Michael Bresciani
Foxophobia, triskaidekaphobia - - fickle phantasms from the White House?
By Michael Bresciani
Triskaidekaphobia is the fear of the number 13, and while it may seem silly to some then we discover friggatriskaidekaphobia which is fear of Friday the 13th. Superstitious, silly perhaps, but some people are stricken with real trepidation over them both. Here comes Foxophobia, what is a nation to do?
President Obama's persistence in singling Fox News out for scoffing and scolding has generated more disbelief than relief for most Americans. It is hard for anyone to imagine a President using the advantage of the office of the President to single out any one individual, corporation, state or even other nations who were not known to be our mortal enemies. It is unprecedented but it is also un-presidential according to anyone's assessment of protocol.
The diagnosis modern psychiatry has used to explain phobias in general is that they are repressed anger. Some would say that the President is not fearful of Fox but he is angry with them for doggedly opposing almost all of his policies. To the rest of America the question is silly. We don't care which came first, the chicken or the egg, we do care that the President seems to be whining.
We know the brave young soldiers overwhelmed by insurgents in Afghanistan are very angry with the enemy that wants to kill them. Do they have a phobia that needs diagnosis? You could say they fear that they will be killed while the President dilly dallies with Fox and leaves them in the lurch without reinforcements. Is it unreasonable to think that Obama's anger at Fox is misdirected even as our troops have the anger of a vicious enemy directed squarely at them?
At the moment freedom of speech is still constitutional and the President will have to suffer the consequences of that. Fox still has a constitutional right to investigate and report what they find to the public. He doesn't have to like it but we can give him the same advice the networks give us when we complain about the trash they offer for programming and the mire and muck we are afraid our kids might see: shut it off!
Most Americans cringe when their freedom of speech is questioned, curtailed or outright denied because it is the only way to get to the truth of a matter. If we are all required to speak only the 'party line' then we might want to stop calling it 'the main stream media' or even the 'old media' as some are now saying and rename it Pravda. Didn't that already fail?
It is because of freedom of speech that we now know what Acorn has been doing with taxpayer's money. It is the means by which we see that Obama's unconstitutionally appointed czars have ideas and plans for America that read like the dark passages of Sartre. It is the reason we are given a chance to compare the findings of the budget office against the absurd projections of the Obama administration on the cost of health care. It is the reason that news organizations like Fox will always be listened to, loved and depended upon to break out the other side of the story. Fox is clearly the offspring of the constitution not an unwanted stepchild of the present administration and those who love the truth will never see it any other way.
Dare we say 'grow up Mr. President?' Yes we dare and in fact it may be long overdue. We tend not to trust the media that say Palin is a loop de-loop but are delighted with Michelle's use of the Hula Hoop. We don't think the regulatory czar's idea of abolishing marriage is a reasonable answer to the question of protecting the sanctity of marriage and we don't mind one bit that news outlets like Fox are warning us that your czar's have these kinds of ideas. We welcome it.
We weren't always labeled as republicans and democrats, liberals and conservatives we were once referred to only as Americans. We suspect that when our constitution was framed that was foremost in the minds of the framers.
We believed this through two centuries of history, two major wars and countless fears and calamities and we still believe it today. We welcome Fox into our homes daily because they remind us of this, we are Americans not socialists, health care reform rebels or Obama policy haters; we are still only Americans. We are no more ashamed of that than we are of Fox news and we are saddened to hear that you are.
© Michael Bresciani
October 26, 2009
Triskaidekaphobia is the fear of the number 13, and while it may seem silly to some then we discover friggatriskaidekaphobia which is fear of Friday the 13th. Superstitious, silly perhaps, but some people are stricken with real trepidation over them both. Here comes Foxophobia, what is a nation to do?
President Obama's persistence in singling Fox News out for scoffing and scolding has generated more disbelief than relief for most Americans. It is hard for anyone to imagine a President using the advantage of the office of the President to single out any one individual, corporation, state or even other nations who were not known to be our mortal enemies. It is unprecedented but it is also un-presidential according to anyone's assessment of protocol.
The diagnosis modern psychiatry has used to explain phobias in general is that they are repressed anger. Some would say that the President is not fearful of Fox but he is angry with them for doggedly opposing almost all of his policies. To the rest of America the question is silly. We don't care which came first, the chicken or the egg, we do care that the President seems to be whining.
We know the brave young soldiers overwhelmed by insurgents in Afghanistan are very angry with the enemy that wants to kill them. Do they have a phobia that needs diagnosis? You could say they fear that they will be killed while the President dilly dallies with Fox and leaves them in the lurch without reinforcements. Is it unreasonable to think that Obama's anger at Fox is misdirected even as our troops have the anger of a vicious enemy directed squarely at them?
At the moment freedom of speech is still constitutional and the President will have to suffer the consequences of that. Fox still has a constitutional right to investigate and report what they find to the public. He doesn't have to like it but we can give him the same advice the networks give us when we complain about the trash they offer for programming and the mire and muck we are afraid our kids might see: shut it off!
Most Americans cringe when their freedom of speech is questioned, curtailed or outright denied because it is the only way to get to the truth of a matter. If we are all required to speak only the 'party line' then we might want to stop calling it 'the main stream media' or even the 'old media' as some are now saying and rename it Pravda. Didn't that already fail?
It is because of freedom of speech that we now know what Acorn has been doing with taxpayer's money. It is the means by which we see that Obama's unconstitutionally appointed czars have ideas and plans for America that read like the dark passages of Sartre. It is the reason we are given a chance to compare the findings of the budget office against the absurd projections of the Obama administration on the cost of health care. It is the reason that news organizations like Fox will always be listened to, loved and depended upon to break out the other side of the story. Fox is clearly the offspring of the constitution not an unwanted stepchild of the present administration and those who love the truth will never see it any other way.
Dare we say 'grow up Mr. President?' Yes we dare and in fact it may be long overdue. We tend not to trust the media that say Palin is a loop de-loop but are delighted with Michelle's use of the Hula Hoop. We don't think the regulatory czar's idea of abolishing marriage is a reasonable answer to the question of protecting the sanctity of marriage and we don't mind one bit that news outlets like Fox are warning us that your czar's have these kinds of ideas. We welcome it.
We weren't always labeled as republicans and democrats, liberals and conservatives we were once referred to only as Americans. We suspect that when our constitution was framed that was foremost in the minds of the framers.
We believed this through two centuries of history, two major wars and countless fears and calamities and we still believe it today. We welcome Fox into our homes daily because they remind us of this, we are Americans not socialists, health care reform rebels or Obama policy haters; we are still only Americans. We are no more ashamed of that than we are of Fox news and we are saddened to hear that you are.
© Michael Bresciani
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