And Then There's Fox News Who Proves There Are People Just as Dumb As Bush and Dana Perino

[As my mother used to tell me on an hourly basis as a child, "If you had a brain, you'd be even more dangerous."]

On the heels of ridiculing White House spokesprostitute person Dana Perino, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann on Countdown tonight points to a Fox news host (phonetically, his name seems to be Brett Baer but I cannot find him listed on Fox's - cough cough cough choke WHEEZE - news site to verify this) who would LOVE to one day be as smart as Perino.

Namely Mr. Baer, when discussing the GOP presidential nominee debate in Florida last night, refers to late President Abraham Lincoln (1861-64) in a manner that made it ABUNDANTLY CLEAR he had no idea of HOW Lincoln left office.

In a box, Mr. Fox host... in a box. ("Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?")

Hasn't been a good week for Fox - or the idiots who watch it - considering how Bill O'Reilly insisted there are NO homeless vets (instead of perhaps as many as 600K+ homeless vets out there) and then blamed vets being homeless on the only candidate talking about helping such folks, Democratic candidate John Edwards (with O'Reilly conveniently forgetting his comment earlier that if there were ANY homeless vets, he personally would make certain they got housing forthwith). Reilly ALSO demanded an apology from David Letterman for suggesting Bill O has never met a lie he wouldn't gladly repeat for his own gain.

And then there was John Gibson ridiculing the untimely death of actor Heath Ledger only to, rather than apologize for his comments, indicate that it was the people who said that they didn't like his callous, caustic commentary who were the problem.

No self-respecting under-rock-sliming snake with an IQ of ZERO or less would be caught dead in the company of these people. Sheesh.

Of Disasters And Playing The Fear Card: Did You Notice?

Wednesday night, as the tragedy of the bridge collapse in Minneapolis played out in prime time, gave what (at least for me) seemed a potent example of how badly the media, especially hopelessly partisan and misleading venues such as virtually anything and everything Rupert Murdoch owns like Fox News, the Department of Homeland Security, AND the Bush Administration serve us in times of tragedy.

I've addressed my complete disgust with the Bushies on this subject in earlier posts today, so let me turn to the rest, starting with the Department of Homeland (Incompetence and In)Security, which took rather long Wednesday night to say they doubted terrorism was at fault for the devastation.

From what I could tell, more than 90 minutes elapsed before the DHS managed to say that probably Osama bin Laden - or a liberal blogger, for that matter - was responsible. Now that might not sound too bad, but this message came SIGNIFICANTLY AFTER one cable TV news source, notably Keith Olbermann doing live coverage on MSNBC, bothered to check the Minnesota DOT's Web site and learned important details like the fact significant pile-driving, which can cause fierce vibration and therefore could be a major contributing factor to such a structural failure, was to take place that very night. I flipped between MSNBC, CNN, and Fox for the better part of three hours, and I have to say Olbermann's crew was almost always not just ahead of the game, but putting out important and verifiable details that put the disaster in much better perspective. For example, they seemed the first to report that this bridge had been considered at only 50% of its structural best several years ago and was on a list with tens of thousands of other bridges throughout the country in dire need of repair or replacement. In Bush's America especially, little things like basic safety take a huge backseat to getting Halliburton ever greater unprecedented profits thanks to no bid contracts awarded by the Bushies. Was this information magically available globally to the World Wide Web somehow not available to the idiot DHS director Michael Chertoff and his band of corrupt incompetents calling themselves by a department name they aren't fit to wear? So yes, I wonder if the slowness by them wasn't convenient to the fear campaign.

Fox, on the other hand, at best behaved almost hysterically and at worst... well, I have to say that I seriously wondered whether they were deliberately playing into the fear card as part of the great leadup to the nonstop terror scare fest we must expect as we edge closer to the 2008 presidential election. It seems to be part of the Republican playbook to scare the bejesus out of everyone with the silliest of potential terror events (exploding cheese and grandmas with bombs in their Reeboks, for example) while completely ignoring the gravest of present dangers like the Bushies and Fox News. At one point, Shep Smith filling in for O'Reilly was as breathless as a scared schoolgirl talking about explosions and all but suggesting that Osama bin Laden had decided that the way to hurt America most was to make it tough to get to Minnesota's Mall of America. They had a terror alert banner running that seemed suspiciously like something to be used to scare the not-so-bright into thinking al Qaeda wants to win its war one structurally unsound American bridge at a time.

Folks, we're being played and for far worse than mere fools. Fox plays us, the Bushies play us, and our own desire to not worry about all this "pesky political stuff" also plays us directly into the hands of those who want to peddle fear while reaping huge profits for doing nothing more than none too talented sleight-of-hand, hoping you're too busy watching American Idol or the latest ball game to notice.

Anyone For a Bet?

How long will it take some right-right or sleaze station (Fox Noise, perhaps?) to hire Don Imus now that CBS has outright fired him right after MSNBC kicked him to the curb?

Mind you, as a pre-teen, back when Imus was pushed off to odd channels/times because he DJed totally stoned (and not marijuana either), I loved Don. Why? Because he was nuts (so was my family, but at least Don was interesting nuts). But this nutcase has had many revisions and the worst yet has been his new "right wing" vista.

Someone told me today how sad this is since Don's about to do a telethon for his "sick kids" ranch. But - and I'm sure this is just a chance phenomenon - all the kids I see in video at his ranch are uh... um... how do I say this? Uh... as fish-fbelly-flesh white as I am (I may be 1/8th Native American by genetics but my coloration is more Brit).

The New "Open-Minded" Conservative Caucus Just Loves, Loves, Loves Matt Sanchez, Patriot and Gay Porn Model

Considering how much hateful, vicious rhetoric spews from the mouths of the right-most, nut-wingiest, so-called conservatives of the sociopathic fringe of the Republican Party on the subject of gays, I find it heartening to see how warmly they have embraced Matt Sanchez.

If the name "buzzes" a bit for you yet rings no distinct, loud bell, it's because you've likely seen or heard of Matt Sanchez, at least in passing. He's a darling on the Fox Noise circuit, where Sean Hannity, among others, refers to him as a "great American"; he gets his picture taken with ungodly goddesses of the right fringe like Ann Coulter (as in the picture here) and Michelle Malkin.

Matt came to "prominence" when he - self-described as very pro-military - spoke out about how shabbily he is/was treated at Columbia University for being pro-military which, of course, made the strangest of the wingnuts race to embrace him, have him on their shows, write about him on their blogs, and hell, probably race to introduce Matt to their Hispanic illegal immigrant female domestic help.

The first time I heard about Matt Sanchez, in fact, it was on a righty blog where he was described as "a new and improved Jeff Gannon except that this guy isn't a queer homo whore" (the right is ever so diplomatic). Uh, it turns out that this blog post was actually rather prescient because.. uh... it turns out that, among Mr. Sanchez' other interests, he has regularly appeared (appears?) in gay pornography.

Writes Hoffmania in a post entitled, "The GOP's Big Tent":

Let's open the closet door and see who's there now.

Hey! It's the right wing's poster boy for the military, Matt Sanchez, who made the rounds saying how Columbia University students treated him mean for being pro-military. A legit problem, indeed...so the right embraced him without checking his creds. Seems he apparently didn't go to Iraq.

And, oh yeah...something else Fox Noise never checked. He also has a film acting resume' which ain't on IMDB.

What's truly sad about this, of course, is that there is absolutely nothing wrong with Mr. Sanchez being gay but there is everything wrong with the far right's vicious homophobia and attacks on anyone who (unlike them) hasn't been married and divorced three, four, five, or six times from a slew of increasingly younger wives as great conservative righties like Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich have been.

And it's sad that, because the extreme right is well.. uh.. so extreme about wanting gays to spontaneously combust, they'll back quickly away from Sanchez, their poster boy, for the one attribute about him that perhaps isn't icky: that he's gay. But he's definitely self-hating and conflicted and pathological enough to qualify for the Malkin/ Coulter/ Gingrich/ Hannity/ Limbaugh/ Rick Santorum wing of the GOP (the company he keeps is indicative of this; no self-respecting person, IMHO, could accept their endorsement).

Fox Attacks: (But You Can) Hit Fox Where It Hurts

Visit this site to learn how.

Thanks to Buzzflash for the link.

More Snow Jobs, With Noxious Hume Fumes Added

Tony Snow, who was never a journalist to start with despite what he called himself, as White House spokesvillain, claimed today that any politician voicing concern about a possible war with Iran simply wants to protect Iran. What? Oh please! Tony, go fight in a fucking war and come back to us once you do! I think your insight might change a little. It's very easy to sit in Washington's toniest restaurants and opine like you know something (you don't, that's very clear) about a war you wouldn't be caught dead getting within two continents of.

Meanwhile, the best Fox NoiseNews Channel's Brit Hume can do is call Jack Murtha "senile" for trying to do the will of the people and get us out of the Iraq war that only profits the Bushies, the neocons, the energy companies with their sweetheart deals, AND the military industrial complex.

As Think Progress points out:

Numerous military and regional experts agree that there is no military solution for Iran. They say it would be “disastrous for the United States,” “empower reactionaries [in Iran] and validate their pro-nuclear argument,” and “usher in chaos and instability.” None of them are trying to “protect Iran.” Tony Snow’s hysterical rhetoric is false.