On tonight’s Fox’s “fair and balanced” Special Report, with Bret Baier substituting for Brit Hume, something very interesting happened.
During a discussion of “Joe the Plumber,” with the “All-Star Panel,” Mort Kondracke tried to be fair and balanced, had the audacity to tell the truth. He tried to talk about Joe the Plumber’s true politics; that Joe is not the “every man” as McCain is pretending he is; Mort mentioned Joe the Plumber’s true income (less than $100,000) and his true earning potential; Kondracke correctly stated that “Joe,” under Obama’s tax plan would not have a tax increase; that if Joe started his own business, he would get more help from Obama than from McCain—even if he made over $250,000.
One would have thought that Mort had committed treason. Pure bedlam broke out in the Fox studio. Everyone of his All-Stars partners—Fred Barnes, Charles Krauthammer and Bret Baier—jumped all over poor Kondracke and just clobbered him for daring to deviate from the Fox line, for daring to speak the truth.
Regrettably, I have no access to the video yet, but would appreciate if any of my co-bloggers or readers could provide such when available.
This is a true classic, a must-see, about a network that claims to be fair and balanced and, yet, does not tolerate the truth to be spoken by one of its own, when it is not convenient to its politics.
The author is a retired U.S. Air Force officer and a writer.