Going down that low road

So the GOP tried the "Obama thinks he's God" ad with Moses.

And they tried the "Obama is Britney" approach.

And the easily discredited "Obama won't see wounded troops" ad.

Now it's time for the "Obama wants to kill newborn babies" campaign.

Sadly, that's not a joke.

Or even a bit of Jonathan Swift-style cleverness.

They really want voters to think Barack Obama is in favor of allowing parents to kill their kids after they're born.

From FOX News' "Hannity's America"

CORSI: Exactly, even extensively looking back at his record when he was in the state legislature in Illinois. His completely pro-abortion position, his --

HANNITY: Even if a child was born.

CORSI: Even if a child was born, he said the woman still had the right to kill the child in an abortion.

HANNITY: Unbelievable.

Q: How you can tell when you shouldn't believe something on Hannity's show?

A: Whenever he does his canned, going-to-get-the-vapors bit and says something is "unbelievable."

Media Matters gives you the the real story:

In making the false assertion about Obama's position -- Obama has of course never supported giving people the right to kill their children -- Corsi was also misrepresenting the legislation to which he was referring, a bill amending the Illinois Abortion Law of 1975. Opponents of the bill said the legislation was unnecessary as the Illinois criminal code unequivocally prohibits killing children, and said that it posed a threat to abortion rights.

So who is this Mr. Corsi?

Jerome Corsi is a longtime GOP operative, brought up under the dirty tricks of Charles Colson from the Nixon era. He's the guy who wrote the anti-Kerry smear book "Unfit for Command," in 2004, which was loaded with factual errors. He's got a new one out, called "The Obama Nation," which seeks to do the same to this year's Democratic candidate. No surprise that's it's also loaded with falsehoods.

In addition he's a member of controversial conservative Web site Free Republic, where he posts under the name "jrlc." As Media Matters reports, his posts there are filled with racist and sexist rants.

So, obviously, he's another one of Hannity's many friends of character.

McCain promised us a "respectful" campaign about the issues. Will he address this segment and Hannity's tactics when he inevitably shows up on the show to again court the rightwing vote?

Don't hold your breath.

How about frequent Hannity guest and McSurrogate Joe Lieberman?

He did, after all, hint that he was going to address the Republican National Convention for McCain and denounce "partisan mudslinging." Surely, this qualifies as such in Joe's eyes.

And, if any Democratic voters think this kind of strategy is so over-the-top that voters won't take it seriously, they should look at the latest polls.

Obama's lead in the Gallup survey has all-but-evaporated and McCain is now leading by one point in Rasmussen's latest.

All thanks to McCain's kitchen sink campaign of the last week.

Sandy Goodman, a retired producer for NBC News, writes about the negative turn in the campaign at HuffPo:

Obama has his work cut out for him. He must find a way to combat McCain's so far successful campaign of character assassination or risk losing the election. This is a year the Democrats should win everything, after eight years of the disasters Republicans have foisted on this country and the world.

[...]

In politics as elsewhere in life, truth, justice and virtue too often don't triumph. Neither will Obama if he doesn't figure out how to combat McCain's gutter campaign.

Voters say they oppose negative campaigns, but the reason politicians keep running them is because, quite simply, they work.

Portrait of Hannity by me

Double standards: The "Arrogant and Cocky" edition

Following some cropped quotes and bad reporting by Dana Milbank of The Washington Post and a blatantly dishonest ad from Sen. John McCain, the punditocracy has been endlessly echoing the charge that Obama is presumptuous and getting too full of himself.

This is the same beltway media that had no problem with ego and couldn't stop fawning over George W. Bush's most over-the-top moment — the carrier landing stunt five years ago.

Never mind that a large segment of the country found it tasteless:

MSNBC's Chris Matthews:

And that's the president looking very much like a jet, you know, a high-flying jet star

Ann Coulter (to Matthews):

It's tremendous. It's hard to imagine any Democrat being able to do that. And it doesn't matter if Democrats try to ridicule it. It's stunning, and it speaks for itself.

NBC's Brian Williams:

He's a youthful guy. He looked terrific and full of energy in a flight suit.

The New York Times, sounding like a bad dime store novel:

He hopped out of the plane with a helmet tucked under his arm and walked across the flight deck with a swagger that seemed to suggest he had seen Top Gun. Clearly in his element, he was swarmed by cheering members of the Lincoln's crew.

CBS' Bob Schieffer:

As far as I'm concerned, that was one of the great pictures of all time.

Margaret Carlson:

It was so well done, and even though we knew that everything was choreographed down to, you know, catching that fourth hook on the ship, it was still a pretty stirring tableau. Cecil B. DeMille couldn't have been done better. And even though you know there's no Santa Claus, Christmas is still great, as it was with that particular moment.

I don't think I need to mention that the charges against Obama are baseless and just the latest in the attempt by the GOP to turn the race away from issues and to personality-based voting.

Still, it's interesting how the talking heads are suddenly big fans of the humble approach to politics.

Recommended Reading: Jeff Cohen

FAIR's founder looks at how the NY Times can't interpret data:

So the Times presents Gallup data showing a clear trend toward the left, and calls it a "Move to the Middle." Is the assumption that we were mostly rightwingers a few years ago? Or is the "move to the middle" line simply more reassuring to an establishment newspaper?

And if you missed it, my old interview with Mr. Cohen is can be found here.

Fox follies continue

620, 127 signatures were delivered to the pretend news network, calling it out for it's use of racial stereotypes.

Rolling Stone:

The rapper stood next to 19 neatly stacked cardboard boxes, with the number 620,127 taped to the side of each one — over 600,000 signatures gathered by ColorOfChange demanding that network president Roger Ailes “find a solution to address racial stereotyping and hate-mongering before it hits the airwaves.” Fox rejected the petitions, but Brave New Films says that Comedy Central’s The Colbert Report will accept them instead.

Meanwhile, Bill O'Reilly's constant projection is turning him into a complete cartoon.

He compares Netroots Nation to the Nazi party and David Duke. And he thinks Moveon is the new Klan.

The fact that both groups are openly critical of BillO and have documented numerous inaccuracies by him has nothing to do with this, of course.

This is just the usual thing where BillO accuses everyone else of behavior that he's guilty of.

He's no stranger to hate, having made numerous racist slurs over the years.

Lots of them.

Lots and lots.

And if you really want to see BillO's double standards in action, take a look at the guy who immediately follows him on TV. Mr. No Spin is strangely silent on this one.

Photo by me.

Push-polling goes national

Courtesy of the joke that is FOX News.

With pretty much all polls showing Obama leading McCain, Republican State Television is getting desperate and is pulling out all the stops to get a favorable result.

From TPM. FOX's latest series of questions brings us gems like this:

Some people believe Barack Obama, despite his professed Christianity, is secretly a Muslim. Others say that is just a rumor and Obama really is a Christian as he says, and point out he's attended a Christian church for years. What do you believe -- is Obama a Muslim or a Christian

and this one:

John McCain was held captive for five years in a North Vietnamese prisoner of war camp. Do you think that experience would make McCain a better president or a worse president?

Even Colbert couldn't parody stuff like this.

And when you go out of your way to influence the results, you can then send them out to to GOP operatives in talk radio and have them crow "Fox Poll shows McCain-Obama statistical tie!," as Rush Limbaugh did today.

CBS covers for McCain's error

Can we bury that tired "lib'rul media bias" myth once and for all?



Politico:

CBS News, which is under fire for its editing of Katie Couric's interview with Senator John McCain last night, defended the editing in a statement to Politico.

In the version of the interview that aired, an apparent McCain error reversing of the surge and the Sunni awakening was edited out, and a different answer was shown in response to the same question, drawing criticism from Huffington Post and from MSNBC's Keith Olbermann, among others.

Rush Limbaugh: Super-racist

He's not even trying to hide it anymore. Not even slightly.

Limbaugh attacks the victims in New Orleans again, "comparing" them to the survivors of the Midwest floods.

Think Progress has the transcript:

LIMBAUGH: I want to know. I look at Iowa, I look at Illinois—I want to see the murders. I want to see the looting. I want to see all the stuff that happened in New Orleans. I see devastation in Iowa and Illinois that dwarfs what happened in New Orleans. I see people working together. I see people trying to save their property…I don’t see a bunch of people running around waving guns at helicopters, I don’t see a bunch of people running shooting cops. I don’t see a bunch of people raping people on the street. I don’t see a bunch of people doing everything they can…whining and moaning—where’s FEMA, where’s BUSH. I see the heartland of America. When I look at Iowa and when I look at Illinois, I see the backbone of America.

Hardly an accurate version of what happened there and, as Cenk Uygur of The Young Turks points out, Limbaugh forgets to mention that people could not get out of New Orleans after the flooding, as opposed to Iowa.

But Limbaugh doesn't stop there - referring to the Democratic Party this week:

(From Media Matters)

LIMBAUGH: The -- there's a complicated answer to this and I'm going to have answer some of it in the monologue in the next hour, but one of the simple answers that will require some elaboration is that a lot of money is coming from these kooks -- and I'm not talking about just the blacks -- I'm talking about a whole kook-fringe base because George Soros is running it --

Rush has a history of bigoted remarks, but it seems that he's going out of his way to turn up the intensity and frequency of the racist talk lately.

Gee, I wonder why he would chose this year of all times?

What could possibly cause him to want to portray to blacks in an even more negative light — more negative than his usual manner — and do so on a regular basis?

What could it be?


Photo: AP

BillO in one minute

Kriswell predicts

Television psychic Bill Kristol has a particularly eerie prediction this week.

From FOX News Sunday:

“I do wonder with Senator Obama, if President Bush thinks Senator Obama’s going to win, does he somehow think — does he worry that Obama won’t follow through on that policy,” Kristol added. Host Chris Wallace then asked if Kristol was suggesting that Bush might “launch a military strike” before or after the election.

Wallace then asked The Amazing Kriswell if Bush would be more likely to launch a strike if he thought Obama was going to win.

KRISTOL: I don’t know. I mean, I think he would worry about it. On the other hand, you can’t — it’s hard to make foreign policy based on guesses of election results. I think Israel is worried though. I mean, what is, what signal goes to Ahmadinejad if Obama wins on a platform of unconditional negotiations and with an obvious reluctance to even talk about using military force.

Let's pray this one's as inaccurate as Bill's other visions of the future. But seeing as how he's one of the guys Bush listened to for foriegn policy advice, this is troubling.

More double standards

Jamison Foster looks at the way the media covers campaign finance for Obama and McCain. Read it here.

I have seen no indication that a single reporter has asked McCain to reconcile his criticism of Obama with his own on-again, off-again relationship with the public financing system. And precious few news reports made any mention of the matter.

And they want to give this schmuck Russert's show...

Joe Scarborough, former GOP Congressman, and one of those smarmy pundits who probably practices his smug sneer in the mirror, is rumored to be one of the people NBC is considering to be the new host of Meet The Press.

Scarborough isn't a journalist by any stretch of the imagination. He's a Republican operative.

If you want an idea of his nonobjectivity, Media Matters has a new example of his work splicing Democratic speeches to try to score cheap points.

Check it out here:

Photo by me

Sean Hannity: Liar

For two weeks or so, Sean Hannity has been trying his best convince his audience that oil companies and speculators have nothing to do with high gas prices.

And despite the fact that his party has held the White House for two terms and Congress for six of the last eight years, he wants you to believe that it's all the Democrats' fault that we're paying $4 a gallon for gas.

As part of his evidence, he keeps repeating this story that "China is drilling 60 miles off the coast of Florida" for oil in an area where he U.S. won't allow American companies to do the same.

Translation: Them foreigners are tryin' to git yer oil!

The only problem with this story is it's not true.

From McClatchy Newspapers yesterday:

"GOP claim about Chines oil drilling off Cuba is untrue"

Yet no one can prove that the Chinese are drilling anywhere off Cuba's shoreline. The China-Cuba connection is "akin to urban legend," said Sen. Mel Martinez, a Republican from Florida who opposes drilling off the coast of his state but who backs exploration in ANWR.

"China is not drilling in Cuba's Gulf of Mexico waters, period," said Jorge Pinon, an energy fellow with the Center for Hemispheric Policy at the University of Miami and an expert in oil exploration in the Gulf of Mexico. Martinez cited Pinon's research when he took to the Senate floor Wednesday to set the record straight.

Dick Cheney has also been repeating the lie.

From AP yesterday:

In a speech to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Cheney said on Wednesday that waters in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, long off limits to oil companies, should be opened to drilling because China is already there pumping oil.

[...]

Congressional Democrats pounced on the vice president's remarks and were backed up by independent energy experts, who called the assertion hyperbole at best and a falsehood at worst.

Cheney's office said in a statement to The Associated Press that the vice president had erred.

I know what you're thinking. Hannity didn't lie - He was just misinformed! (Isn't that always the case with them?)

Then Sean would, no doubt, correct his misstatement after the truth got out all over the media Thursday.

So, wanting to see how he would do a retraction after multiple self-righteous declarations on the subject, I decided to tune into Sean's program today.

But, 5 minutes in:

"China is drilling 60 miles off the coast of Florida!"

Sean then punctuated his rant against lib'ruls with his usual "It's unbelievable!"

He couldn't have said it better.

Why does anyone continue to believe a word this guy says?

Photo by me

Still no journalism at FOX News

Two items:
1. BillO sent his crew to The National Conference on Media Reform. His guys tried to do the standard O'Reilly Ambush bit on real journalist Bill Moyers, but their target turned the tables on them pretty quickly. Video is here.

As Josh Silver put it:

That's right. Fox News sent grown men with cameras to lurk behind doorways, hide
in alcoves, and crouch in the bushes at night (literally) waiting to surprise
two reporters in their seventies with angry questions and a boom mic.

2. In teasing a segement last week, FOX News host E.D. Hill called the fist bump between Barack and Michelle Obama a "terrorist fist jab." Hill lost her show this week, though FOX doesn't say why.

A new week, a new Kristol screw-up

In his latest N.Y Times piece, Kristol wanted us to believe that Obama was getting rich on his $12,000 a year salary as a community organizer in 1985.

Kristol:

Obama wants us to be impressed by the drama of his spurning the big bucks, by his bold acceptance of such a pittance of money in order that he could do good.

[...]

And leave aside whether $14,000 in 1985 was really such a shockingly low salary for someone recently out of college — in inflation-adjusted dollars, it’s about what we pay entry-level editorial assistants today at The Weekly Standard.

Think Progress debunks it:

In today’s dollars, Obama’s $12,000/year in 1985 translates into an inflation-adjusted current salary of $23,958. It seems Kristol may be living in a time warp because what he pays his new employees is less than the average salary for the lowest-level congressional staffer.

Jeff Cohen reacts to the McClellan fallout

Cohen served as producer of Donahue, MSNBC's highest-rated show in 2003. Cohen and Donahue were booted from the air for being too skeptical of the push to war, as MSNBC internal memos show.

He has a new column up over at Common Dreams reacting to the sudden confessions of Iraq War cheerleaders like Katie Couric that the media did a terrible job during the build-up to war.

Katie Couric, whose coverage on CBS of the Iraq troop surge has been almost fawning, was one of the few stars to be candid about pre-invasion coverage, saying days ago, “I think it’s one of the most embarrassing chapters in American journalism.” She spoke of “pressure” from corporate management, not just Team Bush, to “really squash any dissent.” Then a co-host of NBC Today, she says network brass criticized her for challenging the administration.

NBC execs apparently didn’t complain when — two weeks into the invasion — Couric thanked a Navy commander for coming on the show, adding, “And I just want you to know, I think Navy SEALs rock!”

This is a glorious moment for the American public. We can finally see those who abandoned reporting for cheerleading and flag-waving and cheap ratings having to squirm over their role in sending other parents’ kids into Iraq.

And you can find my interview with Mr. Cohen by clicking here.

FAUX News standards

Another one that happened while I was away:

Remember when Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks made a little innocent joke in her stage banter and said she was embarrassed George W. Bush was from Texas?

The rightwing went nuts. She was demonized on FOX News where commentators accused her of treason.

Keep that in mind when reading about the latest antics of the FOX family of blowhards:

FOX News political pundit Liz Trotta jokingly suggested this weekend that someone should assassinate an American presidential candidate. She had first "mistakenly" referred to Obama as "Osama" while discussing theories that Hillary Clinton's recent comments about the RFK assassination was in fact a suggestion that someone "knock off Osama." When she was corrected and reminded that she meant "Obama," she then said, "Well, both if we could."

So on Roger Ailes network:

Saying you're embarrassed of the president at a country music concert = you're evil and a threat to the republic.

Making a joke about the assassination of a presidential candidate on the air = you get to keep your job as part of their political team.

Trotta should be booted off the network immediately, regardless of the fact that she issued a pathetic kind of, sort of "apology." Her rhetoric has no place on a supposed "news network."

Nor does it have any place in polite society.

File under: Well, duh!

While I was away, Former White House Pree Secretary Scott McClellan wrote a book that got the media talking about the premise that - gasp - TV news didn't do its job in the lead-up to the Iraq War!

For instance, we get this kind of stuff from Katie Couric in reaction to it:

"I think it's a very legitimate allegation," said CBS News' Katie Couric. "I think it's one of the most embarrassing chapters in American journalism.

"And I think there was a sense of pressure from corporations who own where we work and from the government itself to really squash any kind of dissent or any kind of questioning of it," Couric added. "I think it was extremely subtle but very, very effective."

But lest you think we're going to get a 5 years too late admission from the networks, fear not! Rightwing tool Charlie Gibson will still make excuses for the cheerleading.

"I think that the media did a pretty good job of focusing and asking the questions," he said. "We were not given access to get into the country … to go along with the inspectors. But the questions were asked.

"It was just a drum beat from the government, and I think it's convenient now to blame the media, but I don't," he added.

And this coming from a guy who thinks flag lapel pins are among the most important issue before the nation in 2008. Nice to see he's still on top of things.

And isn't it great that McClellan took the brave route in writing this book now, rather than actually raising these issues when he was in the White House and coming forward when he could have made some sort of difference?

ABC News is still a joke

Earlier this year, Hillary Clinton held a televised town hall meeting with voters. The event, which was basically an infomercial for her campaign, aired on the Hallmark Channel — because she bought the airtime from the network.

She's doing it again this Sunday, only this time she won't have to pay. It's being picked up as a so-called "news" event.

The show? "This Week with (Former Clinton Press Secretary) George Stephanopoulos."

The same George Snuffleupagus who co-moderated the widely-criticized ABC debate where they threw softballs at Hillary while asking Obama such Gotcha! questions as "Does Reverend Wright love the Country as much as you do?"

It took 50 minutes or so of this drivel until he and co-moderator Charlie Gibson asked the candidates about policy.

In their defense, ABC claims they've extended the offer for a town hall to both Obama and McCain. It would be interesting to see the timetable and hear their reason for giving Clinton a free ad just before two major primaries.

Happy Flight Suit Day

In honor of the fifth anniversary of the "Mission Accomplished" carrier landing, I'll be playing dress-up and blogging in full beekeeper gear today.

Greg Mitchell remembers how taken the media was with the whole thing.

Chris Matthews on MSNBC called Bush a "hero" and boomed, "He won the war. He was an effective commander. Everybody recognizes that, I believe, except a few critics." He added: "Women like a guy who's president. Check it out. The women like this war. I think we like having a hero as our president. It's simple." PBS' Gwen Ifill said Bush was "part Tom Cruise, part Ronald Reagan." On NBC, Brian Williams gushed, "The pictures were beautiful. It was quite something to see the first-ever American president on a -- on a carrier landing."

Media Matters also looks back at the cheerleaders.

And before you think everyone was insane at the time, here's an excerpt from Sen. Byrd's speech on the event. The media blasted him for it:

The prowess and professionalism of America's military forces do not need to be embellished by the gaudy excesses of a political campaign. War is not theater, and victory is not a campaign slogan. I join with the President and all Americans in expressing heartfelt thanks and gratitude to our men and women in uniform for their service to our country, and for the sacrifices that they have made on our behalf. But on this point I differ with the President: I believe that our military forces deserve to be treated with respect and dignity, and not used as stage props to embellish a presidential speech.

Casualties at the time of Mission Accomplished: 139

Confirmed U.S. combat deaths to date: 4,059 (according to AP)

Bush's disapproval rating today: 71 percent (according to Gallup)

AP file photo: President Bush poses with sailors and pilots aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln off the California coast after landing in a small jet Thursday, May 1, 2003.

Hannity's cluelessness

Sam Seder links to some hilarious audio of Sean Hannity having to face the news from pollsters that exit interviews revealed voter agreed with Obama's 'bitter' comments.

You can find it here.

Photo by me.

A few

Thank God for cable news for giving us the real issues.

In their defense, it's not like there's a war or an economic crisis going on or anything.

Speaking of which, Glenn Greenwald reports that the beltway is merrily making excuses for McCain's confusion (or deliberate dishonesty - take your pick) on Iraq.

He also talks to Amy Goodman about this week's shameful events (and his new book, which is quite timely) here.

TV news is still dead

ABC is bragging that the debate was the most watched of the campaign season.

Which means that they blew an even bigger opportunity.

A few more:

The Atlantic's Andrew Sullivan:

The loser was ABC News: one of the worst media performances I can remember - petty, shallow, process-obsessed, trivial where substantive, and utterly divorced from the actual issues that Americans want to talk about.

The Washington Post's Tom Shales:

It was another step downward for network news -- in particular ABC News, which hosted the debate from Philadelphia and whose usually dependable anchors, Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos, turned in shoddy, despicable performances.

"For the first 52 minutes of the two-hour, commercial-crammed show, Gibson and Stephanopoulos dwelled entirely on specious and gossipy trivia that already has been hashed and rehashed, in the hope of getting the candidates to claw at one another over disputes that are no longer news. Some were barely news to begin with.

Talk show host Randi Rhodes:

"We don't have the luxury of spending 1994 covering the O.J trial or spending 1998 talking about a stained dress."

Commondreams.org's Jerry Lanson:

Granted. Reporters get paid to ask tough questions. No complaint there. But they should be tough questions of substance, not rehashed spam. Surely, if ABC’s producers had done some hard reporting, they could have found something fresh — inconsistencies of policy statements over the campaign’s long march, perhaps; contradictions between the candidate’s current stands and past votes; or subtle differences between them on issues that really matter to the American public. Relooping an already weary newsreel, trotting out the tired and really terribly limited fudges and guilt-by-association embarrassments of this campaign, make for neither good debates nor good journalism.

And finally, Obama's reaction from today, which is great:

"Debate round-up" or "Peter Jenning rolls in his grave"

Leave it to ABC News to ask the candidates about flag lapel pins, The Weather Underground and other such nonsense. Legitimate issues weren't addressed until well into the second half, by which any sane voter was probably gone.

As Daily Kos' MissLaura put it:

It took 52 minutes to get to a question about Iraq. Took 64 minutes to the economy, and then in John McCain's terms.

These are the top two issues cited in poll after poll, but ABC doesn't think they're important enough to ask the presidential candidates on, or will let a Republican frame the debate. It's flat shameful.

Another Kos regular, DHinMI complied a list of issues the moderators didn't bother to bring up, including health care, trade, torture, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Editor and Publisher's Greg Mitchell:

In perhaps the most embarrassing performance by the media in a major presidential debate in years, ABC News hosts Charles Gibson and George Stephanopolous focused mainly on trivial issues as Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama faced off in Philadelphia.

Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the health care and mortgage crises, the overall state of the economy and dozens of other pressing issues had to wait for their few moments in the sun as Obama was pressed to explain his recent "bitter" gaffe and relationship with Rev. Wright (seemingly a dead issue) and not wearing a flag pin while Clinton had to answer again for her Bosnia trip exaggerations.

Talking Points Memo's Josh Marshall:

There are issues like health care, and whose proposal will achieve universal coverage; some question about the credit crisis; perhaps some question about Iraq that presupposed that getting out is a necessary objective -- like, noting ways that each has hedged on their promises to leave Iraq, rather than a question, the subtext of which was 'what will you do when the serious people tell you we shouldn't leave'; something executive power -- a legitimate questions since presidents are seldom willing to renounce powers grasped by predecessors; the environment; perhaps, what will these candidates actually do -- concretely -- to crack down on executive branch corruption since Democrats have made such political hay of the issue at President's Bush's expense; perhaps a single question on the environment?

Don't have a link yet, but Keith Olbermann called it "a travesty."

Cartoonist and blogger Dan Perkins a.k.a. Tom Tomorrow:

I don’t think that debate could have been any more stupid. Shame on ABC for taking all their cues from Sean Hannity, and shame on Hillary Clinton for eagerly playing along, particularly with the Ayers smear.

He's not far off. Stephanopolous was a guest on Hannity's show this week. I didn't hear the segment, but I did catch the promo to it, in which Hannity (who probably was the chief advocate for the Swift Boat Vets in '04) said he was going to suggest questions for Stephanopolous during the following interview. Apparently, George took his suggestions to heart.

If they were going to focus on campaign flaps, they could have thrown a question to Hillary on the Columbian trade deal. God forbid they should ask something that actually has any effect on people's lives.

The entire thing was an embarrassment and makes Nader's piece yesterday even more timely. The Republican equivalent would have been for McCain and Giuliani to have been questioned for 45+ minutes about their affairs (real in Rudy's case and alleged in McCain's).

It's no wonder Charlie Gibson got heckled afterwards.

It's gotten so bad that ABC had to take down their feedback page after the comments went overwhelmingly negative. Crooks and Liars captured them and has video excerpts of the whole sad affair here.

Photo: Members of the audience watch a Democratic presidential debate between Democratic presidential hopefuls, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., and Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., at the National Constitution Center, Wednesday, April 16, 2008, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

Why do they put people like this on TV?

Never mind which side you're backing, this is just stupid.

Reuters Jon Decker on an MSNBC appearance:

And let's not forget Barack Obama bowling. You know, this cuts to "is this person real? Do they connect with me as a voter?"

Gotta love having the out-of-touch punditocracy to tell us what us "regular" folk what we're thinking.

Jon Stewart showed us the real reason to be concerned, conjuring up the scenario in which a terrorist tells a President Obama "I will tell you where I've hidden the nuclear device if you can pick up this 7-10 split!"

From a guy who's had 3 divorces

So, yeah, he's got unresolved insecurity issues with the opposite sex.

From America's Gasbag, Rush Limbaugh:

"You have to understand the mindset of a lot of these feminists and women. They think they're owed this -- just like Obama supporters think they're owed this. These women have paid their dues. They've been married two or three times; they've had two or three abortions; they've done everything that feminism asked them to do."

Chris Matthews needs to get out more

And pump his own gas for the limo.

Another shining example of the out-of-touch beltway punditocracy.

This exchange is from yesterday:

MATTHEWS: It sure is. Let's take look at Obama today on that point.

OBAMA [video clip]: I was in a bar with [Sen.] Bob Casey [D-PA] -- great guy. And we were catching a little bit of the Final Four, and we were talking to a guy sitting next to us who was out of work. And he made a point that should be obvious to so many of us, but, you know, you sometimes don't think about; he's out of work. He's having to drive around looking for work, and he's saying it was killing -- "it's killing me to try to fill up my gas tank just to get to a interview for a job." You're out of work, and here you are just burning money filling up the tank.

MATTHEWS: I think he talked about an $85 tank. That's a hell of a big tank, even in today's prices. Eighty-five dollars? What is that?

But, as Media Matters points out:

In fact, numerous trucks and SUVs have gasoline tanks large enough that it costs $85 or more to fill them up, based on "today's prices." For instance, the Ford F-150, according to Edmunds.com, "has been the most popular vehicle sold in the United States for nearly every year of the past three decades." Fueleconomy.gov, a website that describes itself as being "maintained jointly by the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency" in order "to provide accurate MPG [miles per gallon] information to consumers," states that the 2007 four-wheel-drive (4WD) F-150 offers a gas tank in sizes ranging from 26.0 to 30.0 gallons.

Lots more info on the site. They even have a chart showing several vehicles that cost $85 and up to fill up.

UC to host famed television psychic Bill Kristol

Bill Kristol, son of conservative leader Irving Kristol, is coming to the University of Charleston.

From a press release:

Bill Kristol, Editor of the influential Washington-based political magazine, The Weekly Standard, will appear at the University of Charleston as part of UC’s Speaker Series sponsored by Dow Chemical at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 16, in Riggleman Hall’s Geary Auditorium. The event is free and open to the public.

Kristol's Miss Cleo-like powers have given him the ability to make such amazing observations as these:

Kristol on April 4, 2003:

“There’s been a certain amount of pop sociology in America … that the Shia can’t get along with the Sunni and the Shia in Iraq just want to establish some kind of Islamic fundamentalist regime. There’s almost no evidence of that at all. Iraq’s always been very secular.”

Kristol on April 28, 2003:

The United States committed itself to defeating terror around the world. We committed ourselves to reshaping the Middle East, so the region would no longer be a hotbed of terrorism, extremism, anti-Americanism, and weapons of mass destruction. The first two battles of this new era are now over. The battles of Afghanistan and Iraq have been won decisively and honorably.

Kristol on Sept. 18, 2002:

A war with Iraq “could have terrifically good effects throughout the Middle East.”

Courtesy of William K. Wolfrum, whose piece, " If Bill Kristol can get a job at Time Magazine, so should a bad golf prognosticator," at worldgolf.com is a must-read.

Kristol is also one of the heads of Project for a new America Century, a conservative group who pushed for war with Iraq long before 9-11. The group said the process of transforming America into the foreign policy player they dreamed of would be a long process, "absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event—like a new Pearl Harbor.”

So they had no problem linking Iraq to 9-11 in their push for war. When crisis struck, they saw opportunity.

Bill Maher had a good take on Kristol:

And now Mr. Kristol proposes immediate action against Iran predicting the Iranians will thank us for it. Hey, you know what, Nostradamus, why don’t you sit this one out? We’ll get by using the magic 8-ball for a while, because you guys have been so wrong about so much for so long that people are actually turning to the Democrats.

Surely UC and Dow Chemical can provide students with intellectual stimulation from a better source than a guy with such a dishonest track record. Or is a man who's had to run retractions to his NY Times column twice in the first six months their idea of someone students should look up to?

Will UC also book someone who actually got it right on the war like Scott Ritter or Hans Blix? You know, those guys who had this crazy notion that there were no WMDs and that the inspectors had destroyed the stockpiles?

Or what about the commentators who knew what they were talking about prior to invasion like Amy Goodman or Phil Donahue?

And lest I forget, the man Kristol's been wanting for president since before 2000? John McCain.

Kind of makes McCain's sabre-rattling against Iran look a bit more ominous, doesn't it?

Meltdown at FOX

Even a rightwinger like Kilmeade has his limits.

From HuffPo:

Fox News' very own anchors are speaking out — and walking off — over what they perceive to be "Obama-bashing" on their network.

This morning on "Fox and Friends," Brian Kilmeade walked off the set after a dispute with his co-hosts Gretchen Carlson (she who celebrates deadly floods) and Steve Doocy over Obama's comment that his grandmother is a "typical white person." Kilmeade argued that the remark needed to be taken in context and eventually got so fed up with his co-hosts that he walked off set.

The race-baiting is in full swing at FOX. They've been looking for any excuse to portray Obama as "the black candidate" and are using the Pastor Wright media firestorm to try to scare their audience with every vile stereotype they can think of.

This came out of the mouth of Tom Sullivan of FOX Radio:

Is black America going to throw their hands up and say, "Man, you know, I thought we were getting somewhere in this country, but this is just a bunch of racial bigots in this country and they still hate blacks and, I mean, if Barack Obama can't get elected, then we're never gonna have anybody that's a black that's gonna be elected president." And will there be riots in the streets? I think the answer to that is yes and yes.

Fair and Balanced as always, eh?

Another day, another Kristol screw-up

You may remember Bill Kristol as the guy who said Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, the war would go perfectly and would pay for itself, etc. He was one of the key guys behind PNAC that pushed for the war long before 9-11.

He's also the son of neoconservative Irving Kristol and inherited Daddy's access to the media.

In January, The New York Times, supposedly the epitome of that darn Lib'rul Media BiasTM, decided to give the great psychic Kristol a regular column to represent the delusional side of the political spectrum.

He's also a FOX News contributor, but we know what their standards are..

In today's NYT piece, Kristol claims that Obama "was in the pews" during one of pastor Wright's controversial statements.

Turns out it wasn't true. Kristol had to issue a retraction because he didn't check his source.

Before you think this is a forgiveable slip, bear in mind this is Kristol's second retraction in less than three months. In his first Times column, he misattributed a quote from a column he cited.

John Stewart recently said it best, "Oh, Bill Kristol, Are you ever right?"

Kristol's career consists of a trail of factual errors and inaccurate predictions that would make The Amazing Criswell blush.

Why is this guy still getting a regular forum from the mainstream media?

Spare me, Bill

Recovering tabloid anchor O'Reilly's still trying to attack those for behavior he's been guilty of tenfold in the past.

On his latest show, he's still harping on the Huffington Post thing and he's taken it to an even more absurd level:

O'REILLY: You know, what's the difference between the Ku Klux Klan and Arianna Huffington? What's the difference?

HAM: Well, I think there's difference. But she actually -- I think things have actually improved because people like you and like myself speak out about these things and say that, "Hey, this is an --

O'REILLY: I don't see any difference between Huffington and the Nazis.

HAM: She actually --

O'REILLY: I don't see any difference.

Yep. There's absolutely no difference between a Web site administrator not deleting a few random comments from a message board of hundreds and a fascist government that conquered Europe and exterminated millions of people.

Does anyone take this guy seriously anymore? Or is his entire audience watching for the pure train wreck entertainment value?


And HuffPo's James Boyce has this to add:

Because of all the people to compare to a Nazi, he picked someone who actually has experience with real Nazis.

[...]

Her courage comes from her mother, who I am sad I never met, and who in Greece during World War II stood outside her house and faced down Nazi soldiers to protect the occupants of the house. Can you imagine the strength, the courage that took?

Arianna's courage comes from a mother who stood up when others would have run, a single Greek woman who faced down real Nazis, real soldiers with real guns, real Nazis who killed millions of innocent people and came close to destroying our world, not blowhards with a falafel.

The Projected Man

One of the worst movies played on Mystery Science Theatre 3000 was the 60s British sci-fi flop, “Projected Man.

The plot’s unimportant…something to do with a guy beaming himself across the planet, but one of the best lines line was when Mike and the Bots said the tile referred to "a guy who tries to apply his faults to everyone else."

If any pundit has earned the title of Projected Man, former Inside Edition anchor and FOX News host Bill O’Reilly is the leading candidate..

In his latest column, posted online and syndicated to a number of papers, O’Reilly goes after political Web sites for the alleged crime being purveyors of hate speech.

O’Reilly starts off with a reference to the manufactured controversy over Michelle Obama.

It was also painful to see how political Internet sites analyzed both of these situations. On the far left, they basically ignored the Michelle Obama controversy. Only one prominent far-left site dealt with it, and it blamed conservatives for trumping up hostility against Mrs. Obama.

For future reference, a “far left” site is one that disagrees with Bill O’Reilly on occasion.

It’s interesting that O’Reilly leaves out who one of these conservatives is: himself.

Apparently, the “far left” site Media Matters took issue with O’Reilly’s casual reference to the days of southern hate crimes when he said, “"I don't want to go on a lynching party against Michelle Obama unless there's evidence, hard facts, that say this is how the woman really feels."

O’Reilly also forgets to mention the firestorm, which was not limited to one site as he claims, led to an issue of one of his trademark half-apologies, in which he tried to deflect criticism by making the absurd claim that he was actually complementing Mrs. Obama.

After this bit, O’Reilly’s column then goes into hackneyed autopilot, playing the old “cherry-picking a few random comments from a thread of hundreds to dismiss a political site as ‘extremist’” game.

Discussing former first lady Nancy Regan’s recent fall in her home:

[..]that was a far different story. On the crazy-left Huffington Post, the following hateful comments were posted about the former first lady:

“Like her evil husband, she has lived far too long. Here’s hoping the hag suffers for several weeks, then croaks in the tub.”

“The old bat will probably steal everything in the hospital room.”

“I feel no pity for the (woman) who took delight in watching thousands die of a horrible disease and watching the poor having to eat out of dumpsters because of her husband’s political beliefs.”

I’m guessing “crazy left” is a bit more extreme in Bill’s hierarchy than plain ol’ “far left.”

O’Reilly accuses the site’s founder Ariana Huffington of furthering hate speech because the comments were not deleted immediately. [“She should ] be taken out to the village square and publicly scolded,” O’Reilly writes.

Lest you believe Bill is simply, out of the pureness of his heart, calling for people to be more respectful, bear in that when he was accused of the same thing, comments threatening the life of Hillary Clinton on his Web site were left up long after they were brought to his attention. This isn't the first time O'Reilly has expressed such canned outrage towards the Web. He attacked DailyKos using the same tactic last year.

But the Projected Man act is nothing new for O’Reilly.

Remember the so-called ‘War on Christmas?”

A few years ago, Bill was going around the airwaves claiming that an evil ‘secular-progressive’ conspiracy was out to get Christmas. The crown jewel of his supposed evidence was that certain discount stores were referring to ‘holiday trees” rather than “Christmas trees” in their ads and that “Happy Holidays” was the preferred greeting in place of “Merry Christmas.”

Yet, oddly enough, over on the Bill O’Reilly Web store, you were able to order O’Reilly Factor ornaments for your “holiday tree.”

This leaves me, naturally, asking two questions:

1. Who, in their right mind, would actually want an O’Reilly Factor ornament for their tree? (I was holding out for the Hannity and Colmes nativity set myself.)
2. Why does Bill constantly find it necessary to attack others for behavior he is guilty of?

And, of course, the idea of O’Reilly accusing others of hate speech is laughable in the first place.

Here are a few choice gems from Bill over the years:

- There was the time he used a racial slur on the air.

Searching for a word to describe someone who assists immigrants crossing the border, O'Reilly came up with "wetback" (2/6/03). The incident was explained away by Fox officials as an unfortunate gaffe (New York Times, 2/10/03), but the Allentown, Pa. Morning Call (1/5/03) had O'Reilly using the same racist term in a speech earlier in the year: "O'Reilly criticized the Immigration and Naturalization Service for not doing its job and not keeping out 'the wetbacks.'" O'Reilly denied making the comment (Washington Post, 2/17/02), but the reporter stands by his account.

- Or maybe when he more or less said it would be OK for terrorists to attack San Francisco.

And if Al Qaeda comes in here and blows you up, we're not going to do anything about it. We're going to say, look, every other place in America is off limits to you, except San Francisco. You want to blow up the Coit Tower? Go ahead.

- Or this one, which manages to be bigoted in all sorts of ways.

“During an interview for Stuff magazine (11/02), O'Reilly opined that "the most unattractive women in the world are probably in the Muslim countries." O'Reilly later insisted (New York Daily News, 10/10/02), "There was no malice intended. It was just in jest."

There’s tons of these floating out there, but you get the idea.

O’Reilly ends his column on this note:

A few years ago, people who spewed hatred in public were ostracized. Now they can join clubs on the Net.

For those involved in Internet “hate speech,” the real problem is you aren’t aiming high enough. Why settle for an anonymous comment on some Web site? With a little determine and practice, you can follow Bill’s shining example and land a coveted spot in primetime on a major cable channel!

Photo by me

They could at least keep their myths straight

First, the rightwing tried to spread rumors that Obama's a covert radical Muslim, sworn in on a Koran and sent to infiltrate the American government. We've all seen the moronic SPAM mailing about him supposedly not reciting the Pledge of Allegience .

Then a FOX News host and rightwing blogs decided he's the new Hitler and a fascist.

Now the conservative flagship magazine, The National Review, insinuates that his family is tied to communists or something.

And it's only February.

At this rate, expect the wingnuts to try to link him to Scientology, Hare Krishnas, Satanism, aliens and the Whig Party before the campaign's over.

Scraping the bottom of the barrel

Seeing polls showing a dark November for the GOP, radio wingnuts have sunk to yet another new low.

From Media Matters:

Summary: Fox News Radio host Tom Sullivan took a call from a listener who stated that when listening to Barack Obama speak, "it harkens back to when I was younger and I used to watch those deals with Hitler, how he would excite the crowd and they'd come to their feet and scream and yell." Sullivan then played a "side-by-side comparison" of a Hitler speech and an Obama speech. Sullivan mimicked the crowd during both speeches, yelling, "Yay! Yay!" When a later caller complained that Sullivan was "denigrating" Obama with the comparison, Sullivan said he wouldn't play it again, then begged: "Can I, please, one more time? Just one more time? Then I won't do it again. ... Until the next time."

So that's the new talking point from the "Fair and Balanced" network: Delivering an inspiring speech = Hitler.

They're not alone in this stupidity. A quick look around reveals that here are similar posts on a few conservative blogs.

This is beyond parody.

Look, a falling star!

Following her use of a homophobic slur at last year's conference and the resulting media firestorm, CPAC organizers disinvited rightwing nutjob Ann Coulter from appearing at this year's conference.

One wonders what took them so long. The previous year, she used racial slurs and received mass applause from the conservative group. They had no problem inviting her back for 2007. They even got conservative also-ran Willard Mitt Romney to introduce her.

Anyway, desperate to remain relevant, the spokeswoman for Republican values gave a video "speech" (if you can call it that) 50 yards away from the conference today.

Ann Coulter wasn't invited to CPAC this year but she came to CPAC anyway and gave a speech just down the hallway from the ballroom where John McCain spoke Thursday. [...] I guess we'll name this speech, "Ann C