Fox and the Crazies

Via Sullivan.

Here's Shepard Smith talking about the deluge of insane e-mails Fox gets "every day."

Sullivan's right that Smith deserves some props for bringing this up and calling it what it is...but what surprises me is that it surprises him...or anyone else. I mean, it seemed fairly obvious to me that fanning the flames of crazy on the right was part of Fox's "marketing strategy." I mean, that can't all be accidental, can it? They can't be oblivious to what they're doing, right? I mean, as far as I can tell, it's not a bug, it's a feature. They're feeding raw meat to one of the most irrational segments of the population...how could they possibly be surprised that it makes them crazier? They're spinning things in a way that encourages the crazies to tune in, get out their tinfoil hats, and start frothing.

If Shepard Smith really wants to do some good, he'll start explicitly calling bullshit on Faux News. That doesn't mean he has to abandon conservatism. You don't have to be a liberal to be able to see what's going on there, and you don't have to be a liberal to criticize it. Hell, I'm a liberal and I can't tolerate MSNBC, and it's significantly less biased and irrational than Fox.