Blogged by Brad (quickly) from Atlanta...

Congrats to our friends, at RAW STORY. They've made it onto the radar screen of Rightwing Extremist, borderline psychotic John Gibson of Fox "News." They must be doing something right. Fantasy World Dwellers like the Bush dead-ender Gibson must be seeing the writing on the wall. If Gibson's silly, desperate, and unsupportable shots at RAW are any indication, it seems that the previous strategy of the 28-percenters may be quickly disintegrating. Pretending the real world doesn't exist --- by ignoring actual journalism and critics of administration policies (such as breaking the law, ignoring the constitution, etc.) --- may be a dog whose time on the hunt is soon coming to an end.

"The far Lefties are mad at [Cheney] for a host of imagined and concocted offenses. Having mostly to do with the fact that Cheney doggedly pursues our nation's enemies and he doesn't much care what other people think of what he's doing," opines Gibson from the undisclosed location of his own mind. That, after using the words "far far," "extreme," and "lefties" more times in his opening several sentences than we were able to count this morning.

Gibson, not watched by all that many people on Fox "News," describes RAW as being read by "not all that many people." In the past week, RAW STORY has had over 3.5 million page views. Anyone have time to check any numbers for Gibson's "Big Show"? We wonder how it compares number-wise.

By the way, the "Leftist blog" RAW STORY, as Gibson attempts to marginalize it, is not a blog. It's a news site. But, given his employer, we'll forgive Gibson for being unfamiliar with what news actually looks like.

Gibson's embarrassing broadcast, live from Planet Clueless, may be viewed at RAW STORY, naturally.

Guest Blogged by Alan Breslauer

While this may not be one of Lewis Black's better "Back in Black" segments on The Daily Show, he does deliver one great line at the end about Fox "News" and the awful 1/2 Hour News Hour, in which BRAD BLOG has taken far too great an interest. To date, BRAD BLOG's extensive coverage of the alleged Fox comedy show has included a video post from the debut episode in February, a Brad Friedman exclusive interview with one of the stars from the premiere and a follow-up video post when the fake fake news show unexpectedly returned after a long hiatus. Let this put to rest once and for all any talk that BRAD BLOG only provides worthwhile coverage of election integrity issues!

Conyers responds to Fox "News" having shown him instead of now-indicted Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA) during their "breaking news" report yesterday, and FNC's pathetic "apology" today for the "error." (Details and video of both instances here.)

Says Conyers' office in a statement sent to The BRAD BLOG moments ago:

While it may be notable simply that Fox "News" bothered to report on a Congressional indictment at all --- oh, wait, this one concerned a Democratic member, so of course they reported it, silly! --- by now it's hardly notable at all that Fox, either accidentally or on purpose (hardly matters anymore), played the race card, again, in the most abhorrent way.

TPM's Josh Marshall has the skinny, and the video, right here...

UPDATE 6/5/07: Wow. Fox's version of an "apology" for showing Conyers as Jefferson was run today. About as feeble as it could possibly be and still be labeled an "apology" by any stretch of the imagination. See for yourself...

LATER UPDATE 6/5/07: Conyers issues statement on tepid Fox "apology." He was never contacted by FNC, and doesn't appreciate it. Full statement now here...

Guest Blogged by Alan Breslauer

Willie Horton lives! At least in spirit. At least on Fox "News" anyway, where fears of rampant, uncontrollable black people running wild still rule the day! And they're even voting now! The "fear" of double-voting in next year's South Carolina Presidential primary is thoughtfully illustrated at left for us by the nice white men at Fox "News."

As Greg Sargent, who caught this item yesterday pointed out about this clip: "Notice anything missing? As in, non-black voters?"

Black people voting! Twice! Run for the hills!

The report ran yesterday, on Special Jim Crow Report with Brit Hume at the very least. It was probably repeated throughout the day, we're guessing. No mention of the actual recent indictment for double-voting by the white GOP aide of the white Republican Congressman from North Carolina, Rep. Patrick McHenry. Nor, of course, of the demonstrable felony voter fraud in Florida, by white GOP superstar Ann Coulter.

Guest Blogged by Alan Breslauer

UPDATE: Newshounds has some thoughts on the show's most recent attempt at "comedy", calling yesterday's outting "painful" and "the longest 1/2 hour I ever experienced watching a show on FOX News."

Guest Blogged by Alan Breslauer

Bill O'Reilly responded to a recent Indiana University Study comparing the Fox "News" mouthpiece unfavorably to the notorious propagandist of the 1930s, Father Charles Coughlin, with even more propaganda. While O'Reilly spent the bulk of his time defending himself by attacking Media Matters and George Soros, he does question and mock the most publicized part of the research that evidences O'Reilly using a derogatory name to describe his opponents every 6.8 seconds during the Factor's "Talking Points Memo" segments. This mashup shows O'Reilly's response to the study and then looks back at the six previous "Talking Points" to see whether O'Reilly or the Indiana University researchers are to be believed.

Finally, for those wondering what George Soros and Media Matters have to do with whether or not Bill O'Reilly is a propagandist, I will try to explain. For starters, George Soros - he who gives away billions of dollars trying to spread good governance, democracy, human rights and independent media around the world while combatting corruption and rights abuses - is the face of evil. As O'Reilly stated in last night's broadcast to former General Wesley Clark whose PAC received $75,000 from Soros, "There isn't a more radical person in the country than [Soros]". O'Reilly then asked Clark if he would also accept David Duke's money.

The emailer who forwarded us the following toon, marking the 4th Anniversary of Bush's "Mission Accomplished" speech, aptly commented: "The amazing thing about this is that all of these people still have their jobs and appear as expert pundits in the media, while the people who were right all along are often portrayed as left-wing out-of-touch-with-reality naive nutty fools, and they don't get on the talk shows very much."

No kidding. The failure of our current corporate mainstream media in a nutshell.

But be sure to read through to the bottom of this post, for an additional stunning quote from Cal Thomas' April 15, 2003 column which Tom Tomorrow, the creator of this toon, mentioned he wasn't able to fit into this strip...

Guest Blogged by Alan Breslauer

It really doesn't get any worse than this Michelle Malkin (filling in for Bill O'Reilly) interview of Malik Shabazz Thursday night on Fox "News". There is so much wrong with the exchange that no analysis can do it justice. The clip picks up about halfway through a discussion on the Duke lacrosse case. Here is a taste:

Only on Fox "News" and immediately after back to back to back Don Imus segments!

Wow...Just wow. Bill O'Reilly goes Morton Downey Jr.

The latest phony issue created by O'Reilly is crucifying the mayor and police chief of Virginia Beach for not having previously deported an undocumented immigrant who ended up killing two teens in Virgina Beach in a drunk driving accident. He's mad not because the guy was a drunk driver, apparently, but because he was "an illegal alien." O'Reilly was whacked all morning about it on his radio show, and then flipped his shit on Fox "News" tonight with Geraldo, charging him with "wanting anarchy." Give it a look...

A news conference was held in response to O'Reilly's batshit episode, in which he told the father and sister of one of the dead girls: "The authorities in your town would not obey the law, defied the law of the land and somebody needs to be held accountable sir. I want you to keep in touch with us. We're gonna get the mayor, Oberndorf and the judge, Whitehurst, because they're the villains."

At the news conference, with Mayor Meyera Oberndorf, the father of the other killed girl said: "We need to heal, and to bring immigration, that's disrespectful to a family who's just mourning."

O'Reilly has gone frickin' psycho. And again we ask, as we did after he cut off the mic of a 29-year army veteran two days ago: Why is this guy still on TV? The same reason Morton Downey Jr. was, we guess. Trainwrecks get great ratings.

(Hat-tip Oliver Willis.)

Since Brit Hume of Fox "News" has never quoted us (rather, me, Brad Friedman) by name as far as I know, I thought it would be worth elevating the following update from our piece over the weekend which was critical of Obama, to note the once-credible Hume having done so today, in order to smash up a Democrat, of course. Oh, the irony never stops.

The original BRAD BLOG article from which Hume quotes us (me) was critical of Obama for reportedly telling AP over the weekend that Senate Dems would cave by sending an Iraq spending bill to the White House without troop withdrawal timelines, if Bush vetoes the current one as promised.

Hume failed to mention, of course, that we also noted the dubious provenance of the report: The Associated Press. Neither did he mention the ensuing updates and discussions about whether AP had the story right or not. Though, in fact, Obama has not gone out of his way to correct the record, or call out AP for being inaccurate, save for this middling response in the Union Leader today. Markos at DailyKos --- who is infamously singled out along with us (happy to tarnish his reputation) in Hume's piece --- has thoughts on Obama's response with which we will also associate ourselves in a rare meeting of minds.

So for infamy's sake, the video of former newsman Hume using us to slime Obama ("Liberal Bloggers Turn on Barack Obama") is at left. We'll presume he means "turns back on" versus the sexual connotation. Either way, we're happy to serve. Video courtesy of the indispensable NewsHounds.us and the indefatigable Alan Breslauer.

Please note: Unlike the Fox "News" website print version of Hume's "Political Grapevine" (see the update from the original article below), Hume referred to us as "popular" in the video version. We shall add it to our CV right away...

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).