I have to agree with Boortz. The Democrats are not pulling out of the Fox News sponsored debate because of this lame joke.

And it is true that Barack Obama is on the move. I don’t know if it’s true that President Bush called Musharraf and said, ‘Why can’t we catch this guy?’

Which, if you read it, is a joke at Bush’s expense, not Obama’s. (And a joke that their much-loved show 30 Rock made just the week before). No, they’re pulling out because this is a way of humiliating Fox News.

I’ve been around the left enough to understand their hatred of Fox News. ABC/NBC/CBS/WaPo/NPR/etc. have so blurred the line between opinion and news that libs can’t tell the difference between Brit Hume’s news report and Hannity’s/O’Reilly’s opinion shows. And I would feel confident saying most of Fox News’ critics have never actually watched the channnel, just as Limbaugh’s critics have never listened to his show. These things become obvious when you are a viewer/listener and hear the critics.

My local talk radio station gets their news from Fox. If there’s a right-wing bias to the news, I don’t hear it. This in sharp contrast to say, NPR.

The phrase de jour in response to this from libs lately has been that the facts have a liberal bias. This is one of those clever-sounding stupid things that politics is built on. But I’m sorry, when NPR starts out their report on Family Leave with the question, “Why is the US so far behind Europe in paying for family leave?” and presents only one opinion, that’s liberal bias — taxpayer funded liberal bias, as a matter of fact. The fact that the US doesn’t have labor mandates like Europe does not automatically support the opinion that government must intrude. Yet it is presented as such.

And as for the defined editorials? Hey, newspapers are free to say anything they want on the editorial page. Keith Olberman routinely spews as much left-wing dribble as Hannity does right-wing hot air. And, as I’ve noted below and on a lost post, the editorials of the New York Times and Washington Post are often indistinguishable from Democratic Party press releases. That’s fine with me, as long as they admit it’s opinion. So why is Fox News not entitled to clearly demarcated opinion segments?