Weird to read all of the 15th anniversary tributes to Fox News channel, the latest of which was a flattering valentine to Sean Hannity in Monday’s New York Times.

It all reminded me of the time five years ago when I covered the 10th anniversary of the network by watching as much as I possibly could during a week.

What I learned then holds true now: Fox News isn’t a cable news network exactly; it’s an ideology-delivery machine in the guise of a news network. That said, it can sometimes get to a fire (or any other spot news event) in a timely fashion compared to other cable news operations. But that is not what they are about.

It’s about presenting Democrats in the worst possible light as much as possible and lying about it by adopting “Fair and Balanced” as a motto. It’s so untrue at the face of it, they might as well adopt “We are Space Aliens” as a motto. (Pretty soon, viewers might believe that lie as well).

It’s not that they don’t occasionally have Democrats on their shows (they do, though far fewer than they have Republicans); it’s the set of questions they pose that shows their greatest bias.

It’s a network, after all, run by a guy who ran Republican campaigns for years and owned by a guy whose company spied on people’s voicemail for years.

That they have beat CNN in ratings means nothing. They are not in the same business as CNN. They might as well crow about beating QVC in the ratings. And Fox News is routinely beat in ratings by Cartoon Network in what might be a more “fair” comparison, if they insist on using that word. Spongebob SquarePants is at least a square shooter.

Fox News is the network, after all, that featured Glenn Beck doing things that got Hank Williams Jr., fired from Monday Night Football – to wit: regularly calling Obama Hitler.

The daily hypocrisy and bald  misinformation from Fox News could fill a daily show. (And it fact it does fill “The Daily Show”). Fifteen years of them roughly coincides with 15 years of hard right, no compromise Congressional impass and a raft of Republican leaders who don’t believe in proven global warming or evolution for that matter.

No need to celebrate the anniversary of this. When’s Cartoon Network’s anniversary?