Herman Cain appeared on the Hannity show Wednesday night (1/4/12) where he announced his latest venture: Cain’s Solutions Revolution, supposedly to answer the call to “Keep 9-9-9 alive.” There's a bus - “with my picture on it!” Cain boasted. According to Politico, there’s going to be a bus tour, too. But Sean Hannity, who pretended to be excitedly awaiting disclosure of Cain’s big announcement – and later let slip he knew about it all along – never got around to discussing that. Nor did Cain. The fact is that this new project looks like it's far more about Cain than 9-9-9 or anything else.

On yesterday’s Your World (1/3/12), Senator John Thune (R-SD) discussed his campaigning in Iowa for Mitt Romney. During the interview, host Neil Cavuto “asked, “ "Now early on you were for Mitt Romney, in fact I think sooner than Governor Christie in New Jersey, but Governor Christie gets a lot of the press and the attention. No offense to you Senator, you’re a wonderful man and a wonderful Senator, but you do not. Does that bother you?"

It speaks volumes about Fox News and its leading show, The O’Reilly Factor, that it discussed a potential military conflict with Iran with political pundit Charles Krauthammer rather than a military expert on Monday night (1/2/12). I’ve got a lot of respect for Krauthammer who, admittedly, has a lot of foreign policy cred. But neither he nor Bill O’Reilly have ever served in the military. And they were each cheerleaders for the Iraq war. So I got more than a little queasy watching these two argue that the U.S. should up its bellicosity with Iran because even if it does lead to war, we win.

When professional "Christians" whine about how they are being unfairly maligned, they really need to do an "examination of conscience" or at least look at the comments, from their fellow Jesus' BFF's on Fox Nation which, like Fox News, is a "Christian" Nation. And nothing gets the "Christian" dander up, at both Fox News and Fox Nation, than any lampooning directed towards Tim Tebow who has attained godlike status on Fox. And now that Bill Maher ("Pig Maher" as he's known on Fox Nation) has had the audacity to skewer Jesus' brother by another mother, he has, once again, earned the wrath of Fox Nation, a blog which is renowned for his commitment to tolerance. And once again, Fox is reinforcing the whines of "Christian" victimhood and making Tebow, if not actually a god, a martyr to the cause of persecuted "Christians" and as Jon Stewart wisely said, "conservative victimization is the true genius of what Fox News has accomplished."

What are you guys watching on television? I'm watching Fox, of course. I think the coverage can best be described as subdued. Anyone see President Obama's teleconference call? Share your thoughts, observations and comments!

For propaganda to be effective it should be reinforced. Thus, when Fox "News" gets a juicy right wing "outrage," it reinforces it throughout the show and on into other shows. A recent cause of agita, in the Christian right, is the claim that the Girls Scouts are being corrupted by librul indoctrination. Much of their indignation centers on Girl Scout sex education programs which are done in conjunction with the Christian right's major bête noire, Planned Parenthood, along with Girl Scout awards to groups and women who support AIDS education and international family planning. Think Hillary Clinton. But when a Girl Scouts publication recently sourced Media Matters (a major Fox bête noire), the right wing went wild and Fox News did its part to aid and abet by setting the "outrage" and then reinforcing it. Media Matters provides a detailed overview of this vilification of the Girl Scouts. As communication of a right wing meme and an attack on Fox's public enemy number one, it was vintage Fox hypocrisy and agitprop at its finest. 

If you’re a Republican in trouble, there’s no better friend in the media than Sean Hannity. Last night (1/2/11), Hannity didn’t just provide a friendly platform for Newt Gingrich’s sinking presidential campaign, Hannity helped build the staging, too.

Rick Perry visited On The Record last night (1/2/12) where host Greta Van Susteren asked pretty good, tough questions. One unintentionally hilarious exchange occurred when Van Susteren challenged Perry about an attack ad that asked about his “friend,” Rick Santorum, “Why are these pigs so happy?”

During this morning's Fox & Friends happy chat session with former senator and presidential candidate, Rick Santorum, it was mentioned that the fecund Duggar family have endorsed Santorum. When a photo of the Duggar tribe was shown, Steve Doocy quipped, to Santorum, "There's 19 votes for ya." But as far as I know, those under 18 aren't allowed to vote. As such, there are only 6 votes for Santorum if you count both parents along with the 4 children who are eligible to vote in the Iowa Caucuses. Not for nothing does Steve Doocy have the reputation as a true wall of genius!

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