At the risk of taking on the esteemed professor, I have to speak up about this. Recently Al Gore has remarked that it looks like FoxNews is shilling for the RNC. Bob Somerby of the Daily Howler has assembled some pretty convincing evidence to prove that contention.

Glenn Reynolds posits that the ascendancy of FoxNews is a reflection of the tastes of the marketplace. The diet of the left-of-center news perspective served up by the broadcast networks never set well with lots of folks, but until recent years there was no other news source. Reynolds holds that this section of the market is larger than mainstream media ever expected and it has found a home in Fox. His position is that the reason the RNC's talking points get such a hearing is that a great number of people already want to hear them. It's not a conspiracy, just market forces at work.

While the professor says that Al was only half-right, I contend that the professor may only be half-right as well. There is a constituency that is pre-disposed to what Fox has to offer. Somerby's analysis makes it clear that what Fox indeed offers is strongly driven by the RNC agenda. This is only natural since that agenda is the preferred provider for Fox's right-wing audience as well.

The problem I have with this is that information offered by the RNC is shot full of out-and-out lies (as Somerby demonstrates in his articles). Not only do we have a major news source that plays fast-and-loose with the facts, but we have a population that wants to believe this drek! That's what really toasts my biscuit. Might as well be living in Saudi Arabia! For crying out loud....