Monday, November 9, 2009

Fox Blowhards Get It Wrong Again: The Revolution that Wasn't

Frank Rich, the NY Times columnist, followed up yesterday on the triumphal Fox News predictions of Tea Party victory in the heavily Republican New York 23rd congressional district.

Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly confidently forecast beginning of the Far Right Revolution. As usual, they were wrong, but that never stops the Fox blowhards. If it did, they wouldn't have much to say.

Here's part of the Rich takedown:
As Fox kept insisting, all eyes were glued on Doug Hoffman, the insurgent tea party candidate in New York’s 23rd Congressional District. A “tidal wave” was on its way, said Sean Hannity, and the right would soon “take back the Republican Party.” The race was not “even close,” Bill O’Reilly suggested to the pollster Scott Rasmussen, who didn’t disagree. When returns showed Hoffman trailing, the network’s resident genius, Karl Rove, knowingly reassured viewers that victory was in the bag, even if we’d have to stay up all night waiting for some slacker towns to tally their votes.

Alas, the Dewey-beats-Truman reveries died shortly after midnight, when even Fox had to concede that the Democrat, Bill Owens, had triumphed in what had been Republican country since before Edison introduced the light bulb.

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