Out-Foxed

[kskiska]

How Rupert's red-state cable channel waved the flag and beat CNN.

Caution, you're about to enter a No Spin Zone. Or is it the Twilight Zone? We'll report, and you decide, based on this recent "unspun" news update from Fox News' flagship primetime program "The O'Reilly Factor."

"Why are some Americans hindering the war on terror?" O'Reilly barked at the camera. "As we predicted, President Bush's poll numbers have gone up after last week's press conference. The elite media wanted Mr. Bush to grovel, but he remains defiant and determined to fight the terror war his way. Today the Supreme Court heard arguments that the prisoners at Guantánamo Bay should have lawyers and due process. Predictably, the New York Times wants lawyers for the accused terrorists, editorializing that some of them 'may have been in the wrong place at the wrong time.'

"Sure. They just took a wrong turn into Uzbekistan and wandered onto the battlefield. How ridiculous is that?"

There was a time, not too long ago, when Fox News was a joke -- albeit a bad and sick one -- to liberals and TV journalists raised on Cronkite, Huntley and Brinkley. But even those who rue the success of Rupert Murdoch's flag-waving cable channel have to admit: The old boy has done it. CNN founder Ted Turner once famously mocked Murdoch, saying he'd squish his cable news rival like a bug. We all know now who has squished whom.

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http://salon.com/books/feature/2004/04/24/fox/index.html