Sean Hannity was predictably agog over Donald Trump’s latest birther stunt – offering $5 million to the charity of President Obama’s choice if he releases his college transcripts, application and passport application. And just like he did in the Trump’s last birther lap, Hannity pretended Trump was raising legitimate, un-birther questions that President Obama should answer in the name of transparency. Then Hannity and Guilfoyle used Obama's expected failure to respond as yet another reason to attack him. For this alone, Hannity and Guilfoyle should be fired and thrown off the air for good. But we know they won't be.

On Saturday’s Forbes on Fox (10/20/12), the topic was nominally why gas prices are spiking. But as usual, the real purpose was to blame President Obama, this time because of his “green energy push.”

While the right wing and its mouthpiece, Fox News, claims that liberals are waging class warfare against the "job creators," Fox News is waging class warfare against "welfare" - a word that's guaranteed to generate a true Pavlovian response of fear and loathing in the Fox demographic who associate "welfare" with lazy, dark skinned, drug addled moochers being given free stuff. Last week, Fox ran with a narrative that was being promoted in right wing circles; i.e., a study commissioned by US Senate Republicans which purportedly shows that the government spends more money on welfare than anything else. Not surprisingly, that's not true but that's what Bill O'Reilly and other Fox talkers claimed. But in the alternate reality of Fox News and Bill O'Reilly, as George Costanza said, "it's not a lie if you believe it."

Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visited On The Record last night to comment on “the State Department’s response” to the attacks in Libya. Although she did not absolve the Obama administration of any failures, she left no doubt that she sees no current evidence of wrongdoing and that the proper way to answer the questions left in the aftermath is through a real investigation. She also diplomatically shot down the overheated speculation that has run rampant on Fox lately. 

Bill O'Reilly has gone over the edge over Fox's phony scandal that even Fox's own Juan Williams admits is based on "deliberate misinformation." First, O'Reilly announced that debate moderator Bob Schieffer should have told President Obama, "You screwed up" Benghazi as part of a debate question this week. Then, two nights ago, he lost it again with Charles Krauthammer.

Fox & Friends didn't just promote the Koch Brother-funded Americans For Prosperity gas-price stunt designed to tar President Obama over rising gas prices, the "fair and balanced" show dispatched Fox's Heather Nauert for two live broadcast segments designed to give it even more credibility.

Stephen Colbert hilariously skewered Fox News' coverage of the attacks on the consulate in Benghazi, Libya. Bret Baier and Peter Johnson, Jr., whose over-the-top comments I posted about on Crooks and Liars, came in for special, well-deserved mockery.

Donald Trump visited On The Record to reveal the details of his latest attention-getting stunt that he teased on Fox & Friends a few days ago. It turns out to be more birtherism. Trump is offering $5 million to the charity of President Obama’s choice if he releases his college records and passport applications. Host Greta Van Susteren made it clear she thinks the birther thing is baloney but she pulled a whole lot of punches on debunking it.

I’m sure it’s not a big shock to our readers but it turns out that before Sean Hannity was salivating over smearing our president with Benghazi, he was oh-so-sanctimonious about the need not to politicize national security issues. That was when George W. Bush was president, of course, and when questions arose about intelligence failures over 9/11 and Iraq’s WMD’s.

Greta Van Susteren was agog over the “breaking news” that amounted to a bunch of emails showing that the White House knew that a terror group had claimed responsibility for the attacks on Benghazi. Of course, “claimed responsibility” is not the same thing as actually being responsible but in her excitement to finger the Obama administration as having engaged in some kind of nefarious cover up, Van Susteren didn’t bother with that pesky detail. Instead, she actually blamed the Obama administration for any of her own network’s reporting mistakes.