On America’s Newsroom this morning, Bill Hemmer played a clip of what he said would be Mitt Romney talking about his best friend. He went on to play a clip of Romney talking about President Barack Obama. “My mistake," Hemmer said. "I thought that was about Ann Romney. Clearly, that was about Barack Obama who is not his best friend.” This comes less than a week after a Fox News graphic put a photo of Obama in Romney’s place in a lineup of GOP presidential candidates.” Oops.

Despite the "commandment" about not having "strange gods," the good Fox News Christians have deified Tim Tebow and anyone who dares to invoke the name of Tim Tebow in a less than reverential tone will be hauled before the Fox News Inquisition that, on Sundays, includes, appropriately, Fox News' official clergy person who is a Roman Catholic priest. And given the nature of the historical Inquisition it was only fitting that Foxpriest Fr. Jonathan Morris and the Sunday "friends" pillory a rabbi who wrote an article which used the new right wing savior, Tim Tebow, as a focal point to talk about the dangers of religious certainty vis-a-vis the Christian right. He didn't diss Tebow but you wouldn't have known that from the conversation on the curvy couch. The original article, which was misrepresented on Fox Nation, has been removed, most likely as a result of anti-Semitic comments, from Jewish Week Online. Thanks to Fox & Friends & their priest, there'll probably be lots more of those, praise Tim Tebow!

It seems the American Heritage Dictionary had the audacity to revise its definition of the term “anchor baby” by labeling it as “offensive” and “disparaging” and that, according to Fox News, “is an attempt to manipulate the ‘linguistic landscape’ and push a leftist agenda, some opponents of illegal immigration say.” H/T Chris S

On Hannity Friday night (12/16/11), Fox News’ “Democratic” contributor, Pat Caddell, earned his Fox News Christmas bonus. He can be counted on to criticize Democrats and President Obama during Fox News appearances all year. But this time, Caddell went the extra mile and interrupted his own commentary about a completely different subject – the Republican candidates’ debate the night before –  in order to declare that Obama’s Chief of Staff and national security head should be arrested. He didn’t explain why nor did guest host Monica Crowley find it necessary to ask for anything like a good cause for such a drastic action. Meanwhile, nobody even mentioned – much less objected to –  the actual criminal history of Buddy Cianci, sitting next to Caddell, right there on the panel. Cianci, of course, was given all the respect Obama wasn’t.

The straw that broke the House of Murdoch may be at hand in the form of a 2008 email James Murdoch acknowledges having received but claims not to have read. The email warned of a “nightmare scenario” facing the Murdoch family's News of the World tabloid because of evidence that more than one reporter had engaged in phone hacking. Throughout the scandal, Murdoch has maintained that he thought it was the work of one rogue reporter until much later. Now, when faced with undeniable evidence he was given information to the contrary much earlier, he claims not to have read that part of the email.

I’ve posted a lot recently about Fox News’ preferential treatment toward Newt Gingrich and backhanded treatment of Mitt Romney. For some reason – and I don’t have any theories why – Fox has been in a pro-Romney mode this week. I’ve posted about Sean Hannity helping to spin Romney’s $10,000 bet and hosting Christine “I’m not a witch” O’Donnell for a special segment announcing her endorsement of Romney. Yesterday, South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley went on Fox & Friends to announce her endorsement of Romney.  That night, she returned for a segment on On The Record to further discuss her endorsement. That, plus the anti-Gingrich segments I’ve noted lately adds up to Fox either hedging its bets or falling in line with the Republican conventional wisdom that Romney is the one likeliest to beat President Obama. Or maybe it’s just more disarray in the GOP. 

Some things never change. Along with the omnipresent schmaltzy Christmas musak and tacky Christmas tchotchkes that assault our auditory and visual senses, these same senses are annually assaulted by Fox News patented "war on Christmas." As Fox is also at war with atheists, tis the season for Fox to showcase how those atheistic forces of evil are assaulting Christian Christmas traditions so beloved to those Fox fans whose idea of Christian/Christmas cheer is to assault those whose beliefs are different from Jesus' BFF's. As I reported earlier, Fox alleged "news" person, Megyn Kelly is none to happy about this. And on Thursday, she did a little more whining about those who are making her Christmas a little less bright.

Ranker put together a list of the top ten Fox News fails of 2011. We covered most, if not all of them: Fox News mistaking Tina Fey for Sarah Palin; Bill O'Reilly's claim that the oceans' tides are "proof" that God exists; and a study showing how shockingly uninformed Fox News viewers are (our link is not working at the moment). Even so, it's a fun walk down not-so-happy memory lane. Have a good laugh at Fox's expense here.

Maybe they’re just tired of yelling at each other, but the introduction of Donald Trump as a phone-in guest on The Five is just another example of a show devoid of original ideas.  Two reasons: Trump’s all over the network already and phone interviews work really well on radio, but tee vee?  Not so much, so why devote two whole segments to bad tee vee?  The Five predictably sucked up to The Donald—even Bob Beckel—and the love affair was mutual; Trump’s opening bid was, “I have to admit it, you have a great show.”  It was after all the hugs and kisses when The Five allowed Trump to go full-bore Birther.  View the clip below.