Shepard Smith Redeems Fox News for Five Minutes

For liberals who want to wake up in the morning without caffeine, Fox News provides the adrenaline they need. Writing copy for Fox News during the election campaign means copying the Republican playbook and pasting it verbatim on the teleprompter. No baseless charge against Obama is too baseless for Fox. It is not even journalism of the lowest order. It is simply the lowest order, with no journalism involved.

That's why Shepard Smith's interview with Joe The Plumber was so transformational for Fox. Joe(not his real name) the Plumber(unlicensed) had a news conference Wednesday, the same day he announced he had a publicist, an agent and was looking to land a country music record deal and/or run for Congress. Just the kind of thing average working Joes do.

In his interview with Shepard Smith, Joe said that he agreed with a questioner at the news conference that "a vote for Obama means Death to Israel". I expected Smith, like all good Fox anchors, to egg Joe on even more, and to get him to say Obama was a terrorist who wanted to destroy Israel.

But then something wonderful happened. Smith began to challenge Joe on why he would say that. Joe answered, "Well, I'm not an expert on foreign policy so I'm asking your viewers to do the research to find out why I think that". Smith went on to say twice that Barack Obama has stated firmly many times that he is a strong supporter of Israel, and that the United States will always be a friend of Israel.

And after the interview ended, Smith repeated that statement, and then, seeming to refer to statements by Joe The Plumber and other uninformed purveyors of malicious misinformation about Obama, Shepard Smith, Fox News anchor said, "Man, things are getting scary".

If the Republicans lose Fox News, how can they expect to win this election?