Just when you think that Fox News - and I'm talking the official "news" format - can't get any more absurd, along comes something so extraordinarily ridiculous that you just have to ask yourself "are they f**king kidding?!" Such was the case, on yesterday's America Live, when Martha MacCallum actually promoted, with a straight face, the notion that what's happening in Syria is a - wait for it - sign of the end times and the push for a radical Islamic caliphate. And this isn't the first time that this bullshit has been promoted. On Monday, Fox's Neil Cavuto credulously reacted to the "amazing" claims, by Christian Zionist apocalypse huckster, former assistant to Benjamin Netanyahu, and author, Joel Rosenberg, that what's happening in Syria could be a fulfillment of biblical prophesies about the end of days. But Cavuto's show is Fox "opinion" unlike MacCallum's show which is supposedly straight news - not religious broadcasting. Then again, Fox does know its demographics.

MacCallum asked her viewers to consider if the crisis in Syria "may be more than just a current foreign policy problem with some seeing signs of biblical prophecy of the apocalypse in events that are unfolding overseas. Passages in the Old Testament even make reference to Damascus falling ruin, sparking world wide conflict that some say leads to the coming of the Messiah." (Uh, Martha, Damascus was a city in a Middle East that was just as contentious, in biblical times, as it is now) The chyron, stated Fox fact: "Crisis in Syria and the Bible, Signs of Prophecies of the Apocalypse." 

She introduced her guest - wait for it - Joel Rosenberg as a "Middle East analyst" and author. (Rosenber has said that Jon Stewart is to blame for the Newtown shootings because he (and other evil Hollywood types) "have waged a cultural war against Jesus and Christmas"  and that Hurricane Sandy was punishment for America's acceptance of abortion. So we're talking some real credibility here...) Historian MacCallum said that "it's interesting to look at this from a historical, biblical [uh, Martha, the Bible isn't "historical"]...because what you have is a clash of civilizations, in a larger sense, and of Christianity and radical Islam [uh, Martha, the war in Syria is intra-Muslim] and this desire for a caliphate on the part of radical Islamists." She asked Rosenberg to "walk us through Isaiah."

Rosenberg said this is "fascinating," but that we can't be sure if what's happening is the fulfillment of bible prophesy which described "the catastrophic destruction of Damascus" in the end times. He noted that Damascus has been trashed a number of times throughout history. In advancing a Christian Zionist meme, he said that some end time prophecies have come true such as the prediction of the establishment of the state of Israel. He talked about how, in Jeremiah (not a bullfrog), the prophecy claimed that people will flee Damascus and now, Syrians are fleeing the country. After he asked, with a straight face, if a "judgment" of Damascus "for its evil" could be coming, he encouraged the audience to pray for the residents of Damascus. He asserted that "it is possible because those prophecies have not yet been fulfilled."  (So we don't know if the prophecies will come true but it's possible because they haven't happened? WTF???)

He pimped his new book, "Damascus Countdown" which is about "how it could happen" but "we don't know for sure that it will happen." He quoted Isaiah which referenced a civil war and "the rise of a fierce king" whom he couldn't identify; but then cautioned "not to overreach" on interpretation of bible prophesies. He again referenced how Jews, as was prophesied, are returning to Israel and that "causes skeptics to say maybe the other things the bible says will happen in the future, possibly even in our lifetime."

MacCallum who, like Cavuto, is a member of the Catholic Church which isn't exactly into end times eschatology, opined that "it's got a lot of people thinking" and "people are looking at the big historic and biblical picture and where all of these pieces might fit in..."

Revelation says "And upon her forehead was a name written a mystery: Babylon The Great, the mother of harlots and abominations of the Earth." Hmmm... Babylon. Could this be NY City? Harlots and Abominations...hmmm...Could this be Fox News!