"Bush campaign ads using team"

[eppie]

As a matter of fact, the shoe does not fit. That Fox does not share a leftist bias does not make it state run, nor does its somewhat rightist slant yield any particular virtue

But the whole question is here not if something is state run, but if it is run by people with certain interests.
How would a patriotic american have problems with FOX if it was state run?
The problem people have with FOX is that the owner might use his TV station to influence people in a not so fair way.
I give you an example you must have heard of. Prime minister Berlusconi of Italy owns more or less 80 % of the television stationsmore or less in Italy...these stations are not state run, they are Berlusconi run, that is the whole problem.
The same thing with Bush and most of his Iraq-decisions. When somebody makes decissions, because of which he has personal financial gains, even if he made this decissions not thinking about these gains, it is suspicious. But that is allready something people should realize before an election. "do we want a president who has (and family and friends of him) a huge amount of interset in oil and weapon business?" Ultra left, in the middle, or Bush? No we don't want somebody like that, because you never know if he makes decissions for his country or for himself.
So I'm not saying that Bush invaded Iraq for his personal gain, but the fact that the question may be asked makes him not suitable for the presidency. And you (not you Occhi at the moment, but you in general) are in the US, but what do you think people from other countries feel when they see somebody like that as head of the US? (who of us will he attack next? :( )
If John Kerry get's elected and he makes a new law which forces everybody to eat ketchup every day, it would also seem rather strange or not?.

To go back to what damage these TV stations can done, I want to get back to Italy again.

Berlusconi is even worse than Bush, he makes laws just to benefit himself. Laws that get him of the hook from all of his fraud-scandals, laws that give his football team huge tax advantages etc.
And you know why he can do this, because he owns most of the television stations. In Holland we here a lot more about berlusconi than the people in Italy do, just because they don't televise all his sick jokes and mistakes.
And of course people can watch one of the impartial stations, but as you always say yourself, stupidity is natural (or something like that). (and the serious networks don't have halfnaked women running around all the time :D ) The problem is that people like to make use of this stupidity of these people. A bigger problem even is that these same people are also allowed to vote. :blink:

Now this is of course a more or less natural thing that happens in modern market economies, but some laws dissalowing people with mixed interests to lead a country do not seem very wrong to me.