Fox Covers for the Bush Administration While it Nukes the Constitution
Reported by Melanie - December 26, 2005
The opening segment today (December 26, 2005) on Fox's "business news" program, Your World w/Neil Cavuto, was about a US News & World Report article dated December 22, 2005, titled, EXCLUSIVE: Nuclear Monitoring of Muslims Done Without Search Warrants. The article states that, without first obtaining search warrants or court orders when appropriate, the federal government has monitored over a hundred homes, businesses, and mosques in the Washington, D.C. area and similar sites in five other US cities. It argues that, "Federal officials familiar with the program maintain that warrants are unneeded for the kind of radiation sampling the operation entails, but some legal scholars disagree." It also says, "These and other developments suggest that the federal government's domestic spying programs since 9/11 have been far broader than previously thought," and although "NEST staffers have demonstrated their techniques on national television as recently as October, U.S. News has omitted details of how the monitoring is conducted."
Fox News framed the issue this way:
Substitute host Stuart Varney appeared on screen with a picture of a mushroom cloud over his right shoulder and the words "Nuclear Holocaust" underneath. He began with: "Did US News & World Report just make it easier for terrorists to hit America with a nuclear bomb? An exclusive article exposes a top secret program that monitors radiation levels at Muslim sites in at least six US cities. Again, this was a top secret program, now everyone knows about it, including Al Qaeda."
Varney's guests were Cheri Jacobus, a "Republican strategist," and Bob Beckel, a "Democratic strategist." Varney turned to Jacobus first and asked, "Is my family now at greater risk of a terrorist attack in America?"
From then on, the discussion ranged from: Jacobus, "I think there's no question that's the case;" to Beckel, "I don't think they should have published the story;" to Varney, "We've just had a breach in our nuclear security program," should "the people who leaked it go to prison?"; and back to Beckel again, the people leaking this have "violated the law."
Repeatedly during the segment, a chyron appeared reading: "Is the American media helping Al Qaeda hit America with a nuke?"
Comment: First, is it any wonder the average Fox viewer is uninformed about what is going on in the world? Second, I wonder if Bob Beckel bothered to read the US News article before appearing on air. His willingness to be led from a main point of the article, which raises serious questions about fundamental Constitutional rights, into Fox's never-never-land of a discussion leads me to believe he hadn't. Then again, maybe he had and he's a frequent guest on Fox for precisely that reason. What better "Democratic strategist" than one who permits Fox's hosts to drag him into their game of ceaselessly blaming the media, Democrats, and terrorists for all that ails us, instead of staying on point about the terrorists in the Bush administration who appear to be nuking laws and convictions we've held dear for more than two centuries.
