It's Called 'B.S.'

(I found this in the Letters section of the Stars & Stripes. eaprez)

It’s nice to see that someone else reading Stars and Stripes has the common sense to realize that Fox News Channel is about as “fair and balanced” as a football game between the New York Giants and Quakertown High School (“Coulter, others peddle lies,” letter, Dec. 27).

The letter writer is wrong about one point, though: Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly and their ilk don’t lie. They do something far more insidious — they b.s.

There is a distinct and important difference. A liar is one who knows the truth and decides, for whatever reason, to tell a falsehood. The b.s.er has no regard for the truth, and is not interested in the truth. He is only interested in taking a few facts amenable to his position and patching them into a supporting argument.

This is extremely dangerous, because since there may be a shred of truth involved, and people are susceptible to the points of view in the media [outlets] to which they are exposed, the b.s. eventually becomes a replacement for the truth. This is an epidemic among pundits on both sides of the political extremes, but Fox News seems to have cornered the market for conservatives. Since the members of the armed forces seem to love Fox News, b.s. is readily available to nearly every servicemember willing to lap it up.

Let me set the record straight for those who may be confused by the b.s.: Liberals are not destroying America any more than conservatives are. Hillary Clinton would make as good a president as Rudy Giuliani.

It is possible to disagree with the government and still love America. However, when Rep. Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Harry Reid rail against everything George W. Bush says, I think they’re just being contrarian and have no real position. Maybe if both sides of the political spectrum would bury the hatchet and agree to try to work together to solve some of this country’s problems, they would get something done. But then again, we’d have nothing to fight about.

Capt. Matt Lawrence
Camp Arifjan, Kuwait