In one of his most shamefully transparent swiftboat attacks yet, Bill O'Reilly twisted and perverted the comments of 29-year U.S. Army Colonel Ann Wright last Friday, for having the temerity to explain that when Americans parade their own prisoners of war before the cameras, it's difficult to have the "moral high ground" in making the case that Iran has violated the Geneva Convention by doing similarly with their captured British troops.

For the record, Wright spent years educating troops on the Geneva Convention at Fort Bragg and understands it cold (unlikely, O'Reilly). She also spent 16 years in the diplomatic corps before resigning in protest as the Iraq War began. I interviewed her on the illegalities of the war while at Camp Casey in Crawford, TX, in August of 2005. Her explanation was exceedingly enlightening. (MP3 here, appx. 22 mins, as part of the collection of highlights from our 50+ hours of special BRAD SHOW "Operation Noble Cause" live broadcasts.)

Crooks & Liars' coverage of the interview, includes a transcript from the wrap-up of the attempted O'Reilly hit piece (in which he only seems to have hit himself):

Watch the video. It's absolutely shameful.

(Hat-tip for the video to Chrish at the indispensable NewsHounds.us for "watching FOX so [we] don't have to.")

Guest Blogged by Alan Breslauer

The Bush administration is hell bent on opening up US highways to Mexican truck drivers without much regard for safety, terrorism, drug smuggling or jobs. In fact, the program seems to be uniting a wide range of groups on the left and the right against the administration which claims it will be good for the economy. Lou Dobbs gives his opinion at the 2:45 mark:

Guest Blogged by Alan Breslauer

Senator Barbara Boxer has a little talk with Senator Exxon, uh, James Inhofe who did not want to let former Vice President Al Gore answer his questions on global warming. It was Gore's first appearance on the Hill since January, 2001. Lou Dobbs covers the entertaining bit (1:32).

Guest Blogged by Alan Breslauer

On Friday Bill O'Reilly was arguing to guest John Flannery, in light of Khalid Sheik Mohammed's mass confessions, that the United States doesn't torture. What made O'Reilly's stance particularly perplexing was that back in September, 2006, ABC's chief investigative reporter, Brian Ross, appeared on The Factor and explained, to O'Reilly's approval, that torture was actually used by the United States. Nonetheless - back in the present day, PsychoBoy O'Reilly's memory seems to have erased itself, as he accuses Flannery of "buying all that propaganda"...for believing exactly that which O'Reilly had previously espoused.

But wait! Much more O'Reilly Video-a-palooza below!...

Guest blogged by DES

Apparently the right-wing mouthpiece Fox "News" Channel is a little freaked out over getting fired as hosts of a Democratic presidential debate in Nevada. FNC management has responded to the drubbing by putting out a thinly-veiled threat to other Democratic presidential candidates and their media coordinators to keep Fox "News" on speed-dial (with Roger Ailes's newest bitch-slap here). My, my, such a hissy fit just because they finally got called on the carpet for being the Republican Fox in the henhouse.

As they continue to wring their hands and stamp their feet over such shoddy treatment, Mort Kondracke let drop this amusing little bit of cluelessness:

See the full clip here at Think Progress. Hat tip to John Aravosis at Americablog.com for pointing out this little gem.

Additional thought from Brad: Dear Fox 'News' Whining Cry-Baby Sore-Losers: You lost. Move on. Get over it.

*** Special to The BRAD BLOG
*** by Libby/CIA Leak Trial Correspondent Margie Burns

After sitting in on the Libby trial every other day and posting about it on BRAD BLOG, I had intended not to write further about the matter barring new developments. Unfortunately, the rightwing spin machine has launched a new campaign of misstatements that sound intentional.

So much for respecting authority, upholding the law, and appreciating honest hard work: now that a conscientious jury has rendered a verdict of guilty on four of five counts of perjury and obstructing justice for I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the GOP noise machine is vilifying the prosecution and smarmily denying any wrongdoing, any at all, in the CIA leak.

So much for conservatism.

Well, bad sports are bad sports, anywhere on the political spectrum. Still, the brazen willingness of commentators subsidized by Rupert Murdoch or the Bradley Foundation to falsify every significant fact in the Libby matter, usually without having sat even one day in court for the trial, is pretty much typical of their work ethic and intellectual rigor.

Sunday morning’s talk shows were representative. George F. Will and Torie Clarke on ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos downplayed the CIA leak matter by saying the whole thing “all arose from one column” (Will), a column not very important at that (Clarke).

The right wing is trying hard to keep this one alive. But trial evidence and testimony have revealed that the attempt to “leak” – actually, plant – Mrs. Wilson's name with the media began BEFORE Wilson’s column was published.

Wonder why GOP supporters of George W. Bush find that so uninteresting....

Pounding on several deadlines at once, so for the moment, here's something to chew on...

References to Anna Nicole and Walter Reed on cable networks on March 2:

Courtesy of ThinkProgress, with more details here...

Discuss.

Apropos of our earlier article today concerning the fake Fox "News" Channel "comedy" show 1/2 Hour News Hour, Darrin Bell, the creator of Candorville dropped us a note to point to today's strip (see below), which touches on same.

He wrote: "I had to admit to feeling a bit guilty when I read the closing line of today's entry. I am guilty of helping draw more attention to that crap."

Don't worry, Darrin. Even though we wrote that last line, we're still guilty of same. We did write that article, after all. Oh, how we do loves the paradoxes and ironies here at The BRAD BLOG.

We're also happy to see attention drawn to the propagandistic garbage that is the Fox "News" Channel in MSM papers all over the country. Even if it's "only" on the comics page. So, thank you, sir, and keep up the good work!

NOTE: Bell links back to our story from this morning, in his daily blog which he now runs along with each of his strips over at his website. We're happy to return the favor...

BRAD BLOG Guest Blogger Alan Breslauer had a thing or two to say last week about Fox "News'" phony new comedy show and how closely their phony comedy seemed to resemble their phony news.

Elsewhere in the 'sphere and beyond, since the premier of the 1/2 Hour News Hour, others have rung in with their own picks and pans (not suprisingly, mostly 'pans' from the Left and 'picks' from the Right.)

Setting aside the show's lack of, um, funniness (of course, being one of those wacko "Hollywood Liberals" they hamfistedly attempted to skew, I would say that, wouldn't I?) or the shamefully over-"sweetened" laugh track or the predictably stale "Liberal" bashing, what jumped out at me was how the show seemed once and for all to be an out-and-out admission by Fox "News" that they're not really a news outlet at all.

Of course, any intellectually honest observer has recognized that for some time. If they called themselves, more honestly, the Republican News Channel, at least they'd be nearer to telling the truth and Americans could take 'em or leave 'em. At least there would be little pretense that they are anything other than what they are: a crackerjack GOP Propaganda Machine.

But by programming a "comedy" show on their pretend "News" channel, they seem to be admitting, finally, out loud, that they aren't actually about news at all. It wouldn't be the first time, of course. Over Christmas they ran some Texas Baptist Church service nearly wall-to-wall for much of the weekend. Not that that's not "news," of course --- in Fox's world, anyway.

It's been amusing, if painful, to watch FNC's increasingly tortured attempts over the last several years as they try to find something --- anything --- to report on other than the actual news, since any honest reporting thereof would be so devastatingly counter to their own hard right political bias.

An endless war launched without reason and built on lies from the Oval Office itself? Yawn...what happened to that chick in Aruba?! The White House itself, for the first time in history, outting and destroying a major covert CIA intellegence operation monitoring WMD in the Middle East? Not interested...But did ya hear the latest on Anna Nicole?!

So now, with FNC even beginning to run dry on phony outrage, in the latest desperate Fox "News" Hail Mary attempt to fill 30 more minutes of their 24 hour broadcast day with anything but actual news, they've shamelessly set aside all pretense by choosing to fill those 30 minutes with attempts at satirical comedy. Sort of. Not even CNN or MSNBC has crossed that rubicon. Yet. But give 'em time.

While I rather enjoyed the cold opening with Rush and the unusually deer-in-the-headlighted Ann Coulter (both of whom sorta, kinda, almost actually succeeded in making fun of themselves a bit...something wholly lacking from the rest of the show), the rest of it went quickly downhill from there.

Imagine my surprise then, when halfway through the thing, an old acting colleague of mine showed up in one of the mid-show sketches. The first question that popped to mind when I saw Jonathan was, "What the hell must he have been thinking?!"

I gave him a call last week to find out...

In case you missed it, this one-minute video is our choice for High-larious Wingnut Highlight of the Week from last Sunday's news shows.

Watch as Chris Wallace comes 'this close' to passing out in confusion after screwing up while trying to differentiate between Bush's latest flip-floppery on North Korea and the much-decried deal Bill Clinton made with them years ago. Of course, the Bushies were against it all before they were for it.

As it rolls, Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) just looks on, smiling with the satisfaction of knowing he just owned Wallace on live Wingnut TV...

(Note: YouTube has been acting up today, so if it says "Video Not Available" when you try to play it, try again in a minute or so.)

(Thanks Alan Breslauer for the vid!)

*** Special to The BRAD BLOG
*** by Libby/CIA Leak Trial Correspondent Margie Burns

One of the pettiest distortions connected with the CIA leak matter is simple: the flat-footed, bogus claim that Ambassador Joseph Wilson said he was ‘sent’ to Africa by Vice President Cheney.

Wilson did not make the assertion, but White House operatives and their media/think-tank allies continue, even today, to forward the fiction that he did.

This claim – that Wilson went around saying Cheney sent him to Niger – has been recycled by the rightwing echo chamber every time the radar screens registered some political fallout from the CIA leak case (many examples shown below). It has also arisen during testimony in the Libby trial.

However, the MSM (except Fox) have not parroted the same claim – with the interesting exception of NBC, mainly Chris Matthews.

Regrettably, this bogus claim is again given space in Sunday's Washington Post, in an article by the hard Bush partisan and former Reagan Justice Department attorney, Victoria Toensing, called “Trial in Error.”

Guest Blogged by Alan Breslauer

1/2 Hour News Hour, which debuted tonight on Fox News, is not funny (see clip at right). But too few laughs is the least of the problems this Daily Show wannabe brings to the table. Of far greater concern is that 1/2 Hour undermines Fox News far better than even the Daily Show or Colbert Report ever could. Viewed another way, what is the Fox audience supposed to think when a show advertised as comedy that clearly seeks to emulate the satirical Comedy Central shows, delivers a program no different than any Fox News show but for a laugh track?

Instead of Sean Hannity zingers about polar bears and global warming you get 1 liners and skits about polar bears and global warming. Instead of Bill O'Reilly shouting down Hollywood liberals you get 1 liners about Hollywood liberals. And while the Fox News audience is not known for being perceptive, the similarities between Fox comedy and Fox news are not subtle. In fact, the contrived targets, both people and issues, are basically the same.

Perhaps the best illustration of the dilemma is seen in the debut episodes opening "jokes" involving Senator Hillary Clinton. Before 1/2 Hour's debut, Fox News had spent almost every day for 10+ years skewering Hillary to the point that much of the country views her as a cartoonish villain. So, when 1/2 Hour jokes that President Hillary would staff the White House with angry lesbians it's hardly funny. Dick Morris has said essentially the same thing on the O'Reilly Factor more times than I care to remember. And you can basically assume the same problem will arise for every politician and celebrity that 1/2 Hour targets.

Guest Blogged by Alan Breslauer

Edited down Fox News special, "Radical Islam: Terror In Its Own Words", to show only the comments of host, and mother of eight, E.D. Hill.

Guest Blogged by Alan Breslauer

Guest Blogged by Alan Breslauer

Watch this 14 second promo clip and try to determine which side is represented in the Battle for America. Does it have the people's best interest in mind? If not, then who might benefit from this news/advertisement? These are not easy questions but the answer is within the grasp of those willing to put in the work, utilize their education and have decent deductive reasoning skills. Finally, what word that begins with the letter "P" am I thinking of? Good luck.