Fox News: Let Slip the Dogs of War

Photo: Kevin Dooley

Advertiser Disclosure ▾

Disclaimer: This site contains affiliate links from which we receive a compensation (like Amazon for example). But they do not affect the opinions and recommendations of the authors.

Wise Bread is an independent, award-winning consumer publication established in 2006. Our finance columns have been reprinted on MSN, Yahoo Finance, US News, Business Insider, Money Magazine, and Time Magazine.

Like many news outlets our publication is supported by ad revenue from companies whose products appear on our site. This revenue may affect the location and order in which products appear. But revenue considerations do not impact the objectivity of our content. While our team has dedicated thousands of hours to research, we aren't able to cover every product in the marketplace.

For example, Wise Bread has partnerships with brands including, but not limited to, American Express, Bank of America, Capital One, Chase, Citi, Discover, and Amazon.

Click here for more info >>

Wise Bread Picks

• Travel Rewards Credit Cards
• Cash Back Credit Cards
• 0% Balance Transfer Credit Cards

According to Fox News, Mike Huckabee's statements about showing Iran the "gates of hell" was the most popular statement of last night's debate, even among moderates. On the other hand, Fox called Ron Paul's sensible warnings "the most negative thing we've tested in all of these debates."

(link)

There are two ways to interpret Fox's stance, and both of them leads to war.

Moderates truly support Huckabee's statement over Ron Paul's

This is the most straightforward and the most disturbing interpretation of that clip. One would expect moderates to be more wary of calls to arms after:

1. The WMD embarrassment in Iraq, and
2. The recent NIE finding that Iran was not developing nuclear weapons (a finding Huckcabee didn't know about for more than 30 hours after its release, by the way).

Talk about not learning from your past mistakes.

Fox is misrepresenting the data

The second explanation is that Fox is misrepresenting the data. Keep in mind the focus group was of 28 Republican-leaning moderates. Exactly how far do they lean to the right? How "moderate" are they? Are they Neo Con Republicans?

Of course, Fox glossed over that part. Despite the fact that it was only a focus group of 28 people, most of the clip used fancy graphs to convince viewers that this was an important measure of our country's mood. The not-so-subtle message: We're ready to kick some ass.

Pay attention people.  This is how wars are sold.