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Fox host whining about how Americans don't know their history doesn't know her history

Seems a member of the Fox commentariat was prattling on recently about how Estonia is now a better place than America because Estonians know their history, while Americans

Don’t even know why some guy in Boston got his head blown off because he tried to secretly raise the tax on tea. Most people don’t know that.

As Politifact and J.L. Bell point out, most people don't know that because it didn't happen:

Had Tantaros’s brain melded the Tea Party of 1773 with the Massacre of 1770, in which Samuel Gray was fatally shot in the head? Does she get her history from the Assassin’s Creed 3 videogame, which lets players fight redcoats on a tea ship? Or was she just stringing together tough-sounding buzzwords for an uncritical audience?

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Where brain cells go to die a lonely death.

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So my history isn't perfect either but at least I don't go making stupid accusations on national tv. I looked up Samuel Grey, who was a local ropemaker and seemed to be particularly hot headed. According to the Boston Massacre Historical Society:

The fights [with ropemakers] started because locals were angry with the soldiers seeking employment at the rope works. British Army paid miserable salaries and it was a common practice for soldiers trying to make extra money on the side. Among those involved in the fights was Samuel Gray.

So it seems that the British government paying it's employees poorly and said foreigners looking for work was to blame for some of the animosity. Where have I heard that before....

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The Tea Party also wasn't a revolt against taxes, unless wanting British import tariffs to remain in place is anti-tax.

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Wow, just wow.

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Doesn't know how many states we have. What's your point.

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That's the difference. He made a mistake, but not while trying to prove how stupid the country is.

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May think differently. My point is, you're trying to place a lable on a group of people based on one individual. If that's the case, maybe I can compare all liberals to the idiots from occupy who still till this day don't know what they were fighting for.

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Just her.

But rather than trying to sidestep the issue, can we agree she has no clue what she's talking about? Because she really doesn't. Nobody had his head shot off over the tea party, and there's a certain irony in somebody claiming we're historically illiterate with her own historically incorrect claim.

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Just like Rachel Madows and 99.9% of pundits. The only decent guy left is Charlie Rose.

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Oh, wait, did you mean Rachel Maddow? No, that can't be right, because Charlie Rose interviewed Rachel Maddow, and he didn't seem to think she's an idiot. And Charlie is the only decent guy left!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0pnv2waUNw

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Rachel Maddow, Stanford grad, Rhodes scholar, DPhil from Oxford...total idiot. Eye roll.

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She's one of them.

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Congratulations. I've got you marked down now as "O-Fish-L" Jr.

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What Rush is to conservatives Maddow is to liberals. I can't listen to either one of them for more than 6 seconds without puking.

I liked both O'Reilly and Matthews when I first started watching them - then O'Reilly took a hard right turn and Matthews a hard left and I haven't watched either in over 5 years.

If you follow my posts you'll find I am VERY fiscally conservative and quite socially liberal. On this forum I'm considered a right winger because it slants far to the left. But that's OK. I learn a lot and hopefully others learn occasionally from me.

One of my more liberal friends and I frequently joke that I circle the issue to the right, she circles to the left and we end up agreeing in the middle.

In the broader spectrum of American politics - I think that makes me a moderate - just not on UHub.

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I would say this forum is pretty moderate, given all the folks who support transphobia and the people who think talking about race is racist, etc.

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As I recall, regularly 70-80% or more for the Democratic candidate when you have a 2 party race. And we have some of the most moderate Republicans in the country save for the other New England woman and they STILL lose 4-1 out here - that's not moderate.

The problem is - put a bunch of liberals in a room and they think they're all moderates. Put a bunch of conservatives in a room and they all think they're moderate because everyone thinks their views are "mainstream". I know a lot of you think I'm a right wing conservative - and when I talk to my conservative friends they tell me I've gone all Massachusetts on them - which is why I tend to think of myself as a moderate - right leaning for sure - but not by much.

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in the Commonwealth if the local GOP put up better candidates. Most independents I know like myself don't care about party labels, but vote on positions, experience, reasonableness. When a Wall Street toady like Scott Brown is your best, most electable example of someone smart, capable, and standing up for middle-class citizens, you have profound issues as a party. Put up a few more Bill Welds and I'll vote for 'em. Keep running hateful turds like Bill Hudak, and what do you expect?

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To even claim such a thing is just plain embarrassing. Really. Again--start with the credentials and go from there. And then maybe actually watch her interview someone she disagrees with and ask yourself whether you could imagine Rush doing such a thing or conducting himself likewise. She's thoughtful, funny, and more knowledgable and intelligent than either you or me--to compare her to that sneering, nasty, drugged-up blowhard is just ridic.

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But intellectually she's got nothing on Rush or O'Reilly - you may disagree with them, but they both have incredible grasp of the facts (although both sides tend to only present the facts that support their case).

Tie me to a chair and say I have to watch one of the four and I'll probably take Matthews - both he and Maddow are probably more pleasant because Rush and O'Reilly are both bullies, but all four are extreme partisans and given the choice I'll turn that channel on all of them. Happy to watch less biased but still liberal views like Anderson Cooper and Andrew Ross Sorkin on CNBC - but won't watch any of that gang of four (or their respective cable channels).

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You know Maddow personally? Interesting. Please continue, I'd like to hear more about just how you've come to the conclusion that she's an idiot.

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So don't take my word - Newsweek and others - From Wikipedia - I'll assume accurate:

A Newsweek profile noted that, "At her best, Maddow debates ideological opponents with civility and persistence... But for all her eloquence, she can get so wound up ripping Republicans that she sounds like another smug cable partisan." The Baltimore Sun critic David Zurawik has accused Maddow of acting like 'a lockstep party member.'"[48] Maddow has likewise been criticized by the editors of The New Republic for her program, which they called "A textbook example of the intellectual limitations of a perfectly settled perspective."

In my book if I knew nothing else about her the above makes her (and her right wing counterparts) idiots. Fanning the flames of partisanship does not move the debate forward - at best only sideways and tears us further apart.

She's an idiot.

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Because Barry will down in history, not as the first black president, but as one if the worst.

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from W.

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GWB is far from the worst. Maybe you should pick up a book.

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6 yrs old, you a complete idiot. Obama has done nothing with the economy, Iraqi is a mess, gave terrorist in Syria weapons, ACA is a joke, has further spread the income gap, increased poverty, net neutrality, NSA (his speech was a joke), has over steped his executive power and shitted on the constitution, Iran, the deficit, the housing market and did I mention employment numbers (how many people aren't even in the employment pool) and the fact that 75% of jobs created are part time min wage positions.

Ya like I said maybe you should read a book , you might learn about idiots like (yourself) Johnson, Buchanan, Harding, Nixon or Obama.

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Which is that one of the people who gave you your talking points is an idiot when it comes to American history.

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disinformation the denizens of Planet Fox News can pack into one overheated paragraph. You can practically see the ignorant hysteria steaming off the screen. So angry. So oblivious. And given the headline and story, so absolutely perfect.

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It's almost like the crawler at the bottom of the Fox News feed. Stream of consciousness blathering that's 99% BS.

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Don't forget that he caused the Irish potato famine, the fall of the Roman empire and when an asteroid hits the Earth that will be his fault too.

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Was Bush, including the Japanese invasion of China.

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No one here is actually blaming Bush for the Japanese invasion of China while the poster above actually seems to hold Obama responsible for not only the economy but for the mess in Iraq (ironic, no?) and "Iran"--I mean...did he create Iran? Are you just upset that he hasn't dropped a few tons of nuclear material on Iran, or...? No--it's just something you'd like to hang around his neck.

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The UN just confirmed today that Iran has stopped its uranium enrichment program, as it agreed to with the Obama administration, and shows every sign of continuing towards ending the remainder of its nuclear weapons program on schedule.

Whoa, scandal.

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This whole "diplomacy" thing...definitely suspect! Bombing the sh*t out of them just would have been so much tidier.

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...of which our current president will be the worst? Nah, I'm guessing you mean one of the worst presidents overall, but I suggest you choose your words more carefully. The mere prospect of more black presidents will surely rile up your Tea Party friends!

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he did succeed in establishing how stupid the country is, so there's that....

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Um, didn't this guy just unintentionally prove his point? History curriculum in the US has been gutted over the years in favor of 'social studies' and revisionist inclusionary or social justice hand-wringing claptrap. Kids learn more about obscure inconsequential figures and cultures than the major people and events which really define the course of history.

History and the humanities in education have for the most part been reduced to dribble.

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nobody who works for the channel understands history, or science, or junior-high civics, just wait five minutes. They'll do it again. And again. And again.

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Ever watch MSNBC? It's even worse....

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Cable "news" is the worst kind of "news"

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Do we really have to keep trotting out this tired meme about MSNBC being the left-leaning equivalent of Fox? Yes, MSNBC has lots of hours of progressive talking-head pundistry during the day. Yes, they keep inexplicably hired Al Sharpton and fired Alec Baldwin And yes, they won't let go of "Lockdown" on the weekends. But MSNBC has two hours of serious reporting by the brilliant Chris Hayes and Rachel Maddow every weeknight. Chris Matthews, for all his quirks, knows politics inside and out. Steve Kornacki is really coming into his own on "Up" every weekend, and Melissa Harris-Perry makes up for her on-camera awkwardness with a sharp mind, interesting guests, and a valuable perspective. Oh, and it's funny how Fox apologists always forget the three hours of right-leaning programming MSNBC provides EVERY weekday morning on "Morning Joe."

So who are the brilliant minds on Fox? Where is the leftward balance for 15 hours a week? When was the last time Fox reporting broke a real story -- not a manufactured controversy, but a real story? Fox isn't news, it's propaganda. But to give the devil his due, they are really, really, really good at it.

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Two words: leg tingle.

The cable commentariat on both sides, reminds me of that line from Yeats:

The best lack all conviction, while the worst/Are full of passionate intensity.

They all suck.

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Always the sign of a solid position!

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I agree that humanities are now the tolerated stepchild of U.S. education. But that's because they are not practical. This is a materialistic nation. Profit, income and material wealth are what drive the priorities in this nation.

As for revisionist inclusionary … claptrap. What is taught as history today in pre-college education?

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were brains. "The Five" stands for their collective IQ's.

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now in the US, the messenger trumps the message. Progressives on Fox? Irrelevant. Conservatives on MSNBC? Invisible.

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requires you to be a willing participant in what is obviously a consensual hallucination, a fabricated alternate reality. Seriously, if you can't tell that every five minutes they are telling you a bald-faced lie, or flouting lessons in science, history, and the workings of our government that you ought to have learned in middle school or high school, you are a big part of the problem.

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Except for those three hours every weekday morning on MSNBC hosted by noted conservative and former congressman Joe Scarborough. Again, can we PLEASE stop the mindless, reality-denying, knee-jerk equating of Fox with MSNBC when it is just patently false? I guess we just have to keep beating this dead horse until the horse is truly dead.

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Fox has always been about stoking the outrage of folks who feel that they've been left behind. The sentiment expressed by the tea party, "I want my country back" is the perfect example of the target demographic that Fox is reaching for. Historical facts (or facts of any kind) are secondary to outrage fueling that has been going on for many years now.

Fox's casual interest in facts is of little concern to it's audience as they are fully invested in the emotion of outrage that Fox provides. Fox, which as John Carroll has pointed out as being the "house organ of the Republican party", does not have to report the news, but only offer a logical, alternative world view. This they've done brilliantly. Witness their representatives in Congress, who honestly think that it's okay to shut down the government, rather than compromise.

This is somewhat less effectively mirrored on the left by MSNBC, but honestly MSNBC viewers are more invested in the new America than the alienated Fox folks. Moreover the left has is so infatuated with itself that it's long ago lost sight of Fox's demographic, which at time voted solidly democratic. Too many of today's liberals and progressives would seem to spend more energy at the theater or seeking locally-grown, produce at farmers markets than actually talking to the great unwashed masses.

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... so I'll just point out a couple of corrections here:

the left has is so infatuated with itself that it's long ago lost sight of Fox's demographic, which at time voted solidly democratic.

Pre-Reagan, possibly. These are the folks who voted for Ike, Nixon, Johnson, Nixon, Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush, Perot, Clinton, Bush, Bush, McCain and Romney. Not exactly strong Democratic voters, though many split tickets (especially in the South) and voted Dixiecrat or Blue Dog Democrat.

Fox's demographic is old. Far older than the electorate. And they're also whiter, and far more xenophobic than the rest of the country. Xenophobic as in "anyone who isn't exactly like us is the Devil! And you kids get off our lawn!" They're all about outrage, and being victims, and being put upon by "liberals" who really don't even notice them.

Too many of today's liberals and progressives would seem to spend more energy at the theater or seeking locally-grown, produce at farmers markets than actually talking to the great unwashed masses

Alas, this is probably true. But the unwashed masses don't watch Fox unless their boss has it on at work. They don't watch much TV at all because they ain't got time, working two jobs and hoping to keep an effing roof over their heads and food on the kids' plates.

Of course, most of us middle-aged liberals are just pissed off at the banksters and voting for Elizabeth Warren. And buying produce at Russo's when the farmer's markets close for the winter.

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