miss representation

Allrighty then. Here's something from the Catboxx cookbook: how to make a big batch of propaganda out of next to nothing except a cup of slightly used kitty litter. The secret isn't what you put in; it's what you leave out.

Fox News has been reporting this week that the NAACP is calling the Tea Parties racist organizations. I'm paraphrasing the message because I don't own a TV and so can't watch Fox News or anything else, but you can see a pertinent segment from "Fox & Friends" here.

Compare it to this, from the NAACP's own web site:

Today, NAACP delegates passed a resolution to condemn extremist elements within the Tea Party, calling on Tea Party leaders to repudiate those in their ranks who use racist language in their signs and speeches.

The NAACP's page is furnished with photographs which prove that some Tea Party types are racists. Please note that neither I nor the NAACP claims that all Teepers are racists, or that the Tea Parties are racist organizations.

See the difference?

I don't know who besides Steve Doocy has been delivering the story, but I'd bet that it's been prominently aired by Fox's foxes -- a platoon of fetchingly-shaped bottle blondes, all of whom are banquets for the eyes and like public-address-system feedback to the ears. I suspect Miss Representation herself, Megyn Kelly, played a prominent part here.

Is the Fox story a lie? No, not exactly, but it is a deliberate misrepresentation of what the NAACP actually voted on and said, cooked up by leaving out key aspects of the organization's statement. And that's how the right-wing noise machine works.