You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (1215)

PLAYS: (6387)

Sarah Palin continues to delude herself -- or at least, is desperately hoping to continue deluding her fans, which isn't very hard to do -- that she, as the two-year governor of Alaska and former mayor of Wasilla, has more "executive" experience than either Barack Obama or Joe Biden. At least, that was what she tried telling Bill O'Reilly in the second part of her interview shown last night:

O'Reilly: You pointed out his [Obama's] lack of experience -- you don't have that much experience. You walked away from the governorship after, what, two years? Two and a half years?

Palin: Going into my lame-duck session -- my fourth legislative session -- and not wanting to put Alaskans through a lame-duck session --

O'Reilly: OK, but is it fair for you to criticize Obama's lack of experience when somebody could make the same criticism about you on the national stage.

Palin: If you're talking about executive experience, I would put my experience up against his any day of the week. I have been elected to local office since 1992, and was a city manager, strong-mayor form of government, was a chief executive of the state, and was an oil and gas regulator. There was some good experience there that could have been put to use in a vice presidential ticket. We've to remember too that I wasn't running for president.

O'Reilly: No, but that's the key question. Because John McCain is up there in years, you had to be qualified to take that office over.

Palin: Right. But I -- I'm saying I was running for vice president, just like Joe Biden had been running for vice president. I never once heard you or anybody else question Joe Biden and his experience.

O'Reilly: Well, he's got a lot of experience.

That's the whole absurdity of Palin claiming she has more "executive" experience, as though being mayor of a small town places her on the same level of experience as a United States Senator. The issue of experience isn't related to the organizational context, but rather the scale of it: Joe Biden has nearly a half-century of wrestling with national and international issues -- the kind a president has to deal with -- and has an established track record there.

When Palin was Wasilla's mayor (and before that a council member), the issues she was dealing with involved placement of a sewage-treatment plant and deciding whether someone's driveway needed paving. Oh,and let's not forget the vital issue of building a new gym with taxpayer dollars.

But the interview reached its real nadir when Palin tried to explain why voters would want to vote for her. It's possibly the most garbled, incoherent piece of anti-intellectual right-wing populist nonsense I've ever heard:

O'Reilly: Let me be bold and fresh again. Do you believe you are smart enough, and incisive enough, intellectual enough, to handle the most powerful job in the world?

Palin: I believe that I am because I have common sense, and I have, I believe, the values that are reflective of so many American values. And I believe that what Americans are seeking is not the elitism, the, um, the, ah -- kind of spineless -- a spinelessness that perhaps is made up for that with elite Ivy League education and -- fact resume that's based on anything but hard work and private-sector, free-enterprise principles. Americans could be seeking something like that in positive change in their leadership. I'm not saying that that has to be me.

No, it definitely doesn't have to be you, Sarah. Indeed, I think it's safe to say that this level of intellectual incoherence would be a real danger to the country.

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (1179)

PLAYS: (3621)

Sarah Palin thinks she's got it covered now in explaining why she did so badly when interviewed by actual journalists in her failed vice-presidential campaign last year. She went on The O'Reilly Factor last night and told BillO that a simple foreign-policy question like Charles Gibson's query about the Bush Doctrine was just a "gotcha technique" by the liberal media (instead of a routine question intended to ascertain her bearings on foreign policy).

And Katie Couric? That was just a reaction to Katie's snotty questions:

O'Reilly: Katie Couric's a different story. Katie Couric asked you an easy question and you booted it, governor.

Palin: I sure did.

[Plays video]

COURIC: What newspapers and magazines did you regularly read before you were tapped for this — to stay informed and to understand the world?

PALIN: I’ve read most of them again with a great appreciation for the press, for the media —

COURIC: But what ones specifically? I’m curious.

PALIN: Um, all of them ...

O'Reilly: Why did you boot it? I mean, if somebody asks what do you read, I say I read the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, I could reel them off in my sleep, you couldn't do it.

Palin: Well, of course I could. Of course I could.

O'Reilly: Well, why didn't you?

Palin: It's ridiculous to suggest that or say I couldn't tell people what I read. Because by that point already, although it was relatively early in that multi-segmented interview with Katie Couric -- it was, it was quite obvious that it was going to be a bit of an annoying interview with a badgering of the questions. It seemed to me that she didn't know anything about Alaska, about my job as governor, about my accomplishments as mayor or governor, my record. And a question like that, though, yeah, I booted it, I screwed up, I should have been more patient and more gracious in my answer, it seemed to me the question was more along the lines of -- Do you read? How do you stay in touch with the real world?

O'Reilly: See, that was your inexperience.

Palin: It was my inexperience with having to deal with a condescending, badgering line of questioning. No -- no reflection at all on my inexperience in terms of administrative record or accomplishments or vision for America.

Pardon me while I call b-llsh-t. "What kinds of things do you read?" is a stock question of the political journalist when querying candidates, particularly those new on the scene. And as you can see from watching the clip that O'Reilly shows, there was nothing high-handed or suggestive of "Do you read?" in Couric's question.

You can watch the longer clip of this portion of the interview here. Palin is not bridling at Couric's arrogance -- she's drawing a blank and reaching for straws.

But in Palinopia, of course, she's just being "human." And I guess that's right, to an extent -- since prevaricating and dodging and making up lame excuses is part of the human condition too. Just not a very attractive or inspiring one.

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (1159)

PLAYS: (2329)

Back when Bill O'Reilly was semi-defending Lou Dobbs for promoting the "birther" conspiracy theories, he invited on Richard Cohen of the Southern Poverty Law Center -- which had called for Dobbs' firing -- to defend their campaign. And he made a bet with Cohen, kinda sorta:

O'Reilly: CNN is never going to fire him, you know that ...

Cohen: I'm not quite as cynical as you are, Bill. I think that if enough people speak out, CNN will listen and be more responsible in the future.

O'Reilly: You wanna bet? ... I've got ten grand for Habitat for Humanity on the table if you wanna bet me.

Cohen: How about ten grand for the Southern Poverty Law Center?

O'Reilly: But I’m not going to take your money. There’s no real bet there — he’s not going to get fired.

Of course, Dobbs was indeed fired. So last night on The O'Reilly Factor, he announced:

O'Reilly: I will pay that debt. I will donate $10,000 to Habitat for Humanity -- I don't know whether the Southern Poverty Law Center was responsible, but I'm gonna do it anyway.

But he still just didn't want to come to terms with the reality that Dobbs' firing was not about First Amendment free-speech rights, but about the responsibilities that come with those rights -- that is, it was about the role that Big Media play in a functioning democracy, and the civic necessities that lie therein.

Cohen: Bill, I don't think it was just us. It was a lot of people -- our supporters, our allies --

O'Reilly: But tell me what you did, because you were obviously involved. What did you do?

Cohen: Well, Bill, what we tried to do was point out the kind of lies and racist conspiracy theories that Dobbs propagated night after night on his show.

O'Reilly: How did you do that, though? Talk to people over there? Did you do a letter-writing campaign? Did you go to their house? What did you do?

Cohen: Well, the first thing that we did was we tried to talk to Dobbs, talk to his staff. And do that quietly, to try to get our point across. When that failed, we wrote to CNN and asked them to correct some of the crazy things that he said. Finally, this summer, we asked CNN to remove him from the air when he started giving credence to those crazy bogus theories, as you called them, about Obama's citizenship. So I think it was a combination of those things.

O'Reilly: But what I'm interested to know -- Look, anybody can ask, they ask Fox to remove me from the air every hour on the hour, OK? So anybody can ask. Aw, we don't like O'Reilly, we don't like Dobbs, get 'em off the air. But did you have a feeling CNN was actually listening to you? Or that they were gonna pull him off the air? You've gotta give me a little inside baseball here, Mr. Cohen.

Cohen: We had no secret pipeline to CNN, Bill. And you know, the truth of the matter is, you played an important role in the campaign. I appreciate your having me on in July, and I appreciate your acknowledging on the air to your viewers that the things that Dobbs was saying about the birthers were bogus and absurd --

O'Reilly: Well, some of them were bogus, but here's where we differ. And everybody should know it, Mr. Cohen. I don't want Lou Dobbs off the air. I think he's a voice that should be heard. You want him off the air. See look -- I feel that you, and your organization, while you do do some good, are fascist in your approach to people with whom you disagree. Because Lou Dobbs shouldn't have been pulled off their for his opinion -- challenged, yes. I disagree, I say it! Pulled off the air? No! You shouldn't even want that. You should want, in a democracy, people to have freedom of speech and put stuff out there. If you disagree, or you think that he's inaccurate, get -- that's why I give you airtime! You're welcome to come on, and say look, this is what we do, that's what we do here!

Of course, no one is infringing on Lou Dobbs' free-speech rights, because having a network-TV show is not a right guaranteed by the First Amendment. No one is preventing Dobbs from enjoying the same speech rights enjoyed by everyone else in the country. What they are insisting upon, instead, is that the people in charge of dispensing mass information to the public uphold the responsibilities inherent in holding a powerful position in setting the direction of our democratic discourse.

Continue reading »

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (1346)

PLAYS: (2316)

It didn't take Lou Dobbs long to appear on Fox News, and Bill O'Reilly was the joyful host. He initially tried to get Dobbs to slime over his departure, but Dobbs said that in all his years he was never told what to do or say and was never "talked to" about how he ran his show. As the interview wound down, Bill needed something a little juicy, so instead of asking Dobbs how he felt about Obama's policies so far, he phrased it as if President Obama will eat your babies, corrupt your spirit and lure you to sell your soul.

O'Reilly: Barack Obama, is he the devil?

Dobbs: He's not the devil, but he is certainly the man who is not making it easy to understand why he is making the public policy choices that he is. There has to be a better understanding from and can only from his expression to the American people, what is taking so long for his decision on Afghanistan. Why is it so necessary to turn 1/6th of the economy into the United States government, which has not showered itself with glory.

O'Reilly: So you don't think he's Satan, but you think he's mismanaging the country at this point.

Dobbs: I think, absolutely.

O'Reilly: OK, sorry I put words in your mouth.

Dobbs: No, I was excited. It was a pretty good choice.

Yeah, Bill. You only asked him if Obama was the Devil. What a jackass. And Dobbs just loved Obama being compared to Satan. Well, Dobbs should try and be the teabagger King. He'll fit right in. Maybe Tancredo can help on his campaign. he mimics every anti-Obama slur there is.

I think BillO is watching the CW's show "Supernatural". What a despicable way to ask Dobbs about Obama. Hey Lou, is President Bush the savior? Well, he sure is. If only those evil liberal devil worshipers would go away and let him blow up the entire Middle East, I believe the country would be better off, Bill.

You know, you have to appreciate that guys like Anthony Weiner and Joe Sestak will go on Bill O'Reilly's show to try to bravely counter his nonstop deluge of right-wing talking points. But as he demonstrated last night when he had them on to talk about the New York City terrorism trials, he just proved once again why it's never a winning proposition to go on his show, no matter how hard you try.

O'Reilly only invites liberals on to set them up for a shoutdown, really -- and that's what he did last night. Both Weiner and Sestak pointed out the absurdity of O'Reilly's fears about the civil court system setting the terrorists free -- and worse still, in O'Reilly's view, actually being permitted to stand up and voice their beliefs as part of their defense.

O'Reilly just wound up shouting at them about the four-year trial of Zacarias Moussaoui -- who in fact was convicted. But to O'Reilly, what was intolerable was that Moussaoui was able to use the trial as "propaganda" for radical Islam.

O'Reilly just doesn't believe in the American way of justice, and is afraid to let the world see our justice. Fortunately, many more of us are not so cowardly.

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (76)

PLAYS: (273)

Bill O'Reilly makes Ed Schultz's "classic" edition of Psycho Talk for his comment back in Jan. 2008 that there were not many homeless veterans out there. As Ed notes the Department of Veterans Affairs paints a very different picture today:

About one-third of the adult homeless population have served their country in the Armed Services. Current population estimates suggest that about 131,000 Veterans (male and female) are homeless on any given night and perhaps twice as many experience homelessness at some point during the course of a year. Many other Veterans are considered near homeless or at risk because of their poverty, lack of support from family and friends, and dismal living conditions in cheap hotels or in overcrowded or substandard housing.

Right now, the number of homeless male and female Vietnam era Veterans is greater than the number of service persons who died during that war -- and a small number of Desert Storm veterans are also appearing in the homeless population. Although many homeless Veterans served in combat in Vietnam and suffer from PTSD, at this time, epidemiologic studies do not suggest that there is a causal connection between military service, service in Vietnam, or exposure to combat and homelessness among Veterans. Family background, access to support from family and friends, and various personal characteristics (rather than military service) seem to be the stronger indicators of risk of homelessness.

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (50)

PLAYS: (170)

Bill O'Reilly allows Fox News "Strategic Analyst" Lt. Col. Ralph Peters to go on a rant calling the shooting at Fort Hood "the worst terrorist attack on American soil since 9-11" with little to no push back other than to say that Hasan may have had personal problems that had little to do with his religion and time will tell if his religion was the primary reason for the shooting spree. The race baiting manifested itself in full force when Peters made this statement which O'Reilly left un-countered.

Peters: Yeah, well first of all, the charge that you know, he was harassed and he broke, good god, I mean every soldier goes through a little harassment, but let me tell you from personal experience, if there’s harassment toward a minority or a religious minority in our military, man…your career is over for harassing. And this guy filed a charge that was found, there was no foundation to the charge. He’d been a trouble maker and a sad sack for a long time but because he was part of a protected species, a protected minority, the Army let him slide, just reassigned him, and what happened? 13 soldiers, fellow soldiers and civilian dead, 28 seriously wounded, a few more lightly wounded and what do we say?

Oops? No, it’s time to get rid of the PC culture in the Army, in society, in the media, and Bill I believe your viewers understand that this was an act of Islamist terror, and the media is not going to fool them and President Obama’s not going to fool them and at some point we need to quit focusing on “Oh how tormented this poor Maj. Hasan was, and remember, what…how many of the names do we know of the dead? What about the names of the wounded? Have the media covered the family lives that have been destroyed? The lives that have been destroyed? No. It’s all about poor Maj. Hasan and I am ready to puke.

O’Reilly: Alright Col. we appreciate that very much.

What sort of mindset does it take to be able to equate human beings to a "protected species”? This was truly just disgusting to watch. And while I do not disagree with some of what Peters said, such as paying attention to the fact that there are a whole lot of families out there going through what are some really horrific times right now because of this tragedy, calling this the “worst terrorist attack since 9-11” is utterly ridiculous. And I would hope that we are taking a better look at why this man snapped other than the cartoon-like stereotype that Peters attempted to paint here and using this as an excuse to demonize or dehumanize the Muslim community.

I have a lot of questions about just what happened to cause this tragic and very sad event. I don’t have a lot of faith that any of us will have those questions ever answered honestly any time soon. In the mean time, we can count on Fox News to draw their own conclusions if it means drumming up the fear factor and racial tensions in America for ratings.

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (1436)

PLAYS: (3110)

Bill O'Reilly is "fascinated" with Sarah Palin, and has been featuring segments on her a lot of late. He had Glenn Beck on The O'Reilly Factor on Thursday night to talk about her prospects.

They agreed that her upcoming book tour is a "make or break" situation regarding her political future -- but that if she fares well with the media, she'll be well positioned for 2012. They also agree that resigning as governor before had even completed her first term was a "smart move."

Which gave Beck a launching pad for his prophesying mode:

Beck: Smart move. And I think she's also positioning herself for a third party. By the time this election runs around for the president, I'm sorry, but unless the Republicans and the Democrats wake up, a third party will win.

Presumably, by "wake up" Beck means "embrace the tea party philosophy of small government and big wingnuttery". The Democrats won't, but most likely the Republicans will. But I don't think it's going to be the recipe for victory Glenn Beck thinks it will be.

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (1111)

PLAYS: (1323)

Lou Dobbs claimed on his radio show this week that the evil people who have targeted him for removal from his CNN anchor's seat are now taking shots at him and his wife in their home:

"But I want to tell you, when you talk about what they've done - they've created an atmosphere and they've been unrelenting in their propaganda," Dobbs said. "Three weeks ago this morning, a shot was fired at my house where I live. My wife was standing out and that followed weeks and weeks of threatening phone calls."

Dobbs detailed the event, the notification of law enforcement and threatening phone calls he had received after the fact.

"And, as I told the state patrol, and by the way, the New Jersey State Patrol is absolutely terrific - they responded instantly. But this shot was fired with my wife not, I don't know, 15 feet away and we had threatening phone calls that I decided not to report because I get threatening phone calls," Dobbs continued. "I now - it's become a way of life - the anger, the hate, the vitriol, but it's taken a different tone where they've threatened my wife. They've now fired a shot at my house while my wife was standing next to the car. It's become something else."

The CNN host later took a shot at the "national liberal media," which he claims has taken a side on the immigration issue and has created this sort of reckless environment.

Naturally, not only did Newsbusters sucker for this story, but so did Bill O'Reilly on his Fox News show last night, tut-tutting the incident as "a very serious matter."

The only problem: It was almost certainly a stray shot from a hunter's rifle, as Andrea Nill at ThinkProgress reported yesterday, well before O'Reilly's broadcast:

While Dobbs and his anti-immigrant supporters were quick to jump to conclusions about the motive of the shooting, Sgt. Stephen Jones confirmed to ThinkProgress this morning that the New Jersey State Police are stilling “looking at all the possibilities” and that a hunting-related accident has not been ruled out.

Sgt. Jones, a spokesperson for the New Jersey State Police, confirmed that a bullet was found which struck the siding of Dobbs’ house. However, he pointed out that Dobbs’ residence is located in a “very rural” area. “With hunting season starting up,” such incidents are “not at all uncommon,” Jones told us.

CNN had even more details:

"State Police Sgt. Steve Jones said Thursday that his department received a call from Dobbs' wife, who heard a shot and said a bullet hit her house. Jones said she had been outside her house with "an employee who worked with Dobbs" at 10:25 a.m. October 5.

Jones said a bullet struck the section of the house where the attic is but didn't penetrate the dwelling. He said the bullet fell to the ground and was recovered. Dobbs' wife saw damage to the siding, Jones said.

"The bullet was taken by our detectives and turned over to our ballistics unit for further analysis," Jones said. "At this point, all I can say is that it appears to be a long gun, not a handgun or shotgun."

..... Police aren't saying for now that the shot was fired at the house but only, as Jones said, that it struck the house. A stray shot from a long gun would not be a "totally uncommon occurrence because of the hunters and target shooters" in the region, Jones said.

Jones couldn't give his opinion on what kind of shooting this might be, and he said the incident is being investigated "further past a stray hunter's bullet" because of Dobbs' "public persona." Police have conducted interviews and patrolled the area, Jones said."

A shot fired deliberately to terrorize the Dobbses would have been fired from a distance close enough to penetrate the house siding. The fact that it fell off the siding tells you this shot was fired from very, very far away.

We take violence seriously, and any actual incident of anyone taking a shot at Dobbs, his wife, or even his home would be a terrible thing.

But crying wolf -- and especially trying to blame his critics for such an incident -- that's a whole 'nother ball game. One that invites nothing but contempt.

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (1218)

PLAYS: (6019)

Alan, Alan, Alan...you forgot to use the Keith Olbermann "How to talk to Bill O'Reilly's stalker-producer in a way that guarantees the interview doesn't get on the air" guide for dealing with this sort of situation. Bill-O decided to send his stalker-producer Griff Jenkins out to do another one of his ambush interviews to get Rep. Grayson to respond to calling Enron lobbyist turned Fed lobbyist Linda Robertson a "K Street whore", which Grayson has since apologized for.

Someone needs to send Rep. Grayson Keith's tips in case Griffy-boy decides to take some more time away from promoting the Tea Baggers and sit outside of his office all day waiting to shove a microphone in his face. Three words Mr. Grayson--Malmedy, Mackris, loofah.

Howie Klein's got more on Grayson's comment about Linda Robertson over at the HuffPo--Alan Grayson calls a whore a whore-- Beltway whores freak out & defend Enron lobbyist working at the Fed.

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (1525)

PLAYS: (1936)

The latest campaign by Fox to smear another Obama appointee, it seems, is the Washington Times-based attack on Judge Edward Chen, who it seems is too liberal for their tastes. Or, as with Judge Sonia Sotomayor, not white enough.

Either way, they're trying to paint him as a radical for saying things like this:

In a speech on Sept. 22, 2001, he said that among his first responses to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on America was a "sickening feeling in my stomach about what might happen to race relations and religious tolerance on our own soil. ... One has to wonder whether the seemingly irresistible forces of racism, nativism and scapegoating which has [sic] recurred so often in our history can be effectively restrained."

Bill O'Reilly, of course, was all over this like stink on smegma. He hosted Monica Crowley and Alan Colmes to chew it over.

Crowley practically shrieked at Chen's concerns, and O'Reilly was appalled. Colmes, as he has become adept at doing, was the sole voice of reason:

O'Reilly: It sounds radical left, does it not? It sounds Phil Donahue.

Crowley: And that speech was delivered 11 days after Sept. 11, when this country was still so raw with the deaths of 3,000 dead Americans in the street, and Chen is worried about nativism -- he was essentially there accusing the United States of being a country of bigots and racists.

O'Reilly: But the thing that bothered me most about it, Colmes, is that didn't happen.

Colmes: Well, I have to disagree. We have seen nativism, we have seen racism. Just the other day, we saw the Broward County Republican Club, having their meeting at a gun club where they put up a likeness of Debbie Wasserman-Schulz, and a stereotypical --

O'Reilly: Wait wait wait wait wait wait. [Crosstalk] Are you going to sit there and tell me that eight years after 9/11, there has been rampant nativism, racism and scapegoating in this country?

Colmes: I didn't say rampant, but there's been several --

O'Reilly: That's what he said.

Colmes: There's been an element of that.

Actually, Bill, Chen never said nativism and racism was "rampant" -- he wondered whether these forces could be constrained in the then-current environment.

And let's be clear: Among the few things that the Bush administration did right in the wake of 9/11 was that, eventually, it did effectively constrain the forces of racism and reaction when it came to treatment of Arab Americans and Muslims.

But to claim that we haven't seen rampant nativism and racism since 9/11 is a joke -- we have, and everyone knows it. However, instead of the obvious targets after 9/11, it has been directed instead largely toward Latino immigrants, who the jingoists have in fact often connected to their post-9/11 fears.

After all, one of the favorite arguments of the Minuteman/GlennBeckistan crowd is that we need to "secure our borders" because that's what will keep us safe from terrorists like those who hit us on 9/11. (Note to nativist nimrods: The 9/11 terrorists came through airports with fake papers, like most skilled terrorists do. There has never been a record of a single Islamic terrorist entering the States

And so, eight years after 9/11, we do in fact have if not rampant at least a significant level of nativism and racism manifesting itself in America. We've provided some examples in the video above: Rabid Joe Arpaio fans who think we ought to shoot any man, woman or child who crosses the border. Neo-Nazi supporters of Arpaio turning out to harass Latino marchers. A violent counter-protest by white nationalists at a pro-immigrant March in Connecticut. And those are just in the past several months alone.

Moreover, if you look at the conditions that immediately followed the events of 9/11 -- including especially the 11 days leading up to Chen's speech -- his commentary was fully justified. Or have all those Fox folks somehow managed to scrub from their memories the horrendous outbreak of anti-Muslim hate crimes in the days immediately after 9/11?

Four days after hijacked planes tore into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, shopkeepers were shot to death in California, Texas and Arizona as an anti-Muslim backlash broke out across the country.

"It's an unbelievable situation," Laila Al-Qatami, a spokeswoman for the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) told the Chicago Tribune.

"The incidents have ranged from hate mail to verbal assaults to crimes that have resulted in deaths. The number of calls we're getting is unprecedented."

By Oct. 11, one month after the terrorist attacks, the ADC had collected more than 700 reports of hate crimes. The Council on American-Islamic Relations had 785 reports.

At hate-crime hotlines set up by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, the volume of calls per hour peaked at 70. In Los Angeles alone, the police and sheriff's departments reported 167 hate crimes in the first four weeks of the backlash.

The targets included a large number of Sikhs mistaken for Arabs. Five years later, it was still a big problem. In more recent years, anti-Muslim bias crimes have declined somewhat as anti-Latino crimes have skyrocketed.

And while the Bush administration may have done a good job of responding to the hate-crime outbreak and tamping down anti-Arab xenophobia, they did do without much support from the larger conservative community.

Recall, after all, that there was a chorus of right-wing voices calling for the immediate use of racial profiling as a national-security measure. Many of them were rabid and vicious, and they remain with us today. Michelle Malkin -- long a Fox favorite -- even wrote and published a book justifying the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II as a way of defending the very concept of racial profiling.

Finally, the notion that Judge Chen evincing this concern in the days immediately following 9/11 is somehow a "far left" and "America hating" and "radical" thing actually tells us a lot more about the people arguing this -- people like O'Reilly and Crowley -- than anything else.

Because 9/11 immediately rang bells of alarm throughout the Asian American community -- Japanese Americans having been the primary targets of wartime hysteria last time around ... hysteria that eventually led to their incarcerated in miserable concentration camps in the interior U.S. for the war's duration.

I describe this in the Epilogue of my book Strawberry Days: How Internment Destroyed a Japanese American Community:

Continue reading »

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (1143)

PLAYS: (4466)

Bill O'Reilly is still all worked up about the White House's "war" on Fox -- which, actually, he says he hopes end soon. Yeah, I'll bet he does. I'll bet a lot of people at Fox are not happy that we are having this national conversation right now and kicking over all kinds of rocks.

You never know what turns up when you start looking at Fox's record, do you?

What angered O'Reilly was Joe Klein's recent column in Time, which really was a classic piece of Village excrement (a la Sally Quinn) about how silly the Obama White House is to stand up to Fox. Along the way, of course, he offends O'Reilly by writing this:

Let me be precise here: Fox News peddles a fair amount of hateful crap. Some of it borders on sedition. Much of it is flat out untrue.

But I don't understand why the White House would give such poisonous helium balloons as Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity the opportunity for still greater spasms of self-inflation by declaring war on Fox.

If the problem is that stories bloated far beyond their actual importance--ACORN's corruption, Van Jones's radical past--are in danger of leaching out of the Fox hothouse into the general media, then perhaps the Administration should be a bit more diligent about whom it hires and whom it funds.

If the problem is broader--that Fox News spreads seditious lies to its demographic sliver of an audience--the Administration should probably be stoic: the wingnuts will always be with us. The best antidote to their garbage is elegant, intelligent governance. The next-best antidote is occasional engagement: I thought Obama came away from his O'Reilly and Chris Wallace interviews much the better for it. (Though you don't want to sit down with a thug like Hannity or a weirdo like Beck.)

Now, understand: The Fox-bashing here is simply classic Villager ass-covering, so that Joe Klein can go back later and say, "See? Both sides are mad at me. I must be right!"

Nonetheless, it outrages O'Reilly, who not only devotes a whole Talking Points Memo to "refuting" the Klein column with an even larger dose of flatulence, but then brings on Bernard Goldberg to chew it over some more:

Goldberg: But when you start throwing words around like sedition. I mean, who exactly at Fox News is inciting a rebellion against the government?

Not that we're much interested in defending Joe Klein, but this was too silly not to take note. So we've provided Bernie with some handy reminders just who at Fox News has indeed been inciting rebellion against the government -- some of it by outright, straight-on incitement (see the tea parties for more of this), and some by fear-mongering. Enjoy.

UPDATE: I remembered this morning that, while not on Fox, Rush Limbaugh has touted the idea of a military coup against Obama.

From Media Matters: The Right-wing Media Spin Cycle: Lie, Terrify, Win, Repeat

Media Matters releases new video showing right-wing media's leading role in driving movement

Washington, DC - Today, Media Matters for America released a new video demonstrating how the conservative echo chamber operates in the age of President Obama. Conservative activists - aided by Fox News, a political organization disguised as a news network - use distortions, lies, and smear tactics to shape public opinion and influence national policy.
"Unlike the Clinton and Bush years, the right-wing echo chamber is now aided by a network that has thrown any remaining shred of journalistic credibility out the window, " said Eric Burns, President of Media Matters. "The modern conservative movement has gained an enormous megaphone in Fox News that they are using to impact legislation and shape public opinion."

Burns added: "People need to decide how long they will allow the policies of their country to be dictated by a media outlet accountable not to voters or constituents but to ratings."

Media Matters did an amazing job putting this video together. I really think it's some of their best work yet.

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (1273)

PLAYS: (3020)

Sally Quinn went on The O'Reilly Factor to announce that she and all the other Villagers are just all a-flutter over the Obama White House's puzzling decision to stand up to its an organization that clearly declared war on his administration from its outset, i.e., Fox News.

But first she had to stop and sniff disdainfully in the direction of Alan Grayson for his gauche style of political rhetoric:

O'Reilly: Do you know this guy? He sounds like a loon.

Quinn: I don't know him. But guess what? Here we are talking about him. And I think that's what this is all about -- he's obviously getting the attention she desperately needs.

O'Reilly: OK, there could be something to be said for that. He represents the Orlando area. But he's certainly kind of unhinged. When you hear rhetoric like that -- you know, the Dick Cheney shooting the guy in the face, and this and that -- doesn't it sound a little immature?

Quinn: Well, I think that it's worse than immature. I mean, what he said was so completely over the top that it sounds like -- it reminded me a little bit of Blagojevich, you know. I mean --

O'Reilly: No, that's good. That's a good -- yeah. Kinda unhinged.

Quinn: Yeah, unhinged. It made no sense. So I don't think you can take it seriously. And I also think that if he -- I can't imagine the Democrats feeling good about this. Or the White House feeling good.

O'Reilly: Or his constituents.

Quinn: But you don't want this guy on your team.

Heavens no. We want people like Sally Quinn. The kind of Village maven who would go on 60 Minutes and slag the Clintons:

"If you consider the life of Bill Clinton," she said on "60 Minutes," "whenever he leaves the White House, he's going to get on a plane, and where is he going to go?"

"What do you mean?" a baffled Mike Wallace asked.

"Well, he -- he doesn't even have a home," she sniffed. "I mean, when you think about it, he's homeless. I mean, they've lived in sort of government properties all their lives."

The kind of "social adviser" who would pen long Washington Post op-eds bemoaning the way the Clintons "fouled the nest".

Yeah, we need advice from Sally Quinn, all right.

And that commentary we should take seriously? I guess you just had to tune in three hours beforehand for that.

From Media Matters--Fox News' War:

New video from Media Matters shows network declared "war" on the White House long before Dunn's comments.

Washington, D.C. - Following Anita Dunn's description of Fox News as an "arm" of the Republican Party, Fox News personalities have suggested or claimed that the White House declared "war" on the network. In response, Media Matters for America has released a video showing the factually inaccurate smears, blatant political organizing, and explicit lobbying that Fox News has engaged in. Many of these activities have been occurring since January 20 and have only increased in frequency as time has passed.

Continue reading...