Friday Night Fights: Shepard Smith vs. Bill Kristol

Well sports fans, technically this fight took place in the afternoon. But, regardless of the hour, a real barnburner took place on Fox News’ “Studio B” Friday between anchor Shepard Smith and contributor William Kristol (video link to follow).

This melee perfectly demonstrated just how wrong folks like Paul Begala and James Carville are when they suggest that Fox News is just a propaganda arm of the Republican Party. After all, if such was the case, would a high-profile anchor be asking the following questions of a high-profile conservative, while at the same time taking an anti-Administration position towards the Iraq war:

Smith: Can’t you say beyond and to the exclusion of every reasonable doubt that what’s happening in Iraq is not working as we had hoped it would happen? That the terrorism is getting worse? That they are feeding off it?

Sound like a conservative, or someone that easily could be working for CNN or MSNBC? In fact, the following could have been uttered by Keith Olbermann:

It’s horrifying that you just said we can’t do anything until after the election. We’ve got men and women over there who are dying everyday and you just said that the man that you support (President Bush) can’t do anything even though you believe he knows it’s wrong. What is worse than that Bill Kristol?

For those that have any questions about the level of bipartisan discourse that occurs on a daily basis on this cable network versus that of its competitors, please watch the following video courtesy of Crooks and Liars. Of course, it is quite fascinating that such a left-leaning blog is featuring this at its website. In fact, so is the Huffington Post.

I guess Fox News isn’t so bad after all. Or, is it only fair and balanced when folks on the left agree with its viewpoints?