When Ron Paul fans actually have a point

January 1, 2008

After having watched every major debate for both parties’ presidential candidates, I can certainly understand the temptation on the part of organizers to limit participants. The more candidates on the stage, the greater the need for shorter answers and fewer questions.

Having said that, this just isn’t kosher.

Republican Rep. Ron Paul and his supporters are targeting the Fox News network today after an Internet discussion spread during the weekend that the cable network wasn’t giving the Texas lawmaker a seat at the table for a New Hampshire forum scheduled two days before the state’s Jan. 8 primary. […]

This morning, Washington Wire received a mass email from an independent Paul supporter calling on his considerable online organization to write to Fox employees and protest the decision. The email listed the addresses of about 60 Fox employees, from press contacts to hosts Bill O’Reilly, Shepard Smith, Neil Cavuto and Brit Hume.

“Has Fox News Excluded Ron Paul From the Pre NH Primary Forum?” the email said, “Fox News cannot just stifle public opinion. debate and impact a primary election by excluding Ron Paul just because they don’t like his message of freedom and liberty,” the email said (typos included).

Fox News and the New Hampshire Republican Party will host a forum at St. Anselm College, featuring Rudy Giuliani, Mike Huckabee, John McCain, Mitt Romney, and Fred Thompson. Given that Paul has about twice as much support in New Hampshire as Thompson, he’s likely to finish ahead of Giuliani in Iowa, and he’s raised more money in the fourth quarter than any of them, it’s hard to understand how the Republican network can justify excluding Paul. (Fox News has not announced its criteria for participation.)

What’s more, the state GOP has said it wants Paul on the stage, meaning that it’s Fox News specifically that’s decided to exclude the Texas Republican from the event.

Josh Marshall added, “Paul’s out because he’s not a Fox News Bush-clone. Say whatever you want about the guy, Fox News shouldn’t be able to silence him because they don’t like his views.”

I’m not even close to a Ron Paul fan, but I’m certainly willing to concede that Fox News shouldn’t stack the deck like this.

Digby added:

If this doesn’t prove that Fox is just a mouthpiece for the GOP establishment, nothing will. […]

Not that we didn’t know that Fox was a simple Republican house organ, but it’s never been more starkly illustrated than this. The Republicans don’t like what Paul is saying and they told their boy Ailes to shut him down. They aren’t even trying to hide it.

As it happens, ABC is also hosting Democratic and Republican debates on Jan. 5 in New Hampshire, and will also be stingy with its invitations. Unlike Fox News, however, ABC at least has identifiable criteria for participation.

The network says it will include only candidates who finish in the top four in the Iowa caucuses or receive at least 5 percent in New Hampshire or national polls.

The criteria could potentially sideline several of the Democrats, including Senators Christopher J. Dodd and Joseph R. Biden Jr.

Stay tuned.

And Faux Noise has the nerve to wonder aloud why Democrats won’t debate on their Repug toy network?

If there was any doubt that Faux Noise that was just the Pravda of Repugs, it is now gone. What a joke of a noise service!!

  • I’m not an RP fan, either, but there is no principled criteria at this point that would keep him out while allowing Thompson in. Paul could end up around 10% (and surely will be over 5%) in Iowa, and will likely trail only Romney and Giuliani in cash on hand at debate time. Why anyone takes Faux News seriously is beyond me. When I first heard about this over the weekend, I thought it was an obvious hit job. Paul supporters, welcome to the progressives’ world. We’re glad you could join us in seeking the marginalization of Faux News.

  • Some of the dopes who worship at the altar of Fox Propaganda might actually recognize that it is very, very unfair of Fox to treat Ron Paul this way, undermining Fox’s credibility (such as it is). I expect Paul’s supporters to make lots of noise about this travesty.

    Lots of noise.

  • United – Let’s boycott any Faux News advertiser for an entire year. dump your funds that own the stock .

    This is a war for our liberty and freedom. Let’s bankrupt the war propaganda machine that is Faux News. NO good U.S. company should advertise for pro-war propaganda.

  • For Fox the declare itself a news organization is false advertising.
    Isn’t there some law….

  • They should leave him out and anyone who doesn’t support the current political agenda especially with regards to the war. We are winning, we are saving the world, we don’t need soft wimps like Ron Paul

  • I don’t know if this would be any help to the Ron Paul supporters, but it certainly is to any progressive who intends to vote with their money, when it comes to supporting companies and where they advertise:

    http://foxattacks.com/

    This site gives you reasons NOT to shop at the companies who advertise on Fox News.

    There’s also: http://www.buyblue.org/

    At the bottom of this site (still in progress) are several links that show where lobbying dollars are spent on legislation.

    Enjoy; don’t forget to vote with your hard earned money, by NOT shopping at the companies supporting Republican (bad) causes.

    You can shop at Lowes, instead of Home Depot.
    Don’t watch Fox News.
    Buy at Circuit City, instead of Best Buy…

    etc…

  • I don’t believe a boycott will work. Their sponsors in the military production industry will pour as much money as necessary to keep this network in operation. They make a lot of bullets and other equipment. How many billions of dollars was just approved for military spending in Iraq? Where does that money go? Some of it will probably get put into image building advertisement on MSNBC, fox, cnn..etc.

    I respect those who disagree with the message of Liberty if they understand it. I never badger anyone to vote for Dr. Paul. I simply put them into contact with his message. I use my iphone. I ask what their issue is; I choose the appropriate bookmarked video of Dr. Paul addressing the issue, then I hand them the phone to watch. Most times, I’m told that they’ve never heard a politician speak that way. He speaks straight and to the point with no equivocation or platitudes. It just sounds like the truth.

    To those who benefit the most from our war spending, it is imperative that this message does NOT get out. Fox may be just bowing to its sponsors.

    Freedom is a popular message. Most Ron Paul supporters realize that the only real important thing, the most basic part of life, is ones ability to live it in the way he/she desires. You have individual sovereignty. If your actions do not restrict or impact another’s ability to do the same (including property rights) then there is No authority for anyone to restrict your behavior through law, regulation, tax on you livelihood, or any other form of coercion. That’s it in a nutshell and can be expanded from people to states to federal govt. to our dealings with other nations. Protection of Liberty is the purpose of our Govt. We forgot that somewhere and now find that the federal government is like kudzu to our hill of freedom. We’re slowly and incrementally being strangled and blocked off from the light of true freedom. That’s why we’re so passionate about this message.

    Fox will invite him or they won’t, in the end it won’t matter if we don’t rely on the MSM to spread this message. We’ll just have to do it.

    Liberty 08

  • Jay Dogg that’s a very accurate spoof of a clueless right winger.

    Are you one of the writer for Stephen Colbert by any chance?

  • The Ron Paul Rally next door during that debate, will shed a lot of light on people’s choice. Ron Paul may not be Fox News choice but, he is our choice.

  • While I do not think it is fair, I believe Fox has the right to invite or not invite anyone they want. People obviously have the right to boycott anything they do not like also. Maybe Fox should change their motto from “Fair and Balanced” to something that actually reflects their position – like “News From a Neocon View” Or “We Know what is Right for you”.

    Go Ron Paul!

  • This could be a “January GOP Jutland.” Paulophiles form a battle-line, trying to “cross Rupert’s ‘T’,” as the saying goes—and Ailes returns fire by going nuclear on the Paul campaign. The collective damage from this could be worse for the Paul side, though.

    Now, I’m sure that more than a few of the Paulophiles who frequent this site know me to be a rabid participant of the “Nuke Paul ’til he glows, then slit his throat in the dark” campaign. However, if was my call on this, I’d have to acknowledge that formulating a “stock dump” gambit isn’t going to work. NewsCorp stock is held by groups, who are held by groups—who are held by still more groups. Portfolios intermesh in such a way that it’s pretty much impossible to tell what a portfolio might hold today, or tomorrow, or what it held yesterday.

    I’d be going for Ailes’ throat instead—advertising revenues. Rather than pumping thousands of emails at the FOX people who aren’t going to give a hoot what is said, try going on the attack against those companies who bankroll FOX. Advertisers are the insulating blankets that keep Ailes and company from freezing in the cold. Strip away the blankets, and FOX suffers a slow death from “financial hypothermia.”

    I’ll not call the Paul people “friend,” but I will call them “the enemy of my enemy.”

    Besides—the mental image of Bill-O getting mugged by NYPD for camping out in Central Park is a really nice way to start the New Year….

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  • Ah yes, Fox has finally done the American People a favor and removed the facade of legitimacy to reveal that it has more in common with the tactics of Putin than the principles of Jefferson.

  • In the wondrous, exhaustive “Iron-Men/Wooden-Ships” saga by Patrick O’Brian, toasts aboard HMS Surprise (and other vessels under Aubrey’s command) often include toasting “Confusion to the Emperor,” meaning Napoleon.

    It is in that mood of wishing confusion upon the enemy that I encourage the RonPaul entourage to press forwards with their futile, quixotic quest because, if nothing else, it generates confusion in the ranks of the GOPhux, causes crises in their morale, and disrupts the flow of funds to their coffers.

    So, though I do not think Paul himself is sufficiently qualified to suck runny dog-shit through a Flavo-straw, and wouldn’t vote for him to do se even if it were a national office, I am gratified that both he and Huckleberry are in there poking sticks into the spokes of the GOPhuque machine.

  • #12 – Fox has every right to exclude participants in a national Republican debate???????

    Wow. We certainly have accepted totalitarian media very readily.

  • I don’t want The Honorable Dr. Paul to appear beside the retardlican candidates. Also, the buffoons hosting the circus who have said things like “taking orders from Al Queada” are simply the laughing stock of the main-stream media.

  • We citizens of the US are not being offered an anti-war choice in a presidential candidate. Simple as that…

    Ron Paul’s volunteers and paid people have been forced to carry his message to the streets as his name is rarely mentioned by the mainstream media. Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel, not having the funds to aggressively campaign, have for the most part, been eliminated.

    Why would the self-proclaimed, “fair and balanced” media wish to remove from the presidential venue an anti-war candidate when only 3 years ago we elected a replacement Congress on the basis of ending the war in Iraq?

    Fact:
    The US military expenditures for 2006 were $623 Billion. Much of this is for the huge conglomeration of military contractors. This $623 billion is more than the military spending of rest of the world combined. And 10 times that of the next largest spender, China.

    Yet, this does not include Veterans Affairs, maintenance of the nuclear weapons arsenal, and “classified” research which then brings the total to approx. $1,000,000,000,000. That’s $1 trillion. Interestingly that amount correlates to the amount of personal income taxes collected which were also approximately $1 trillion.

    Please refer to the following website for verification. http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/spending.htm

    It would seem that the military-industrial comlex (corporate military contractors) may exert “influence” on the mainstream media.

  • #18 – Jen
    Yes, Jen, FOX has the right to run their programming however they want. You and I (and everyone else) also have the right to watch or not watch as we choose. They even have the right to hold or not to hold a debate. Would you prefer that “someone” (maybe the government or perhaps you) forced them to hold the debate according to some criteria not of their choosing? Talk about totalitarian!

    Note that I said I think it is not fair and that I am a Ron Paul supporter.

  • This is a big story around Left Blogistan, but pretty much ignored by the righty blogs.

    Says much about how the righties just ditto ditto to the talking points of the corporate establishment. Dittoheads!

  • “There’s something wrong with Fox.”, is a saying that I got into the habit or thinking, or even saying aloud to myself, just when I reach for the control to change away from the Fox News Channel upon the occasional quality failure. Such failures have been preventing me from being able to enjoy watching it for more than a few minutes at a time. Maybe they should rigidly fire all the people who make the mistakes, and increase salaries as needed to prevent that from resulting in excessive staff turnover. Hint: Picture the Fox staff as a herd of bumbling “Apprentice” contestants not yet pruned to perfection by Donald Trump firing all the losers.

    While it is tempting to attribute the exclusion of Ron Paul to some grand conspiracy theory, or even a seemingly menial conspiracy theory such as Republicanism, one must keep in mind that such an undocumented exclusion decision is well within the chaotic range of the mere amateuristic bumbling that Rupert Murdoch has passively authorized Fox News to perpetuate. Now when you see those debates without Ron Paul, you can confidently change the channel with the excuse that, “There’s something wrong with Fox.”

  • If Ron Paul’s ground troops remain steady in their course (and I am one of them), they will succeed in getting his name and message of freedom and liberty out. We cannot allow the media to select our presidential candidates for us. This has been going on for far too long now; it’s evident from the results that it’s not working so well for us, folks.

  • The question gets to what the purpose of political debate really is. For FOX, or whoever else, is the point to better inform the public through the inclusion of any plausibly viable candidate; to help reach clarity on who the winner is, or to service the advertisers?

    I’d like to think that all of us here–progressives and Paulites, whom I believe are wrong about many, many things but right about a few supremely important things–believe in the first purpose. If that’s the standard, unquestionably Paul should be on that stage.

    The problem of course is that FOX, a network that serves no public-welfare purpose but exists solely to make money (which is fine) and to advance one political faction (which isn’t), actually suffers harm by an informed public. Paul questions, in overt and articulate style, many of the basic premises of FOX. Of course they don’t want to give him a platform.

  • I think it’s a travesty, but Ron Pauls wins either way. If they keep him out, what do you think will be on CNN, MSNBC, and the networks while Fox is airing their cooked up forum? That’s right Ron Paul and Ron Paul supporters. I think there are an awful lot of people out there that have not heard the Ron Paul message yet, and this bit of plodding censorship will cause people to question why Ron Paul is being excluded. That will get some of them to look into his positions on the issues and realize that he is not a kook with fringe supporters, but an honest American standing up for the country that we should have.

    If, on the other hand, Fox reverses course and lets him in, they will have to either admit that he is a much more viable candidate than they want the public to know, or that the media is biased and everything they say needs to be taken with a grain of salt.

    I predict Ron Paul will finish in the top three in Iowa, Fox will let him in, then he will take that momentum and finish in the top two in New Hampshire.

  • As far as Fox News is concerned, they only invite people, -debate or not- on their shows with one purpose: re-enforce the right wing mantra.

    The so called democrats who occasionally show up on their network, aren’t really democrats. They may have the label, or used to have the label in the past, but they are only there to smear ‘real’ democrats. (If there is such a thing)

    The same thing goes for Ron Paul…. It doesn’t matter whether you agree with Ron on the issues or not, but there is one thing for sure, as far as Fox is concerned Ron Paul is NOT a ‘real’ republican who tows the line. They’re afraid that he’ll speak the truth, and the audience wouldn’t like it if they were to shut off his microphone, like the O’Reilly factor habit, when disagreeing.

    PS: For the people who feel that Fox has the right to exclude anybody they like… They may be right about having that option…. However, it’s a travesty that they are also allowed to call themselves “fair and balanced”, let alone a ‘news organization’

    There aught to be some kind of agency regulating the ‘truth in advertisement’ , especially when it comes to informing the general public about important things. Blatant lies should not be allowed to be spewed, unless they are required to allot the same amount of time to prove them wrong on the facts.

  • We need your help! ABC News and their affiliate in New Hampshire, WMUR-TV have unilaterally decided that Joe Biden, Chris Dodd, and Dennis Kucinich will not be allowed to participate in the next primary debate.

    I think this is terribly wrong — it violates the traditions of the New Hampshire primary and is on its face unfair and undemocratic.

    I need help getting ABC News and WMUR to change their minds. In addition to calling for the frontrunners — Clinton, Obama, and Edwards to refuse to debate until this mess is resolved, I need people who believe in freedom of speech for our candidates to call WMUR TV News in protest.

    Their number is 1-800-257-5151. Ask for the news room.

    Thank you! == Sky

  • “If you always do what you’ve always done, You will always get what you’ve always gotten” – Author unknown

    America has problems – BIG problems – and if we continue to try and solve those problems in ways we have always used THEN we will always have BIG unresolved problems!

    Now is the time to start thinking for ourselves, to boldly go where no Nation has gone before, to seek and find a NEW direction.

    We MUST return to Government OF the People, BY the People and (most of all) FOR THE PEOPLE!

  • I support Paul. I have sent a notice to FOX that if they do not find a way to make room for him after he does better in IA than some of those that have been invited, that I will be contacting FOX sponsors with a message of my distaste for their affiliation with the propaganda machine that they sponsor, and that their company will be boycotted by me, my family, and my close personal friends.

    I really don’t care whether Paul chooses to attend the forum or not, but I do believe that FOX is acting with malice. Paul has won most post-debate text polls, most GOP straw polls, has increased his fundraising every single quarter, has the one-day all-time 24 hour fundraising record, and has more money available for campaigning going into Feb. 5th than any of the other Republican candidates.

    One of the candidates they did invite, Thompson, has run out of money and was unable to secure a ballot position in DE and the Distrct of Columbia. How does a front-runner have no money and fail to gain ballot access in a State of the Union? You only need 298 signatures to gain ballot acces in DC and 1000 to gain access in DE. This attests to the weakness of Thompson’s campaign organization. Yet Paul, who leads WV with delegate candidates and money is not as front-tier as Thompson? FOX is a station full of morons. Thompson should do the honorable thing: resign from the contest and offer his seat at the forum to Paul.

  • We fund the machine. Every bit of money that the military industrial complex gets is from the tax payer. The military industrial complex is multiple faced, and is every corporation that has an interest in war profits. So if you buy any civilian goods from a corporation that also makes military goods you are funding the machine. Starve the machine and see what happens.

  • I can not believe I’m in the same league with all of you other “tin foil hat” people. The world is definately coming to an end. I have never contributed to a political candidate in my life. Now I’m officially crazy. Put the hat on me. I’m in.

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  • Faux News is NOT a Republican party mouth piece, it is a Neocon mouthpiece. Neocons hijacked the Republican party.

    Ron Paul is the soul of the rank and file Republicans as evidenced by his ability to take in HUGE donations, and THAT is why he should be in the debates.

    Ken
    http://www.LaserGuidedLoogie.com

  • The network says it will include only candidates who finish in the top four in the Iowa caucuses or receive at least 5 percent in New Hampshire or national polls.

    Does being within the margin of error count?
    Biden Dodd, Kucinich and even Gravel have been within statistical margin of each other most of the campaign. If one of these guys lucks into 5.1% and the next one up is at 9, does it make sense to exclude the guy who got 4.5%?

    Still, it’s a darn site better than the aribitrary fundraising or HQ criteria that axed Gravel and then Kucinich.

    We’re going to need to come up with better data by which to check out our candidates. MSM debates of the future may be comprised completely of MSM Corporation approved candidates.
    There needs to be a mechanism for dark horses to mount a challenge. Debates used to be a place where the unknowns could become knowns. Now with time allocations being based on polling, they merely reinforce what the current wisdom is. i.e. Gee, Kucinich and Biden didn’t have much to say. (Because they got a tenth the time Clinton and Edwards got.)

  • I don’t trust our elections, either. I firmly believe that Big Money Interests would not hesitate to fix elections. If that doesn’t work I don’t put it past BMI to assassinate to protect their profits. The right fears Paul’s fiscal honesty and the left doesn’t like Paul’s objection to socialist government theft. Govt spending is about to put our dollar in the toilet but neither the right or left cares; they will keep taking until the system collapses then point their fingers at a made up villian. Democracy is dead.

  • We all need to thank Fox News for the underdog status it has helped maintain for Ron Paul and the free publicity from all quarters, ABC NBC & CBS. But especially FAUX. ron Moss

  • This kind of censorship of candidates is par for the course on either side of the 49th Parallel. The Green Party of Canada has gained about 10% points in the polls, yet are still not expected to be allowed in the next televised election debate, not even on the public broadcaster the CBC.

    http://inclusivedebates.blogspot.com/ would be a good idea for bloggers interested in this cause of enabling fair debates.

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