Sneaky techniques used by the right to influence voters about their opponents.
There is a right-wing media bias. Al Franken, a respected satirist, exposes the Bush Administration’s policies and their right-wing media hacks in his book, "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them." Franken examines the Bush Administration’s policies of squandering our surplus, ravaging the environment, alienating the rest of the world and giving the largest tax cuts to the top end of the economic ladder.
Franken says the right-wing media such as Fox News, The Washington Times, the New York Post, the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal and Talk Radio perpetuate left –wing bias myths and are not interested in the truth. Their agenda is to silence the Bush critics, concoct inflammatory stories, then repeat and embellish them to serve their political goal.
Rupert Murdock a billionaire who created a right-wing empire owns Fox News Channel the number one most watched news channel on television. Forbes Magazine ranked him the fourth most powerful man in the world as he owns the largest group of television stations in the U. S. and 130 English speaking newspapers including the London Times and the New York Post. He also owns 20th C Fox, Harper-Collins Publishing, The TV Guide and the Los Angles Dodges. The August Columbia Review wrote in 2002 that Murdock "wields his media as an instrument of influence with politics."
Another sneaky technique used by the right to spreads lies about an opponent in "Push Polling." Lee Atwater, Bush Sr.’s political guru, invented Push Polling. Senator John McCaine may have been defeated through the use of Push Polling in 2000 when unsuspecting voters were called and asked if they would vote for him if they knew that he was a cheat and a liar and a fraud, and that he fathered a illegitimate black child. The truth is that Mcain is an honorable man and he and his wife adopted Bridgett, a dark skinned girl from Bangladeshi.
Another influential American conservative talk radio commentator is Rush Limbaugh. He entertains a major national audience—over 20 million people a week, whose frustration and anger he mines to share his bigoted and biased positions.
Limbaugh is such a joke among the "liberals" that Franken wrote another amusing satire titled "Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot" about American politics and the conservative right including Bush.
Limbaugh is in his mid 50s and is a known racist, sexist and hypocrite. He preaches "family values" although he was married three times, he is big on wars although he avoided the draft and preaches against government handouts although he collected unemployment. He scoffed at drug addicts before going in for detoxification three times for a drug addiction to painkillers. He is being investigated for being a part of an illegal drug ring in Florida. Limbaugh failed to register to vote until he was thirty-five and until recently he was so overweight he needed two airline coach seats.
Limbaugh champions unmitigated business development and dismisses efforts to protect the earth. He ridicules and takes outrageous umbrage at imagined groups: environmentalists, drug addicts, liberals, African Americans, American Indians, feminists, the media, people on welfare…the list goes on. He is also known to misstate facts with alarming frequency like claiming that Styrofoam is biodegradable and paper is not. He believes that the planet does not have pollution problems (there is no damage to the ozone layer or global warming or deforestation or overpopulation) and thinks it is a liberal conspiracy to end free enterprise. He wrote in his book, "See, I told You So" "There are more acres of forest land in America today than when Columbus discovered the continent in 1492." Limbaugh was recently asked to resign as an ESPN sports analyst because of his inappropriate racial slurs.
Both of Franken’s books are filled with provocative and timely information. Also unlike the rhetoric on the right he is interested the truth and his facts are accurate.
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