Underscoring the close (but strictly chaste and very heterosexual) relationship that the Fox News network has with Brent Bozell's right wing media watchdog group, "Newsbusters," Steve Doocy, on yesterday's Fox & Friends, promoted a Newsbusters video that, according to a Newsbusters headline, "will make liberals heads explode." (Doocy committed the most mortal of Newsbusters sins and didn't identify the political leaning of the website!) A portion of the Newsbusters clip was shown from the Piers Morgan interview with the Buddhist holy man. But the thing is that what wasn't shown was actually something with which liberals might agree. And what wasn't shown wasn't detailed except in the context of dissing Morgan and revising past history. Once again, Fox & Friends lives up to its reputation as "the morning happy-talk show that Ailes uses as one of his primary vehicles to inject his venom into the media bloodstream."

We haven't posted about this previously but there's been a bit of a to-do between UC Berkeley professor and former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich and Bill O'Reilly. Recently, O'Reilly called Reich a communist who "secretly adores Karl Marx." Reich took exception to the accusation, saying, “Ordinarily I don’t bother repeating anything Bill O’Reilly says... But this particular whopper is significant because it represents what O’Reilly and Fox News, among others, are doing to the national dialogue. They’re burying it in doo-doo.” O'Reilly now claims he was joking when he said it. Reich has challenged O'Reilly to a debate and, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, has yet to receive a response. (h/t Jim T.)

While Fox News has made a cottage industry of the so called, "war on Christmas," they are engaging in their very own war against atheists. Given that the Christian right hates atheism, it's not surprising that Jesus' very own "news" network's utilizes Jesus' very own BFF's on Jesus' very own morning show,Fox & Friends, to reinforce the message that evil atheists are out to destroy Jesus' very own nation. The patented fear of atheist card is trump in the Fox & Friends deck. We've been told that atheists could take over Christian groups at Vanderbilt U. We've been warned that atheist highway and bus signs are "a war on God." And when atheist groups go after Christian crosses on public lands, the morning Christian soldiers unsheathe their vorpal swords. This morning, Steve Doocy spoke with the homophobic, disgraced former military chaplain Gordon Klingenschmitt about how atheists have forced the Air Force to remove bibles from the checklist of hospitality requirements for Air Force Inn lodging suites. I was hoping that Klingenschmitt would talk about his exorcism of a gay woman soldier who was raped. He didn't. Bummer.

In his weekly Watters World segment on The O’Reilly Factor, ambusher and Fox Nation editor Jesse Watters aired a video chronicling his visit to Green Festival in New York City.  It just so happened that Fox’s favorite African American target (after Barack Obama and Louis Farrakhan), Van Jones was there. Watters ambushed Jones, got some video of their chat, and was booted from the convention. Back in the studio, Watters insisted to a skeptical Bill O’Reilly that Jones had said “Republicans want to poison children” and that it’s on tape. And yet, somehow that didn’t make it into the video.

Steve Doocy got the Stephen Colbert treatment for misquoting President Obama's "I wasn't born with a silver spoon in my mouth" remark as a direct dig at Mitt Romney - and then using that misquote to engender a retort from Romney. Considering Doocy's weaselly "clarification," I can't think of anyone more deserving. 

Because, as Jon Stewart wisely said, "conservative victimization" is the "true genius" of Fox News, the "fair & balanced" network is always ready to throw a pity party for these "victims." The party is really rocking if Fox can combine whatever grievance is being peddled with popular Fox memes relating to groups not popular in Foxworld - such as the evil, librul mainstream media. Every year, after the annual pro-life Washington DC march, those who seek to put American women in the express lane back to the dark ages support "life" whine about how the mainstream press doesn't give them the proper respect. Every year, Brent Bozell's anti-choice crusaders against librul media bias do an article about this travesty on Newsbusters. This year, alleged news anchor Bret Baier, sourced from this partisan site in a "news" item about how the marchers were ignored by the evil, librul press. It's been several months since the march but, whoops, Baier might have done it again!

With two Democrats on Hannity’s Great American Panel Monday night (4/23/12) – each of whom are seasoned Fox News guests - you’d think that at least one of them might have figured out that when Hannity attacked the NAACP for kicking out Allen West, defending the NAACP – instead of questioning why anyone would align themselves with such an unhinged hate monger as West – legitimized Hannity's "issue" and ultimately played right into his hands. Panelist Bob Beckel is on the Fox News staff so we get why he would go along with the agenda. But what’s “Democratic strategist” Penny Lee’s excuse?

If there's any doubt that Fox & Friends is a conduit for GOP talking points, look no further than "melancholy cornhusk" Gretchen Carlson who, this morning, advanced the GOP and Mitt Romney whopper (Don't know if it was pink but it sure was slimey!) regarding a mythical President Obama "apology tour." In previewing an upcoming segment, Gretch quipped that "saying sorry, not the hardest part for President Obama." An "Al Arabiya" clip (not so subliminal reminder of the GOP myth of Obama's allegiance to Islam?) was shown in which Obama commented that "all too often the United States starts by dictating." Obama was referring, at the beginning of his presidency, to his intention of sending former US Senator George Mitchell to the Middle East in order to reach out to Arab leaders, many of whom were unhappy about the US invasion ofIraq. The Foxies didn't include the first part of the sentence, "What I told him is to start by listening." After the clip, Gretch said "remember the president's big apology tour?" She contrasted that with Mitt Romney's promise to never apologize. Hey Gretch, yer pants are burning!

We previously posted about how Steve Doocy had falsely quoted President Obama’s “I wasn’t born with a silver spoon” remark as "Unlike some people, I wasn't born with a silver spoon in my mouth." That, of course, made it sound as though Obama had taken a direct dig at Mitt Romney. The same misquote was then repeated by the Washington Post (later corrected) and Fox's sister media company, the NY Post. Yesterday, Doocy “clarified” his statement – and pretended he had correctly paraphrased Obama and then been misunderstood. He also failed to mention what the misquote confusion had been.

On Special Report Friday night (4/20/12), the first lightning round topic was the budget. Bret Baier said to Charles Krauthammer, "There’s no budget on the Senate side." Well, not exactly. As Sen. Kent Conrad, Chairman of the Budget Committee said in his floor speech on March 20, 2012, “I want to emphasize for my colleagues that we do have a budget. Those who continue to claim we do not have a budget are either unaware of what they voted on last year or are seeking to deliberately mislead the public.”