If there’s any doubt in your mind that Fox News will play the race card against Obama in the upcoming presidential campaign, last night’s O’Reilly Factor should put it to rest. Bill O’Reilly purported to hold a debate over whether or not one of President Obama’s campaign YouTube videos crossed a line between church and state. But O’Reilly changed the direction of his own discussion by abruptly asking “What would happen” if Rick Santorum started a campaign to engage white churchgoers to vote for him. It was a deliberate effort to inject race and in a way so as to suggest that white people suffer at the hands of over-privileged African Americans. 

Rupert Murdoch’s son, James Murdoch, has stepped down as executive chairman of News International, the British newspaper group that publishes News Corporation’s British tabloids. As we have extensively reported, those newspapers have been the subject of major scandals and extensive government investigations in England. Most recently, a British inquiry found that the company had bribed British police, government and military officials “hundreds of thousands of dollars” for news. According to the investigation, the payments were authorized “at a very senior level within the newspaper.” We again join Free Press’ effort in calling for an American inquiry into News Corporation.

Fox's Peter Johnson Jr., as a Catholic Knight of Malta, is certainly a peer of the realm as he is always fighting valiantly for his liege lords in the United State Council of Catholic Bishops whose mission from God is to fight the HHS birth control mandate. The head of the USCCB is fox fave Cardinal Timothy Dolan who employs Johnson as a litigator - a factoid that Johnson has only admitted on one occasion. That Johnson has become the Bishop's unofficial spokesperson for this issue is evident in his nine Fox & Friends segments in support of the bishops. Yesterday morning, on Fox & Friends, Johnson again asserted that the health care policy is "unconstitutional." Despite the name of his series, which varies between Prescription for Truth and Prescription for Justice, there is little of either given his omission of relevant information regarding support for the mandate - some of it from Catholics. As usual, his bobble headed wingman was fellow uterus free Catholic male, Steve Doocy. But what was really funny was that both he and Doocy apparently sourced their main talking point, not from the bishops, but from a right wing blog, "Hot Air." As was said in that great film classic, "Plan 9 From Outer Space," "that proves it."

Monday morning (2/27/12), the superintendent of Chardon High School in Ohio, where three students were killed in an apparently random shooting, called on people to pray for the victims. Ever solicitous for your religious faith, Fox News swooped on the remark like a hawk on a field mouse.

I'm watching the Fox News coverage. Fox News just predicted Mitt Romney will "easily win" Arizona, "as expected." Michigan appears to be a different story. Fox is saying Romney holds a slim lead but it's too early to call. Ron Paul is predicted for third and Newt Gingrich fourth in MI.

Yesterday’s Special Report "All-Star Panel" focused on the violence in Afghanistan in the wake of the burning of Korans at a U.S. military base. Although many conservative foreign policy and military experts have agreed that the Obama administration did the right thing in apologizing, Fox has used the incident to attack Obama – and particularly to suggest that he’s suspiciously sympathetic to Muslims. Host Bret Baier set the scene for the panel to follow suit with his introduction: "Four U.S. service members have been killed in Afghanistan since the protests began there, big protests over the weekend, continuing today with a car bomb at the Afghan airport. What about the situation and the policy involved?" 

Last night Bill O’Reilly, in the preciously named “Back of the Book” segment, punched his pop cultural ticket for the week to play concern troll for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, aka The Oscars™.  Bill called Sacha Baron Cohen a pinhead for not showing the proper respect to the Red Carpet and the conspicuous orgy of consumerism the Oscars represent.  Yet, earlier in the show Bill’O sent Jesse Watters to the Red Carpet to yell out provocative questions and tease Liberals.  What O’Reilly did was far worse than anything Borat may have done.  Baron Cohen was being true to his art, and used Hollywood’s massive publicity machine to play a prank on Hollywood itself, and drum up some publicity for his next picture.  You’ve got to admire that.  Jesse Watters, and by extension Bill O’Reilly, are the real pinheads for attempting to interject partisan politics into the Oscars.  An official even told Watters, “The Academy is very disappointed in you” over some of the questions.  What sense does it make to send someone to The Oscars to ask people what they think of Bill O’Reilly? 

In what is either bad reporting or deliberate lying, Trace Gallagher, on alleged Fox "news" show, America Live, reported on the recent archeological discovery of a tomb, in Jerusalem, which could represent the earliest representations of Christian belief in the Resurrection of Jesus. There is an inscription, in the tomb, of a whale which is connected to the biblical story of Jonah and could, in this case, represent a belief in the Resurrection.  Gallagher got it right up until the comment that "researchers have pushed back the clock to find evidence of the Resurrection shortly after Jesus died." Uh, no Trace, the "evidence" relates to a religious belief system - not the actual Resurrection which is a matter of faith and not science. Big difference.

Sean Hannity’s obsession with Louis Farrakhan continued last night as he tried to use Farrakhan’s fiery speech over the weekend as a not-so-thinly veiled excuse to portray President Barack Obama as some kind of Farrakhan soulmate. This is a tactic Hannity uses over and over, even though his own investigation turned up evidence to the contrary. Unfortunately for Hannity, his designated accomplice, Herman Cain, either didn’t want to play the game or didn’t catch on.

Today's Christian right hates, truly hates, sex education as, in their twisted world view, it lures pure and virginal young Christians into a life of sexual degradation and - gasp - evil homosexuality. (Could it be Satan?) As the mouthpiece for the Christian right, Fox "News" is there to provide aid and comfort. In 2010, Fox went full tilt boogie against a proposed Helena, Montana sex education curriculum. Not only was the coverage inaccurate, but some of it barely concealed an underlying homophobic message. Gretchen Carlson was very up front about her absolute disdain for this program which was supported by many parents - an inconvenient truth ignored by Gretch. Now that the Muskegon Michigan school district has a new sex education program that some right wingers oppose (part of "the Gay Agenda"), Fox & Friends is there to validate the opposition as articulated by anti-public education, right wing partisan Kyle Olson who is now Fox & Friends resident right wing education "expert" on "The Trouble With Schools." Once again, Fox & Friends is taking a local issue and creating a national "outrage."