It was F. Scott Fitzgerald who famously said that the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing thoughts in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function. Applied here, it would work something like this: Fox News isn’t a legitimate news organization and it should in no way be afforded any of the benefits or considerations normally given to legitimate news organizations, up to and including the umbrella of unequivocal constitutional protection real journalism outlets can expect; that said, the Department of Justice and the White House are 100% wrong in their seizing of Fox News phone records, monitoring of Fox correspondent James Rosen’s comings and goings, and their naming of him as a potential co-conspirator in the leaking of national security information.

Of all the horseshit scandals President Obama’s enemies on the right have attempted to float since he took office four years ago, the persecution and threatened prosecution of newspeople allegedly involved in reporting on state secrets is the only one that has any actual merit. Drones are nonsense; Benghazi is the most ado about a non-story in recent Republican memory; the IRS looking into conservative political groups potentially trying to scam the government shouldn’t surprise a soul; and of course birth certificates, teleprompters, and Marines-holding-umbrellas are just fucking laughable. But the notion of the U.S. government monitoring journalists for doing the very jobs that make them who and what they are is frightening and it should anger just about everyone, regardless of his or her political affiliations.

It’s ironically no big secret that Fox News will do anything to bring down the Obama administration and prop up its confederates in the Republican party proper, to the point of even creating stories and scandals out of thin air; it’s for this reason that no one with a brain ever should have had a problem with Obama refusing to treat Fox as if it were just like any other news operation. But that doesn’t mean the DOJ should have wide latitude to make a reporter — any reporter — worry about being prosecuted for treason and doing prison time simply for being a reporter. Obviously, it’s important that even journalists understand that they have to behave responsibly, particularly when they’re reporting on sensitive subjects — however, it’s impossible to overstate how unwise it is for the U.S. government and the Obama administration in particular to make threats against the messengers in their quest to stamp out what they claim is an illegal message.

Collecting phone logs from the AP and closely watching James Rosen at Fox, all without contacting either outlet during the respective investigations, is something entirely new for the government, and something undeniably chilling. While national security is important and that shouldn’t be diminished, journalists do generally have special dispensation simply by virtue of their constitutional protection and what’s supposed to be their often adversarial relationship with those in power. Sure, the White House can behave as if that adversarial relationship works both ways and can treat journalists as hostile, but it had better be prepared to face the consequences of that tack. Fox News’s audience and its stable of frothing-at-the-mouth contributors don’t need a legitimate reason to loudly proclaim that the right is being persecuted by the Obama administration, but likewise the White House should be smart enough to understand that it doesn’t need the image of real journalists suddenly siding with Fox News and coming to the network’s defense. Just because Glenn Greenwald and his insufferable ilk are going to be claiming villainy at every turn regardless doesn’t mean Obama should give them any ammo.

On that note, another dichotomy at work here is the outrage from Obama’s enemies over what the White House and the Justice Department have been doing with regard to plugging leaks. Again, the White House is wrong here and has no viable excuse, but it’s laughable to watch the very same people who took state security so seriously during the Bush years that they engaged in the despicable politics of personal vendetta — outing Valerie Plame, leaving any journalist not willing to get onboard the Iraq crazy train out in the cold — now railing with righteous indignation against some of the very tactics they would’ve once applauded. Fox News, in fact, played right along with the Bush-era policy of manipulating and demonizing the legitimate media. Conservatives as a whole, meanwhile, would’ve happily strung up, say, Julian Assange and absolutely considered Daniel Ellsberg an enemy of the state, but the government sets its sites on the official news service of Red State America and suddenly there’s hell to pay.

The problem is, this time those coming to the defense of Fox News — be they conservative or liberal or none-of-the-above — are right. James Rosen’s a sniveling little turd and he works for a news outlet that’s anything but. Still, he needs to be free to report the word of whistleblowers because it’s not simply his freedom that’s at stake.

It’s the freedom of all journalists to do their jobs. And when those jobs are done correctly, it serves the freedom of all of us.

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Should we tolerate Dr Ben Carson’s intolerant views?

Dr. Ben Carson, the head of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins was penciled in to deliver the commencement speech at the Hopkins School of Medicine last month. After going on Fox News and equating pedophilia and bestiality with homosexuality, students at the university drafted a petition to have him removed as commencement speaker. Carson apologized for his comments and voluntarily withdrew, writing in an email to the dean of the Johns Hopkins medical school, Paul Rothman, saying:

“Given all the national media surrounding my statements as to my belief in traditional marriage, I believe it would be in the best interests of the students for me to voluntarily withdraw as your commencement speaker this year.”

The email was largely graceful, but Carson also added he felt discriminated against for his beliefs:

“Someday in the future, it is my hope and prayer that the emphasis on political correctness will decrease and we will start emphasizing rational discussion of differences so we can actually resolve problems and chart a course that is inclusive of everyone,”

While conservatives have rallied around Carson, blasting the university for criticizing the esteemed doctor and accusing them of discrimination, Carson also received some unlikely support in Michael Kinsley, the (mostly) liberal editor of The New Republic.

“My analysis is that, at a crucial moment, the dean failed to defend a real core value of the university: tolerance,” wrote Kinsley.

“Carson didn’t murder millions of people. All he did was say on television that he opposes same-sex marriage—an idea that even its biggest current supporters had never even heard of a couple of decades ago,” he went on. “Does that automatically make you a homophobe and cast you into the outer darkness? It shouldn’t. But in some American subcultures—Hollywood, academia, Democratic politics—it apparently does. You may favor raising taxes on the rich, increasing support for the poor, nurturing the planet, and repealing Section 14(b) of the Taft-Hartley Act, but if you don’t support gay marriage, you’re out of the club.”

While people who don’t support gay marriage might not believe that they are intolerant, those of us who do beg to differ. To believe that gays do not have the right to marry means you do not accept them as being equal to heterosexuals. It means that you ignore the science that says homosexuality is as natural as heterosexuality and subscribe to Bronze age mythology that states killing your wife for adultery is God’s law. You are free to believe in whatever you want to in America, but that doesn’t mean your views should be considered legitimate or tolerant just because you think they are.

Viewed in that light, Carson and Kinsley’s argument can be boiled down to the following logic: It is intolerant to not tolerate someone else’s intolerance. And that simply doesn’t wash.

Carson has done huge amounts of good in his field (he was the first doctor to successfully separate co-joined twins) and donates large sums of money towards educating children. But his views on homosexuality are wrong and discriminatory. The fight for Gay Rights is as important as the Civil Rights movement in the 1960′s, and reverting to religious scripture as some sort of moral reasoning against it is akin to arguing that blacks are not equal to whites because of the ‘Curse of Ham‘ (the Biblical story used by whites to justify segregation  in America and apartheid in South Africa).

If someone stated today that society should be more tolerant of their biblical based racist views, they would never be allowed near a television or students at a prestigious university like Johns Hopkins.

Nobel prize winning DNA pioneer Dr James Watson, who alongside Francis Crick discovered the double helix, stated that he was “inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa” because “all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours – whereas all the testing says not really”. As a result of his comments, Watson has been shunned from public life and disowned by much of the scientific community (it’s also worth remembering that ironically, Watson’s own DNA revealed he was 16% African).

Most people reacted with horror at Watson’s statement, and rightly so. Homophobia is unfortunately still fairly mainstream in America, so coming out against gay marriage is still viewed as an acceptable position. And yes, being anti gay marriage is homophobic, just as believing blacks shouldn’t be entitled to the same rights as whites is racist.

No one is saying that Carson does not have the right to have, or express his views. In that regard, Carson is the beneficiary of a great deal of tolerance. But Carson’s views directly oppose the legal rights of homosexuals, and America’s constitution exists to protect those rights. When African Americans refused to tolerate intolerance, they paved the way for a more inclusive nation. And as society continues to shun those opposed to gay rights, they too pave the way for a country that respects the rights of everyone, regardless of sexual orientation.

As  Karl Popper once stated, “Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society… then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them… We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant.”

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Few things are more irritating than stupidity.  What makes this even more annoying is knowing you are paying for it.  Congressman Eric Cantor has scheduled a vote this week repealing “Obamacare.”  His proposal’s chances of passing the Senate and/or being signed into law by President Obama are pretty much the same. Talk about exercises in futility.

The House cut its operating budget in 2011 by five percent.  More info on that can be found here.   That amounts to nearly $33 million a year.  Legistorm has information on how much each office spends on salaries for members and staffers.  One sure thing cam be said of all the offices from the big spenders to the most frugal is the source of the funding.  Paying for Eric Cantor to drag te House through this flight of fancy/political posturing at its most absurd.  No one — even Cantor himself, sees this as becoming law — at least not with the current Senate and White House.

This is shameful and not our founding fathers had in mind when they crafted our constitution.

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Steve Jobs: Not a fan of Fox News (Annette Shaff / Shutterstock.com)

Steve Jobs may have been a despotic control freak who loathed regulation, but he saw Fox News for what it was – a massively insidious institution that was causing a huge amount of damage to American society. Jobs hated the network so much he personally ordered Apple ads to be removed from Fox News programming (via networkworld.com):

It’s now known that the late Steve Jobs backed up his harsh words by wisely withholding Apple’s advertising dollars, according to an upcoming book about the 2012 presidential campaign.

The book’s author, Jonathan Alter, a Bloomberg political columnist and contributor to MSNBC, tells of Jobs “personally ordering that Apple ads be removed from Fox News,” according to a blog post [1] in the New York Times over the weekend. Alter’s book, “The Center Holds: Obama and His Enemies,”  is scheduled to hit stores June 4.

Apparently, Jobs even told Murdoch over a dinner how bad he thought Fox had become:

“You’re blowing it with Fox News,” Jobs told him over dinner. “The axis today is not liberal and conservative, the axis is constructive-destructive, and you’ve cast your lot with the destructive people. Fox has become an incredibly destructive force in our society. You can be better, and this is going to be your legacy if you’re not careful.” Jobs said he thought Murdoch did not really like how far Fox had gone. “Rupert’s a builder, not a tearer-downer,” he said. “I’ve had some meetings with (Murdoch’s son) James, and I think he agrees with me. I can just tell.”

Fox is a gigantic media organization that has many businesses, but Jobs was absolutely right – Murdoch’s name is synonymous with Fox News and will be his lasting legacy. And it’s not a good one.

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Bill O’Reilly has not shied away from calling Congresswoman Michele Bachmann out when he sees fit. This week he was at it again after her CPAC speech in which she bashed the Obama White House for the president’s lavish lifestyle (the gardiner walks the dog!).

If you missed this, you might enjoy it.

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After what seemed like a decade of 24/7 coverage of the Republican 2012 primary process, news has come out that there are still untold stories.  Apparently, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum negotiated to team up against Mitt Romney.  Ok, this doesn’t sound like a one meeting kind of thing.  It sounds like something that happened over a much longer period of time and something the political press, who are supposed to be “experts” would have picked up on. (And I am not talking about locals who may not cover politics all the time but the national reporters who do.)

Well, the nation was spared such a spectacularly awesome scary ticket because neither man would accept the veep slot. Phew, and the GOP thought the worst thing they had to fear last year was candidates who like to prattle on about “legitimate rape” and whatnot. (As a satire writer, I would have LOVED a GOP ticket with Newt & Santorum, LOVED IT.)

Of course, the other news that probably won’t actually come out (sorry, I cannot think of a better way to put that right now) is that Senator Rob Portman (R-OH) was NOT asked to take the veep slot for Romney because his son is gay.  Portman was a Romney surrogate and the two men spent a lot of time together. The irony is he had a better shot of picking up a state with Portman than Paul Ryan. I have a hard time seeing Romney ever getting Wisconsin.  Yes, I know people don’t base their pick on the VP candidate.  I guess someone if picked Ted Bundy after he was convicted of being a serial killer it would have turned more than a few people off…  Can you imagine the tagline for that campaign?  Smith/Bundy — because no one knows  more about preventing crime than a convicted serial killer!  (Ps.  I am sure some people were also turned off from John McCain because of Sarah Palin but not enough to swing a state or the election.  Note to any GOP readers:  I am NOT implying any Republican would pick Bundy for anything, ever.)

But I digress.

The GOP has been in overdrive trying to “rebrand” themselves.  I was especially impressed with their chairman, Reince Priebus, this morning.  He was asked if they planned to cut Portman’s national funding off now that he has endorsed same sex marriage.  “Of course not!” Priebus said with a fair amount of moral indignation because of course his decision to not defund Portman is the right thing to do based on current polling numbers that show increasing support for marriage equality.

At the Conservative Union conference last weekend, better known as CPAC, there was a session entitled “How do we look less racist?”  My response to the question was “How about you just BE less racist?”  My advice to the GOP is that superficial changes to messaging materials isn’t enough to convince people you care about their issues.  Priebus deserves some credit for starting to reach out to groups that have not either always or recently been the GOP base.

Getting people to believe you care about the things that matters to them requires you understand what those things are.  Reaching out to talk to them may not get you all the way there but it is a start.  Let’s hope the change Priebus is pushing is part of a long term approach and not a policy du jour.

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I’ll make this quick because it’s Friday and I have no desire to work late tonight.

MSNBC’s heading faster and faster down a dangerous road and it needs to put the brakes on. Now.

For a couple of years now the network has been fielding accusations of being the liberal answer to Fox News and for a couple of years now I’ve defended it as being nothing of the sort. While Fox News has had a top-down political mandate from the start, one that’s not only allowed to but is expected to directly impact every single facet of its coverage, MSNBC has always been in a more precarious position journalistically. That’s because MS has always had to answer to the NBC News mothership, which is insistent on balance and objectivity to a fault. NBC is so dedicated to the notion of non-bias that it will proudly behave as if all political stories have two equal sides, essentially turning its journalists into little more than stenographers dutifully reporting the conventional wisdom from whichever side of the aisle they happen to be assigned to — and MSNBC had to at least nominally toe that company line because not to would hurt NBC News’s reputation as a whole.

Yes, there were a lot of programs on MSNBC that leaned left, particularly in the prime time opinion block, but the shows were basically hosted by progressives who provided a leftward slant rather than having that leftward slant dictated to them from on-high.

But lately a lot has changed at MS. The dayside block of shows, which for the most part used to consist of well-balanced, straightforward news, has now had a giant pile of pure left-leaning provocation dropped right in the middle of it in the form of Alex Wagner’s daily troll-fest, Now. Then a couple of weeks ago it was announced that the network was bringing Robert Gibbs and David Axelrod aboard as paid contributors, essentially throwing any illusion of fairness right out the 3rd floor window of 30 Rock. For the record, no news organization anywhere should employ any member or former member of a sitting president’s administration. That’s journalism 101. Finally, a couple of nights ago MS seemed to go fully down the rabbit hole by either mocking for a scant few seconds or entirely ignoring Rand Paul’s 13-hour filibuster over the nomination of John Brennan as CIA chief.

Look, Paul’s a self-righteous little turd and his filibuster wasn’t much more than a grandiose publicity stunt aimed at improving his Q-Score and grabbing tightly onto an anti-Obama issue that might actually have legs, rather than the usual right-wing cacophony of made-up nonsense. But that said, the filibuster deserved coverage. O’Donnell gave it a few minutes and Maddow, predictably, was all about due diligence but for the most part everyone else pretended it wasn’t happening. For 13 hours. That’s the kind of crap Fox News pulls when someone not on its side makes news that can’t instantly be painted as bad for the country. Perfect example: Just recently Fox hyped the hell out of the Robert Menendez Dominican prostitute “scandal” but when the whole thing fell apart it ignored it completely, not even bothering to inform its audience that the initial report was horseshit. That kind of thing isn’t simply bad journalism, it’s bad for the country because it reinforces, more and more and more, each side’s epistemic bubble. The job of a news outlet is to provide an unflinching look at the stories of the day and to broadcast or report only echo chamber items is a gross dereliction of duty.

MSNBC still tops Fox News in that it relies much more heavily on facts and independent reasoning than its nemesis. Its stable of conservative personalities is also far more robust than the typically ineffectual tomato cans Fox trots out as red meat for its right-wing prize fighters. But it’s becoming increasingly hard to defend MSNBC as being something other than what its critics have long called it: the liberal Fox News.

And that’s really depressing.

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