Ask One Question of a Fox News Supporter

From zenbassoon:

I've been having some discussions on FB about Fox News and the WH calling them out for what they are. They're all in a high dudgeon about the matter. I've been trying to get them to shut up about it, and I've found a strategy that, while not quite shutting them up, gets them to do some actual research.

My first approach is to tell them to put their money where their mouth is. I tell them I will give them a dollar--up to a set amount--for each POSITIVE story about President Obama they can find on Fox. And I mean positive about him PERSONALLY, such as "Obama has done this good thing" or "Obama has a success with that thing" and so on. That usually gets crickets for quite a while. I did have one friend gamely try it, but he only found stories about mainly the House or Democratic policies that were neutral at best. Not one mentioned Obama. He also asked me to find negative stories about Obama on the so-called "liberal media" I had 6 from CNN in the span of about 2 minutes.

My second approach is when they start spouting off about "taking away our freedoms", or the "socialist marxist agenda". I calmly ask them for specific freedoms that have been taken away, of talked about being taken away by Obama. Crickets. I also ask them for specifics about this "agenda". The only thing I've heard? Tha Anita Dunn joke. That's it. When they bring up the banks, or GM, I say specific socialist language and plan, please. Crickets. When they bring up health care, I bring up the VA. Well-but-yeah-our soldiers-freedom-but-no-does not compute-

But what really chafes their willies is when they start spouting the "important stories of the day covered by Fox and not covered by anyone else" bit. I calmly say that those stories are not newsworthy. I've had heads explode from that one. Although I had one just the other day who was moaning about how no one covered the 9/12 teabag fest and I gave them Rick Sanchez. THAT shut him up about that.

So in the end, my friends, although I do have a tendency to have my Lib-dar up at times and fume in righteous indignation, by calmly asking for the specifics of their attacks, by asking for the evidence, you may turn some of your wingnut friends into something less wingnutty, a wingnut with a grain of salt...

My next task? Some of these wingnut FB friends have started with anti-Muslim, "They're all Jihadists out to kill everybody" talk. THAT I'll need help with.