Manufacturing Bias*

The Freedom's Watch bruhaha looked, from the start, like a set-up. A known right-wing pro-war group puts a happy-face Thank the Troops ad together which directs viewers to their website which in turn greets them as follows:

Welcome to Freedom's Watch
For too long, conservatives have lacked a permanent political presence to do battle with the radical special interest groups and their left-wing allies in government. Freedom’s Watch was formed to be the conservative voice fighting for mainstream conservative principles – today, tomorrow, and for generations to come. We engage in grassroots lobbying, education and information campaigns, and issue advocacy to further our goals and objectives. We create coalitions and collaborate with like-minded groups and individuals to further our common goals. Freedom’s Watch provides bold conservative solutions to pressing domestic and international issues to keep America strong, safe, and prosperous

NBC has a well-publicized policy** against "controversial" ads, as the United Church of Christ learned when they tried to run ads with the "controversial" message that the church accepts gay parishioners. NBC rejects this Trojan horse of an ad and Freedom's Watch screams that the network doesn't support the troops.

This sort of right wing performance art has been rampant lately. It provides fodder for Fox Noise and radio yappers and the lemmings who make up their audience. Fortunately, our conservative blogger friends are too smart to be taken in by such an obvious sucker ploy.

Ooh sorry, Boring. Didn't see you there.

Really? Doesn't support the troops? That's how we are going to gloss such an obvious gotcha? I guess following that logic, Fox hates the Constitution because they rejected an ad from the Center for Constitutional Rights about the Guantanamo cases. And Fox's rejection is arguably worse because they don't, to say the least, reject controversial ads. Their policy is viewpoint discrimination. Fair and Balanced indeed.

But of course, hating the Constitution isn't really an equivalent insult to conservatives. In fact, aside from some carefully selected clauses in Article II, plus Amendments II and V, hating the Constitution is practically a plank in the Republican platform.

*Yes, a nod to Chomskey.

**And for the record, I find NBC's "no controversy" policy to be lame and contrary to the network's duty to serve the public interest as a holder of public spectrum.