Sean Hannity’s all-male religious panel got its just rewards on The Daily Show last night.  As usual, Jon Stewart struck right at the heart of what was wrong with Hannity’s picture – not the opposition to Obama's contraception mandate, per se, but to the self-aggrandizing holy war that Hannity and his like-minded crusaders tried to make out of it. “I gotta hand it to these guys on imagination," Stewart said. "First, wine becomes blood, then insurance reform becomes war."

Last night’s Hannity discussion about Nicki Minaj’s performance at the Grammy’s was proof positive that Fox News will use ANYTHING as an excuse to attack President Obama. Guest Deneen Borelli suggested that Minaj’s “assault” on the Catholic Church was merely following the example set by President Obama with his contraception mandate.

This just in. The very fecund Mr. and Mrs. Duggar, after praying about it, endorsed Rick Santorum. The told the smiling and giggling gang on the curvy couch that they think Santorum is awesome because he promotes "family values" and "lives within a budget" just like they do. It's a complex world! (Video below the fold)

Religious opposition to the HHS contraceptive mandate is not universal. The decision has been praised by clergy who support women's reproductive rights, such as the Episcopal Church, the UCC, and non Orthodox Jews. But you didn't see any of these faiths in the audience for Sean Hannity's all male conclave of right wing clergy who oppose the HHS mandate, as well as women's reproductive rights in general. In addition to the clergy, including Roger Ailes' personal house priest, Fr. Jonathan Morris, the Fox anointed Catholic leader, the  homophobic, anti-Semitic, and blamer of victims of pedophile priests, Bill Donohue was present to do his usual incoherent braying. When Hannity asked how many of the clergy would disobey the HHS policy, all but one of the guys raised their hand. Not only did Fr. Morris raise his hand; but he said that clergy should be "ready to die" for this issue. While all this sound oh, so butch and brave, it turns out that Morris' (and many of the other clergy) really don't have anything to protest about and in Morris' case, he's been strangely silent about things in his hood.

What a difference a network makes. Last week, the Morning Joe crew interviewed Washington DC's Cardinal Wuerl about the HHS mandate. They treated him as they would any guest - with polite but hardball questions. Contrast this treatment with yesterday's interview of the Cardinal by official "news" person Martha MacCallum. While she did ask one pertinent question that was also asked on MJ, she also agreed with everything the cardinal said - unlike those on MJ who rebutted a number of the same points made, on America's Newsroom, by this "prince" of the Catholic Church whose ring was figuratively kissed by the Catholic Martha MacCallum. I'm sure the Cardinal enjoys being on the "fair & balanced" Fox "News."

Brad Stine, fresh from his appearance at CPAC [all 15 minutes of which can be found here, if you like your comedy unfunny] made his weekly appearance on Fox and Friends.  Readers would be right to suspect he’d disappeared from the Fox and Friends rotation, since his last several appearances have not been documented by News Hounds.  No, he simply had nothing new to say and started to repeat himself.  That messed with my perfectly crafted conceit that former-carney Stine was an expert on everything, because that’s how the Curvy Couch seemed to use him.  It turns out that Stine is a maven on two things only: “Wussification” and “Political Correctness.”  No matter the topic, Stine is able to twist his response into some variation of “The Politically Correct Wussification of [fill in the blank].”  Wash, rinse, and repeat—like all the best propaganda. This week Stine didn’t disappoint in that regard, the jumping off point being teachers’ unions and so-called rubber rooms. 

Fox News contributor Liz Trotta appeared on America’s News HQ on Sunday (2/12/12) and suggested that if women want to serve in the military they should expect to be raped and not make a big deal out of it. Even Host Eric Shawn seemed to be offended by her.

Bill O’Reilly as good as admitted last night that Fox News’ war on President Obama’s contraception has failed. He noted that cable news ratings on the segments were “not good” and that Obama’s approval rating is “holding steady at 50%” despite “getting hammered by the Catholic Church and Republicans over the contraception situation.” O’Reilly asked, “Did the controversy hurt the president at all?” In a word, no. So O’Reilly attacked the contraception mandate as some kind of welfare for women.

Given its discussion of the HHS mandate, Fox News appears to be the mouthpiece for the US Council of Catholic Bishops, of which Fox pal, the conservative NY Archbishop Timothy Dolan, is the head, Fox News has been very dutiful in articulating, through many of its hosts and guests, the talking points of the Catholic Church. Not surprisingly, the one true clergy person from the one true Fox church, Fr. Jonathan Morris, is continues to use his Fox Sunday pulpit to preach the bishops' talking points. He also articulated the same points on Hannity's show which was a venue for right wing males, some of them clergy, to express their anger at the Obama administration over this issue. Despite the approval of the Catholic Hospital Association's Sister Carol Keehan, who said that the HHS "accommodation" is "sensible and solid," the bishops ain't happy and when the bishops ain't happy, neither is Fox. But gloria in excelsis dei, Fr. Jonathan Morris is there to sort it all out for us.

Recently, alleged straight news host Bill Hemmer interviewed the head of the Congressional Prayer Caucus, GOP Rep. Randy Forbes about how the military is waging war on Christianity. The reality is that many military Christians are attempting to impose their brand of evangelical Christianity on those whose beliefs are different - but you probably won't see Michael Weinstein, from the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, on Fox News anytime soon. Anyway, at the end of the piece, Bill Hemmer gushed to Rep. Forbes that he wanted to make his audience aware that Forbes "introduced a piece of legislation to get the National Motto to read 'In God We Trust'." I don't know if this comment was the result of plain, old misinformation or if Hemmer, one of many committed Christians in Ailes' stable, was deliberately lying in order to pander to Forbes - cuz what Hemmer said isn't true.