KEY ELEMENT TO RESPONDING TO THIS POST:
I am challenging anyone posting a response to refrain from using the following terms:

Conservatives and all references – Republicans, Neocons, etc.
Liberals and all references – Democrats, Dems, etc.
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Once someone tells me a blatant lie I tend to not trust them after that. But in the case of Hannity and Rush, in spite of blatant, twisted spinning and lying, people listen.

Why?

Is it like the woman whose husband cheats, but as long as he SAYS he isn't cheating, she's okay with it?

Or are these people suffering some kind of insane dependency?

Is it like staring at a car accident (That’s what it is with me J)

Rush goes on air and says that he thinks that he believes the prison torture just might be part of a “brilliant” plan by the American military. And he says it isn’t really a problem to put this kind of pressure on the “enemy”, which doesn’t seem to make sense when 70 to 90 percent of the detainees were not involved in any anti American activity.

I also kind of have a problem with soldiers raping 15-year-old girls on film. I dunno, she might fall into the victim category.

Why do these shows get any ratings at all?

Remember that movie, The Running Man, 1987?

I thought that movie was soooooooo stupid when I saw it. How could people be so easily manipulated while the government so corrupt? It seemed absurd and implausible that people could be so blatantly tricked.

Now, in 2004, I find out the Movie Running Man was simply ahead of its time.

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"What does a former president's son know about the Iraq war anyway?"
-- GW Bush when asked about Ron Reagan's negative comments, 6/25/2004.
www.BushZombie.com

we just live in a smug utopia.
despite calls (esp Rice, who says that Terrorists hate our freedom, a freedom which is due to our smug utopia) for us to be aware of the dangers of our smug utopian society, we are requested to remain living in such a society!

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I have something to hide.

People want to have their opinions validated. If they hate liberals they'll listen to Rush and if they hate conservatives they'll read the latest book by Franken. Very few independents listen to or read these sources. The only show I watch is Hannity & Colmes maybe twice a week because I like to see both sides of an issue argued (even if in both cases it's twisted to back their cause). O'Reilly I see maybe once a week because he brings up issues that don't always make the front pages. But I'd rather read than watch tv news whether it's Rather, Fox, local news, etc.

Rebellion is absolutely right.

Last Sunday afternoon (I think 4pm CDT) CSPN-2 show a pretty good round table from 4/27 with Larry Sabato, Alan Colmes, Eleanor Clift, Laura Ingraham, and Kenneth Starr on the polarization of politics. They talked a lot about how the media plays into the polarization in terms of the presentation of issues and the need for reinforcement of opinion. That wasn't too special. What I thought was really interesting were the defenses that Colmes and Ingraham made for why this sort of dialogue is really not such a bad thing.

If you are interested, I'm guessing that it will air again. Check out their website.

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Any man who can render himself unconscious with a pretzel isn't smart enough to lead the free world.

I would be interested in that too.

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"What does a former president's son know about the Iraq war anyway?"
-- GW Bush when asked about Ron Reagan's negative comments, 6/25/2004.
www.BushZombie.com

Reb, i honestly don't understand how people can watch fox news. It usually takes me about 5 minutes of watching it before i want to puke.

I get most of my information from the web these days, ( cnn.com/ , etc ) Most TV/radio news is pretty bad... not all of it is bias, but its so linear. I don't feel the need to waiste an hour of my life listening to some idiot spin, i'd rather just get the facts ( which seem to be in very short supply on TV/Radio )

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"The belief that nothing exists outside your own mind--surely there must be some way of demonstrating that it was false" - 1984

CNN's stories have just as much bias as anything you will find on Fox, so you're not escaping anything by going there.

I dispute this.

eitherway...

my point was that websites are better in general. www.foxnews.com/ isn't that bad, as compared with fox on TV. I check the site pretty often.

With websites, i can skip the crap and get to the facts, quotes, etc. also, it isn't so linear, and i can reread stuff. TV/Radio just gives me a bare impression of the situation... there isn't as much there, the important stuff flies by fast, and meanwhile i'm forced to wade through an endless suply of bull(*)(*)(*)(*).

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"The belief that nothing exists outside your own mind--surely there must be some way of demonstrating that it was false" - 1984

I don't know....but imagine Rush was just hypothiciizing. And I think he's wrong. Gen Taguba said today there was NO evidence there was any POLICY in place that supported or condoned this. He said it was the actions of the individuals who were unsupervised....and who took these pictures with their own personal digital cameras. This is why the whole thing has been blown way out of proportion. These actions were NOT the U.S. military...and NOT the U.S. government. A lot of poltics has been played here....and it ended up causing the beheading of an individual. It's bad enough that we have to fight the enemy....but some of these people we're having to fight are supposedly on our side.

BTW, that 70 to 90% keeps growing. It was 40 to 60 yesterday. Seems like each time the story gets told, there are more and more detainees who are perfectly innocent.

That's the way I feel about watching CNN or MSNBC very long. Makes me wanna puke.