A MILLION SHADES OF GREY - HOW FOXNEWS IS WILLFULLY COLOR BLIND

What solace it must be to the management, writers and broadcasters at FOX NEWS (www.foxnews.com) that the world appears only in the stark and reassuring hues of black and white. No reds (especially)and greens (abhorrently)for these ghouls. That would only complicate matters. When life is simple, why Guss it up with the daily details the rest of know as a reality?

DENNIS MILLER, one of the great Public Ranters of our time - comedian, actor, monologist and, for a time, part of the legendary Monday Night Football Holy Three - was featured on FOX recently cheering on the Saddam hanging. He smiled, he laughed, he howled. He called those of us who questioned the fact or the method pussies...or equivalents. No consideration in Mr. Miller's 4 minutes that one American state after another continues to wrestle mightily with its own conscience over the issue of capital punishment. No thought about international bodies, such as they are, and the role they might have held in the Hussein trial and execution. No idea how America has never in its history been held in such low regard outside its borders.

I'm not sure when gloating over death is ever on point, but the execution of even the worst amongst us continues to miss my happy button. Good for Dennis Miller that his pleasure centre is so easily aroused.

BILL O'REILLY, the home run hitter for FOX News, is equally confident about his President's position on Iraq. The new Congess and House are self-evidently pussies. Witness the speaker! (Bringing children to the opening day! Sheesh! What next?) Asking for a new direction in Iraq or a timetable of withdrawal is to Mr. O'Reilly and his fans, tantamount to sedition. The war in Iraq is simple to Simple Bill. It's like that great American metaphor, the football game. You win or you lose. Any problem with that, Bunkie?

Well, actually, yes. A thousand and one problems. You see, this so-called war on terrorism IS THE WRONG WAR BEING FOUGHT IN THE WRONG WAY. FAILURE IS GUARANTEED.

Terrorism is not a universal club. It is local. Village to village, family to family, my uncle, your cousin. The sad fools who tie bombs to their belts may be married to Allah, but they are first the brother and nephew of someone with whom they have had a thousand dinners.

The American embassy in Baghdad currently pays about one thousand visiting Americans for their services. Six speak Arabic. Six.

Apparently, there were another 25 or so who could speak the local language and might therefore help America understand the people with whom they deal every day, but they were gay, so they were "de-commissioned."

But, you see this is the same Bush government, committed to some fundamentalist religious fantasy of "abstinence," who are letting women die of cervical cancer rather than vaccinate young girls.

Bill and Dennis, like George and the George before him, live in a comfortable world. Complex issues, once reduced to White Hat and Black Hat, are easily understood.

I think it was Chuck Knoll, the long-time coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers, who after winning his 4th Super Bowl, said, "Football is a comfortable thing. There's a measurable outcome; a score. Someone wins, someone loses. It's nice. It just doesn;t have anything to do with real life."

When FOX stops calling Politics and Life and International Affairs as a College Bowl game, they might have some claim to being a news organization.

Over to you, Chet...