On Fox News, there are some certainties. Along with personal attacks and dubious "truthiness," Bill O'Reilly's "The Factor" includes a hefty diet of smears of the "far left" and the mainstream media which is accused of being biased. (Oh, the Irony!). Bill might be on vacay, but his sub, Laura Ingraham has no problems promoting the standard memes such as she did last night when she accused the far left and the mainstream media of attacking Mitt Romney's Mormonism. There is more irony in that Fox News has hosted a Texas pastor, Robert Jeffress, who once said that evangelicals won't vote for Romney because he is a Mormon cult member. Fox's Mike Huckabee suggested that Romney might believe that the devil and Jesus are brothers. But all that is behind us now that the right is united in its efforts to defeat the anti-Christ Obama. And part of that effort now includes charges that the "far left" is bigoted - a charge being made by the not so tolerant Laura Ingraham on a network that has no problems with a guest who says that Islam is a "radical, savage religion." On, the Irony?!
Ingraham, who was wearing her great big cross because she's a great big Catholic, began by stating, as Fox fact, that media bias helped Obama win in 2008. Of course, she didn't mention Fox's ongoing media bias in support of GOP candidates. She accused "Obama's biggest supporters" of being "poised to attack" Romney's Mormonism. As evidence she noted that a major TV network will be airing a special on Mormons in which the theology will be discussed by members and former members. Using air quotes for "news network" (oh, the irony!) she stated that another news network "raised the question of whether Romney might take orders" from the President of the Mormon Church." Using an oh, so clever play on words, she described how "this latter day feeding frenzy stands in stark contrast to the media's hands off approach to the Jeremiah Wright story."
Stop right there - if ya wanna talk "feeding frenzy" ya might consider how the "fair & balanced" Fox "news" channel ran the Jeremiah Wright "god damn America" video on a seeming 24 hour loop. Ingraham proceeded to engage in a mini feeding frenzy when she claimed that most reporters considered the "inflammatory, anti-American comments made by Obama's pastor of 20 years to be irrelevent and intolerant." She claimed that, with regard to Wright, the media thought it "unseemly" to "pry into" the religious beliefs of candidates and asked why there is now an interest in Romney's Mormonism.
She wore a nasty, shit eating grin as she introduced video of author Ed Klein who, earlier this year, suggested that Obama is a Muslim and admitted that he used dishonest tactics in a Jeremiah Wright interview. According to the Washington Post, Klein's journalism has prompted "questions about sourcing, accuracy and intent." They also note that his new hit piece on Obama ("The Amateur"), published by right wing Regnery Press and pushed by Matt Drudge, "contains scenes that did not occur or were vastly misconstrued" according to those present. So it's no surprise that Laura Ingraham, a right wing partisan, would use "pseudo journalist" Klein to support her partisan screed.
She then showed video of Klein's interview with Fox's Business' Lou Dobbs in which Klein accused the Obama campaign of organizing an attempt to inform the evangelical community about Mormonism in order to suppress that vote. In validating Klein's unfounded accusation, she sardonically remarked that she thought Democrats were trying to stop voter suppression or "is it just a problem when the voters were Democrats." (Uh, Laura, there is strong evidence that voter suppression is targeted against minority communities. Klien's "evidence" of evangelical suppression? Not so much!)
Her comment that "any attempt to stoke the flames of religious bigotry should be condemned" is laughable given that she's saying it on a network that constantly attacked Obama vis-à-vis Rev. Wright and continues to criticize Obama for not being sufficiently Christian. Fox has also had a major role in feeding the myth that he is a Muslim - a myth that feeds into right wing anti-Muslim bigotry which is a speciality of Fox News.
So there you have it. In addition to unsourced suggestions of anti-Mormon bigotry on the part of unnamed news networks and unnamed shows, Ingraham brings in a discredited journalist's unsubstantiated allegations of anti-Mormon activity on the part of the Obama campaign. And that, as was said in the classic, "Plan 9 From Outer Space," proves it! Good thing "Big Love" ended a couple of years ago cuz that would be seen as part of the librul plot.