I didn't learn to enjoy Babbling Billy Banshee and the Fox [fake] News Channel until I wised up. Comedy Central features two of the best comedians on television. Stephen Colbert hosts the Colbert Report [for some reason pronounced "rapport"]. Jon Stewart hosts the funnier, but less clever Daily Show. Both these programs are billed as "fake" news shows. They nonetheless broadcast news, often invented. I enjoyed them while ignoring Fox because I thought it was just bigotry and deception. I didn't recognize the great fake news of Babbling Billy the Banshee. Jon Stewart pokes fun at the news and the pompous people in the news. He's very effective and influential putting the news into perspective. Young people, intellectuals and liberals love it. His audience is better informed than viewers of network news programs. The Colbert Report is a broad parody of extremist conservative and right-wing propaganda. While being very funny, it is clever, imaginative and geared to the real liberal intellectual. He bashes conservative pundits by being absurdly more extreme than even they are. Like these two humorous giants, Keith Olbermann is clever and often humorous. He's on the struggling MSNBC and his "news" is supposed to be real, not fake. He's a commendable liberal voice. Sadly, he's often overly preachy and heavy-handed. His audience is apparently less brainy, but, perhaps more liberal than Colbert's. Worst of all, there are always way too many commercials. Like most sane persons, I long avoided the crackpot propaganda of the Fox [so called] News Channel. I didn't get the joke. I saw it as a steady streams of lies, distortions and biased conservative propaganda. It was the Hate Channel. Indeed, the difference between a conservative Republican and a liberal is that the conservative is ruled by hatred. The liberal prefers humor. American politics is divided between hate and humor. Fox is Republican state television, neo-Nazi extremism. Normal persons are nauseated by so much hatred. Smart people are not fooled by the transparent deceptions. Or so I thought. To sell neo-Fascist propaganda Fox must use fear, distortion and repetition of the "Big Lie," as Nazi propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels characterized "journalism" like Fox's. It shows how Republican money corrupts journalism and truth. They will do anything for power, anything! Then one evening I took a moment to actually watch a few minutes of Babbling Billy Banshee on the O'Reilly Factor. As I had anticipated, it was all fiction, fake news. Slowly it dawned on me. Like the Colbert Report, it was all a put-on! Babbling Billy the Banshee was conning the conservatives. I should have gotten the joke sooner. Nobody could be that big a crackpot and be for-real. When I looked at Babbling Billy in that light, I realized how funny he really was. The fanaticism was slapstick parody. Long ago, on old-time radio, there was a fanatic, pro-Nazi Christian crazy. He was the absurd Father Charles E. Coughlin who raved from the Chapel of the Little Flower in Royal Oaks, Michigan. Coughlin ranted against the New Deal and promoted Hitler-worship. Then as now, conservative Christian crazies have a gospel of hatred. Right-wing Christian preachers aren't men of God. They're men of hatred. The Catholics detested Father Little Flower, but he brought in tons of money from the depths of the Great Depression. Like Fox, the Catholics were happy to corrupt truth for the sake of cold cash. Babbling Billy was only pretending to be a fanatic, a Christian flugelhorn. He was really hilarious, not as funny as Colbert, but pretty good, nonetheless. It gave me a new respect for his nonsense like having his own police force and being, as the esteemed Keith Olbermann has often observes, "the worst person in the world." Come on, Mr. Olbermann, "Or-lee" isn't such a bad guy, really. He's just joking. Ask yourself, could anybody actually be that big a dickhead? Billy Banshee is one of my new stars of comedy. I'd watch him a lot more, but he's so damn ugly. It distracts from the good comedy. When I saw him strutting around with George I, King of America, I thought: Abbot and Costello, Billy and the Beast, Revelation made manifest. Billy isn't dumb, he's just dishonest. Rebecca's Bargain Antiques Collectible Vintage Photos Fine Prints - Old Maps Sheet Music - Old Books Elegant Antiques and Collectibles "O, liberty, liberty, what crimes are committed in your name! last words of Marie Roland, 1793 You are welcome to use or republish any of our material. Please give www.prisoners.com credit as the source. Return to the News Items Menu. Return to the Works by Prisoner Authors and Others Menu. Return to the Main Menu. Go to our site's Search Engine. Send us Your Comments, Questions or Input.