And the ridiculous Georgia birther case has been thrown out by the judge for obvious reasons, including the fact that they had no legal grounds and that the “case” presented by Orly Taitz and friends did not include any experts to know from what they were talking about.

Let’s see if the Birther bunch decides to discredit the judge now that he’s spoiled their fun…

It’s pretty clear what happened in this case.

Brewer used a standard tarmac greeting situation to try to push her usual spin with Obama, and he was having none of it. He reminded her that she wrote nasty and biased things about their last meeting and she immediately got on her high horse and tried to talk over him. After a few moments of this, he realized the conversation was going nowhere and he moved on.

Brewer is using this event for free publicity for herself and to pump sales of her book. Which is why Obama couldn’t help laughing about it when he was asked.

Wallace was actually a little more even handed over the course of the interview. He correctly noted that the GOP House members were not going along with agreements that Boehner had made with President Obama. He also started to get into the area of Eric Cantor’s disagreements with Boehner, which is crucial to understanding what is actually happening in the house. (It’s obvious that Cantor wants to become Speaker, and that he’s been repeatedly undercutting Boehner to make sure he gets that post when Boehner either gets voted out or steps down at the end of the year.)

Wallace did get one major point out – that 2012, just like the past 3 years, will completely be about politics for the GOP. Not about jobs, the economy or actually trying to do the work of the Congress. Just about political chess games using such things as the budget, the debt ceiling, and any other thing they can to obstruct any step President Obama tries to take. The GOP position will be to say no to everything, just as it has been since Obama was sworn in, in the hope that this will play well on Fox News and give them a talking point for the fall election.

But there was a pretty smarmy tone to the whole thing. Boehner could only repeat a few talking points and point his finger at President Obama without getting into any substance. And Wallace, at the end, made a particularly nasty comment when he asked Boehner how he was planning to stay awake during the State of the Union Address. Boehner, typically, responded that he would focus on the back of the President’s head, rather than on anything the man was actually saying.

(It’s interesting to note that the GOP has stayed in lockstep in their opposition to everything Democratic or Obama-originated. They are determined not to participate in the Obama-era government. It’s almost as though they’re trying to ignore its existence. The Dems did go along with much of the George W. Bush-era government, approving most of his programs and apppointments, including the Iraq War and two inappropriate Supreme Court nominees that should have been rejected for cause. Of course, the Dems’ votes for these things then gets used as a way to include them in the blame for these things, and the GOP’s intransigence gets used as a way of noting their “integrity”. We’ll see what the voters do in November, given the spectacular unpopularity of this Congress.)

Newt’s attempt at being “Happy Old Uncle Newt” fell apart the moment he was challenged by Romney. Then the “Angry Old Newt” came back out, which revealed the other pose to have been an acted one.

The strangest part of his campaign has been the frozen grin he’s used since May whenever he’s asked a hard question…

I think Harpootlian got himself in trouble with the statement on MSNBC, where he could be heard to say that holding the debate on MLK Day was indicative of GOP disregard for the black community. Had he just commented about the difference between the 2008 MLK Day situation and the current one, O’Reilly would not have been able to attack him.

And then when O’Reilly got Harpootlian on the air, he took advantage of the fact that Harpootlian didn’t remember that the Dems had their debate on MLK Day in 08, as sponsored by the CBC.

Harpootlian should have done his homework on both counts – of making the acccurate comparison, and of anticipating what O’Reilly would pull. Since he didn’t, O’Reilly had a field day and spent the rest of his hour gloating about it. And he’ll continue to gloat about it, no doubt, when discussing any further racial issues during the campaign. Every discussion will include an obligatory mention of “…this is the same thing as when you left wingers were telling the Republicans they couldn’t have a debate on MLK Day and we on the Factor had to point out the truth…” It’ll be just as much fun as the fictional $16 muffin he keeps using to bash the government.

The swipe at the Kennedys was the point where I had to say “Are you kidding?” I honestly think Brit Hume didn’t really know how to respond. As it was, he didn’t even deny the premise.

Things got decidedly worse in the Colmes/Crowley debate.

That started with a discussion of Voter ID, where Crowley made the outrageous assertion that the Dems intend to commit voter fraud as an electoral strategy without any objection from O’Reilly. When Colmes brought up the fact that voter fraud is an insignificant problem, and that this ID balloon is really about intimidating poor and minority voters from the polls before they can vote for Dems, THEN O’Reilly steps in and tells Colmes he’s out of line. And Crowley is allowed an additional shot to tell Colmes his statement is outrageous – the irony of which was quite thick.

Then they moved on to discussion of the Harpootlian interview, for which O’Reilly gloated about having nailed him. Colmes attempted to make the point that Harpootlian had fumbled but couldn’t get past the filibustering from O’Reilly, who only wanted to hear a yes/no about whether it was smart of Harpootlian to say there shouldn’t be a debate on MLK Day in light of 2008. Colmes eventually backed down in light of the filibustering and both O’Reilly and Crowley telling him to calm down.

Finally, they brought up the old canard of the Black Panther/Christian Adams mess in Philadelphia, with Crowley once again accusing the Obama Justice people of dropping the case. Colmes then tried to correct the record for what must be the umpteenth time, and as they talked over each other, he reminded her that most of this happened under the Bush Department and that no complaints were ever filed in the case. O’Reilly and Crowley once again told Colmes to calm down and used semantics to maintain their case. Colmes by this point really did look frustrated, possibly from ending the segment with this kind of “Whack a Mole” discussion.

O’Reilly must have been in some kind of mood last night, since he also took the time during his Brit Hume discussion to bring up the whole Kennedy Family bootlegger story as a way of dismissing the family’s fortune. At several points during this, Hume was laughing as well, possibly out of nervousness or perhaps because he agreed.

All said, this was a pretty shocking hour of television.