The Potemkin Village: Fox Version

This is the sort of thing that I just don't expect to see-- Fox News sort of acknowledging that the White House's "Town Hall" meetings are totally scripted. Or maybe it's appropriate on the week that Rupert Morlock went on the air to defend Fox News against accusations of (gasp!) bias. You can see that here, by the way: http://mediamatters.org/items/200504200004

Excerpt (full article above):

“He is the president, and regardless of affiliation, everybody should have the opportunity to go and see the president,” said Aaron Johnson, spokesman for Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, R-Colo. “It shouldn’t be the job of anybody to make sure the crowd is 100 percent sympathetic.”. . .

. . .A week before a Bangor, Maine, event in which fist lady Laura Bush was scheduled to campaign for her husband, the [New York Times] reported that ticket seekers were asked to fill out questionnaires, stating home and e-mail addresses, Social Security numbers and pledges of support for the president.

More recently, The Albuquerque Journal reported that people seeking tickets through New Mexico Republican Sen. Pete Domenici's office for a March 22 Social Security event were quizzed about their support of the president ahead of time.
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The article still manages to stack the deck, by limiting criticisms to such radical organizations as the dreaded New York Times (the exception being the first paragraph above), and providing dismissive rebuttals by right-wing thinktanks that most readers have probably never heard of. So it boils down to he said/she said coverage without a fact in sight.

Now that I think about it, why am I even writing this?