I have written about political rhetoric before.  In one blog I described the difference between liberal and conservative media this way:

The liberal media use the actual words of conservatives (sometimes out of context, sometimes not) to ridicule their ideas and philosophy. The right-wing media distorts the words (and beliefs) of liberals, and then ridicules them. . . In the language of debate competitions, they “prop up a straw man and knock it down.”

Here is the Romney campaign reaction to President Obama explaining the biggest mistake of his first term: Continue reading →

Now that MSNBC has exploded over President Obama’s “compromise” with Republicans, I want to return to Jon Stewart’s claim that MSNBC and Fox News are guilty of the same kind of biased journalism. In my earlier False Equivalency blog I asked readers to compare how often Fox News and MSNBC commentators prop up a “straw man,” which is the debating technique that distorts an opponent’s belief, and then ridicules the distortion.

In the earlier blog I claimed MSNBC does this much less than Fox News, making a false equivalency of Jon Stewart’s claim that the two channels do the same thing from opposite perspectives. I told Stewart that political discernment makes him funny, and he needs more discernment before making MSNBC the liberal equivalent of Fox News.
Continue reading →

At his Washington rally, and during his Daily Show interview with Chris Wallace, John Stewart claimed Fox News and MSNBC are guilty of the same kind of biased journalism.

After the Washington rally, MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann argued that this is a false equivalency.
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/olbermann-tackles-false-equivalency-between-msnbc-and-fox-defying-jon-stewart//

Several months ago I wrote a Facebook message to a high school classmate on this topic:

This is how I describe the difference between right-wing and left-wing media:

The liberal media use the actual words of conservatives (sometimes out of context, sometimes not) to ridicule their ideas and philosophy. The right-wing media distorts the words (and beliefs) of liberals, and then ridicules them.

You can watch for yourself, any night of the week, except weekends.

Let’s see who is right — John Stewart or me. Watch O’Reilly, Hannity, Beck, etc. and count how many times they distort liberal beliefs and then ridicule them. Do they realize they are doing this? In the language of debate competitions, they “prop up a straw man and knock it down.”

Then watch MSNBC (Schultz, Matthews, Olbermann, Maddow, O’Donnell, etc.). Which side wins the straw man competition? All the Fox News viewers who commented at the end of the linked video should try this little experiment.

Yes, John Stewart — yours is a false equivalency. Your comedy is funny because it discerns both ridiculous truths and ridiculous distortions. You need more discernment on this one.