NewsHounds

I noted last week 7/15/08 that According to Kilmeade on FOX, nobody wants to be Obama's running mate. This morning 7/23/08 on the program, LA Governor Bobby Jindall reiterated that he does not want to be McCain's running mate, and the FOX website elaborates that he "joins growing number of those pulling themselves out of race." Funny, it wasn't framed the same way for the Republican.

Jindall stated on the show this morning "“I’ve never talked to the senator about the vice presidency or his thoughts on selecting the vice president," although from the web headline "Jindal to McCain: No Thanks", it seems he had been asked at least if he would be interested.

The FOX article also reveals that PA Governor Ed Rendell also took himself out of consideration for the vice presidency, even though "he has not been vetted by the Obama campaign, indicating he’s not a focus for their search."

I would like to take this opportunity to state that I am taking myself out of consideration for the nomination for Vice-President on the Democratic ticket.

This supports the speculation that talk of McCain possibly naming a VP this week actually IS a ploy to divert attention from Obama and put some media attention on McCain.

Bob Novak might have been used to start that rumor (everyone knows how he loves a scoop). On Live Desk with Martha McAllum yesterday Novak said "I since have been told by certain people that this was a dodge. They were trying to get a little publicity to rain on Obama's campaign. That's pretty reprehensible, if it's true." His language was toned down in an appearance this morning on F&F.

Carlson introduced him and said "You're up to it again (her emphasis), you put a little snippet and let's face it, everyone pays attention to you." Novak said he was contacted by a senior person in the McCain campaign who said McCain definitely would name a running mate this week. Novak was suspicious, and contacted another senior member, who said 'gee, wouldn't this be a good week to do it?' Novak said that wasn't enough for him to put it in a column, but he did put "a sentence on the Internet." Once the firestorm was raging, the McCain camp immediately backed off, he said, and we can draw our own conclusions on whether he was used to draw a little attention off Obama.

Well, even if McCain doesn't name anyone this week, at least people are talking about it, right? asked Carlson, supporting the idea that it was all a strategy to get some buzz for McCain. Yes, but it's foolish, said Novak. McCain needs to name someone before Obama does, and the name on everyone's lips is Romney. Funny how he was Rove's preferred candidate and now he's the one with the buzz and popular support.

Side Note: Novak was in police custody shortly after this appearance for allegedly hitting a pedestrian with his car. “I didn’t know I hit him,” Novak told reporters from Politico and WJLA on the scene. "He's not dead, that's the main thing."

In FOX's circular logic, since the media is covering Obama's fact-finding trip to the Middle East and Europe ("media tour"), engaging in "a love affair," a "bizarre fascination," their role is to tear him down. That's what they've always meant by fairandbalanced: they provide "balance" to the mythical liberal media. This morning 7/23/08 the Friends of FOX did their part to damage the Democratic presumptive candidate.

They asked "does Obama think he's president already?" Citing sister Murdoch holding New York Post (unidentified as such, which gives the appearance of another voice but is really just another outlet for the same one), they said he's been taken to task, and his staff has made multiple comments getting ahead of themselves.

For all the hype over the number of top-tier reporters traveling with the campaign, Mrs. Alan Greenspan/Andrea Mitchell has complained about press availability. David Gergen said Obama made a substantial gaffe in talking immediately following a meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister al-Malik; although his spokesman also made similar statements, it was deemed improper for Obama only.

"The media" is being watched this trip, so any tough questions they ask are framed as being the result of this scrutiny. Katie Couric's repeated attempts to get Obama to phrase his answer to her liking, which would give her the holy grail gotcha moment, were highlighted, although the Friends repeatedly said through the hours that Obama refuses to acknowledge that "the surge worked" and "he was wrong." Obama was seen saying that the extraordinary work of our US forces has contributed to a lessening of the violence, that there is no doubt that our troops helped to reduce violence, but he would still have preferred to apply his approach.

Why won't he just say what we want? they whined for hours.

McCain, on the other hand, was treated with pity (is that really a good idea?) because nobody is paying any attention to him. His campaign has put together an ad, which they hope goes viral, using clips to portray the media love affair with Obama. This supposedly humorous video is their answer to SNL's tease of the media during the Democratic primary.

The bias for McCain and against Obama is unmistakable throughout this 3-hour program.

During a double segment on last night’s (7/22/08) Hannity & Colmes, Alan Colmes several times asked Republican spokeswoman Mary Matalin whether or not Senator John McCain is running a good campaign. Matalin repeatedly ducked the question. With video.

A year ago Sean Hannity was squawking about a "direct assault on the First Amendment" via what he feared was an attempt to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine. Now, it's free market be damned as he keeps whining that John McCain is not getting the same amount of press coverage as Barack Obama.

FOX News’ Democratic newcomer, Howard Wolfson, did an excellent job of arguing that Republicans should quit bellyaching about the unfairness and start running a better campaign.

At about 3:22 minutes into the first segment, Colmes asked Matalin if she thought McCain is running a good campaign.

Matalin answered with a non-sequitor. I could not understand exactly what she said but it sounded like, “This is not 1992 and I’m not suggesting that nor the media was, what McCain should be doing or any kind of strategy like that.” Matalin continued with a lengthy statement that never answered Colmes’ question.

In Part 2, Colmes asked again, “Do you think John McCain’s running a good campaign?”

Long pause. Finally, Matalin said, “I think John McCain has come, is, is, when he’s covered, is being very articulate and clear on conservative positions that we care about – from reducing health care costs to energy.”

“You mean the positions he didn’t have prior to this campaign?” Colmes asked.

"He was not in position to be answering all these national issues," Matalin said. "He’s got a good position on energy now. He’s great on taxes. He’s got market-based health care solutions. He’s security, is – and he has all these leadership skills. So who he is, what he stands for, is a marked contrast to Obama who really is an empty vessel."

Matalin replied, "Yeah, here’s the vision: There are two forms of government. There’s a centralized, controlled, command and control way of running the country. And there’s a market-based, limited government, low taxes. You call that old, the American people call that, that’s the way they want their government to run."

In other words, Matalin could not unequivocally say that McCain is running a good campaign.

Wolfson summed it up well when he said that the vision is four more years of George Bush and that’s the reason McCain is losing. Wolfson added, “He has yoked himself to George Bush. I don’t know why he’s done it. He certainly wasn’t doing it in 2000. If this was the John McCain of 2000, this would be a very different race and a very different conversation. But this is a very different John McCain. He’s going to do a third term of George Bush if he’s elected and people just don’t want it.”

Matalin did not object or refute Wolfson.

FOX News is finally, six days after the fact, reporting on Michael Savage's truly contemptible remarks about autistic children, whom he characterized as "brats" with ineffective parents. MediaMatters has been on the story since he made the comments on his radio show last Wednesday July 16th, which has earned them scathing remarks and curses from the hate-jock.

From MediaMatters (where you can find full transcripts and audio): On his nationally syndicated radio show, Michael Savage claimed that autism is "[a] fraud, a racket. ... I'll tell you what autism is. In 99 percent of the cases, it's a brat who hasn't been told to cut the act out. That's what autism is. What do you mean they scream and they're silent? They don't have a father around to tell them, 'Don't act like a moron. You'll get nowhere in life. Stop acting like a putz. Straighten up. Act like a man. Don't sit there crying and screaming, idiot.' "

Go to MediaMatters for full timeline and action links. So far, "In response to Savage's remarks, the insurance company AFLAC announced it will no longer sponsor Savage's program, while the seven-station Super Talk Mississippi radio network has decided to drop Savage's program from its lineup."

The FOX article (tucked in among stories like "Ex-Teacher Arrested Again for Having Sex With Teen," "Shelter Takes 2 Dogs Trained to Have Sex With Women," and "Six-Legged Deer Recuperating After Dog Attack") seems to downplay the controversy by printing only partial quotes and Savage's responses to complaints, in which he mischaracterizes his initial comments. Not watching FNC 24/7 we can't say it hasn't been mentioned - it probably has - but it is not garnering nearly the attention of, say, an Obama fist-bump or a missing white girl.

Comment: This is generally outside our purview but these comments are so outrageous and so hurtful and so incredibly ignorant that we are happy to help spread the word. As several families I know are affected by autism it is shocking to me that someone would accuse them of poor parenting or of fakery to garner benefits. The struggles with an autistic child are ENORMOUS and the parents are incredibly dedicated and patient. They don't deserve this kind of hateful scorn heaped on top of all they already have to deal with.

Bill O'Reilly, accusing Rep. Robert Wexler (D) of "residential fraud" tonight, showed a clip of Griff Jenkins ambushing the Congressman, in weekend attire, on his front lawn with questions about the allegations. While Bill O'Reilly elaborated on the dubious charge, a photo of Wexler with unusually red lips was shown on the screen. Then John Fund, invited to stir up more controversy, claimed that Wexler has done nothing illegal. with video

It seems that Wexler has listed the address of his in-laws as his residence in Florida while owning a home in Maryland, where he was accosted by Bill-O's traveling mic. O'Reilly claimed it was a "ruse" and expected Fund to back him up. However, Fund was forced to admit that it wasn't illegal at all.

BOR continued the probe speculating about the state taxes Wexler pays insinuating that he is trying to cheat in some way. Fund couldn't help him with that either informing him that Florida has no income tax anyway.

O'Reilly continued the empty speculation trying unsuccessfully to discredit Wexler in some way. However, the only question that remains for me is how did Congressman Wexler's lips get so red in that shot?

So, are we supposed to turn the entire country over to the oil companies? That appears to be what Fox "business news" is pushing these days. For the last month they've been talking about how, if "we" could only drill in ANWR and off the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS), we'd be swimming in cheap gas within a year or two. As if that push to prolong the inevitable wasn't enough, oil shale mining was the topic du jour today (July 22, 2008).

Fox's oil guy, Eric Bolling, the "world's leading oil speculator" (no conflict there, huh?), was the go-to guy in a segment titled, "New Fed Plan to Tap 800B Barrels of Oil from Rock." He is all for mining in the Green River Formation which the "new Fed plan" targets. Green River lies beneath Colorado, Utah and Wyoming. According to Bolling, if we tore these areas up, we could have "160 years' supply."

This article - "About Oil Shale" - talks about the Green River Formation (discovered in the 1930's) and what oil shale mining entails. Never mind leveling the Rocky Mountains, among other things, it takes "several barrels of water" to produce one barrel of oil. Bolling blew that little ditty off but the Green River Formation is in my parched backyard. Water is a huge issue in my neck of the woods what-is-becoming-a-desert. It might not matter to single-minded pundits on a "news" channel broadcast from mid-town Manhattan, but water and how cities like Denver, Phoenix and Las Vegas will share it in the immediate future is on the table now out here. So for Bolling and Fox to tease the audience and present this issue in such a simple light is wrong; pure oil company propaganda that ignores the complications. Especially given what Bolling said at the end: "Sure, there are environmental concerns but listen, when we're talking 4, 5 or 6 dollars a gallon, you gotta do it."

Give our land and our water and our oceans to the oil companies? Brainwashing us into going along with that is now called "news?" Undoubtedly the people in Utah, Colorado and Wyoming will say hey, no problem. Come on down! (I don't think so.) On Fox, life is so simple.

P.S. What compensation will we citizens receive for letting the oil companies do this on our land? Really, really cheap natural gas? Pfsssst.

Last night’s (July 21st) “Grapevine” was more of the same old, same old global warming “skepticism.” Rather than deny global warming, Fox is now in the business of showing how “scientists” dispute that it is “man-made.” Hume’s first piece was teased with “Former Global Warming Alarmist Deals Blow to Greenhouse Gas Theory.” Let’s do the “Grapevine” deconstruction, again.

Hume asserted that David Evans (whose doctorate is in electrical engineering), described by Hume as a “former global warming alarmist and creator of the model that measures Australia's compliance with the Kyoto Protocol,” claims that “while global warming is real, there is no evidence that the main cause is carbon emissions.” Per Hume, Evans reports, in an article in The Australian, that carbon dioxide emissions play “at most, a minor role.” He goes on to say that “hot spots” in the earth’s atmosphere over the tropics, which he claims are “signatures of the greenhouse effect” have not been found by scientists who have been “trying to locate them, for years, using thermometers attached to weather balloons.” He states that “years of research "show no hot spots — whatsoever" ergo "an increased greenhouse effect is not the cause of global warming." The chyron read “spot of bother” which I guess was supposed to sound Australian?

Comment: Let’s start with The Australian which (surprise, surprise) is published by Rupert Murdoch. Now lets move on to David Evans who, according to his own words, in a monograph about the development of the carbon monitoring model which he did with another man, Dr. Gary Richards: “I know a heck of a lot about modelling and computers but I am not a climate modeller.” Let’s take Hume’s comment that Evans was a “former global warming alarmist.” According to Evans, not hardly: “When I started that job in 1999 the evidence that carbon emissions caused global warming seemed pretty conclusive, but since then new evidence has weakened the case that carbon emissions are the main cause. I am now skeptical.” Prior to his job with the Australian Greenhouse Office, he thought about writing but says that he did "lots more interesting stuff and mainly did my own research until 1999". “In the meantime, to support himself, he traded on the stock market and did some programming odd jobs.” In an interview with Republican Senator Jim (God won’t allow global warming) Inhofe Press Blog, Evans said the the IPCC has it all wrong. He later touted a “peer review” climate study by Fred Singer, who is head of the Science and Environmental Policy Project, a climate change skeptic group funded, in part, and given office space by Reverend Moon. As this article has only just be released, there has only been one rebuttal in which the missing climate “signatures” seem to have been found. Suffice to say that Evans is right smack dab in the middle of the global warming skeptic community; but that doesn’t stop Fox from showcasing his view as, somehow, more valid than the reality based scientific community. Never mind the recent EPA Report which states “Global warming is caused by greenhouse gases from the burning of fossil fuels.” Why bother with the "inconvenient truth" when you have important propaganda which is hardly a "blow" to greenhouse gas science! Evans, in denouncing the IPCC, states that their findings are “politically inspired fraud, not science.” Sounds like the unscientific and politically inspired Fox News.

Governor Bill Richardson (D-NM), a former presidential candidate, was on FOX and Friends this morning 7/22/08 to respond to charges from John McCain's camp and FOX News and right-wing radio that the New York Times is showing preferential treatment to Barack Obama in refusing an editorial from John McCain. As noted earlier this morning, the submitted piece attacks Senator Obama and his positions without clearly laying out McCain's; it is negative rather than positive, and the Times has asked him to submit another .
With video.

Gretchen Carlson conducted the interview and strongly advocated for McCain's right to have this specific piece published and accusing the New York Times of bias. Richardson defended on several points: he, as a presidential candidate, had many submitted op-eds rejected by the NYTimes; it is not a paper's duty to publish whatever a politician submits; the NYTimes has been very favorable to McCain in the past, already publishing seven op-eds by him and endorsing him in the Republican primary; and McCain should stop whining and re-submit another article.

Carlson insinuated that the NYTimes wants McCain to "change his opinions" and make his op-ed more favorable to Obama, but Richardson corrected her, saying the Times only wants McCain to change the thrust of his article, and he should just do it instead of making a big issue out of it.

Note that McCain went crying to FOX, who is gladly assisting in portraying him as a victim of the big bad media. Presumably none of the other outlets would enable the exaggeration of this non-story.

See for yourself how biased Carlson's handling of the subject was:

Comment: This whole storyline is just a part of the much larger campaign by FOX , since its inception, to demonize other media outlets and to convince viewers that FOX alone is fair and balanced, the only trustworthy source - classic abusive behavior. The media at large has been successfully cowed by the FOX News Public Relations department as exposed in - well lookee here - the New York Times. Watchers of this unfolding spectacle have to wonder how much is just regular FOX Republican-propping, and how much is payback for the aforementioned article.

Can you imagine if a liberal guest said such a thing? They’d be unlikely to be invited back, much less become a regular contributor on FOX News as Dick Morris is. From the 7/21/08 Hannity & Colmes. With video.

“Obama means a third Iraq war.” Morris held up three fingers for emphasis as he spoke.

Sean Hannity replied, “Oh, I hope not.” I noticed he didn’t say, “McCain means that won’t happen” or something similarly optimistic about a McCain victory.

Hannity moved on to Obama’s trip. Hannity said it seemed to him like “one big photo op.”

“There’s a more important thing going on,” Morris said. “He is a European socialist. He is cut from the same cloth as the European socialists are. And he is going to go to Europe and the European socialists are going to turn out en masse for him celebrating him. And the reason they’re gonna do it is that they can’t implement their socialist agenda in Europe because capital will go to the United States. Now if Obama is going to implement it in the United States, and Gordon Brown will do it in Britain, they can be as socialist as they like ‘cause capital has no place to go.”

Hannity credulously called it “a pretty scary scenario.”

FOXNews.com has dutifully posted a home-grown article complaining on John McCain's behalf that "The New York Times on Friday blocked an opinion piece submitted by John McCain to the newspaper shortly after it printed a piece by his Democratic rival, Barack Obama." Call a waaahmbulance!

The New York Times has responded:

“I’d be very eager to publish the senator on the op-ed page. However, I’m not going to be able to accept this piece as currently written. I’d be pleased, though, to look at another draft. Let me suggest an approach,” Times op-ed editor David Shipley wrote the campaign via an e-mail later distributed by McCain’s team.

“It would be terrific to have an article from Senator McCain that mirrors Senator Obama’s piece. To that end, the article would have to articulate, in concrete terms, how Senator McCain defines victory in Iraq. It would also have to lay out a clear plan for achieving victory — with troops levels, timetables and measures for compelling the Iraqis to cooperate. And it would need to describe the Senator’s Afghanistan strategy, spelling out how it meshes with his Iraq plan”

"McCain campaign Communications Director Jill Hazelbaker said the two candidates “have very different world views” about Iraq and the campaign wanted an opportunity to state its candidate’s view"

yet he squandered the opportunity and instead talked about Obama's view.

FOXNews.com also posted the op-ed piece as submitted, ("The McCain Op-Ed The New York Times Wouldn’t Publish"), which reads like a lengthy attack ad on Senator Obama and offers little of McCain's own vision.

FOX is presenting this as a refusal of the NYTimes to publish John McCain, in an attempt to shore up their accusation that the media is biased against him. This has been thoroughly debunked by Eric Alterman and George Zornick in The Nation. Their publishing the attack piece only goes to highlight their bias and makes McCain a sympathetic figure to their readers - as you can see in the comments there..

The Obama piece is very much in the first person, with only three references to Senator McCain and then only to briefly draw attention to contrasting stands. McCain's "response," on the other hand, is all about Obama, with ten references by name and numerous third person references, dissecting Obama's piece with no chance for rebuttal or debate - kind of like an O'Reilly segment.

As the astute editor at the NYT noted, there is nothing new in McCain's article and no talk of the future beyond vagaries, just criticism of Obama and rehashing of where we've been. They are more than willing to publish another op-ed by McCain:
"It is standard procedure on our Op-Ed page, and that of other newspapers, to go back and forth with an author on his or her submission. We look forward to publishing Senator McCain’s views in our paper just as we have in the past. We have published at least seven op-ed pieces by Senator McCain since 1996. The New York Times endorsed Senator McCain as the Republican candidate in the presidential primaries. We take his views very seriously,” said Times spokeswoman Catherine Mathis.

Congressman Joe Sestak visited Hannity & Colmes last night (7/21/08) and gave some real balance to the show. Sean Hannity’s best efforts to bully Sestak fell flat. After his early morning appearance on FOX & Friends, Sestak must have been tired by the time Hannity & Colmes came on. But you would not have known it from watching him. Congressman Sestak is our latest Top Dog. With video.

Congressman Joe Sestak visited Hannity & Colmes last night (7/21/08) and gave some real balance to the show. Sean Hannity’s best efforts to bully Sestak fell flat. After his early morning appearance on FOX & Friends, Sestak must have been tired by the time Hannity & Colmes came on. But you would not have known it from watching him. Congressman Sestak is our latest Top Dog. With video.

Congressman Joe Sestak visited Hannity & Colmes last night (7/21/08) and gave some real balance to the show. Sean Hannity’s best efforts to bully Sestak fell flat. After his early morning appearance on FOX & Friends, Sestak must have been tired by the time Hannity & Colmes came on. But you would not have known it from watching him. Congressman Sestak is our latest Top Dog. With video.

It was no surprise that Hannity & Colmes used the New York Times rejection of Senator John McCain’s Op-Ed as their top story last night (7/21/08). But even I was surprised at the level of bias, particularly in a discussion devoted to complaining about bias elsewhere in the media. With video.

The segment started with a two minute intro that doubled as a monologue for Sean Hannity’s talking points. Hannity read, “In a shocking and revealing display of their left-wing bias, the New York Times is refusing to run an Op-Ed piece by Senator John McCain about the war in Iraq. Now this comes only a week after Senator Obama wrote a piece on that same topic that the newspaper did decide to publish. Now McCain submitted a piece for publication but editor David Shipley rejected the piece, saying that he would be happy to look at future drafts so long as it adheres to the following criteria. And here I quote from the email that he sent to the McCain campaign. Quote, 'The article would have to articulate, in concrete terms, how Senator McCain defines victory in Iraq. It would also have to lay out a clear plan for achieving victory with troop levels, timetables and measures for compelling the Iraqis to cooperate. And it would need to describe the Senator’s Afghanistan strategy, spelling out how it meshes with his Iraq plan.'

So in order for the piece to appear in the Times, Senator McCain would have to take positions that he doesn’t believe in, like timetables? Excuse me? This is less liberal bias than it is liberal extortion. Now remember, this is the same bunch that gave MoveOn.org an unusually low rate to publish their 'General Betray us' ad and that was last year, so it’s no wonder that these snobs are despised beyond Manhattan’s Upper West Side.

Now later this afternoon, the Times issued a statement, reading, quote, 'It is standard procedure on our Op-Ed page, and that of other newspapers, to go back and forth with an author on his or her submission. We look forward to publishing Senator McCain’s view in our paper just as we have in the past. We have published at least seven Op-Ed pieces by Seantor McCain since 1996. The New York Times endorsed Senator McCain as the Republican candidate in the presidential primaries. We take his views very seriously.'

All this while Barack Obama continues his world tour of the Middle East and Europe.”

There was no mention that the Times had also rejected a letter to the editor from the Clinton campaign on similar grounds.

There was no balancing preface/editorial from Alan Colmes. In fact, in three years of blogging about this show, I can’t recall Colmes ever introducing a segment with anything close to similar opprobrium from a liberal perspective.

The only guest for the discussion was Bush administration appointee John Bolton, introduced merely as, “former Ambassador to the U.N. (and) FOX News contributor.” There was no mention of Bolton’s partisan background.

Predictably, Bolton criticized not just the Times but Obama and his foreign policy, too. In a statement that stopped just short of outing his own Republican stripes, Bolton said, “The American people have to decide who they think has the experience and the character and the judgment to make these decisions in circumstances we can’t foresee yet.”

Colmes did an excellent job of defending the Times but all his time was spent interviewing Bolton. Unlike Hannity, Colmes did not have a platform from which to (re)frame the topic.

FOX News contributor Bolton went on to misrepresent the Times’ position, in direct contradiction of what his employer, via Hannity, had just announced in the intro. Bolton complained, “If (the Times) had said, 'We want to publish your piece, Senator, but we think you need this or that or the other thing – '”

Colmes interrupted to say they had.

“No, they didn’t,” Bolton insisted.

“That’s exactly what they did,” Colmes answered. Hannity had just said so, too.

The Bill O'Reilly page of FOXNews.com currently hosts an important and serious poll worthy of FOX's self-proclaimed powerful news status: Q. What is the most biased news outlet in America?
A. The New York Times
MSNBC
Associated Press
NPR

Currently the brainwashed are going for, predictably, the NYT with MSNBC trailing. How's that for some echo chamber reinforcement?

Of course the poll is deeply flawed, with no option for FOX News or even "'none of the above." What a joke.

Tonight Bill O'Reilly, in one of the most misguided displays of hate filled ignorance ever aired on The Factor, declared that he has lost all respect for Al Gore calling him an "evil enabler" and "coward" who only cares about "pounding home his propaganda" because he appeared at Netroots this weekend. To make it even worse, Juan Williams and Mary Katherine Ham went along with BOR's delusions even comforting him when he turned himself into the victim.( Yes, he actually did that)

We all know that O'Reilly hates DailyKos and tonight he claimed hateful comments about Tony Snow were found there and left undeleted.O'Reilly likes to pretend for his viewers that Netroots is a gathering of out of control lunatics, hurling obscenties, burning flags and of course bad mouthing him 24/7. He acts like nothing constructive is done there but didn't explain fully what "merchants of hate" actually do for four days or how Al Gore "enabled evil" or "gave evil credibility". Huffington, however, is now on his approved list because she didn't allow hateful comments about Tony Snow to be posted. He didn't mention that she was also there and hosted a party for all the haters.

O'Reilly claimed Al Gore is a coward because he never puts himself in front of a critical audience preferring to "pound home his propaganda" to groups "who lap it up". BOR must have forgotten Gore's appearance in front of the Republican attack dogs in Congress or the fact that he's endured relentless attacks, abuse and disrespect from O'Reilly and his FOX News comrades.

However, O'Reilly insisted tonight that he has "stuck up" for Gore. He wailed to Ham and Williams, "Am I wrong to do this? I stuck up for this guy." Then he expressed concern that Gore might come on The Factor as if he realized he had blown that possibility. Both Ham and Williams offered BOR comfort which is both sad and embarrassing for them.

Regular readers of this site know that one of the memes on Your World, Fox's, ahem, "business news" show, is to parade before its audience a succession of angry Hillary Clinton supporters who rail against the DNC and Barack Obama and pledge their support for John McCain. Fox's primary objective, of course, is not its concern for Clinton or voters or the election process. It is to showcase Democrats who find Obama so repugnant that they're going to vote for McCain, and to insinuate that the Democratic party is crumbling and the DNC is corrupt. And it's getting to the point where Fox doesn't care about much more, like whether the same Clinton/McCain supporter says one thing one day, and another thing the next. It's the anti-Obama message that is paramount.

On July 10, Will Bower, the founder of Party Unity My Ass (PUMA) was on. Substitute host David Asman introduced Bower saying he had an, "exclusive announcement to make on this show."

With that, Bower said, "We're here to tell Barack Obama that we really don't need him. We haven't and we don't plan on needing him. We at JustSayNoDeal.com, we started a, an initiative before the 4th of July to raise money to put down her debt. And within that week leading up to the 4th of July we raised approximately $10 million. Our most conservative estimates have it at 6 million but we're looking more at 10 million. Our sources tell us that the debt is now less than $5 million away from being in the black and we're doing one final push ah, today and tomorrow to get our members to contribute just five more dollars or whatever they can and we believe that by this weekend that Hillary's debt will be finished."

Check out the chryon:

That was then, this is now. Will Bower was on again today (July 21, 2008) and if ever there was an example of Fox counting on its audience not to pay attention, this is it. Before launching off on how awful Obama and the DNC are, Bower complained that Obama isn't helping to pay down Clinton's debt, which, ah, he and his group supposedly paid off two weeks ago.

Substitute host Alexis Glick introduced Bower, saying Clinton lent her campaign another $1 million; she's still trying to raise cash, and "my next guest says that wouldn't be necessary if Barack Obama got his supporters to pony up cash as promised." (Message: Obama is a liar.)

Bower opened with, "Well you know, our goal is to do this without him. My guess is the reason why he hasn't been giving money to Hillary is that he needs it himself now. The numbers have come out showing that his donor base has shriveled to 50% of what it was from May to June. So he has his own problems."

That was about the extent of the money issue - which the segment was allegedly about. Bower, with Glick's help, went on to bash Obama and the DNC, saying PUMA is fighting to get Clinton's name placed into nomination but the DNC "squirms" when that comes up and you can see it "break a sweat because they're fighting to keep that from happening." "I am prepared to vote for McCain if Hillary Clinton isn't our nominee by the end of the convention," Bower said. We "only need about l65 delegates to switch back to Hillary Clinton." Obama has run a "fraudulent campaign" and his "own base is jumping ship" because he "abandoned stances" on FISA , campaign finance reform and Iraq. "There are even PUMA's now who used to support Obama." (Music to Fox's ears.)

Note the chyron:

Comment: Bower and his group are obviously free to do whatever they want but my point in following these guests is again, that Fox doesn't give a rat's a** about their plight. Fox loves exploiting them in order to tout McCain. And what about throwing a guest at its audience who says one thing one week and another thing the next? Again, integrity, insmegrity. You want news? Facts? Accuracy? Forget it. On Fox, it's all about convincing its audience to vote for McCain.

By the way, here's an article on where all three campaigns stand money-wise.

UPDATE 7-22-08: Fox posted this teaser to video of the segment on Your World's website. Note the title: "Party Rift?"

Last week Bill O'Reilly started another reckless crusade against Vermont but this time he went too far. Skeeter Sanders reports:

"Fox News Channel Talk-Show Host Slams State for Third Time in Two Years in Wake of Brooke Bennett Tragedy by Sending His Producer to 'Ambush' Its GOP Governor -- Then Shooting Off His Big Mouth About the Victim in a Way That Could Further Injure Her Family and Potentially Jeopardize Case Against Suspects in Her Death"

Read the article