FOX viewers mistakenly buy Al Franken book

[sk]

Sphinx said:

I just thought I'd join the pissing match.

LOL

[j_b]

Dan_Harris said:

thatguy said:

It is funny that those that don't like Franken never argue the veracity of his (Team Franken) work. Notice how Coulter, O'Reilly, Hannity or Limbaugh do not contest the claims of lying made by Franken. Why is that?

Maybe because they feel no one takes Franken seriously and he isn't worth wasting the time of day talking about.

 

so it was worth it for o'reilly to have fox sue franken for copyright infringement but it would not be worth their while to sue for libel & defamation? i think thatguy is right, they can't do anything about it because they lied.

[mattp]

That is exactly the point made in the forward to the new printing of "Blinded by the Right" - that despite the fact that he provides copious details which are extremely easy to verify, nobody mentioned in the book has come forth to say that he has lied or made a mistake. And he calls everybody who is anybody in the neoconservative movement a liar and tells on what day and in which place they lied. The fact that nobody argues with what he has written goes a long way to suggest that he was correct.

 

It does appear that many of the conservative icon's have a serious problem with fact checking, doesn't it? Sadly, it seems, most people who listen to Rush Limbaugh or read Ann Coulter or Bernard Goldberg don't care.

[Fairweather]

thatguy said:

mattp

I'll lend the book out to anyone who reads. I also have the book about the big fat idiot if anyone is interested. Mr. Franken was on 'Fresh Air' last night. google it for a replay of the interview.

 

No doubt NPR gave equal time to an opposing point of view.

[Off_White]

Fresh Air is interviews, not debates.

[E-rock]

Uh-oh, sounds like the "Fairweather" code needs updating.

[pope]

Big Fat Idiot is a great read. Imagine Rush, who constantly decries social engineering and the evil liberals who perpetuate it.....imagine a young, healthy (albeit obese) Rush receiving welfare checks and redistributing the money to the neighbor boy who mowed his lawn! Had I not read Big Fat Idiot, I would then possess only a partial grasp of what a hypocrite and a dork he is. This guy's your role model?

[AlpineK]

Fairweather said:

thatguy said:

mattp

I'll lend the book out to anyone who reads. I also have the book about the big fat idiot if anyone is interested. Mr. Franken was on 'Fresh Air' last night. google it for a replay of the interview.

 

No doubt NPR gave equal time to an opposing point of view.

 

Jesus fucking Christ Fairweather. You sound like a broken record. You can't defend the facts so you switch back to your old song about how bias NPR is.

 

I bet FOX beats NPR hands down when it comes to bias.

 

Why can't you be more like Dan Evans. If I was able to vote when he was governor I would have supported him, but no you have to be GW's little bitch boy.

 

Dan Evans was cool. Pro environment and fiscally conservative and honest to boot. GW's a fucking idiot and a tool. He's fucking up in Iraq, fucking up the environment, and fucking our economy.

[Fairweather]

Off_White said:

Fresh Air is interviews, not debates.

 

Did I claim it was a debate program? Very weak ,OW. So when will Fresh Air be "interviewing" Bill ORiley? Never, I suspect.

 

As for Mattp's premise that,["since the righties never claim libel, the claims of Mr Franken/others must be true!"], couldn't the same be said for the liberals? I mean, if what Limbaugh, Hannity, Medved, Coulter, others say isn't true, then why haven't they been sued? Truth proved by absence of legal retort?

 

...Come on Matt. I hope you wouldn't come into a court room with a weak case like that! And you've used this premise on other occasions as well.

 

[Fairweather]

AlpineK said:

 

 

 

 

 

I bet FOX beats NPR hands down when it comes to bias.

 

Why can't you be more like Dan Evans. If I was able to vote when he was governor I would have supported him

 

 

Fox News is supported by free market advertising. NPR is supported (in part) by my tax dollars. I have every right to expect objectivity from them.

 

I suspect you would not have voted for Dan Evans, and for the sole reason that he was a Republican. So why can't you be more like Dan Evans...or Booth Gardner for that matter? Because you are as much a liberal tool as you perceive I am conservative.

 

If moderate Democrats existed, I would consider giving them my vote. ...Actually I do.... My US Rep. is Norm Dicks (D), and I vote for him every two years.

[E-rock]

Fresh Air is not a news program. Should they interview David Letterman because they're interviewing Conan O'Brien?

 

Also, Fox IS suing Franken for copyright infringement. It's a mean-spirited attack against Franken for pissing off O'Reilly. The point Matt is making is that in THIS INSTANCE the people at FOX would be suing Franken for Libel also, if they actually COULD.

[AlpineK]

Dan Evans was one of the best politicians I can think of. So suck it Fairweather you clueless idiot.

 

I've heard Newt Gingrich(SP?) interviewed on NPR, and I've heard a bunch of folks from conservative think tanks interviewed. ....Double suck Fairweather

[Fairweather]

E-rock said:

 

. The point Matt is making is that in THIS INSTANCE the people at FOX would be suing Franken for Libel also, if they actually COULD.

 

Actually, Erock, if you read through the past threads that start, or drift onto the topic of political "literature", you'll see that Mattp's point is quite clear, and not as you stated above. ...And not just "in this instance".

[Fairweather]

AlpineK said:

Dan Evans was one of the best politicians I can think of. So suck it Fairweather you clueless idiot.

 

I've heard Newt Gingrich(SP?) interviewed on NPR, and I've heard a bunch of folks from conservative think tanks interviewed. ....Double suck Fairweather

 

I know that one's vote is a very personal matter, but could you name the last Republican you voted for?

[AlpineK]

I voted for Ronald Regan. no shit.

[j_b]

o'reilly will be on fresh air in a couple of weeks to present his new book, so you can quit your whining now. (so much for liberal npr)

 

e-rock is correct. fox sued franken for copyright infringement to satisfy o'reilly desire for revenge. if they had thought they could get revenge via a libel suit, they would have done so. in turn, liberals insulted by conservative talk show hosts, did not try to exact revenge in any form whatsoever so their not filing libel suits is consistant throughout in this respect (which cannot be said for fox and o'reilly). i hope you can see the difference ....

 

moreover, winning a libel suit over being called a traitor or worse ... is very difficult if not impossible for individuals in the political arena because it can be said to be rhetorical, whereas winning a libel suit over being called a liar w.r.t. having won 2 peabody awards would probably be relatively easy if o'reilly could show that indeed he won the awards or that he never claimed so. it should be noted that o'reilly apparently repeatedly claimed to have won peabodies (the most prestigious award in journalism) to ward off accusations of running a tabloid like show.

 

finally, one would think that a network with the motto 'fair and balanced' would want to set the record straight when their stars are accused of making things up.

[E-rock]

I should add, FOX dropped the charges against Franken. Appears they practically got laughed out of court.

[Fairweather]

AlpineK said:

I voted for Ronald Regan. no shit.

 

Holy Shit. OK, maybe you're not a total tool. (Like j_b)

 

Are there any "R's" you would vote for now? How about John Mcain?

 

...somethin' to think about while you're waxing Matt's boots.

Edited September 5, 2003 by Fairweather

[murraysovereign]

I don't have a firm position on the Franken vs O'Reilly debate, but FOX may have had other reasons for suing than simply out of spite or to exact revenge on behalf of O'Reilly. I'm no legal expert, but if copyright law in the US is anything like it is here in Canada, then FOX may have felt they had no choice but to proceed, even if they knew the suit was frivolous. A copyright has no value unless you defend it against misuse. If FOX let this book title go unchallenged, and maybe one or two other instances that were deemed frivolous, they could find themselves some day trying to prevent a serious violation of their copyright, and being unable to do so by virtue of having let it slide in the past. The workings of copyright law put an onus on copyright holders to be vigilant, and anything that indicates a lack of vigilance acts to weaken your protection. So that may have been as much a motivation for the lawsuit as vindictiveness on the part of FOX.

 

As I said, that's a layman's 30-second take on Canadian law, but I think US law is virtually identical in this area.

 

Now, let the resume.

[catbirdseat]

I am reading the new Franken book right now and I'm enjoying it. However, it makes me mad at what the media did to Gore. They just decided they didn't like him and all jumped on the bandwagon. After a while they just cited yesterday's stories without checking the facts. They said he made exaggerated statements. He did not. He was taken out of context and misquoted delibrately by right wing sources.

 

The bit about Gore claiming to have "invented" the Internet. He never used that word. What he said was that he had helped CREATE the Internet by making sure it received the necessary funding while he was a congressman. Once he was misquoted people figured he was passing himself off as having written the PASCAL code or something.

 

Then the bit about Love Canal. Gore was on the commision. He gives credit to a teenage girl for calling attention to the pollution, then gets misquoted. He said, he "called for a congressional investigation and a hearing...I looked around the country for other sites like that. I found a little place in upstate New York called Love Canal. Had the first hearing on that issue, and Toone, Tennessee-- that was the one you didn't hear of. But that was the one that started it all."

 

Both the Washington Post and the New York Times misquoted him as saying I was the on that started it all". Then the Rupublican National committee changed it to "I was the one who started it all." And it all went down hill from there.

 

Wrote Frankan, "Chris Matthews joined the gang bang, accusing Gore of claiming to have 'discovered' or even 'invented' Love Canal."

 

Some liberal media bias. Right.

[Dru]

Iain invented the internet, with his little Mac, everybody knows that.

[AlpineK]

Fairweather said:

AlpineK said:

I voted for Ronald Regan. no shit.

 

Holy Shit. OK, maybe you're not a total tool. (Like j_b)

 

Are there any "R's" you would vote for now? How about John Mcain?

 

...somethin' to think about while you're waxing Matt's boots.

 

In an election between Al Gore and Mcain I would probably have gone with Mcain.

 

Too bad John Ashcroft bends you over without a reach around.

[Dan_Harris]

j_b said:

so it was worth it for o'reilly to have fox sue franken for copyright infringement but it would not be worth their while to sue for libel & defamation? i think thatguy is right, they can't do anything about it because they lied.

Was it really O'Reilly who got FOX to sue? I haven't totally understood copyright suits. Obviusly the courts said FOX didn't have a leg to stand on. I agree. Yet have let McDonalds sue a small B&B along hiway 101 for using the McDonalds name. Just Like FOX, they said people might be confused. Ernest & Julio Gallo sued their brother Joseph saying he couldn't use the family name on his cheese, might confuse consumers. Gallo salami pays the winery for letting them use the name.

[Dr_Flash_Amazing]

Dru said:

Iain invented the internet, with his little Mac, everybody knows that.

 

Yes I, er, he, or rather that is to say it was all DFA's idiaia, and we hope you all enjoy it very much.

 

Macaroni!

[catbirdseat]

DFA, reach high on the shelf and get down the jar containing your balls (where you put them when you got married) and spray HARDER. We hardly know you are even there anymore. You can do better!