Dick Morris has a new Clinton conspiracy theory. This one “explains” why Bill Clinton is campaigning for Barack Obama’s re-election despite the fact that Morris has “heard” Clinton will vote for Mitt Romney: Because Hillary Clinton is “under lock and key” as Secretary of State and if he doesn’t campaign for Obama, Clinton could be blamed for the loss.

Although Roger Ailes is not a Catholic, he appears to have put his "news" channel at the service of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops who have their Roman collars in a knot about the Obama administration's birth control mandate. Starting next year, religious institutions which are not exclusively for the promotion of Catholic dogma (colleges, hospitals, Catholic Charities) will be subject to the requirement that their female workers and students receive free birth control in their health plans. While some of these institutions already provide free birth control and Viagra, the bishops claim that the mandate violates core Catholic teachings. Enter, stage right, Fox News which has provided ongoing validation for the concerns of the Catholic men in black. Such was the case on yesterday's alleged "news" show, America's Newsroom, during which head of the ladies auxiliary of the American Taliban "Concerned Women for America," Penny Nance, was had a case of her trademark right wing vapors over this mandate and in so doing advanced trademark right wing zombie lies one of which is the claim that the mandate includes abortion drugs - a claim that is also advanced on "fair & balanced" Fox.

On Tuesday’s The Five (7/31/12), Bob Beckel called out the “flat-out lie” that Fox was airing about President Obama.

As the mouthpiece for the anti-choice right wing and the American Catholic bishops, the "fair & balanced" Fox News network is the go-to network for the movement that seeks to take America back to the days of back alley abortions. Be it Bill O'Reilly's holy war against an abortion provider who was later murdered, validation for Lila Rose's bogus anti-Planned Parenthood sting videos, or Peter Johnson Jr's weekly denunciations of the Obama administration's birth control mandate, Fox is always available for the promotion of pro-life talking points while Planned Parenthood president, Cecile Richards is nowhere to be seen. And despite an historic number of recent laws which prohibit abortions even in cases of rape and incest and attempts by the GOP led House to de-fund Planned Parenthood, Fox News has advanced the right wing meme that there is no "war on women." On last week's "America Live" alleged "news" anchor Megyn Kelly combined the meme that there's no war on women with a healthy dose of pro-life lies that, ironically, underscore a very real effort to roll reproductive rights back to the dark ages and, as said on "Jezebel," make it "scary to have lady parts."

Sean Hannity hosted Senator John McCain tonight - mostly to attack President Obama over pending cuts to the military and layoffs in military contract firms. But while he was at it, Hannity asked McCain to comment on Dick Cheney’s recent remarks about Sarah Palin. Cheney had said that McCain made a mistake in picking Sarah Palin as a running mate because she was not “ready to take over.” McCain responded that he “appreciated” what Palin did for the party and the ticket. But he never argued that she was either qualified or even a good choice. Afterward, Hannity spun the recent contretemps between the Romney campaign and the press by disingenuously conflating it with President Obama’s tart response to an unprofessional Daily Caller reporter who interrupted him with hostile questions during a presidential statement.

Yes, Part 2 of Greta Van Susteren’s Middle East interview with Mitt Romney did air last night as promised, but it barely got a mention on the Fox News Web site. No way could it compete with Sarah Palin, Republican infighting and the symbolic significance of fast-food chicken. Last night on On the Record, Palin had plenty to say about people who are calling for a Chick-Fil-A boycott, and about Dick Cheney’s comment that she hadn’t been a good choice for vice-presidential candidate in 2008.

On the July 27, 2012 Your World, Neil Cavuto played a clip of Rep. Mike Kelly (R-PA) giving an anti-big government speech on the House floor - where he got a standing ovation afterward. Cavuto gushed. "Man, oh man, I think a star was just born there."

Fox doesn't seem to want to spend much time discussing the fact that neither George W. Bush nor Dick Cheney will be attending the 2012 Republican Convention. But they've got a big interest in Bill Clinton going to the Democratic Convention - and in concert with the Mitt Romney campaign, they've pronounced the decision to give Clinton a big role "a sign of weakness." 

Greta Van Susteren and Mitt Romney conducted their interview on a flower-decked balcony against a background of palm trees and white houses sparkling on a hill. That was the high point. Despite some unusually probing questions from Van Susteren, the candidate spent the first part of his On the Record interview saying the sum total of nothing.

Color me surprised to see that Greta Van Susteren is openly expressing displeasure with Mitt Romney’s inaccessibility to the press during his trip abroad. In a blog post yesterday, she complained that being in the press was like  being in a “modified petting zoo.” (H/T Huffingston Post)