On yesterday’s Your World, Barry Hinckley, a Republican U.S. Senate candidate in Rhode Island, appeared with his five-year old son, Hudson, to talk about Hudson's appearance in a campaign commercial for his dad. Naturally, the commercial was played at the beginning of the segment. Hudson was seen showing charts of the national debt and unemployment rising since he was born. "Our nations' problems are so simple apparently even a five-year old can spell it out for us," Cavuto said admiringly. Clearly, Hinckley was hoping to pimp his son for the sake of his candidacy. But how far did he go and how far is too far? Oddly, when Cavuto asked little Hudson questions, his father mouthed many of the answers as the child spoke. When Papa Hinckley didn’t, the son went off script.

As reported in the Rolling Stone article about Roger Ailes, Fox & Friends is "the morning happy-talk show that Ailes uses as one of his primary vehicles to inject his venom into the media bloodstream." As such, the show is a vehicle for whatever right wing memes need reinforcing. The hottest right wing meme in town is that the HHS contraception mandate is not a war on women, despite their use of contraceptive, but a war on religion - a position that is being promoted by the US Council of Catholic bishops and is being reinforced by what appears to be the bishops's personal program, Fox & Friends, which has done at least nine segments in total support of the bishops. Today, Ailes' "attack poodle," Steve Doocy (one of many conservative Catholics in Ailes' stable) articluated this meme during his interview with the right wing authors of a book about how the evil liberals are pushing around conservatives which speaks to another popular Fox meme about  conservative victimization which, as Jon Stewart notes, is the "true genius" of Fox News.

In addition to being the mouthpiece for the US Council of Catholic Bishops, Fox's Peter Johnson Jr., also shills for the religious right which always has warm, Christian fellowship on Fox & Friends. The church of the perpetually victimized Christians (are there any other kinds nowadays?) are frequent guests on America's favorite morning chat show which never wastes an opportunity to promote what's hot in the world of Christian grievances (and they are legion). This morning, in what appears to be another iteration of Peter Johnson Jr's "Prescription" series, Johnson (not a doctor) editorialized on another Christian grievance which has been uncovered by Fox radio's intrepidChristian culture clubber, Todd Starnes who is on a mission from God to ferret out all the affronts to Christians by the forces of satanic secularism and, of course evil atheists. In this case (also covered on the very Christian Fox Nation), it's the requirement, by the U of North Carolina-Greensboro, that a Christian club must allow students with other beliefs to become members and leaders in order to get formal group accreditation from the school. But not to worry cuz Peter Johnson Jr has their back in this Fox enabled "controversy."

The Andrew Breitbart lionizing on Fox News probably reached its peak on the Hannity show last night. Sean Hannity and Monica Crowley didn’t just speak adoringly of Breitbart, FoxNews.com joined in the exaltation, too.  FoxNews.com’s logo says, “fair and balanced,” so presumably it is not part of the network’s “opinion” programming. Yet their internet video of the segment is called, Andrew Breitbart: A fearless, conservative leader. The video has the subtitle, “new media pioneer leaves behind a legacy of courageous reporting.” But given Breitbart’s record of lies, dissembling, unhinged rants and on-air threats, you have to wonder, what on earth did Fox News find “courageous” about this guy?

Andrew Breitbart may be dead but his race-baiting, hate mongering lives on. Last night, during a Hannity segment about Breitbart’s life and death, guest Stephen Bannon (the director of the flop The Undefeated) announced that Breitbart’s tapes of President Obama at Harvard will soon be released showing, as Breitbart recently said, “why racial division and class warfare are central to what hope and change was sold in 2008.” 

There is no denying that Andrew Breitbart was “a force of nature,” as The Five’s Greg Gutfeld makes clear in today’s eulogy.  There’s also no denying that his legacy will be mixed, as Ellen makes clear.  However, the Fox "News" sanitization of Breitbart's record continued unabated during The Five.  It’s expected that Gutfeld, Eric Bolling, Dana Perino and Kimberly Guilfoyle would lionize Breitbart.  However, one would have hoped that Bob Beckel would not have jumped on the “What a great guy is Breitbart Bandwagon.”  Except for a brief mention of Shirley Sherrod, Beckel wanted to share how much fun it was to get drunk with Andrew Breitbart.  Video below.

In a never-ending conspiracy to mess with my sleep patterns, Fox “News” has decided to tack on another hour of live programming to the beginning of Fox and Friends.  Beginning Monday Fox and Friends First will be the table setter for Fox "News" memes, starting 5AM EST.  It’s like a prequel with the web only After The Show Show the sequel.  According to an exclusive report at The Hollywood Reporter:

In the war on women's reproductive rights, the newest strategy is slut shaming women who advocate for access to contraception. Included in this vilification of those who dare oppose the Catholic Church's and the GOP's position is Sandra Fluke, the Georgetown University law student who was denied the opportunity to testify before GOP Congressman Darrell Issa's congressional panel on the HHS contraceptive mandate. Issa's initial all anti-choice male panel created controversy that was fueled by his rejection of Fluke on the grounds that the issue is about "freedom of religion" and not about contraception which really is the crux of the issue. Fluke eventually testified before a group of Democrats. Alleged Fox "news" anchor, Megyn Kelly, reported on Fluke's testimony. But rather than provide "fair & balanced" coverage, including mention of Fluke's testimony regarding a fellow Georgetown student who lost an ovary because of the school's health care policy, Kelly mocked her commentary on the expense of contraception. It was also suggested that Fluke, a proponent of reproductive rights, was agenda driven. Worst of all, she and Trace Gallagher had a good chuckle about unnamed critics of Fluke who suggest, as does the multi-married and still childless *Rush Limbaugh, that Ms. Fluke and her fellow female Georgetown students are a bunch of sex crazed sluts. 

It’s never a happy occasion when someone dies and Andrew Breitbart’s sudden, shocking death at age 43 is no exception, especially for those friends and family who cared for and about him. However, it’s also no reason for an "objective news" program to whitewash a very controversial record that included promoting fraudulent videos about political foes, publicly blackmailing the President of the United States and unhinged hate mongering against liberals. Well, it’s not an occasion to whitewash unless you’re “fair and balanced” Fox News. Because “objective” host Martha MacCallum listened attentively and without offering any fuller context as Sean Hannity lionized Breitbart as some kind of conservative hero – other than to add her own supportive comments.

Andrew Breitbart, the controversial  conservative commentator and self-styled investigative journalist,  has died of natural causes at the age of 43 according to media reports taken from his websites.  We wish to extend our sincere condolences to his family and all who loved him.

Breitbart was behind the discredited  Acorn Pimp'n'Ho sting, the Shirley Sherrod controversy, and "leaking" a photo  of former Rep. Anthony Weiner's penis, among other things, and was a frequent guest on Fox News Channel. Updates and commenting guidelines after the jump.