterday, just wait…
And … House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will become, once the new congress takes office in January, FORMER Speaker Nancy Pelosi! Putting the satsifactory, good-start big picture aside, tor me, Nancy Pelosi’s ouster was a satisfaction highlight; along with a Republican taking Obama’s Senate seat; plus a lot of incumbent reliably lefty Democrats and some RINOs (turncoat Arlen Specter, replaced by a real Republican) getting their retirement papers from We the People!
Here’s the supremely important thing about the Republicans taking the House of Representatives. Under the separation of powers -the so-called Checks and Balances- in the US Constitution, all revenue and all spending bills must originate in the House of Representatives. The President or Senate may ask for a revenue or spending bill; the House is not Constitutionally required to legislate it. It becomes then a political question, and We the People clearly spoke yesterday about our desires regarding government spending and government overreaching.
So, the House of Representatives holds “the power of the purse” over Congress and the Federal Govt as a whole. The first thing that comes to mind is that the House can, for example, refuse to provide funding for specific things, i.e. the implimentation of “Obamacare”. Stopping that is clearly what cost a lot of pro-Obamacare incumbents their jobs yesterday and what got a lot of fiscal conservatives and Tea Party anti-Obamacare advocates elected.
To use a chess metaphor, King Obama was decisively checked yesterday. Thank God! But it’s just a start in rolling back the hard left’s work on making Socialist America, the great damage already done by Obama and his Administration.
California is truly insane.
Brown. Boxer. Energy Tax. No Marijuana. Dems pretty much ran the table on State seats as well.
It’s like they’re capering while cutting their own throats.
Although Sarah Palin political instinct are impressive, I am not sure she is the best company with Fox personalities. Beck’s whining style in larger doses is annoying, O’Reilly quoting Savage)is a Lepre-Con and talentless Hannity just a bootlicker and wallbanger ( as per Savage definition). Another thing is the incompatibility of decentralized Tea Party and mass medium of television. Sometimes is not much about left vs. right as the past vs. the future and the popularity of Fox is just a stepping stone.
Dennis Prager: “It’s not fair to use the Titanic analogy to describe California because on the Titanic they at least tried to steer away from the iceberg.”
jessy…
What is that economy that you speak of?
Apparently Eric Cantor, one of the new young GOPers, is running for Majority House leader. If the GOP has any sense of revitalizing itself, it will select him rather than Boehner.
The GOP must not simply replace the nails in the old infrastructure with new, same-style nails. It must build a new infrastructure that acknowledges the conservative ideals of America.
If Sarah Palin pulls an O’Donnell, hope it’s me.
Just sayin, go easy there big Todd now, doncha have some trappin to do?
Despite its limited gene pool, Fox News is an Island in a sea of CBC-South networks. For anyone who is neither a fan of leviathan nor someone who enjoys personal value insults from arrogant over-aged yuppies, it is the only network for news and commentary. And Kate, I agree that without it, the Tea Parties would have likely been non-players in last night’s election.
It’s also why Sun News’ establishment in Canada is likely the most important advance that could happen there.
ET: “Apparently Eric Cantor, one of the new young GOPers, is running for Majority House leader. If the GOP has any sense of revitalizing itself, it will select him rather than Boehner.”
The House Majority Leader and the Speaker of the House are two separate offices. Cantor’s running for Majority Leader, Boehner for Speaker.
Fox’s hair dressing budget is probably larger than MSNBC’s whole budget. Beck & O’Reilly seem to have the only two natural coiffs among them all. And when did Amazon start producing journalists?
Yep,Sarah Palins a dunce alright.If she is then why would the left spend so much time disparaging her? I will tell you why,if you have’nt figured it out youself,BECAUSE THEY WERE AFRAID OF HER AND HER MESSAGE! And as the results showed last night,they had good reason to be.She did what she did and didnt run for office.I look forward to the day that she does,then we will see what the left is really like.
“…without the fair, balanced, and uniquely honest coverage of Fox News.”
Way to completely undercut the credibility of your otherwise earnest post. Yes, Fox News did propel the Republicans to victory, but they did so not because they are fair and balanced, but precisely because they are not.
I’m not saying the rest of the MSM is any better, or even any different (other than leaning the other way), but any claim that Fox News covers all sides of a political issue equally is either disingenuous or deluded.
Responding to a typically smug, self-righteous article in the NY Times on the “harassment” that hard working “climate scientists” may have to endure from a Republican congress, a conservative reader submitted the following link to a U-Tube video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRk054bz44g&feature=player_embedded
The video highlights perfectly why people like myself now vote for “anyone but the Democrat”.
Up the Tea Party! Down with Partisan elitism!
I’m unconvinced Paulin is a proper Tea Party Rep (although she enunciates the organic nature of the party). There are already rumors that the 2012 GOP pres team will be Palin and Perry (Texas gov) which puts them back in the deep partisan GOP ranks and away from Tea Party populism.
The Tea Party is organic – it;s an unstructured spontanious mobilization of Americans who want a return to populist democracy, responsive small government,strong border control, reform of the Fed and an end to domestic govt spying and the quasi-martial police state.
I hear a lot of Gop polis who shy away from these issues. The Tea Party will have to maintain pressure on the GOP congress and they must be wary of usurption of the TP movement by GOP HQ.
Tea Party reforms have yet to come. I like what the new GOP senator Marco Rubio said – that the GOP win is “A second chance” now they must deliver what their populist supporters want.
I wich all GOP reps felt that way and ignored the elitist agendas coming from HQ.
This was Sarah Palin’s night. Period!
She took all the hits and still carried the ball for the Rep’s who couldn’t get regrouped after 2008.
She’s the Queenmaker of the GOP, not Rove.
There are a lot of IOU’s out there that now she gets to call in. That’s a lot of clout.
The TEA party is a grassroots movement that had a voice thanks to Sarah. Fox did enable the message to get out past the LSM filters, but a message without a point-man is nothing but noise and background static. Sarah focused that message and took all the hits, slings and arrows to keep that message out there and on point.
Last nights election results were not just a by-product of a bad economy. It was about an electorate demanding accountability from its elected reps.
Sarah brought that message home too. So that going forth from today all of the GOP will be watched and scored on what they said they would do.
Elite’s ,,, The light been shone on them now.
ET wrote: “If the GOP has any sense of revitalizing itself, it will select him rather than Boehner. The GOP must not simply replace the nails in the old infrastructure with new, same-style nails.”
I agree wholeheartedly! Unfortunately I think the GOP will initially return to same old, same old. This time however, like a good alarm clock, the Tea Party will wake them up!
P.S. I’m listening to Obama’s speech right now. It’s clear that he is not going to deviate one tiny bit from his socialist agenda. What he & his comrades will be doing over the next 2 years is solely trying to paint the Republicans as the Bad Guys.
Goodness knows, the MSM will be right behind him like a marching band, even while he’s taking America over a cliff.
“Sarah focused that message and took all the hits, slings and arrows to keep that message out there and on point.”
Actually no she hasn’t. The Tea Party movement started from the Ron Paul for Pres support network. The message was return Congress to constitutional constraint, end the Fed, Down size government (starting with DHS) and freeze federal spending.
I admit that I’ve only heard some of Palen’s Tea Party speeches but these founding principles were absent from all of them.
Laura Ingraham shares her post election thoughts.
Katie Couric was almost in tears.
Palin has way more power and influence outside of voting politics . . she can achieve her goals without the clap trap of public office.
Stay out of office Sarah . . . just stay involved in policy making . . .
Here’s Jim DeMint’s excellent editorial today.
Occam at 1:29 PM:
The message was return Congress to constitutional constraint, end the Fed, Down size government (starting with DHS) and freeze federal spending
Actually, aside from killing the Fed ,Palin has pretty much covered it.
As for her speeches, try
http://www.conservatives4palin.com/
Michelle Malkin provides a few reminders too!
Examine any news source long enough and you will figure out who they are in the tank with. If Fox news is so biased, then, too, is CNN, the Red Star, MSM,CBC, ect.
At least Fox news doesn’t slag Sarah Palin the way other “non-partisan” news sources do.
“If Fox news is so biased, then, too, is CNN, the Red Star, MSM,CBC, ect.”
Exactly. Which is why what Kate really means when she claims that Fox News’s coverage is “fair and balanced” is that “Fox News’s coverage is biased towards the same ideas and viewpoints that I’m biased towards and therefore, in my eyes, they are fair and balanced.”
“At least Fox news doesn’t slag Sarah Palin the way other “non-partisan” news sources do.”
Being on their payroll might have something to do with that.
“Fox News’s coverage is biased towards the same ideas and viewpoints” as the people of the USA,
Election ass kicking results to chifforobe, come in chifforobe.
Fox News will air perspectives other networks wouldn’t dream of. That’s the yardstick, take it or leave it.
How would you react if someone spread horrible lies about you and your family?
I find Sarah Palin a breath of fresh air.
richfisher: “Fox News’s coverage is biased towards the same ideas and viewpoints” as the people of the USA. Election ass kicking results to chifforobe, come in chifforobe.”
Oh right, this year’s election results. Definitive proof that, as Kate says, conservatives “were never in the minority.”
Except, of course, for when they were.
Osumashi Kinyobe: “Fox News will air perspectives other networks wouldn’t dream of.”
Yes, but Fox News also wouldn’t dream of airing certain other perspectives that other networks will. They each occupy a different swath of the political spectrum, but those swaths are all more or less equally narrow.
“How would you react if someone spread horrible lies about you and your family?”
I’d probably be mad. Vis-a-vis Palin, do you have any specific incidents in mind, or just a general impression?
Since MSNBC coverage was described by Indiana as ‘snarky’ – here’s a fabulous YouTube example. Don’t you just love schadenfreude?
Chris Matthews gets ‘owned’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgINkTs3y1Q&feature=player_embedded
Hot on the heels of my previous post-election theme, you’ll recall MSNBC pundit Chris Matthews who famously claimed to have experienced a “tingle up my leg” upon hearing a 2004 Obama speech.
In this brief clip, he literally browbeats Rep. Michelle Bachmann with a single theme: ‘will your first job be to use your new powers to impeach Democrats?’ Bachmann refuses to take the bait, expressing what she and her colleagues see as their mandate. Matthews returns to the attack, rephrasing his question again and again. Bachmann remains reasoned and consistent.
Then….. in creeps the background sign. And Matthews is trapped. He knows the ‘interview’ is planned for a certain number of minutes and he has no way to graciously cut it short. Note near the end where a ‘Pulitzer Prize Winning Journalist’ and his colleagues – including Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow, snigger at Bachmann, in the background.
Rachel Maddow: “With that sign they’re trying to say MSNBC and NBC is in the tank for Obama”. Gee, do ya think so?
Meanwhile, Matthews claims repeatedly that it’s Bachmann who’s “hypnotized”.
The last two elections were votes AGAINST the party in power.
2008 was the populace mad at Dubya for getting the country too far into debt.
2010 was the populace mad at Obama for getting the country even further in debt.
Dubya added $3 trillion to the US deficit in his last four years in office.
Obama added $3 trillion to the US deficit in 18 months.
Is it any wonder the American public believes both establisment parties are headed in the wrong direction?
The last two elections were about economic issues. Period.
BobC: “I read a supremely idiotic column by Gwynn Dyer the other day”
…………..
All in all, have you ever read a column by Gwynn Dyer that wasn’t supremely idiotic?
Obama’s anti-business, anti-rich class warfare (there are many examples) apparently did not resonate in the home of the brave and the land of the free, either.
America always has been a land of opportunity, where any citizen has the free choice to strive to become the best he can.
The promise of equal outcomes through redistribution somehow seems less than compassionate to those who work hard to become economically successful.
When public sector unions were on strike in Greece and France and the images were shown on their TV screens, the American citizen finally woke up out of their complacency and saw where the Obama agenda could lead them.
Occam-
All the above.
It also causes George Soros pain and suffering.
“Up yours Georgie!!.”
and
“Paybacks a Bitch!!”
Ain’t it George?
CHANGIE & HOPE you have many sleepless nights over the next two years,
while we work to get rid of your little white house servant.
“You’re hilarious. Sarah Palin won the election?!? The GOP takes back one of two houses and all of a sudden the majority are the equivalent of hard right Kates or Coulters?’. Ummm nooooo. Read into it whatever you wish but most voters just want the economy to work, they could care less about the tea party. Oh and Kate if you feel so strongly about that dunce Palin, why not start the Canadian arm the Palin 2010 campaign? Throw her in the ring with Obama and she’ll pull an O’Donnell guaranteed.
Posted by: Jesse at November 3, 2010 12:10 PM ”
‘Most voters just want the economy to work, they could care less about the tea party’:
MOST voters ARE the tea party!
Kate and Kathy are right. Sarah Palin was so gracious to Ferraro, just as you would expect a well brought up person to react. With grace and intelligence and respect, even if Ferraro does not deserve it, she gave it to her and that speaks well of Sarah Palin. And this night belonged to Sarah Palin as much as it did to all the Repubs elected. For without The Tea Party movement and Sarah Palin it would not have happened. Even the Pubbie old guard needs , still to learn some lessons. Jon and Mitch were up talking this morning, and believe me, I want more concrete and positive statements out of these two or I want new people in their positions. I hear Michelle Bachmann is going to run for the GOP House Leader. And I think it is a good idea.
As for Sarah Palin and Fox News. THEY both represent the mood , manner and intent of the core of the American people,make NO mistake!
Juan Williams redux w Andrew Breitbart: http://bigjournalism.com/sright/2010/11/03/media-matters-proves-abc-news-buckled-to-pressure-on-breitbart-booking
Who the hell does Bill Maher ever talk to other than Rachel Maddow and the hookers chez Heffner? What does that bitter, talentless, shallow little man think he knows about anybody that he should call half the country “ignorant hillbillies”?
That little weasel always really p*sses me off.