Saturday, October 02, 2004

I want Cameron's Head on a plate

My parents always taught me that what is fair for one is fair for another. Or as they said, "What is fair for the goose, is fair for the gander." Meaning that you cannot hold people to a standard that you do not apply to yourself.

Fox "news" would do well to apply that idea to themselves. The so-called "fair and balanced" "news" channel allowed a right-wing biased overzealous Fox "reporter" who is covering Kerry on the campaign trail to post false quotes on their website as Josh Marshall and others have reported.

Now, Fox has posted an apology and pulled the shameful sham of quotes, although the "reporter" is still out there on the campaign trail.

Fox supposedly put up an apology but a quick review of Foxnews.com did not immediately reveal an apology,one has to dig into the story to find it. Here is what passes for a mea culpa from Fox "news":

Earlier Friday, FOXNews.com posted an item purporting to contain quotations from Kerry. The item was based on a reporter’s partial script that had been written in jest and should not have been posted or broadcast. We regret the error, which occurred because of fatigue and bad judgment, not malice.

Yeah, right. No malice. Who are you trying to fool? Come on. The fact that the report made it past editors and fact checkers -- they do have those at Fox "news" right? -- tells us a great deal about how biased the Right-wing news network truly is. A "reporter" believed that in his report he had the right to ridicule a presidential candidate. It is time to fire Cameron!

The Fox "news" channel attacked several newspapers and websites in recent memory for failure to fact check and print false reports, now they have done the same. Hell, Dan Rather didn't make anything up, he trusted a source when he should have been skeptical, but Cameron actually fabricated quotes and then passed those lies on, that my friends, shows intent to commit fraud.

So, it is only fitting that either Cameron quits or is fired. Nothing less will resolve this debacle.

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