Fox On the Run

Now we're getting somewhere. The news media have ratcheted up their coverage of Rupert Murdoch and the ongoing scandal in the United Kingdom that has reverberated throughout the landscape in the mother country. The withdrawn BSkyB deal has become a big story since I posted here last, and Murdoch is becoming increasingly isolated.

Now comes the story that brings it all back home: News Of the World reporters in Britain have reportedly tried to hack the phones of 9/11 victims and their families here in the United States. An investigation into Murdoch's News Corporation and its practices has been called for by various Democratic senators such as Barbara Boxer of California and Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey, but also by Representative Peter King, a New York Republican.

"It is revolting to imagine that members of the media would seek to compromise the integrity of a public official for financial gain in the pursuit of yellow journalism," King said in a statement. "The 9/11 families have suffered egregiously, but unfortunately they remain vulnerable against such unjustifiable parasitic strains."

Dude, when even Peter King is calling for your head, the jig is up.

But this jig dance can be expected to go on for awhile. The Federal Bureau of Investigation is now looking into the matter. At issue was whether the New York-based News Corporation, which owns Fox Broadcasting, HarperCollins, and several newspapers in addition to and Fox Broadcasting and Fox News, bribed foreign officials in London in violation of U.S. law.

This story has a lot further to go. No congressional investigations or hearings have been called for in Washington - and with Republicans in control of the House, it's not likely that they will be - but if this scandal gets any bigger, we might get a serious look into Fox News's business practices. We might not like what we find. Especially those of us who are Republicans.

King vs. King!

U.S. Representative Peter King, a Republican from New York, recently posted a video that's bound to make them the most unpopular man in America - even more unpopular than George Walker Bush or Dick Cheney. The Long Island lawmaker, considering a run for the Republican nomination for the special U.S. Senate election in New York next year, complained that society is glorifying a low-life like the King of Pop, Michael Jackson, and not honoring the teachers, police officers, and firemen.

King called Jackson a pervert who was obviously a pedophile because he slept with young boys (Jackson insisted it wasn't sexual) and added his constituents were complaining about all the media coverage given to Jackson's death. He did admit, though, that he was a good singer and dancer.

While King's arguments about the media coverage have some merit, and even though many people have been suspicious of Jackson's claims, this video was the least tactful and most obnoxious way of getting his point across. But then, King is a Long Islander. Newsweek journalist Howard Fineman even suggested that King may have been trying to score points with white voters in suburban areas like Long Island by picking on a minority entertainer with a large black and Hispanic urban audience, but Jackson had a large white suburban following as well.

Jackson's fans are already calling for their own version of Jacksonian democracy. They want King to resign, and some of them are even collecting money for his primary election opponent, and, if nominated, his general election opponent.

King is lucky he didn't bash Madonna. He would have been forcibly removed from office by now. Her fans are even less tolerant of detractors.

Rodney Frelinghuysen, my own congressman, once got into similar trouble complaining about the 1995 Marilyn Monroe U.S. postage stamp, insisting that movie stars were inappropriate subjects for stamps. So I've seen this before - but never like this.

King claims to have been spurred by his constituents, and while he praises teachers, policemen (many New York Police Department officers live in Long Island), and other working class heroes, he, being a Republican, is hardly suited to drinking to the salt of the earth. (He probably thinks the Rolling Stones are animals. No, that would be Eric Burdon. :-D)

While King has yet to join the Senate, Al Franken joins it today. His sixtieth vote for the Democrats, while welcome for the party, is less important than the fact that Minnesota now has a second vote in the Senate.