BACHMANN TIES ROMNEY IN LATEST IOWA POLL, SUFFERS THE CONSEQUENCES ON FOX NEWS

A new Iowa poll, which shows the most recent leanings of likely Republican voters in the first-in-the-nation caucus state, has Michele Bachmann in a statistical dead heat with Mitt Romney. This morning Bachmann appeared on Chris Wallace’s Fox News Sunday and was asked “Are you a flake?” Was Wallace simply being a tough journalist, or is Fox News’ bias in favor of Mitt Romney showing?

Would Wallace ask Romney, "Are you a socialist?" in reference to Romneycare.

Bachmann is set to officially announce her presidential aspirations in her birthplace of Waterloo, Iowa on Monday and it would seem that her new found popularity among potential voters is irking the folks at Fox News.

Everyone in the mainstream media is rooting for Mitt Romney. The Republican wonks and puppets want him to be the nominee so badly they’re drooling. Funny thing is, Obama would love to see Romney take the nomination too, because, in all honesty, Obama would slaughter Romney.

If Romney is the candidate, then conservatives and independents looking for a real change from politics as usual would once again be forced to hold their noses, and try to hold down their lunches, while voting for Romney. The result: lack of passion which means lower turnout and Obama wins in an election year when my Golden Retriever ought to be able to beat Obama.

In the tank for Romney -

Romney is constantly dubbed the “front runner,” but typically without any analysis of the fact that Romney is the front runner by frequently smaller margins despite being the only candidate in the race now with any sort of national recognition.

Romney also dips in the polls whenever potential voters see anyone, anywhere who might be a viable alternative to Romney. Bachmann now occupies that space. Previously, it was Donald Trump when he flirted with entering the race. Trump? This is how desperate votes are for anyone but Romney.

The media continues to portray Romney as the people’s choice, despite the fact that so far, Romney, Bachmann, Santorum, Cain, Pawlenty, et al, have exactly the same win record in primaries: 0.

While Romney does lead most of the time in most of the polls, the internal numbers of those polls show him to be an incredibly vulnerable candidate with a very, very shallow base of support.

Romney is well known to voters because of his 2008 presidential run. Given that he has a higher national name recognition among voters than do any of his announced opponents, it could be argued that if Romney were truly the people’s choice, he would be running away with the race. He isn’t.

And that makes Republican elites, the party faithful, very unhappy. It also seems to chap the backside of Fox News.

More and more, the Fair and Balanced network appears to be solidly in the tank for Mitt Romney. From Karl Rove to Charles Krauthammer, a parade of talking head after talking head discredits the entire field of GOP candidates, and potential candidates from Sarah Palin to Rick Perry.

The Fox News Channel put a Democratic strategist on the air this morning to assess the potential candidacy of Texas Governor Rick Perry. Basically, she said that she can’t believe we’re actually talking about the possibility of another “Texan” running. Amazing! Throw Rick Perry and the other 27 million of us who live in Texas under the bus.

Mention the name Sarah Palin and Fox News gets mighty testy, despite the fact that Palin works for Fox News. Krauthammer has attacked Palin and Karl Rove is completely dismissive of the former Governor of Alaska.

Krauthammer, in an appearance on Bill O’Reilly’s “The Factor,” recently said of Palin that she is not being "properly schooled" and "not learned.” You know, she’s just one of the unclean masses, like you or me.

We all know that Fox News is no more Fair and Balanced than is the New York Times or any other news organization in the world. There is no such thing as an objective news organization. The Cypress Times is unabashedly Christian and conservative and we will not be dishonest with our readers by pretending to be something we are not. I wish other media outlets would do the same. They won’t.

Fox News has become the number one cable news channel by not being Fair and Balanced. They have reached number one by reflecting the beliefs of the people of the United States, as opposed to CNN and the wretched MSNBC which tells the American people what they ought to believe.

So, Fox needs to be careful with its ongoing campaign rally for Mitt Romney.

Mitt is not liked among genuine conservatives. Romney is a man who made his fortune destroying companies, not creating jobs.

US, Turkey split over views on Syria, cables say

The United States administration expressed skepticism toward Turkish government attempts to mend ties with Syria to encourage the Arab country to enact reforms and showed no interest in entering tripartite dialogue, according to leaked U.S. cables from 2005.

“Our correspondents within the Turkish government say that Bashar al-Assad’s stranglehold on the regime is too weak to sustain anything beyond economic reforms,” read the cable link from Robert Deutsch, a U.S. diplomat in Ankara, published by the Turkish partner of WikiLeaks, daily Taraf.

The cable went further to say that the leaders of the Turkish government were trying to position Turkey in the role of a liaison between the United States, Israel and Syria, while encouraging economic reforms that could later lead to political reforms.

Calling the renewal of ties between Syria and Turkey a “lovefest,” the U.S. diplomat interpreted the Turkish government’s views on Syria as a combination of “wishful thinking and neo-Ottoman nostalgia.”

According to the cable, Deutsch also reminded an official from the Turkish Foreign Ministry that Turkey’s military threats against Syria in 1998 to expel Abdullah Öcalan, the now imprisoned leader of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, had worked. Such concrete messages would be more effective against Syria, said Deutsch, according to the cable.

Another cable sent by the U.S. acting ambassador in Ankara, Nancy McEldowney, also revealed American reservations about the Turkish government’s belief in encouraging reforms in Syria by strengthening al-Assad’s hand. According to the cable, the U.S. diplomat expressed the American administration’s anxiety over a seeming lack of consensus in the international community regarding Syria’s behavior. McEldowney said rapprochement between Turkey and Syria could be used by the Syrian regime as a tool to gain further legitimacy.

McEldowney also said Turkish President Abdullah Gül felt “used” by the Syrian regime and was looking for ways to turn down a visit by al-Assad and his wife to Turkey, according to the cable.