Fox?s ?Fair And Balanced? Debate: ?Does Climate Change Exist??
Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on December 14th, 2009 5:37 am by HL
Fox?s ?Fair And Balanced? Debate: ?Does Climate Change Exist??
On this morning’s Fox News Sunday, host Chris Wallace touted his show’s “fair and balanced” bona fides by claiming he was going to host a debate on whether climate change actually exists. Promoting the conversation on its website, the official blog of the show wrote, “Does climate change exist? We’ll have a fair and balanced […]
On this morning’s Fox News Sunday, host Chris Wallace touted his show’s “fair and balanced” bona fides by claiming he was going to host a debate on whether climate change actually exists. Promoting the conversation on its website, the official blog of the show wrote, “Does climate change exist? We’ll have a fair and balanced debate on Fox News Sunday.”
The debate pitted prominent global warming denier, Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), against the author of climate change legislation in the House, Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA). When Wallace pressed Inhofe to confront the fact that the last decade has been the hottest in recorded history, Inhofe — true to form — denied the reality:
WALLACE: The fact is, just this week, the world meteorological organization said that this decade is the warmest on record, and that 2009 is the 5th warmest year on record. Does that mean nothing?
INHOFE: It means very little. Because that was based on the same flawed science — the IPCC science — that we have been looking at.
Wallace wrapped up the conversation by saying, “This is a debate that will continue.” Watch a compilation:
Fox’s presentation of a “debate” over global warming science is a classic example of the “false balance” that the traditional media often employs to discuss the issue. The media watchdog group, Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting, observed that the journalistic norm of “balance” has given disproportionate attention to false perspectives: “By giving equal time to opposing views, the major mainstream newspapers significantly downplayed scientific understanding of the role humans play in global warming.”
The “debate” obscures the real impacts of global warming: Arctic sea ice is at historically low levels, Australia is burning, the northern United Kingdom is underwater, and the world’s glaciers are disappearing. And of course, it’s the hottest decade in history.
Kristol: Obama?s Nobel Speech ?Lays The Predicate For The Legitimate Use Of Force? Against Iran
Since President Obama delivered his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech last week, Bill Kristol has been arguing that it is somehow in-line with his neoconservative philosophy and that it vindicates President Bush’s “global war on terror” that he wholeheartedly supported. Today on Fox News Sunday, Kristol continued with the theme, calling it “the most Bush-like […]
Since President Obama delivered his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech last week, Bill Kristol has been arguing that it is somehow in-line with his neoconservative philosophy and that it vindicates President Bush’s “global war on terror” that he wholeheartedly supported.
Today on Fox News Sunday, Kristol continued with the theme, calling it “the most Bush-like speech of his presidency” and that it “articulated his own version of the pre-emptive doctrine.” Kristol later said that it actually lays the groundwork for a preemptive strike on Iran:
KRISTOL: There’s this one sentence, “There will be times when nations – acting individually or in concert – will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified.”
That’s a pretty striking statement. I mean any American president should say that who’s looking at Iran developing nuclear weapons. I think he is, it’s not just that Israel might use preemptive force against Iran. This speech lays the predicate for a legitimate use of force to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons by the U.S.
Watch it:
The problem with Krisol’s logic is that Obama’s speech outright rejected the Bush approach:
I know that engagement with repressive regimes lacks the satisfying purity of indignation. But I also know that sanctions without outreach — and condemnation without discussion — can carry forward a crippling status quo. No repressive regime can move down a new path unless it has the choice of an open door.
“The satisfying purity of indignation,” as Matt Duss noted, is “a wonderfully succinct description of the simplistic and destructive ideology that drove George W. Bush’s foreign policy, and which Bill Kristol is still trying heartily to convince himself and others hasn’t been discredited.”
Noting that Kristol and his washed-up neocon gang are increasingly turning their sights on Iran, IPS News’s Jim Lobe reminds us that, just like with the Iraq war, consequences and reality have little bearing on this new push:
Kristol doesn’t ask what may be the impact on McChrystal’s efforts [in Afghanistan] of war with Iran. There’s every reason to believe, at least at this point, that the Pentagon is probably the national-security institution most adamantly opposed to an attack on Iran — be it by Israel or its own forces — precisely because it would greatly complicate Washington’s position throughout the region. But that’s not the point. Now that Obama is committed in Afghanistan, the neo-con priority moves to Iran, with urgency.
