An "Ashamed" Fox News Commentator Just Quit The "Propaganda Machine"

The headlines associated with this story made me laugh.

I mean, Col. Ralph Peters has been with Fox for 10 years and he just now discovered that they're a propaganda machine?!

This reminds me a bit of the reporting some years ago about the dishonest and self-serving aspects of "military analysts" on cable shows (especially FOX) during Dubya's invasion and occupation of Iraq.    It was very deliberately set up by the Pentagon as a psy-ops plot to feed falsehoods to the US public and thereby increase support for an illegal and unjust war.

nytimes

Col. Peters farewell email ;

On March 1st, I informed Fox that I would not renew my contract. The purpose of this message to all of you is twofold:

First, I must thank each of you for the cooperation and support you've shown me over the years. Those working off-camera, the bookers and producers, don't often get the recognition you deserve, but I want you to know that I have always appreciated the challenges you face and the skill with which you master them.

Second, I feel compelled to explain why I have to leave. Four decades ago, I took an oath as a newly commissioned officer. I swore to "support and defend the Constitution," and that oath did not expire when I took off my uniform. Today, I feel that Fox News is assaulting our constitutional order and the rule of law, while fostering corrosive and unjustified paranoia among viewers. Over my decade with Fox, I long was proud of the association. Now I am ashamed.

In my view, Fox has degenerated from providing a legitimate and much-needed outlet for conservative voices to a mere propaganda machine for a destructive and ethically ruinous administration. When prime-time hosts--who have never served our country in any capacity--dismiss facts and empirical reality to launch profoundly dishonest assaults on the FBI, the Justice Department, the courts, the intelligence community (in which I served) and, not least, a model public servant and genuine war hero such as Robert Mueller--all the while scaremongering with lurid warnings of "deep-state" machinations-- I cannot be part of the same organization, even at a remove. To me, Fox News is now wittingly harming our system of government for profit.

As a Russia analyst for many years, it also has appalled me that hosts who made their reputations as super-patriots and who, justifiably, savaged President Obama for his duplicitous folly with Putin, now advance Putin's agenda by making light of Russian penetration of our elections and the Trump campaign. Despite increasingly pathetic denials, it turns out that the "nothing-burger" has been covered with Russian dressing all along. And by the way: As an intelligence professional, I can tell you that the Steele dossier rings true--that's how the Russians do things.. The result is that we have an American president who is terrified of his counterpart in Moscow.

I do not apply the above criticisms in full to Fox Business, where numerous hosts retain a respect for facts and maintain a measure of integrity (nor is every host at Fox News a propaganda mouthpiece--some have shown courage). I have enjoyed and valued my relationship with Fox Business, and I will miss a number of hosts and staff members. You're the grown-ups.

Also, I deeply respect the hard-news reporters at Fox, who continue to do their best as talented professionals in a poisoned environment. These are some of the best men and women in the business..

So, to all of you: Thanks, and, as our president's favorite world leader would say, "Das vidanya."

I think he's referring primarily to Sean Hannity, who never served but made himself a "super-patriot".

I'm still waiting for Hannity to be water boarded

Yeah, me too. I remember years ago he promised he would allow himself to be waterboarded live on the air to prove that it was not torture, but has pussied out on it ever since. He acts like he is some kind of big time military expert and always ready to send other people off to die when he is one of the worlds major chicken-hawks, in both senses of that phrase. About the only other one in his league when it comes to that is Rush Limbaugh who got a draft deferment during Vietnam because he, in effect, has two assholes.

Yeah, when you're down to just one cell left you really don't want to take any chances...

I think he's referring primarily to Sean Hannity, who never served but made himself a "super-patriot".

LOCK HIM UP! LOCK HIM UP!

Sean just needs a round rubber room

Second, I feel compelled to explain why I have to leave. Four decades ago, I took an oath as a newly commissioned officer. I swore to "support and defend the Constitution," and that oath did not expire when I took off my uniform.   Today, I feel that Fox News is assaulting our constitutional order and the rule of law, while fostering corrosive and unjustified paranoia among viewers. Over my decade with Fox, I long was proud of the association. Now I am ashamed.

Nice to see a man of integrity for a change! 

I'd never have looked for integrity THERE.

IMO, this part is especially relevant:

In my view, Fox has degenerated from providing a legitimate and much-needed outlet for conservative voices to a mere propaganda machine for a destructive and ethically ruinous administration.

When prime-time hosts--who have never served our country in any capacity--dismiss facts and empirical reality to launch profoundly dishonest assaults on the FBI, the Justice Department, the courts, the intelligence community (in which I served) and, not least, a model public servant and genuine war hero such as Robert Mueller--all the while scaremongering with lurid warnings of "deep-state" machinations-- I cannot be part of the same organization, even at a remove.

To me, Fox News is now wittingly harming our system of government for profit.

Now days it's also a pipeline to trump. He just hired a lawyer that was on fux a few times talking about the evil Clintons and FBI out to get trump, to possibly replace one of the lawyers that says the legal council can't control trump (mostly his mouth.)

So if you want a job, or have a brainless idea you'd like trump in on, or want to give him an opinion just put it on fux, trump's most oft used and wonderful "news" and opinion source. Just remember to praise trump a lot.

trump is in SO far over his head.

Let's hope this is a beginning of people there finally realizing that they are working for a bunch of bat shit crazy conspiracy theorists, servicing and encouraging a bunch of bat shit crazy conspiracy theorists to become even more batshit crazy and trying to regain some of their dignity. OK, so that's just a fantasy, but what the hell, you never know?

Like most folks I see plenty of Fox News just flipping channels and watching clips of fox shows which are replayed by comedians, other news networks, Sunday and late night talk shows etc etc. Nobody could have missed the antics of Fox and Friends, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Roger Ailes and company lo these last thirty odd years. Rupert Murdoch's band of no good low down lying bastards and bastardettes have done their worst to misinform and inflame the lowest common denominator and it has worked. The end results are the damn Tea Party and Trumpism. Up until these most recent times I always kept faith with and in the common decency and native intelligence of the American electorate. That was up until the advent of AM talk radio and right wing media like Fox News. While demonizing all of the establishment or mainstream media Fox has managed to propagandize America into an Idiocracy. There were damn good reasons Our Founders were afraid of the rule of the mob, the tyranny of the many. Is Fox entirely to blame? No. Has Fox News been a big big part of landing us in the political mess we are in today? Indubitably. Fortunately we have a system of checks and balances which could right things butt they only works when we righteous citizens place fealty to our country ahead of blind destructive tribal allegiance to a once great but now sadly misguided political party. Sure, politics sucks and there may be no entirely clean hands but false equivalences are on their faces false. We deserve better than Murdoch's and Fox's tabloid news and reality TV. Considering the current state we we find ourselves in socially and politically it is questionable whether our republic can long endure this sort of madness and there is only one answer for it. Vote! Vote like our lives depend upon it in every election for now until our.nation is put back onto a safe, viable and sustainable course. We have got to throw all those no good low down lousy bums out from our school boards and city councils up to our state houses all the way though the halls of Congress. That is the one thing that no good politicians understand better than subpoenas and that is the wrath of the American electorate. So, Wake Up America! This bullshit is not normal and anyone seriously watching the crap on Fox News to get news is, well, dumb as a door knob and that is not good for anybody. Period. No /S...

Was Peters in Military Intelligence in the Army...It took him 10 years to figure this out...

And despite the joke about Military Intelligence being an oxymoron, it was always my experience that they were very smart people and not to be fucked with.

I think he was so conservative that he wore blinders when he was offered the job at Fox. But being a man of intelligence and integrity he got fed up. trump is not a conservative, we can all see that.

Kind of my thought on the subject.

In order to keep some balance, I've attempted on numerous occasions to watch Fox to no avail. They have become so off the hook and outrageous that it resembles reporting from the outer edges of the cosmos rather than factual news.

I seriously think that people want to see good in what they are doing at least until it reaches critical mass and the blinders just are not getting the job done.

Was Peters in Military Intelligence in the Army... It took him 10 years to figure this out...

I got the impression that his hate for Obama was sooo visceral, so strong that it put blinders on him that he just couldn't see past until Obama was out and Trump started showing him, and the rest of the world, what a true shit show Presidency really looks like and Col Peters was rightfully appalled that he was a part of the propaganda machine that brought us Trump and helps him keep his 30 percenters happy with their daily FOX injections of red meat, lies and conspiracy theories.

Peters continued: “This guy is such a total pussy, it is stunning. ” This is a president who “cares more about thugs in Ferguson, Missouri, than he does about law-abiding American citizens,” he added.

.

In December 2014, he said Obama tried to romance Russian President Vladimir Putin and got “date raped.”

He has also called Obama “inept, ineffective and cowardly” on his Syria strategy and a “terrified little man in a great big job he can’t do.”

When prime-time hosts --who have never served our country in any capacity-- dismiss facts and empirical reality to launch profoundly dishonest assaults on the FBI, the Justice Department, the courts, the intelligence community (in which I served) and, not least, a model public servant and genuine war hero such as Robert Mueller--all the while scaremongering with lurid warnings of "deep-state" machinations-- I cannot be part of the same organization, even at a remove. To me, Fox News is now wittingly harming our system of government for profit.

As a Russia analyst for many years, it also has appalled me that hosts who made their reputations as super-patriots and who, justifiably, savaged President Obama for his duplicitous folly with Putin, now advance Putin's agenda by making light of Russian penetration of our elections and the Trump campaign. Despite increasingly pathetic denials, it turns out that the "nothing-burger" has been covered with Russian dressing all along. And by the way: As an intelligence professional, I can tell you that the Steele dossier rings true--that's how the Russians do things.. The result is that we have an American president who is terrified of his counterpart in Moscow.

Peters never struck me as the sharpest tool in the shed but at least he has publicly seen the light about the unholy alliance between Fox News and Trumpism. 

Sorry Ralph - but if you couldn’t see the countless lies on your network that preceded your epiphany, I’m just not that impressed by your revelation.

When I saw that AH had seeded an article I had to sign on and contribute.  It's so rare that he seeds one that I couldn't resist.  

What I think we are starting to see from those on the right is a realization that the checks and bounds that were established to ensure that no one President could overthrow our country and attack our democracy has failed under the current Republican leadership.  

For this reason, these individuals feel compelled and forced to speak out.  Especially those who wore the uniform.  They can recognize when the country is being attacked from within.

I only hope that those on the right will not continue to be deaf to reality and will at minimum hear what some of our most dedicated citizens have to say.  Those who served our country have a unique understanding of what it means to be an American.  They understand the oath because they've lived it for so many years.  

If this man feels that he could no longer remain complicit then I applaud him for speaking out.  I have to believe that it's never too late to right a wrong.  Especially now.