A Glitch in the Matrix

Iraqi puppet prime minister Iyad Allawi was being interviewed on Fox News yesterday. They were asking him real hardball questions like "Doesn't it make you angry that people are calling you a puppet when you are risking your life every day for your country?" and "There are some people in America who would like it if Hussein were still in power. What do you say to these people?" Allawi went on to parrot, in the most thinly-veiled manner, the administration talking points he'd been given. No big secret. This echo effect has been lampooned by everyone from Chis Matthews to John Stewart.

Here's what caught my attention. Fox News has a little capsule at the bottom of their cluttered screens that features a one-sentence summary of the talking head so that people can watch TV in noisy bars. The capsule showed "Allawi: We're all in this together" BEFORE he delivered the sound bite. I looked up for the "LIVE" icon in front of the flapping flag at the top of the screen, and there it was. I know Fox can be ostentatious, but I've never seen them show this much of their vast-right-wing-conspiracy slip before.