What are you guys watching on television? I'm watching Fox, of course. I think the coverage can best be described as subdued. Anyone see President Obama's teleconference call? Share your thoughts, observations and comments!

For propaganda to be effective it should be reinforced. Thus, when Fox "News" gets a juicy right wing "outrage," it reinforces it throughout the show and on into other shows. A recent cause of agita, in the Christian right, is the claim that the Girls Scouts are being corrupted by librul indoctrination. Much of their indignation centers on Girl Scout sex education programs which are done in conjunction with the Christian right's major bête noire, Planned Parenthood, along with Girl Scout awards to groups and women who support AIDS education and international family planning. Think Hillary Clinton. But when a Girl Scouts publication recently sourced Media Matters (a major Fox bête noire), the right wing went wild and Fox News did its part to aid and abet by setting the "outrage" and then reinforcing it. Media Matters provides a detailed overview of this vilification of the Girl Scouts. As communication of a right wing meme and an attack on Fox's public enemy number one, it was vintage Fox hypocrisy and agitprop at its finest. 

If you’re a Republican in trouble, there’s no better friend in the media than Sean Hannity. Last night (1/2/11), Hannity didn’t just provide a friendly platform for Newt Gingrich’s sinking presidential campaign, Hannity helped build the staging, too.

Rick Perry visited On The Record last night (1/2/12) where host Greta Van Susteren asked pretty good, tough questions. One unintentionally hilarious exchange occurred when Van Susteren challenged Perry about an attack ad that asked about his “friend,” Rick Santorum, “Why are these pigs so happy?”

During this morning's Fox & Friends happy chat session with former senator and presidential candidate, Rick Santorum, it was mentioned that the fecund Duggar family have endorsed Santorum. When a photo of the Duggar tribe was shown, Steve Doocy quipped, to Santorum, "There's 19 votes for ya." But as far as I know, those under 18 aren't allowed to vote. As such, there are only 6 votes for Santorum if you count both parents along with the 4 children who are eligible to vote in the Iowa Caucuses. Not for nothing does Steve Doocy have the reputation as a true wall of genius!

For those of you who were residents of the Forum on the old site, you may be glad to know that we've got all the archives available. It's the top link in the archives tab on the top bar. Or you can click here.

Fox News contributor - and probably its most muscular liberal - Alan Colmes got into some political hot water Monday (1/2/12) over his comments on Happening Now about the surging presidential candidacy of Rick Santorum. Colmes was trying to make the argument that Santorum's popularity would likely wither under the ensuing media scrutiny. “Once (voters) get a load of some of the crazy things he’s said and done, like taking his two hour-old baby, who died right after childbirth, home and played with it for a couple of hours so his other children would know that the child was real,” Colmes said.  The other guest, conservative Rich Lowry, became outraged at the “cheap shot” and the debate remained heated throughout the rest of the eight-minute segment.

Is there anything more stunning than the Fox News credulity toward and credibility given to phony politico Donald Trump? Never mind his debunked and discredited birther accusations. Forget his inadvertent admissions of racism. And nobody on Fox ever seems to remember or care that Trump was supposedly conducting some big investigation in Hawaii into President Obama’s birth certificate. That’s not even counting Trump's disingenuous insistence on The O’Reilly Factor that he was hosting a NewsMax debate – one night before he announced otherwise. OK, we get that Trump will do or say anything to smear Obama in a headline-grabbing way so that’s just fine with Fox. But after his last make-believe run for president just a few months ago, is there anyone who really thinks that this time he might really, truly mean it? Apparently, the three Fox & Friends hosts, Steve Doocy, Brian Kilmeade and Alisyn Camerota, do. They're not just buying it, they were so enthusiastic I half expected them to sign up as campaign volunteers during Trump's appearance this morning on the show.

NewsBusters is a website run by Fox fave, the hot, hirsute, and muy macho (but in a chaste, Christian, and very heterosexual way) Brent Bozell who recently suggested, in his trademark nasal inflected voice on "Hannity," that our president looks like a "skinny, ghetto crackhead." NewsBusters is devoted to ferreting out liberal bias in everything, including obscure magazines with "teenage temptresses" on their covers. A tireless crusader for family values, Bozell, who hates "The Family Guy," is now upset because the singer, Rihanna, had "Fuck off" written on her sneakers during a performance on British TV. (Bozell must have great eyesight!)  But NewsBusters does love the nonbiased Fox News (cough) and Fox News does seem to reciprocate on - ready for it - the alleged "fair & balanced" Fox Special "news" Report.

By Brian 

On The Five last Wednesday (12/28/11), Greg Gutfeld opened the show with a juvenile comparison of the 2012 presidential campaign to middle school.  He described President Obama as a “coddled coaster” and “Teacher’s Pet.”