Warning: If you buy video games, read about video games or play video games specifically to escape politics, you should probably skip this post. It contains wildly uninformed middle-aged women arguing against things they've never experienced, Fox News' rigorous standards of fair and balanced reporting and subject matter directly dealing with our current fracas in the Middle East.

Also, I verbally illustrate some horrid sexual concepts that I'm a little ashamed of.

So, um ... sorry.

The above is footage lifted from a Fox News segment exploring the latest sequel in EA's long running Medal of Honor series. Instead of complaining about the violent gun play, glorification of killing or even the not-so-veiled subtext behind tightly knit groups of post-teens spraying hot death from the ends of state supplied phallic symbols (all while being officially disciplined for any acknowledgment of homosexual tendencies), the title is lambasted for letting players take on the role of the Taliban in multiplayer gameplay.

After you collect the monocle that just popped off of your face from pure shock, hit the jump for a Shyamalan-level twist.

This is Todd. He lives in Duluth, MN, next to the Chester Creek Cafe.
  • EA
  • This is Todd. He lives in Duluth, MN, next to the Chester Creek Cafe.

Since anyone reading this is most likely a stereotypical Portland liberal, you have been ingrained with a healthy sense of hatred and mistrust for everything that occurs on Fox News. From Glenn Beck to that old guy who was like Glenn Beck before Fox News decided that shouting at interview subjects just wasn't crazy enough to terrify the network's largely geriatric racist audience anymore, it's a pretty solid bet that you can switch to channel 48 at any time of day and within moments be stricken with an erection of pure terror at how blindingly ignorant large swaths of our country apparently are.

(If you happen to have ladybits, feel free to replace "erection of pure terror" with whatever typically sexual reaction you would likely never experience from watching an episode of Hannity & Colmes.)

The twist in this clip though, is that the Fox News interviewer manages to remain relatively neutral here. Admittedly, the segment slides immediately toward the sort of reactionary psychoses you'd expect from a woman whose entire life seems to revolve around the death of her son in the aforementioned desert throwdown, but Fox News Guy almost rates as an innocent bystander.

Back to that reactionary middle-aged woman though (who, for the purposes of this post, we shall call "Karen Meredith," and also because that's her name). She is a member of the American Gold Star Mothers Club, a group made up of grieving women who have lost sons or daughters in war time. On this point I will not attempt to slight her, as the largely apolitical group dates back to the end of the first World War and, at least for most of its history, seems to be more of a group coping mechanism for its members than any sort of organized crusade for or against any particular cause (unless you consider being opposed to having their family members shot or blown into pieces a "cause").

So that part of her is okay.

Gene here owns a sporting goods store in Modesto.
  • EA
  • Gene here owns a sporting goods store in Modesto.

The part of her that starts to slide toward a combination of "typically out of touch middle-aged woman" and "wildly uninformed fame whore," begins at the 0:37 mark of the clip. As EA argues, players taking the role of Taliban soldiers in the game is the modern equivalent of someone playing the robber in childhood games of Cops & Robbers. Her counter? That Medal of Honor "isn't a game."

Bwa?

Initially, you want to think she means that the actual war being portrayed in the game isn't a game — because arguing that a game isn't a game is too stupid to even make a proper sentence of (as handily demonstrated by this sentence) — but when faced with the semi-related, but true statistic that the average player of these games is 30-plus years old and capable of choosing what sort of entertainment he or she (but most often he) desires, Ms. Meredith launches into a baffling "it's not a game for us. It wasn't a game for my son!" tirade.

Of course, the network capitalizes on this with a graphic of her dead progeny that is quite obviously engineered to evoke feelings that are equal parts maudlin nationalism and pride in our legion of professional soldiers, and Fox News Guy totally lets everyone down by letting her change the subject without asking for clarification.

He doesn't even manage a baffled lip quiver or raised index finger-throat clearing "harumph" combination. Some journalist Fox News Guy turned out to be, huh?

Brothers Tom and Andrew Moore build pipe bombs with which they blow up abortion clinics, post offices and the homes of Mexican immigrants.
  • EA
  • Brothers Tom and Andrew Moore build pipe bombs with which they blow up abortion clinics, post offices and the homes of Mexican immigrants.

Sadly, that serves to kill the segment before Ms. Meredith ever actually explains why the chance to play as a tan-skinned character model labeled "Taliban" in Medal of Honor (Available for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 on October 12 for only $59.99. Can I interest you in a pre-order?) should actually offend anyone who isn't a tightly wound, overweight menopause candidate.

(Was that mean? Oh c'mon, did you really expect me to end this on a mature note? Fuck, I'd have drawn a picture of Ms. Meredith being eaten by a giant vagina swarming with bees and pterodactyls if I knew anything about Photoshop that didn't solely relate to wicked awesome lens flare.)