Fox News personality blames House Dems for Times Square bomb

March 7, 2008

The things you’ll learn from Fox News broadcasts.

Yesterday, a “shadowy figure on a bicycle” planted a small bomb that shattered the glass facade of the military recruiting station in Times Square in New York City. An investigation into the incident has begun.

Fox News’ Ollie North, however, has found his scapegoat. This morning, he said the incident may have been prevented had the House and Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) granted a renewal of the Protect America Act:

“Last month, of course, the U.S. House of Representatives under the direction of Nancy Pelosi went on vacation rather than voting on the Protect America Act, which provided for wiretapping of terrorists making phone calls into and out of the United States to foreign places. And I note that it would have been a lot easier, perhaps, to find out who did this, or even to know that they were planning it, had we been able to intercept those communications.”

Wow. That’s really dumb.

It does help explain, though, why Fox News viewers tend to do so poorly when asked about current events.

A few years ago, there were a few interesting studies measuring public awareness when it came to current events. The National Annenberg Election Survey found that those who watched “The Daily Show” were the best informed news consumers, while a study from the Program on International Policy Attitudes found that Fox News viewers were the least informed. This surprised, well, no one.

Last year we learned that very little has changed — those who watch news that claims to be fake fare better than those who watch news that is fake.

Americans may have more news outlets today than two decades ago, but they still don’t know much more about current events than they did then, according to a new survey by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press.

But here’s one big difference: the survey respondents who seemed to know the most about what’s going on — who were able to identify major public figures, for example — were likely to be viewers of fake news programs like Jon Stewart’s “The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report”; those who knew the least watched network morning news programs, Fox News or local television news.

Note to Ollie North: you’re only making things worse.

Of course, I suppose it’s worth going to the trouble of noting how substantively wrong North’s absurd argument really was.

North’s comments are a sad attempt to politicize a tragic bombing. In reality, surveillance that began under the law will be able to continue, and intelligence officials can initiate new surveillance against suspected terrorists by simply getting a warrant through the FISA court. The warrants can even be obtained after the surveillance has begun. North, however, conveniently failed to mention this.

Conservatives have stalled Congress from negotiating on the PAA. Last week, Senate GOP leaders blocked another extension of the PAA. In fact, the Politico reported this week that some Republicans are boycotting the negotiation meetings.

I will wait for Fox News’ correction to air with bated breath.

Fox News’ Ollie North

By all counts that should read “convicted felon and Fox News contributor Ollie North”

  • Yesterdays question: Does watching Fox News make people stupid?

    Today’s answer: Very successfully, yes.

  • When huge “news” corporations argue that they can legally lie, you get huge numbers of misinformed people.

    In February 2003, a Florida Court of Appeals unanimously agreed with an assertion by FOX News that there is no rule against distorting or falsifying the news in the United States.

    …

    What is more appalling are the five major media outlets that filed briefs of Amici Curiae- or friend of FOX – to support FOX’s position: Belo Corporation, Cox Television, Inc., Gannett Co., Inc., Media General Operations, Inc., and Post-Newsweek Stations, Inc…

    http://www.projectcensored.org/publications/2005/11.html

  • What seems even more ridiculous is that the Protect America Act would connect to a shadowy figure on a bicycle. We would need to assume that person would have placed international calls before shattering a glass facade. What would this terrorist be plotting next? Flaming bags of poopy on a porch?

  • There’s actually a really simple way of making broadcast news exponentially more responsible. Courts have generally held that due to the spontaneous nature of live, on-air broadcasting the possible damages for defamation or slander must be relatively small. However, if the courts were willing to change this legal standard so that on-air defamation matched the damages that can be awarded for libel we would see a lot more on-air apologies. Of course, doing so might also open the floodgates for litigants to argue that the Internet should be governed by a similar legal standard (and based on some people’s behavior this may not be a bad thing). Comment on public figures would still be protected, so it wouldn’t magically solve Fox’s stupidity, but the only thing that companies like Fox respond to is money. If you could show that poor editorial oversight will lead to substantial financial liability in court, Fox might become a much better network.

  • Ollie North? I thought he was dead. Oh—wait. He’s part of the Faux brain-trust. he IS dead.

    Cognitively speaking, of course….

  • Pelosi is responsible for that house blowing up in PA yesterday, too, and today, she is making it rain. Somebody, stop that woman!

  • “it would have been a lot easier, perhaps, to find out who did this, or even to know that they were planning it, had we been able to intercept those communications.”

    Of course it would Ollie, provided this knucklehead wasn’t some homegrown prankster acting as a bombing conspiracy of one. What a bummer it would be for Ollie’s wiretapping wet dream if the only conversations instigating the “bombing” were the voices in this guy’s head. Got a way to tap those buddy? The only hope for this planet is if even the people watching Fox News can call bullsh*t on Ollie.

  • What Ollie North didn’t mention of course is that calls certainly can be intercepted just as before, now the difference is that the telcos can’t be promised immunity should the perp try to sue them. So why weren’t the calls made by this guy tapped and discovered? Did the authorities fail? Yes they did. Wiretaps are allowed and a bomb went off anyway. So can the Bush camp still brag that we’ve not been attacked on American soil since 9/11? I’m sure this would count against Hillary if she were prez.

  • About two years ago, Ollie North said on Hannity and Colmes that “we’ve known since 1979 that Tehran is the Nexus of Islamic terrorism” (a near-exact quote). If you take him at his word, this means that Oliver North and all of the other Iran-Contra bastards weren’t just making shady deals, but knowingly “lending aid and comfort” to America’s enemies. The man’s not just a bastard. He’s an actual, honest-to-God traitor.

    Then, when you include his creation of “The Freedom Alliance” which raises money under the guise of supporting the troops but then spends only a fraction of its funds on the troops and their children, you get the full picture of a truly evil motherf**ker.

  • It seems to me that whoever did this was probably, in fact, and American trying to make a point (poorly), not some al Qaeda agent roaming the streets of New York looking to kill people.

    So doesn’t that mean then that, in theory, FISA wouldn’t apply to surveilling this individual because as an American Citizen, the government would need an actual, before-the-fact, warrant, and it would actually be illegal to domestically monitor Americans.

    This is obviously all on the assumption that this was just some guy who wanted to make a point (again, not in a good way), not some internationally coordinated terror plot.

    Or is that just a bunch of Pre-9/11 thinking on my part…?

  • This is NO BIG DEAL. I live blocks from there and I had no idea it took place. People outside of New York are most likely paying more attention to this then people who live and work in manhattan. “Shadowy Figure on a Bycicle”, umm ever heard of a delivery guy? This story is bogus.

  • It’s not necessarily that the fox news causes their viewers to be ignorant, but rather that there’s a large selection effect. Intelligent and knowledgeable people view the sophisticated programs (the “fake” news), and the ignorant people are attracted to the… well, the “ignorant” news programs.

  • “I note that it would have been a lot easier, perhaps, to find out who did this, or even to know that they were planning it, had we been able to intercept those communications.”

    Hey Ollie, wouldn’t it also be a lot easier to stop criminals if we had everyone register their firearms?* How about if we had an agency that secretly collected all the records of ammo sales, and collected bullets at the firing ranges, and kept metalurgical records for each batch of bullets, so we could create a master database of who owns which gun?

    {crickets}

  • IT would even be funnier, when the guy is arrested, and we find out he’s a registered republican.

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