It's been very easy to see that for quite a while the GOP has been living in a different world than the rest of the country. And while it's also easy to see that Fox News is complicit in this, at times, it's tough to know if Fox News is the cause or the effect. And this week gave a few examples.
First, both Speaker of the House John Boehner and Ohio Governor John Kasich, after going on a mainstream television show and taking very moderate stances that are appealing to both Independents and Democrats, had a representative of theirs to go on Fox News and say that in fact, they didn't mean what they said on mainstream TV. In these cases, Fox News simply was the mouthpiece for and to the far right, and therefore the effect. But then, Thursday afternoon, at the exact time that President Obama was getting a medal from Israel for being their friend, and being broadcast live on cable news networks, Fox News decided not only to show a commercial rather than the ceremony, which is their prerogative, but the commercial was for an episode of Hannity asking if Obama was strengthening the hands of Israel's enemies. So while most of the country interested in politics saw the President being honored as a friend of Israel, those on the far right were being told that Obama is no friend of Israel. In that case, it's Fox News that's causing the disinformation given to the GOP.
It's been known for a while that Fox News has been in collusion with the GOP to sow disinformation, giving the far right an untrue view of what's going on in the world. But it's very hard to know if Fox News is the cause or the effect. At times, they seem to do both, and neither is good for the country.
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