There's a giant sucking sound emanating from Fox News every time the newly red hatted Cardinal Timothy Dolan's name is mentioned. And it's not just verbal adulation. It's also the undying Fox loyalty to the position taken, against the HHS birth control mandate, by the United States Council of Catholic Bishops of which Dolan is the head. Some counterpoint was provided. A Reformed rabbi appeared on Hannity while a female Unitarian minister and female Episcopalian priest appeared on O'Reilly. But the preponderance of the coverage, especially on Fox & Friends ( Eight segments in support of the bishops) is squarely on the side of the men in black. While alleged "news" host Megyn Kelly did one "fair & balanced" discussion (during which she lied about abortion pills), the others, including an all male panel in opposition to the mandate, were not so much. On Friday's America Live, Ms. Kelly was able to combine her love for Cardinal Dolan while pimping his position about how the HHS mandate violates "religious liberty." Oh, and Peter Johnson Jr., live from Rome, got to recycle the same old agitprop on behalf of the bishops and the awesome Catholic Church.

Sean Hannity has been railing about Media Matters’ supposed lapses in ethics for allegedly working with the White House and other media. But when it comes to ethical issues between the Republican Party and Fox News it’s an entirely different story, apparently. During the Great American Panel segment on Friday (2/17/12), when the subject turned to the 2012 presidential campaign, Fox News contributor Nina Easton made a point of disclosing that her husband is a paid advisor to Mitt Romney’s campaign. Hannity not only disagreed with the need to disclose that information, he was outright peeved at her doing so. 

In a previous post, I questioned whether Fox News would cover the scandal of one of its favorite anti-immigration “experts” involved in a gay scandal with a possible illegal immigrant. The answer is “yes, but.” UPDATED.

The question, "where are the women," has become a rallying cry for those who advocate for women's reproductive rights and who are opposed to the efforts, by the GOP and leaders of anti-choice religious organizations, to avoid having to cover birth control for their employees. This question was asked by NY Democratic Rep., Carolyn Maloney who wanted to know why GOP Congressman Darell Issa didn't include any women on his congressional panel which was convened in order to provide testimony on the HHS contraceptive mandate. But rather than including those who would be directly affected by the policy, the morning session included only males, several of them clergy, one of them a Catholic bishop, and all of them anti-choice opponents of the HHS policy. (The second hearing had two women, both Christian opponents of the policy). Three Democrats, two of them women, walked out of the hearing in protest. The outrage spread to the greater community of those who support women's rights except for one place. In the bizarro world of Fox & Friends, Fox host and unofficial liaison with Timothy Dolan, head of the US Council of Catholic Bishops, Peter Johnson Jr., had no problem with the sexist nature of the panel - but he did have a problem with those who protested.  

Well, well, well. It looks like Fox News’ favorite Arizona “border expert,” Sheriff Paul Babeu has some ‘splaining to do. If reporting in the Phoenix New Times is correct, it turns out this anti-immigration sheriff-turned-Congressional-candidate had an affair with a Mexican man Babeu has threatened to deport. Oh, and there was some texting/emailing of the sort that led Fox Newsies to clamor for Anthony Weiner’s downfall. UPDATED.

Chalk up Pat Buchanan as the latest white bigot to find a sympathetic platform on the Hannity show. Buchanan was recently fired from MSNBC in a move that Sean Hannity desperately tried to paint as an unjustified, ideological purging by intolerant liberals hell-bent on destroying conservatives. But that argument was undercut by Buchanan himself as he quite explicitly argued that having an ethnic majority made a country strong and that “one of the strengths of this country” was its predominantly western and European ethnicity when there were (only) 10% African Americans. Not even Hannity seemed able to spin that.

Those perpetual victims, Sean Hannity and Brent Bozell, predictably used the Hannity show’s weekly liberal-media-bias whine session last night to attack Media Matters in the wake of Daily Caller hit pieces on it this week. But the whine session was a cornucopia of distortions, hypocrisy and, most of all, distractions. Neither Hannity nor Bozell offered up a single Media Matters report that was false. In short, Hannity and Bozell were every bit as guilty of media malpractice as they accused anyone else of being.

They’re not haiku.  Nor are they poems.  However, in this modern Twitterverse where thoughts can be no longer than 140 characters, the Fox and Friends chyron writer reigns supreme in an English language niche in which there are few competitors.  If one were deaf—and didn’t have closed captioning—everything Fox “News” wants you to know is delivered in these short blasts, each less than a half-a-tweet.  It’s a gift.

Allen West has been hate mongering again. And Fox News is helping to whitewash it again. A few nights ago, West characterized Democratic support for social safety nets as “the most insidious form of slavery remaining in the world today.” This, just a few weeks after he announced that liberals should “get the hell out of the U.S.” But he got a warm welcome from “liberal” Greta Van Susteren on On The Record last night, followed by friendly questions that helped legitimize the kind of rhetoric that would have been soundly denounced had it come from a Democrat.

Fox & Friends is the go to place for attacks on public schools, public school teachers, public school teachers unions, and public school textbooks. Their newest "authority" on the "trouble with schools" is Kyle Olson, head of the right wing "Education Action Group" which is "opposed to teachers unions and committed to privatizing public education." Earlier this month, Olson, who also writes for Andrew Breitbart's "Big Government," appeared on Fox & Friends where he accused those who support healthier school lunches of being part of a "federal power grab." Any semblance of his being objective about education is dispelled by his book, pimped by Fox & Friends on two occasions, which is titled "Indoctrination" - a screed about how public schools are subverting American "exceptionalism." Once again, he was warmly welcomed on yesterday's Fox & Friends where he provided more of the same old, same old biased agitprop.