Who can take these guys seriously anymore? No Fox News "reporter" or "news anchor" should ever be hired in a real news station anymore. You don't agree, then watch this:
They've become a self-parody. "Fair and balanced" has become a synonym for "we do the exact opposite of what we claim."
This is hard to believe until you watch it with your own eyes. Fox News took two random clips from Barack Obama and Mario Cuomo that have absolutely nothing to do with one another and tried to call it plagiarism. But for me to describe how ridiculous this charge is wouldn't do it justice, you have to see it for yourself:
I think this might be a pathetic attempt to connect Obama to "liberals" of the past to strike back at the Democrats for constantly connection McCain to Bush. If it is, it definitely isn't working. These guys are running on empty.
That's part of the reason why McCain looks and sounds so nervous below, which leads to the second interesting point. He has entered the maniacal laughter competition with Hillary Clinton. His laugh below is so forced and awkward that it's a little painful to look at. So, check out the video below and then tell us who has the weirder laugh, McCain or Hillary:
The Democrats going on Fox News Channel is a terrible idea for many reasons. They legitimize a propaganda outlet for the Republican Party by agreeing to the fiction that they are a real news organization. They field twisted and slanted questions that set them up for answers that will later be used against them.
Obama fell into this trap last week when he told Chris Wallace that the Rev. Wright controversy was a legitimate political issue. He is trying to be nice to a Fox News anchor, which is just stupid. He is going to use it against you! And he already has. Wallace used Obama's statements to justify several more questions he asked Howard Dean about Rev. Wright this weekend.
But the one reason I never found persuasive for not going on Fox is that the Democrats can't handle it. But there's some chance I'm wrong about that. You can't go and talk to Bill O'Reilly if you're not prepared to challenge him on the obvious bullcrap he's going to toss your way. And that's exactly what Hillary Clinton did. She went in unprepared and pretty much lost a debate on torture. Watch below:
One of our viewers, Tony Daughtrey, made a good point after watching this on our show. O'Reilly keeps calling waterboarding a dunk in the water. You know who else we used to dunk in the water to get confessions? Witches.
Does O'Reilly think we got reliable information out of those women by dunking them in the water during the Salem Witch Trials? Remember, they almost all confessed. So, I guess they must have all been witches after all.
There's a reason why we don't torture people anymore. It's barbaric and useless. They'll tell you whatever you want to hear -- I did it, Iraq is connected to Al Qaeda, I'm a witch, I'm a terrorist, etc., etc.
Finally, we invaded Iraq based on the faulty intelligence we got from one of the guys we tortured. You can read about it here. That wrong information cost the lives of countless people. Is it too much to ask Democrats that they at least learn that one fact and bring that up the next time someone attempts an asinine defense of torture? Young Turks on You Tube
Today on the show we were talking about how Fox News was questioning Barack Obama's patriotism and how I thought he didn't do a great job of debunking stories that go the heart of this charge. The problem is that by answering the question he feeds into the question. He should turn the whole premise of the question on its head.
Obama shouldn't talk about whether he is or is not patriotic. He should talk about how he is clearly the most patriotic candidate in the race:
Reverend Peterson's purpose it come on air and say racist things against black people -- but get this, he's black himself. So that provides cover for the white people who love to hear him spew that hate. Then Hannity can say: I didn't say it, a black man did. Very clever.
If you thought Rev. Wright was divisive (and Hannity apparently thinks so because he talks about it every single night on his show), wait till you get a load of Rev. Peterson. Check out his unbelievable quotes below:
So, will Hannity denounce and reject Rev. Peterson? Will he step off the board of this hateful pastor's organization? Will he disassociate himself from him? Yeah, right. Don't hold your breath.
Bill O'Reilly has officially lost it. On Thursday night's broadcast of The O'Reilly Factor on Fox News Channel he compared Arianna Huffington to the KKK and the Nazis. And it wasn't even close to subtle; he just flat out said she was like the Nazis -- on several occasions. You can't quite believe how bad it is until you watch it. You can watch it for yourself here.
This is beyond despicable. And he keeps making the same inane argument over and over. He claims that any comment left on any blog means the person who wrote the blog or edits the blog is personally responsible for the comment. How profoundly stupid or deceitful can a person be? Everyone who has ever read a blog knows that the commenters do not speak for the writer. In fact, they are often quite opposed to the writer.
The most vicious comments can be found on any conservative, liberal or moderate blog if they allow open comments. Commenters have called me every name in the book in my blogs. Am I responsible for what they call me? Come on, how stupid is that? Either Bill O'Reilly is the dumbest man alive or he is being grossly disingenuous.
Then he takes that fake outrage about some comment left on the Huffington Post and uses it to hideously smear one of the most respected political commentators in the country. Maybe I'm being naive but I really think he has gone way too far this time. I think he jumped the shark here.
I can't imagine that Fox would ever take any action against O'Reilly because they couldn't care less about civil discourse or simply doing what is decent and right. But this has to effect O'Reilly's credibility with everyone else. If he has any left at all.
And if all this wasn't bad enough, it turns out Arianna Huffington's mom actually stood up to real Nazis during World War II. O'Reilly couldn't have picked a worse target for his hateful speech. Plus, this wasn't some commenter to O'Reilly's show or website; it was O'Reilly himself who made these atrocious comments. This time, for once, he should be held responsible for them.
George Bush was on Fox News Channel the other day for another softball interview. Chris Wallace, who tried to go after Bill Clinton aggressively, of course gave Bush an enormous pass on some of the outrageous things he said. Most prominently, Bush charged Obama with wanting to "embrace" the leader of Iran and attack Pakistan. Watch it for yourself here:
Obama said he would go get Osama bin Laden, hopefully working with the Pakistani government. He didn't mention attacking Pakistan. He offered to do what Bush has not done and has said he has no interest in doing -- capturing Osama bin Laden. And for that Bush smears him and Chris Wallace lets him get away with it.
Look at how incredibly defensive Shep Smith gets in this interview with Naomi Wolf. They're scared that the rest of the media has finally caught on -- they don't do real news!
Brave New Films has a new video out about how Fox News Channel uses smut while pretending to fight against it. You can watch it here. I loved the Bill O'Reilly portion, where Bill pretends to be against a Paris Hilton commercial he must have fantasized about dozens of times:
Here is what the sexual harassment lawsuit against Bill O'Reilly charged. It's almost exactly what was happening in that Paris commercial, except with Bill O'Reilly narrating over a phone with his shorts around his ankles. How is that for a disturbing visual for the day? Sorry. But I'll stop judging O'Reilly the minute he stops judging the rest of us.
In case you want to watch the Paris Hilton commercial again without O'Reilly drooling all over it (or me, for that matter), here it is. I'm always looking out for my fellow man.
This has got to be one of the most annoying question and answer sessions in television history (the video below). Chris Wallace of Fox "News" Channel asks Nancy Pelosi if she prays for our troops to win. What a despicable question. This, of course, implies that people who don't agree with the president on Iraq -- which is 70% of the country -- want our soldiers to lose. Screw you, Chris Wallace. Apparently, it's Fox News and the people in the Bush administration who want our troops to lose because they put them in an unwinnable situation and insist on keeping them there.
None of these clown right-wingers could define victory in Iraq on a bet. The crazed right-wingers reading this right now are scrambling in their minds to try to figure out the definition right now. Tick, tock ... tick, tock ... do you have the answer yet ... tick, tock ... tick, tock ... here, I'll give you a couple of more minutes.
Is it when the Shiites win? Is it when the Sunnis win? What does it mean for the Iraqi central government to win? What if the local provinces in Iraq don't agree to be governed by the central government? What if the central government "wins" but then makes a deal with their natural allies in Iran? Then have "we" won? What if our troops win every battle but the Iraqis refuse to come to a political solution?
The only thing more annoying is Chris Wallace's follow up question on whether Nancy Pelosi prays for George Bush. Stop all this fake praying and do your job. All of these people, including Wallace and Pelosi and Bush, are the world's biggest posers. What has all this praying resulted in? An endless civil war in Iraq where hundreds of thousands have died already. Maybe if someone in the government actually thought out the issues instead of spending their whole day with senseless prayers, we could come up with logical policies instead. They all make me sick.
Fox News Channel aggressively pushed for the Iraq War. And they got it. Now, they are doing the same exact thing with the Iran War. See video below for indisputable evidence. The question is, will they get what they're looking for again? Will we have another war started by Fox News Channel?
Of course, Fox can't do it alone. But lucky for them, they don't have to. Joe Lieberman, well-placed neo-cons in think tanks throughout DC (like Michael O'Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack), Republicans in Congress and Dick Cheney are all working together to make this sick neo-con fantasy into a reality.
The question now is whether the rest of the media will be suckers enough to go along. You can see clear as day in the video above that Fox is following the same exact playbook they used to start a war with Iraq. But what helped tremendously that time was that the rest of the media bought it and actively helped them to promote it. So far, I haven't seen very much skepticism on the claims about Iran when I turn on TV, just like before the Iraq War.
After all of the hand wringing by the media about how they got it wrong in Iraq, I sure hope to God they aren't going to make the same exact mistake about Iran. So far, the signs are not encouraging. But Brave New Films, among others, are putting them on notice. Let's see, if they get it right this time.
I was on a press conference call this morning with Robert Greenwald of Brave New Films and Senator Bernie Sanders and Greenwald said that they have five more hours of footage just like this from just April of this year on. They out up an hour of it on their website. It's hard not to call Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes warmongers after seeing this footage. I wonder if they lose any sleep at all over the people killed in the senseless wars they start?
The things Bill O'Reilly says about Daily Kos are so irrational, it seems like no one can honestly believe it. Is he so dense that he doesn't understand that anyone can post a note or a picture on these open sites? Or does he know that obvious fact and he uses it for shameless propaganda anyway?
He seems to have no conscience. He seems completely unaffected by the gigantic hypocrisy that there are worse comments left on his own website and virtually every conservative website and blog in the country.
So, here's my question:
Okay, answer (c) is a little biased. But at least I am kidding around about it, whereas O'Reilly would have that as a serious option without a hint of irony. I will accept (c) answers to mean you disagree with me and agree with O'Reilly. Am I not merciful?
In this video you can see that O'Reilly clearly says that whatever is on your site represents you completely (longer version here). He smears Daily Kos by pretending that a few, random readers' comments represent the opinions of the people who run the blog. So, of course, we struck back.
We found plenty on O'Reilly's site that speaks very poorly of him. Watch the video below to see the heinous quotes that apparently O'Reilly agrees with -- hey, it's on his site!
Now, take a look at how Fox News Channel has attacked all progressive blogs. It's Propaganda 101. Notice how they have their news anchors also involved -- by asking "questions." It's their favorite trick. This is yet another reason why they are not a real news network.
