I’m just wondering what Graham was thinking when he was caught on a hot mike offering to help John Kerry with “Boehner”. I noted this when CNN put the video up and wondered if Fox News was going to acknowledge it at any point…

Kelly was actually quite pleasant with Issa, all things considered. She didn’t run over him with nearly the enthusiasm she has attacked Democrats in a similar situation. She repeatedly made the point that she understood where he was coming from and went along with the right wing narrative about how horrible the Dems were supposedly to the GOP when they had the majority. This narrative forgets that the GOP repeatedly took every parliamentary trick they could to gum up the works – specifically to stop the Dems from accomplishing anything. After the tactics got really egregious, the Dems would finally put a stop to it. That’s very different from Issa not even allowing Cummings to speak.

It’s also interesting that Issa is projecting the tantrum he threw onto Cummings, making the patronizing comments that Cummings was emotional and having “a hissy fit”. The reality is that Issa has repeatedly thrown public tantrums and embarrassed himself in front of the Congress by playing the role of “aggrieved Congressman in search of the truth” while actually grandstanding for himself. In this case, Issa lost his temper and petulantly shut down the hearing without allowing anyone else to speak. Cummings had a real statement and question which would have addressed the notion of having Lerner’s attorney speak for her, which in turn would have provided the “answers” Issa insists he is seeking. (But Issa isn’t really interested in finding those “answers” – he just wanted to grandstand by shutting down the hearing in a fit of pique.) When Issa not only refused to allow Cummings to speak but then began acting in a condescending manner toward him, interrupted him and made a grand gesture of telling people to cut Cummings’ microphone, Cummings became understandably frustrated. Cummings’ anger over Issa’s behavior was more than merited. Issa’s nastiness towards Cummings and toward Lois Lerner was not.

As I understand it, Adegbile and the LDF got involved with the Wesley Cook matter more than 25 years into its tortured history. They were not defending Cook at trial, and to my knowledge, Adegbile never said that Cook was an innocent man. (I’m trying hard to avoid getting us into the weeds of the specific case – I’ve studied it carefully over the years and it’s not the point of this thread)

The point of the NAACP LDF’s involvement here has to do with their consistent position on the Death Penalty. As the statistics continue to show, the Death Penalty has been applied with greatly disproportionate frequency and vehemence against the black community. So the LDF opposes it on principle. Their position on Wesley Cook falls in with that long-held principle. By the time they got to the Cook case, his death sentence had already been thrown out. The LDF’s work was to make sure that it wasn’t reinstated. That’s a big difference from somehow “passionately defending” Cook at trial. Cook was convicted of this murder over 30 years ago, and his guilt wasn’t the subject of the LDF’s briefs. When Cook fired his last batch of attorneys (and he did this many times over the course of decades of appeals), the LDF took over as his attorneys – specifically to insure that he would face a sentence of life behind bars rather than a reinstated death penalty. Faced with this, the Philadelphia DA chose to live with Cook alive behind bars rather than pour more funds into yet another trial situation.

I absolutely agree that Adegbile did nothing wrong. And I’d go farther to say that Adegbile has done exemplary work with the LDF over the years. He was a completely appropriate attorney to be appointed for this position, and it’s shameful that Fox News thinks they can get away with smearing him in this manner. I don’t think President Obama made a mistake in choosing him for appointment – I think it’s more apt to say that Fox News, right wing radio and the GOP have made it their mission in life to attack and frustrate him at every turn. They made it clear from the moment he became a candidate in the first place, and they clarified it multiple times. Adegbile could have had a legal career of helping elderly people across the street, and the right wing would have attacked him for not letting them take care of themselves. They will always find a reason to attack, no matter how ridiculous.

We have no way of knowing the motivations of the Dem Senators who chose to go along with the GOP propaganda here. I doubt it was because they watch Fox News. But we have to acknowledge that the right wing worked hard to establish the premise of the coverage here, as they have done with every single issue over the past 20 years. It doesn’t matter that their premise was false. I think Ellen’s point here is that this is a case where they succeeded in getting their narrative of events far enough into the mainstream to get their way. And we must be aware of when and how they do this, or they’ll get away with it more often.

As I’ve said before, I see the purpose of this website as a corrective to these false narratives that Fox News tries to purvey. For Fox News viewers, there is a completely separate version of history in play – one in which reality is turned on its head and only certain facts are included in the discussion. It’s a philosophy that fixes the facts to a predetermined hypothesis – one that may be comforting to the right wing but which doesn’t have much to do with the real world. We saw the best example of this during the 2012 elections, where Fox News pundits confidently predicted a Romney victory and had fooled even the Romney campaign into thinking they had the election in the bag – while the reality was the opposite.

Fox News is trying to write their version of the history of this presidency, using smears and half-truths and any wisps of smoke they can get their hands around. It’s vitally important to be able to calmly rebut the nonsense with the actual facts, and to show the consistent pattern of hostility Fox News has demonstrated. This is but one example – a small, nasty skirmish victory – and yet it’s important to note how and why it happened. So when the right wingers try to purvey their version of it, anyone with an ounce of education can answer, “Well, that’s not exactly what happened, is it?”

A few things here:

First, Brent Bozell has no credibility. His organization is noteworthy for having been sued and humiliated by WWE for their libelous statements in the past. He was forced to issue a public apology and retraction on his website and pay a massive settlement to WWE to keep the situation from becoming even worse for him in court. If Fox News wishes to find a credible media commentator, then maybe they could have a real discussion. Bozell is simply a showman with no real knowledge of what he’s opining. As they say, “all hat and no cattle”.

Second, the argument between Issa and Cummings wasn’t so much about this specific non-story, but rather about the fact that Issa has been acting as a dictator on this committee for years now. It’s clearly Issa’s intent to spend his time grandstanding on whatever trumped-up “scandals” he can push on Fox News and talk radio. This allows him to play the role of the “aggrieved congressman in search of the truth” while doing nothing more than bang his gavel and throw public tantrums. Issa has long thought of himself as more important than he is – his biggest stretch was when he engineered the recall of Governor Gray Davis in California, thinking he would be able to walk into the governorship himself. When Arnold Schwarzenegger jumped in front of him, Issa had a public meltdown and sobbed at a press conference where he had to admit he wasn’t going to get to be governor after all. Similar to Bozell, Issa has no credibility. When he completes his congressional career, all he’ll have to show for his time is a series of these public outbursts, none of which having done anything to help anyone other than himself.

Finally, there isn’t an IRS scandal. There was a bureaucratic mess that came from the way various IRS staffers categorized the non-profit applications. It’s all fairly dry material and certainly not criminal. It’s a matter of how procedures are handled when it comes to filing papers. That’s not the same thing as the very real criminality practiced by the Nixon, Reagan and George W. Bush White Houses. The GOP is desperately trying to find any smoke they can to equate their current arguments with past criminal acts, but it never works. We’ll hear this refrain time and time again on Fox – “Worse than Watergate”, “Worse than Iran Contra”, “Worse than Plamegate”. But that doesn’t make the refrain true, and it doesn’t rewrite the actual history even if Fox News wishes that it would.

If anything, this is a sign that Fox News and the GOP are really getting desperate to find any mud they can to throw at Hillary Clinton. This is of course also tied to the Christie corruption scandal, which Fox News wishes would simply go away. I have a feeling it will only get muddier before we get to 2016…

I’m glad you caught this. I noticed this over the weekend, and after only a moment’s thought during the interview realized it was a sneaky attempt to undermine the rights of women to have a say about their own pregnancies. Huckabee’s concern here was obviously a front for the real goal – finding a back door to overturning Roe v Wade.

There’s another part of that opposition we should also remember. These guys always say that the end of Roe v Wade would only mean that the situation would revert to the states. They deliberately leave out the rest of the sentence – the part where it would be a crime to cross state lines to terminate a pregnancy. Huckabee is a master of just this kind of deceptive propaganda. Which is why I’m relieved that this site exists to help maintain a record of it.

This was a despicable move by Rove, and clearly done because he knew he had lost the argument and had no ground on which to present his case. So he fell back to a cheap shot that he knew Strickland wouldn’t be able to knock out with a five second sound byte.

Strickland frankly looked shocked that Rove would play this card – which is dispiriting as he could have simply stopped Rove in his tracks by saying that Rove was bringing up untrue and irrelevant statements and trying to get the conversation back on the actual matter at hand.

Bruce Broughton is a governor with the Academy, in addition to being an experienced and well-known composer. He is well aware of the rules he broke. He just thought he could get away with it and he couldn’t. If they didn’t smack his paw for the kind of campaigning he was doing, the door would be open for all Academy officials to lobby for their own movies, using their access to email lists and influence that other people don’t have. That’s what this was about, and it’s the reason the song was pulled from the list.

Given that this movie didn’t make any money on its first release, it’s clearly the hope of its supporters that they can use the publicity of this mess to get the hard right wing evangelicals to flock to see it either on DVD or if it can get another theatrical run. The mock concern you’re seeing on Fox News has little to do with changing anything at the Academy. They’re aware they can’t do anything on that front. But they can try to take this moral position of disapproving of the Academy, while they promote this movie. It’s more than a bit disingenuous. And they don’t have a moral leg to stand on.

This has been one of the sillier obsessions of right wingers. The rescinding of the nomination had nothing to do with religion, politics or anything other than Bruce Broughton inappropriately campaigning.

The Academy has repeatedly made clear that the issue here was that Broughton used his access to the Academy’s email list to send out messages telling members of the Music Branch the names of the composer and lyricist for his song – something that is expressly forbidden. It’s one thing for the various producers and potential nominees to hold screenings, parties, etc. It’s one thing for the producers to take out ads in the trade papers and on industry-heavy websites. It’s one thing for the producers/studios to send out screeners of the movies or materials they want people to consider. That’s all par for the course and appropriate – even if it does get annoying at times.

It’s an altogether different thing for a known and influential Academy member to use his position to get a nomination through. Had this been a case where word of mouth was building and people were all telling each other what a great song this was, then there wouldn’t have been a controversy. But the movie in question is so obscure that nobody had heard of it until Broughton broke the rules and tried to bypass everyone else. He knew the movie was going to disappear along with the song, so he figured he’d do a long pass and see if he could push the voters into suddenly listening to it. Instead, he got the movie and the song tangled up in a bunch of bad publicity.

I suspect that there is another reason why the hard right wingers are making so much noise. They know the movie will not be getting that nomination back, and they know they don’t have a leg to stand on. But I think they’re hoping they can get more attention for the movie itself so it can sell a few copies in the home video market – most likely to Fox News viewers and AM radio listeners. Don’t be surprised if a few ads for the DVD release pop up in the usual places, and if you see a few bits like Fox & Friends doing an interview with the filmmakers and the singer again when this release happens.

Fox News thus gets a double bump out of this. They get to feign moral outrage over nonsense, and they get to help an obscure movie they’ve now championed make a little coin.

This was frankly hilarious last night. I believe it shows Roger Ailes’ frustration in a general manner.

First, it does indeed show that the GOP is really scared that Hillary could actually get the nomination in 2016 and they’re willing to throw anything they can at her in the meantime. Keep in mind that we’re still two years out from the primaries and anything could happen between now and then. Fox News is trying to keep up a patter of attacks and establish a counter narrative about her – the same way they think that one was created about Mitt Romney.

Second, it shows that even Fox News is unable to do much with the Benghazi games at this point. Their latest failure in that idea came when the Christie bridge scandal went big. Fox News couldn’t defend that behavior so it tried to celebrate how Christie spoke about it and then tried to amp up discussion about two GOP-led congressional counterattacks regarding Benghazi. (And those counters were both to the current Christie story and to the NY Times article that completely demolished their version of events.) Shockingly for Fox News, no other media outlets thought it was particularly newsworthy for two congressional committees, led by the GOP to suddenly have some thoughts on a consulate attack that was heavily discussed back in 2012. So Fox News is now looking for a new potential embarrassing story to throw at Hillary.

Third, the raising of old Bill Clinton stories serves more to fire up angry right wingers who were as determined to destroy his presidency in the 90s as they are to destroy President Obama’s work today. So they dredge up the gossip from before, which gives an ideologue like Marc Thiessen a chance to grimace before the cameras and talk about how awful the 90s were for everyone. (Which raises yet another reason why this site is important – if these guys were left unchallenged, there are people who could point to ridiculous assertions like Thiessen’s and assume they reflected facts somehow) The hope is clearly to smear both the Clintons with the same brush. And this clearly didn’t work during Hillary’s terms in the Senate, nor during her 2008 presidential campaign.

Somewhere along the way, somebody on the air noted that this approach could potentially backfire (this may have been Kelly). That was the one bit of actual common sense being spoken in the middle of all the hysteria.

If Sean Hannity thought he could get blame the West Virginia situation on President Obama, he’d make it a top story. Since he clearly can’t do that, and since the story doesn’t fit in with his pre-prepared narrative, he will not include it on his show. Because such stories are not about news for Hannity, nor are they about any concern for the victims. Hannity clearly doesn’t care about such things, if those people are not useable as props in his vendetta against President Obama. Hannity doesn’t see an easy political “get” for himself here. So he (and the rest of Fox News) is happy to ignore the problem.

Rich makes some very good points, but I would offer a few simple responses.

He’s correct that the Fox News viewership demographic is aging to the point that we can see they’re going to be in serious trouble in about 5-10 years. And we can see this anytime Mike Huckabee’s show is on, as it’s the only one where you can see a happy audience in the house.

He’s correct that Fox News, like Rush Limbaugh, greatly depends on angering non-GOP listeners who they know they can easily offend. There’s also an argument that there’s a good portion of both the AM radio audience and the Fox News audience that listens or watches specifically BECAUSE they disagree with the right wing spin. Frank Rich would have been on the money to tell left wingers to not help prop up what’s left of Fox News’ demographic in the ratings. (I note that Fox News viewers pride themselves on refusing to watch any other channels, which is why you see Fox News’ numbers up a little, and MSNBC’s numbers down.

I would argue that while Fox News doesn’t need any more publicity, and neither does Rush Limbaugh, when they say silly and desperately provocative comments, it’s still important to correct the record. Ten years or fifty years down the road, their misstatements will still be preserved in the internet. Right wingers will cite those misstatements in future publications, asserting that they are coming from a “legitimate news authority”. It is important, not just for now, but really for the future, to make sure that the Breitbarts and O’Reillys of the future cannot make their assertions without being challenged on their factual problems.

And while it’s clear that Rush is really becoming frantic with his statements these days, there’s still a long and sordid record of those statements that must be calmly and patiently debunked. Rush may be on his way out (He was taken off the primary right wing radio station in Los Angeles, KFI, and put on a much smaller range station that can only reach half the audience. And the departure of many of his advertisers has meant that it’s very strange to hear who will still put ads on his shows these days.) but he’s bound to try to make more trouble before he’s done. And when he makes vicious attacks, as he shamefully did against Iraq war veterans (who he called “phony soldiers”), Michael J. Fox (whose Parkinson’s condition he cruelly imitated on the air) and Sandra Fluke, he absolutely should be called out for his behavior. To silently ignore something that offensive is to condone it.

As for the behavior and statements of people like Megyn Kelly and Mike Huckabee, not to mention the other cast of Fox News characters, it’s important to call them out when they do something despicable. At the least, it gives them a chance to do the right thing, as on-air personalities at MSNBC have done when they have misbehaved. Strangely, the Fox News folks seem to enjoy doubling down on the hate, as we have seen. Which is probably a good thing for posterity. Twenty years from now, when unknowing students wonder about the virtues of people like Kelly and Huckabee, their misdeeds and their refusals to apologize for them will continue to be part of the historical record.

As another branch toward the future, I’ve noticed that it’s quite rare that you see anyone from Fox News that can get work at another network after they leave the Ailes/Murdoch embrace. Newt Gingrich took a check to work at CNN, but he isn’t a personality that was created at Fox News. Frankly, Gingrich was likely quite unhappy with Fox News’ pressure on him to jump out of the presidential race in 2012, and going to CNN was his way of thumbing his nose at them. But could you imagine Bill O’Reilly suddenly getting a gig at MSNBC? Or Greg Gutfeld or Eric Bolling? Not a chance. And these guys know it. They’ll enjoy their time at Fox News, and then likely need to either retire or try to get a daytime AM radio slot somewhere. A good part of the reason why is that the public is quite aware of what these people have been doing and why. Which means they no longer have journalistic credibility, and thus are practically unemployable anywhere else.

Tim Donnelly is well-known in Los Angeles as a far, far right-wing ideologue who has regularly shown up with his invective on KFI radio here. He has regularly made a point of attacking undocumented workers, as well as public employee unions and any other easy targets for the right.

The fact is that he won’t be getting the GOP nomination for the governorship. This idea of running is just to get him a bunch of publicity. The California GOP will run someone a lot closer to the middle, and that person will almost certainly lose to Jerry Brown. Were they to run someone as objectionable as Donnelly, the margin of loss would be exponentially larger. Kind of like what would have happened had Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum not greedily frozen each other out two years ago. I would have been very interested to see a Newt Gingrich presidential campaign in the fall of 2012. Would have given us the rare opportunity to see a 50 state blowout in the double digits and probably would have thrown the House back to the Democrats.

I agree with Zurawik on one count – Glenn Beck does not get a pass on his hateful behavior and statements just because he’s trying to make more money for himself from a cable sale. (And we should remember Beck made the point at the time he was booted out of Fox News that he didn’t need any of the traditional cable or satellite support for his shows since he would create his own media…)

I disagree with Zurawik on another count: Fox News is not now, and never has been, a mainstream news outlet. It is a partisan promotional vehicle, specifically intended to promote the hard right values of Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch. What made Beck’s situation with Fox News so interesting is that he went so far off the charts that even Fox News couldn’t stay with him. That’s a heck of an achievement – and the existence of this segment shows that neither Ailes nor Murdoch have forgotten or forgiven Beck by any means.

I’ll add that it’s rather depressing to see otherwise intelligent critics like Howard Kurtz doing programs on Fox News. Given that Kurtz knows what the operation is about, this will be an unfortunate way to end what had been a decent career in his work.

How about the Five regularly issuing repellent attacks on any liberal commenter they can, while ignoring the behavior of right wingers? Why is it alright for Andrea Tantaros to accuse the left of hate-mongering when she’s the one who told people last year to punch supporters of President Obama in the face? And that’s only one of dozens of documented examples of double standards we could bring up.

I didn’t detect extra inflection on any of the three conditions Kelly listed, although she did trip over the pronunciation of endometriosis, which can be a very serious condition.

It’s sad to note that Kelly is the only one on Fox News to bring up the fact that these medical conditions exist. Everyone else piled on the double down parade with Huckabee to essentially attack women as just wanting free contraceptives for their personal enjoyment. They have also, particularly O’Reilly, continued the attack Rush Limbaugh started on Sandra Fluke two years ago. And Fluke’s comments were actually about the medical conditions that contraceptives address – something that neither Huckabee nor Limbaugh understand. (In Limbaugh and Hannity’s cases, this is what happens when someone with no real education spends many hours each week opining on subjects they know nothing about. In O’Reilly’s case, theoretically he should know better, but he prides himself on staying ignorant. And in Kelly’s case, she clearly does know better, but chooses to say the things that will work for the network that is making her wealthy.)

Gina, I agree with you that name-calling is inappropriate. Which is why I don’t engage in it. But I have listened to the comments made by Huckabee, particularly seeing how he excerpted those comments on his own program. I listened carefully to Huckabee’s explanation of his comments.

And neither his defensive justification nor your assumption that his comments aren’t offensive can change the stubborn facts here. If he wanted to just say that he feels that the Democrats are wrong in their approach to this issue, he could do so without using language that people find to be thoroughly demeaning. He doesn’t get to use the language and then hide behind an excuse of “well, that’s what I was saying the Dems were doing!” He didn’t need to use that language. Personally, I think he’s just trying to get attention.

It’s pretty funny to watch the Fox News gang desperately trying to deal with the Christie implosion. They’ve tried pretty much everything to make this thing go away and none of their tactics have worked.

They’ve tried ignoring the story completely. Didn’t work because more revelations keep emerging.

They’ve tried amping up their Benghazi reruns. Didn’t work because there hasn’t been any real news in that story since fall 2012, and since the only breakthrough we’ve had recently was the New York Times expose that punctured their narrative. And because the Benghazi consulate wasn’t attacked by Hillary Clinton and President Obama. The Christie scandal has to do with actions taken directly by his staff on his behalf.

Now they’re trying to attack the accusers. So the Hoboken mayor, who was clearly intimidated by Christie’s machine, now feels like she can come forward and say what’s been on her mind privately. What does Fox News do? Immediately, viciously attack her. All they have in response is a Christie staff member denying the charge, and their only argument is to say that the Christie person must be telling the truth and that the Hoboken mayor is lying. Which ignores the more likely scenario – that the Hoboken mayor is telling the truth, as shown in her own contemporaneous journal entries, and that the Christie staffer is practically daring the mayor to prove her case.

The problem Christie is facing now is pretty severe. He has enemies on both sides of the aisle, and they’re all enjoying watching the carnage. Even more damaging is that this scandal was self-inflicted. Nobody forced the Christie people to play these games, and nobody forced them to memorialize them in gloating emails. So now the story is out and the Christie people are scrambling to play defense – particularly to see if there’s any way to salvage his credibility before 2016. (Which is still possible – Richard Nixon pulled this trick off multiple times in his career) But Christie must now face a raft of Democrats who resent the bullying he has inflicted on them over the past several years. And he must face a raft of hard right wing pols and pundits who resent his “bear hug” with President Obama during Sandy. (Rush Limbaugh showed obvious glee when this scandal broke, particularly after he had castigated Christie for even allowing President Obama to come to New Jersey over Sandy. Limbaugh presented an alternative universe picture where all the other GOP pols shunned the President and either refused aid or demanded that they get the aid without a Presidential visit. So Limbaugh is probably getting more enjoyment than from watching Christie squirm than anyone else.)

To be fair, both guests were going on a bit, and I did hear one anchor timidly trying to break in to Larson’s second rant. But there’s no doubt that the deck was wildly stacked against the liberal commentator. The obvious point of the segment was to tell the narrative Roger Ailes wants to hear – that Democrats are in deep trouble this year and that the GOP is poised for a massive midterm win. Which is essentially just GOP cheerleading masquerading as a “news segment”. Hemmer clearly understands what Ailes wants to see here, and he’s providing it.

I wouldn’t call it “fair and balanced”, but I would say that he’s preaching to the choir of Fox News viewers who already think this. Which is of course the point of Fox News in general.

I find it interesting that Fox News has actually gone out of its way to defend Alan West for his objectionable comments when they have happened in the past. In the same way that Andrea Tantaros can comment that people should punch Obama supporters in the face, or that Monica Crowley can say nasty things about Sandra Fluke’s engagement, both without correction, Alan West is permitted to commit hatespeech with impunity at Fox.

I actually agree that Martin Bashir’s comments were horrible, and that Melissa Harris-Perry’s comments were equally bad. But that doesn’t change the fact that Fox News has allowed multiple statements that were equally bad, if not worse. The difference is that MSNBC disciplined and/or terminated the hosts in question. Probably similar to the Rush Limbaugh sign about sexual harassment not only being tolerated but being graded.