Fox News Hosts - Who is the worst?

Gonna have to go with Hannity on this one. His only real competitors for sheer volume of awfulness year-after-year are Beck and O'Reilly. Beck's saving grace is his ability to entertain unintentionally; O'Reilly's is his ability to occasionally come off as reasonable.

Doocy (edging out O'Reilly).

Yeah imo Hannity is the only one who projects pure evil. Beck/O'Reilly are just really stupid people who just happen to have gotten TV shows.

this is real tough

• glenn beck is basically retarded, gets tons of shit wrong all the time, is smug as a mug even tho he is wrong lots, not really hatable tho
• neil cavuto got outed a down low racist and on top of it all he's so obviously itching to be a CONTROVERSIAL FIGURE and instead he's kind of just this sniveling guy w/ no real thoughts, i think you could hate this guy on principle but in reality he's harmless
• steve doocy is hard to hate since 'fox & friends' is a pretty lighthearted show all told, he obv holds some tenants of lockstep conservatism close to his heart but in terms of smugness, outright hatred for others, racism, classism, elitism, etc etc he's soo far down on the fox news totem pole that he's not even rly worth discussing. i'd watch football w/ him at least
• sean hannity is going to be my vote, mostly because he has absolutely no class or morals at all. he really lowered himself to another level during the election this year and right after w/ ACORN stuff, birth certificate nonsense, muslim bs etc all which he knew was false. on top of it everyone on his show is almost as bad as he is, and really since he so obviously gets off on being a jr limbaugh i think he's the worst on the channel. his misplaced self-satisfaction is only matched by rush
• mike huckabee, c'moooon this dude oookay once you get past his awful views on lots of things. but he's acceptable to me on one level because his views seem reasoned to me (i know the reasoning comes from the bible but w/e) and not borne out of str8 hatred for other ppl so he's passable as far as fox goes (his show with bill maher was genuinely cool)
• brian kilmeade is basically juts like doocy, not enough personality or self-confident charisma to ascend to o reilly/hannity heights so instead he's kind of just a bumbling fool at worst and a functioning robot at best. nothing more than meets the eye w/ this dude
• bill o reilly is a someone whose side i am actually on. i watch dude's show or part of his show every night and like huckabee i think he's wrong 5 million percent of the time but i think he has actually thought about his beliefs, and unlike hannity i don't think he tries to provoke people purposefully for the sake of being a huge asshole, i just think he's a spirited dude. he's respectful of others' views (i.e if hannity had on cam'ron and dame dash it would've been purely to humiliate them whereas o reilly really brought them on in the spirit of 'fruitful discussion' [had a school principle on as well iirc] which is kind of endearing to me) even tho he sometimes doesn't act that way. i turned the corner on him after he spoke about how he gained a lot of respect for obama after he got to talk to him one-on-one, showed me that dude really takes what other people have to say into consideration etc etc
• geraldo rivera, if it wasn't for hannity id vote for this piece of shit. he's not even fun to make fun of because he's so self-important even tho his career amounts to him being a lapdog. he carries himself in the name of 'reporting' which is just so vile and degrading that i can't really speak about it. my hate for his man and what he does is unspeakable
• greta is kind of an awful human being but as far as her 'genre' goes she's lapped in hateability by nancy grace about 35 times over
• chris wallace is a good guy and he's broken rank a few times. he's just as much of a 'newsman' to me as david gregory or anyone else of that ilk, he just happens to lean right. no probs w/ him at all really

here is shep dedicating his whole friday to clowning the hell out of glenn beck's pathetic ass - if you don't think shep is the best man walking the planet you = geraldo

That Shep clip all made sense 'till "The Dynasty Records" inexplicably starts at the 1:35 mark.

I've watched that maybe a dozen times since last Friday, it is great. "We are here to worship, praise and adore."

Hannity just edges out O'Reilly, who at least will pepper his right-wing punditry with a few jokes.

I like, "I'll bet they're serving food. . . . They might have food."

I've got to watch this Shep show.

I agree that O'Reilly's different from these other guys, for better or for worse. I think he takes his position as #1 at Fox seriously, and tries to be the guy who isn't thought of as a kneejerk reactionary. And from a political/ideological perspective, I don't think he is - he's def. conservative, but not far-right. But on a personal level, he is totally a kneejerk reactionary, and in discussions, will look for opportunities to simplify the other person's side so he can make them the bad guy and himself the righteous defender of blah blah blah.

But I do enjoy watching him too; it's very entertaining to see him do all that. And his interview w/ Obama was great, and relatively free of the posturing I was talking about.

here's shep sonning joe the plumber after our plumbing friend said that he'd "go ahead and agree" with the idea that a vote for obama = a vote for the death of israel. this video is amazing cuz you can tell that joe is in some van and he thought he was gonna get a bj interview from fox news and instead shep utterly dismantles him. also i <3 the idea of shep taking it upon himself to ruin joe the plumber, like his detest for the spectacle is so palpable

yeeaaah nigga

just checkin ;/

here is shep being the pallbearer of ralph nader's career after nader called obama an uncle tom. again, shep's palpable hate for nader is so refreshing, like after the uncle tom comment nader deserved no respect and shep just pummeled him w/o mercy

how can you not love ^^

"...really?"

"you're talking respect and you use the term 'uncle tom'?"

"you were reduced to complete irrelevancy this year, will you run again?"

shep 'reporting' on paris hilton is made for the hall of fame

hey drew peterson you've been pwnd

This is also a good clip of Shep talking with O'Reilly about the Nader and Joe the Plumber interviews. He gives a bit of his philosophy on reporting, journalism, etc and why he went after them. When people tell him Fox is biased, etc he says he asks "have you just been watching that O'Reilly cat?"

Wow I never saw that Paris Hilton stuff before, I love him just riffing on the weirdos in the background at the press conference.

my bad second video should be

^grills a dude who murdered his wife. don't remember anyone else doing this

ex-gore advisor naomi wolf tells shep not to 'fox news her' or something and he gets super defensive about it, it's awesome

anyway sorry for spamming the thread, im procrastinating plus i love shep a lot

let's go back to talking about how awful hannity and geraldo are

xp Yeah he definitely seems to have a chip on his shoulder about people complaining about Fox's/his reporting being biased (see the O'Reilly clip above). Understandable, given the folks he has to work with.

good video ari

yeah also he's been there since the inception of the network, and he's obviously he's seen it move away from his style of journalism and towards the o reilly/hannity style of television so it makes sense that he's protective of the 'old style' and of his reputation personally

tom junod wrote a profile on him in one of the last two esquires, but i haven't read it yet

I've always liked Shep since Katrina when he was live in New Orleans and went off.

"Soldiers are moving those people from one hot overpass to another. They need water. Somebody get these people some water. What is going on here?" (that's how I remember it)

It was the first sane moment I saw on television that awful couple of days and I've always respected him for breaking character at that moment regardless of who he worked for, and I've enjoyed seeing clips of him over the years even though I won't watch FOX in general.

I voted Chris Wallace as the worst, because like Britney Hume, he pretends to be a journalist. When Clinton ruined him a couple of years ago I thought maybe he had learned his lesson, but he just keeps on. And the smirk suits him less than the other assholes.

Here's the thing about Sean Hannity: is it not obvious at this point that he, as opposed to the usually singled-out Limbaugh, is the real, perhaps apolitical, entertainer of the Republican talking heads? People calling him the most hateful or right-wing or whatever are only, at best, half-right. From what I've heard about him from a friend who's met him at a party and works in talk radio is that he actually doesn't have a huge axe to grind; it's all for the show. He's maybe the worst if you simply hate ideological actors.

And singling out fox for smugness is silly. If you have a tremendous problem with smug and condescending political hosts surely you also cringe whenever Rachel Maddow puts someone down or when you watch too much of the Daily Show. Fox News is annoying for a couple of reasons but it'd be silly to claim "smug" as one of them and then flip over to watch Keith Olbermann, who is, of course, just an honest journalist with the courage to speak truth to power (or whatever his talking points sound like to you if you believe the message).

Yeah, when I call them fascists, I'm right but when they call me a communist they are wrong. Fortunately, as long as we both get to say it the truth is exactly in the middle.

From what I've heard about him from a friend who's met him at a party and works in talk radio is that he actually doesn't have a huge axe to grind; it's all for the show.

I hear the same of Limbaugh. I mean, Limbaugh will tell you that, straight up, and so will O'Reilly. Maybe Olbermann will too, and if he won't he's the biggest prick of the lot of them. But is it noble? Is it even fair? It's a dark alley to go down, but are these hosts on news channels honestly presented as entertainers and not journalists, and how much responsibility lies with the viewer if they swallow their turds of wisdom?

Maybe if Hannity did a little soft shoe at the beginning of each show I wouldn't have a problem with him.

The Shep clips continue...here he busts on Fox & Friends and especially Gretchen right to their faces...

I'm with Jordan in the Shep Smith love tent.

"You don't watch it?"
"GOD, NO!"

great video

btw the red eye host is an inflammatory human being

also lol @ them playing that dumb ass "AWWWWW" sound effect after shep told them that he thought their show crap — an oblivious self pwn

j0rd4n s4rg3nt is a shemale

welp, didnt even take me 2 years to be outed

new currncy mistape called hitler cake

Posting Shep clips is fun. Now a fire alarm is going off and he blames it on Doocy and Gretchen smoking in the bathroom...

My favorite line from the Paris Hilton clip is, "If we gotta spend all day on it, I'm gonna have fun with it." HA! You gotta love a cable news anchor who has contempt for the cable news format.

the best

I actually remember watching this live back in January...

btw, I voted Hannity because he's such a witless partisan pipewrench, but Chris Wallace is a stain on his family's good name.

lmao, im srs shep is on another planet

hannity. wanted to vote beck but his eventual big meltdown is gonna rule.

Glen's good for laughs. Brit's slurred speech is fun to imitate. Chris Wallace is a wet noodle most of the time, but occasionally he says something that makes sense. O'Reilly is a trained monkey. The Fox & Friends crew is irritating beyond belief, but ultimately harmless. The rest of the anchors/readers are just cyborgs.

There is nothing remotely redeeming about Hannity.

(Realized I left out Shep, but I've already made it clear on several occasions that I wish he was my best friend.)

I hear the same of Limbaugh. I mean, Limbaugh will tell you that, straight up, and so will O'Reilly. Maybe Olbermann will too, and if he won't he's the biggest prick of the lot of them. But is it noble? Is it even fair? It's a dark alley to go down, but are these hosts on news channels honestly presented as entertainers and not journalists, and how much responsibility lies with the viewer if they swallow their turds of wisdom?

Maybe if Hannity did a little soft shoe at the beginning of each show I wouldn't have a problem with him.

I can relate to their predicament in that - and I think most people can recall similar stories - there have been times in my life where I'm goofing off through a sort of artificial persona and some people mistake the shtick for my actual personality, and then you feel obligated to not break character and disappoint or lose attention. Eventually, with these people, they got to the point where if they ever just lightened-up they'd lose their audiences. But, of course, they get paid millions to be something they're really not and to rile up resentment and bitterness in a lot of people (and that goes for both sides) and that's where my empathy dips.

wanted to vote beck but his eventual big meltdown is gonna rule.

Beck is the crazy uncle personified.

Beck's tears are unconvincing. I want to see him rend his clothing and bloody himself somehow.

Brit's slurred speech is fun to imitate

this is so otm - his constant monotone was great too bcuz after they ran a segment he'd often say "good report", but in his manner it sounded like a really condescending insult instead of stock 'praise' for some story and now my friends and i always zing a non interesting story/anecdote by going into britt voice and saying 'interesting report'

the problem with people tryna defend hannity or whoever as "o its just acting! hes not really like that" is--as was so astutely pointed out by shep smith esq--people really fuckin believe it. and if someones out there saying, oh, obamas a socialist muslim deviant, and ur going "o well he doesnt believe it"--get 1 clue dude cuz tons of ppl who are watchin the dam show do and in the words of shep smith phd "u cant unring that bell"

Only Stockholm syndrome could explain why I even know the names of these people.

a lot of their shows are entertaining

Hannity in a fucking walk.

Shep said "interwebs"!!!!1 OMG

want to vote beck for taking the hannity mode of paranoia, repetition and cruelty into a fully-lived psychosis. but i can't; shep smith teased beck all on his special day, chris wallace came on, and complained that shep was just jealous, and should be more grateful. chris wallace, you are a bitch, you get my vote.

I voted, even though I never watch the Fox News network.

I'm pretty ecstatic that I don't know who a bunch of these people actually are other than names I've heard.

(btw I can't vote O'Reilly because I had to help forcibly restrain a a drunk Boston executive from running across the room and punching his lights out at a DNC event at the Kennedy School in 2004; for that he will always be forever lol to me)

hannity, no doubt.

this dude OTM:

Hannity IMO is the worst of them b/c he isn't as crazy ridiculous as Savage, or as suave on the mic as Limbaugh. Hannity just has this thick, smug, don't give a fuck, on-message attitude, and not even a semblance of intelligence below the surface.

― dan m, Thursday, March 13, 2008 10:21 AM (1 year ago) Bookmark

(from the Conservative Talk Radio thread)

srsly fuckin look at this guy:

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_NK8p0gBnp_4/SbF55sgWDpI/AAAAAAAABSs/aoXUg8Xn5LM/s400/sean_hannity.jpg

ughh

kind of reminds me of Robert Forster.

Chris Wallace isn't a personality like the others -- he's the "news" guy, and I've never had a problem with him.

Hannity, however, is just A BAD ACTOR.

kind of reminds me of Robert Forster.

UGGGH. What have you DONE?!

http://www.celebratelove.com/gifs/hannity.jpg

(not sure if you meant Go-Between Robert Forster or Quentin Tarantino's Robert Forster)

i have seen that creepy smug rightwing whiteman smile far too many times in my life

I think I hate Beck the most, and would be more likely to watch his show. The others just seem tired and defeated.

yeah gotta go with Hannity. no redeeming qualities. Never entertaining (like Beck) and never appears human/potentially open to reason (like O'Reilly)

The man is an inspiration.

"technical errors on the show"=not knowing what "play us out" means.

hannity. i think o'reilly is just a clown; maybe there are still some rubes left who take him seriously, but by and large his respectedness bubble popped a long time ago.

also it's sad to watch o'reilly's humanity occasionally leach through; it's like "you fucking asshole, stop hiding behind this shtick and be a real person."

And singling out fox for smugness is silly. If you have a tremendous problem with smug and condescending political hosts surely you also cringe whenever Rachel Maddow puts someone down or when you watch too much of the Daily Show. Fox News is annoying for a couple of reasons but it'd be silly to claim "smug" as one of them and then flip over to watch Keith Olbermann, who is, of course, just an honest journalist with the courage to speak truth to power (or whatever his talking points sound like to you if you believe the message).

to me, rachel comes off as the least smug of the maddow/olbermann/matthews triptych. she seems like she respects her guests and wants to learn from them. that's not to say she doesn't have her moments...

jbr otm cf her 'throwdown' with david frum

To be fair to her, Frum was totally trolling.

Voting Hannity btw without much convinction. Honestly don't know half these folks.

i like that she listens instead of just yelling and interrupting. (xposts)

that's what i'm saying! but she was respectfully defending her show and her mannerisms, it wasn't like an o reilly or hannity style thing. and when she has ppl on like tim pawlenty (sp?) it brings the best out of those dudes cuz they aren't on the defensive nor are they on to debate some 'democratic strategist'

Oh I thought you were saying that was "one of her moments". Nevermind.

she also has this thing of introducing her guests with their CVs or a rundown of what they're there to talk about -- and when they come on, she asks whether the facts in her intro were correct. they always are.

yeah i watch olbermann and maddow almost every night but olbermann is like the daily show for me, pure entertainment, rarely enriching for the mind except for maaybe 'still bushed' but i lol a lot when dude does worst persons and w/e, i turn it off when he brings on eugene robinson or the elfish british dude or everyone else but maddow's show brings it almost every night both in terms of her personal opinion being enlightening and shit that she straight up teaches you

He brings on Oxbow's Eugene Robinson??!!?

try
http://thoughtmerchant.files.wordpress.com/2007/10/eugene-robinson.jpg

Eugene Robinson sweats boringness from his pores.

Too bad. The "real" Eugene Robinson is a bad ass.

now that would be some good tv

olbermann's guests have gotten really awful lately. robinson is boring, elfish brit is boring, howard fineman is boring and a hack, so is the woman w/ the harry potter glasses that he brings on. i like to look at chris hughes from the nation and he brings it sometimes but jonathan turley the gw law professor is his best guest by miles

He brings on Oxbow's Eugene Robinson??!!?

― Alex in SF, Thursday, March 19, 2009 10:19 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

that WOULD be interesting.

oh and when he brings on christian finnegan i want to break my tv

I just want to focus how improved all Cable News shows would be if Eugene Robinson was on them for a second. Let's just take a moment.

http://sfist.com/attachments/SFist_Brock/eugene%20robinson.jpg

"i'm outraged at the AIG bonuses!"

http://media.sfweekly.com/the-sheltered-hipster-s-guide-to-getting-the-slim-jimmy.134216.51.jpg

shep @ fox and friends. that is HILARIOUS. he is def on a different planet. brilliant. it just gets painfully awkward yet he is completely unfazed by this. i was just watching studio b & he is so hyped about blago going on the radio today, doubtless will spend plenty of time on the 7pm show mocking him.

doocy IMHO is pretty awful, not that he has anything that bad to say, but that's what drives me up the wall - it's the same dumb talking points except he's THAT GUY in the bar who thinks he's best friends with everyone and just won't settle down.

ok, this:

he's a nobody with a crappy show that airs when most people with jobs are asleep, but he's fucking dead meat of he ever tries to show his face north of the border.

one of his sidekicks has already had to cancel an appearance at a comedy club in Edmonton.

of=if. rage induced misspelling.

He mocked our military and our Mounties, and incited outrage among our highest-ranking politicians, but Greg Gutfeld couldn't muster the guts on Monday to tell us himself that he's sorry.

this is a hardbody lede

ppl oughta rethink their idea that o'reilly is the ok thinking man's version of this, considering the creepy stalker hit-job shit he pulled on amanda terkel, among other people

ya - people are seriously pissed off. Mounties are fine - but mocking our troops when 4 had *just* died in *the* most dangerous area of Afghanistan is... well... words fail.

xpost

Doocy.

Thermo, I don't know that most of America has even heard of this guy

goddam so many hateable cretins on one channel, it's almost amazing. i detest Beck, O'Reilley, Huckabee and Wallace, each for his own special brand of ridiculousness. but the real motherfucker here is Hannity - I think he is dumber and definitely more humorless than the rest.

OTOH Shep Smith is a total bro.

hannity is not much of a deep thinker, right? will shamelessly tell all kinds of lies on his show. but it's a little sad without colmes IMHO, he's really trying too hard now with the total over-the-top hyperbole about obama administration. i don't know how he'll cope now that they have beck to turn the fear meter up to 11.

i don't hate any of them, though, it's more of.. how can you SAY those things when you know they are not true? you're basically insulting and mistreating your own audience by not bothering to square your statements with facts and reality. it applies equally, though.. doesn't help the liberal side to tell them only what they want to hear.

i think i get angrier at the folks who are supposed to be liberals and either don't fight back effectively, or cede half the argument in the name of being polite and getting along..

that seems like a 'sane adult in the presence of a sociopath' problem and not necessarily a political one

ok glenn beck just put on a pair of blue latex gloves and said "this is the dumbest damn show on air!" then he wrapped up a dead fish in newspaper w/pictures of obama & other newsmakers on it, while doing some goofy voices about how.. i dunno, this is what we're giving the taxpayers

epic

Clearly the new business model at FOX is "look at all the crazy people we bring you, how can you NOT watch us?!" Even more now than in recent years. They aren't being as overtly partisan anymore, instead they're just piping hallucinogens in through the a/c in the studios.

lol quite possibly

I wouldn't be surprised if they were counting on the spectacle to pay the bills.

How could it not be Hannity? I see RED at a mere glimpse of his taut, smug assface, looking at you with a supercilious grin that says: I am 100% douchebag and, even though I misconstrue or disregard even the simplest of facts, I am somehow massively influential. It doesn't help that my mom likes him. People say this suggest this kind of thing figuratively, but I literally would not mind watching him being tortured to death.

http://i404.photobucket.com/albums/pp127/deanofsomething/becks.jpg

Glenn Beck's show is like a weird high-concept homage to The Colbert Report, no lie.

I've been loling all week at his fear-mongering over Obama's sinister designs of socialist-fascism.

Schadenfreude for these windbags comes all too easily. There's really no sport in picking out all of the factual inconsistencies of their O_o rants, but the socialist/fascist thing demonstrates that they lack even the simplest understanding of political science.

The other day Geraldo referred to Hillary as "First Lady Hillary Clinton" re: her State Dept. visit to Mexico. I didn't watch long enough to see if it was intentional, but it wouldn't surprise me.

ok, i think shep is kind of insane, there is def nobody else like him - somehow i find him snarking about dumb celebrity news stories & being sort of rude to people is still funny and appealing, whereas i cannot stand to watch 0lbermann at all. still LOLing over the fox & friends clip where kilmeade is finally like "OK have you ever felt more awkward on a set???" FTW

oh, also - bret baier is the dude at 6pm who took over for brit hume, not included in the poll, but he might be a robot.

geraldo is harmless IMHO

the socialist/fascist thing demonstrates that they lack even the simplest understanding of political science

I wouldn't mind the channel's political leanings if they actually had conservative hosts on there who were intellectually thorough with their positions and how they crafted the themes of the shows. Instead, they're all just shallow, knee-jerk egotists who play to base fears. (This goes for Lou Dobbs on CNN and Olbermann on MSNBC, too.)

Why can't every host on a political forum show be more like Rachel Maddow, huh?

I wouldn't call Maddow an intellectual, just well-prepared.

I get the feeling with Maddow that if her bosses would let her she'd spend an hour each night getting down to the nuts and bolts of how this or that is done in Washington and why. Nerd television doesn't get viewers, though.

oh, god, lou dobbs. that guy really does make me angry. the xenophobic fearmongering.. i can't believe CNN puts that on the air. same for nancy grace who strikes me as particularly.. undemocratic and unamerican, basically, who cares about the law when she can just decide for herself that every suspect is guilty & then make tons of money leading the witch hunt herself. i despise that woman.

i shouldn't be rude about bret baier though, he is pretty straightforward and his show isn't actually about him and his personality instead of the news itself, which is a good thing.

This is what you have in mind (and I agree it's riveting TV, even for non-nerds):

i cannot get over the shep/gretchen carlson clip that J0rdan posted upthread. shep is awful!

at the end after he's made everyone completely uncomfortable, kilmeade takes one last shot at making nice & says "isn't this like regis and kathy lee?" and shep says "isn't this like that offline after the show show you did with that guy who wasn't funny?" doocy: "how unfunny was that?" shep: "that was stupid, i should never let him back in here again, or me, for that matter." kilmeade and doocy are basically stunned at this point, and kilmeade wraps it up by mentioning whatever internet venture shep was there to talk about - "he can't wait, and.. he doesn't watch us." because of course shep told them that he doesn't even watch their show.

sorry to go on, but IMHO insulting people to their faces is def an art form & i am learning something here. i almost feel bad for doocy/kilmeade/carlson but i have seen enough of that show that.. not really.

yeah higher ups at fox shouldn't have let those three get railroaded like that, but still lols 4 lyfe

this is fascinating. clearly shep doesn't take o'reilly's word for it, and raises point after point where o'reilly's story on how jackson's comments got out, doesn't add up. he's very precise about it. you don't see this kind of interview much any more, sadly, but it's so interesting that he's skeptical about every single part of the story & extra skeptical when o'reilly tries to be flattering. wow, actual journalism on cable news.

i guess shep is allowed to insult anyone he wants :) thing is, i have seen enough segments from "fox & friends" to know that.. they're really irresponsible, as if being a lighthearted & painfully bright and cheerful morning show makes it OK to play fast and loose with the facts & put a right wing spin on most everything.

the o'reilly interview here, though, if i did broadcast journalism i'd be taking notes. you know how touchy/angry/defensive o'reilly gets when questioned & here he basically gets interrogated about this but it's done so carefully he really has no way to get out of it. o'reilly ends up looking pretty bad IMHO.

If FOX News didn't exist, I find it hard to believe Steve Doocy and Gretchen Carlson could find a job anywhere. They're completely useless in every capacity. Kilmeade is almost in the same boat, but occasionally redeems himself by doing something that's actually funny (and not just funny by mistake).

johnny otm

oh shit...i just fucking realized that that's GRETCHEN CARLSON from MN who was Ms America holy crap, i forgot she even existed, but damn everyone acted like it was such a big deal when she won.

I get the feeling with Gretchen that she doesn't always have a clear grasp of the subtleties of Fox News (or Republican) talking points. So she'll just get the basic thrust (we don't like liberals) and then take them to some extreme, like - and I don't remember the specific words but - talking trash about Ted Kennedy being an enemy combatant and the White House representative at the time being like, "Well, we don't like him. But no, he's not actually a terrorist." Like she's kinda unclear about the distinction. I think it's kinda cute. Like the uncool/slower kid running with the ball with lots of enthusiasm, even if they don't really understand the sport.

comparing gretchen carlson to a retard is an apt comparison i think yeah

"one civil rights leader disparaging another civil rights leader", lol

carlson never met a right wing talking point she didn't leave unchallenged..

in the clip i posted above, bill o'reilly going on and on and on about the rules of journalism and journalism 101, makes it completely obvious he's just making excuses. at the end of the day fox does depend on being a news organization, not an opinion organization - I get the sense with this interview that this is what happens when one of the opinion shows decides they are going to break big stories like they're journalists. roger ailes has to step in with official statements & bill o has to go on somebody else's show and answer questions.

i remember doocy from a puffy fluffy local morning show (might have been a fox affiliate) about 10-15 yrs ago, pastel sweater/white keds type of thing, him weighing in on politics in any capacity still blows my mind

doocy clearly has no idea what he's talking about, and the lady who's like "oooh, scary" has even less of a clue

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Thermo, I don't know that most of America has even heard of this guy

i suspected as much. hence me calling him a nobody.

GEORGE CHANDLER
HAD NAIL IN HIS HEAD

My love for Shep knows no bounds.

Also, plus 1 for Hannity. How could such an unintelligent person get a national platform? I love Hitchen's takedown of him

robert gibbs' pwning was pretty epic

i remember doocy from a puffy fluffy local morning show (might have been a fox affiliate) about 10-15 yrs ago, pastel sweater/white keds type of thing, him weighing in on politics in any capacity still blows my mind

I remember when he hosted kids' shows!!

the tv announcer game is darker and uglier than anything

they're not really actors or journalists or experts, it's just this thing... really fucked up frankly

Gibbs vs. Fox and Friends was also epic

I wish Gibbs was still that pointed now, but its understandable for a White House press secretary to have to play nice.

XD XD @ "the news is so WEIRD lately"

i'm a little surprised by the (relative) praise for o'reilly on this thread. i mean, everything that i have seen and heard about him indicates that, besides his assholish political views, he's also a first-class douchebag and close to being a sociopath. i mean, this is a guy who has sent his followers to stalk people who diss him in some way. i don't care whether or not his (repugnant) views are thought-out or occasionally reasonable, i find that sort of conduct unacceptable.

that said, i voted for hannity.

O'Reilly is an A+ boob, but I think it's a learned behavior that took over FOX during the Bush administration. I watched an old clip of him from 2001 on The Daily Show and he seemed entirely reasonable and non-detestable.

Sure he's probably an asshole in real life, or at least impatient and short-tempered (based on the Inside Edition outtake), and definitely creepy and horny (intern sex scandal)...

...yeah, I really can't defend him.

aight i'll defend him

for one tons of ppl are dicks irl, i think that's a slippery slope. but i really turned the corner on o reilly when he had been calling for obama to sit down with him, obama did, and o reilly left the interview talking about how he was impresses w/ obama even tho he didn't agree with him, and that he appreciated having a conversation w/ him etc. also, if you watch his show day in and out (guilty as charged) you see that he's not even on hannity's level of conservative fear baiting and racism and pure hatred. i mean he has dumb opinions for sure (thinks the internet is ruining the world) and gets his nose into business that he shouldn't (jamie spears thing is a good example) but i think he really thinks that he's providing an open forum for discussion. i go back to the infamous cam'ron thing. in hannity's case he would've brought the dude onto his set and blindsided him. o reilly set up the thing as a discussion b/w cam and an elementary school principle, and it only turned ugly once cam and dame started clowning o reilly for being a corny white dude

Why did he call his latest book "A Bold Fresh Piece of Humanity" ?

There is really no reason for that.

yeah but i mean he's totally taking the piss (from a secretary of course) w/ that title

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Get Hannitized!

http://hanna.pyxidis.org/pichurs/obey/sean_hannity.jpg

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STOP you're making me want to slap my monitor.

http://hannidate.hannity.com/

wow - landslide!

Fox News's saving grace (if there is one) is that they always hire gorgeous women as anchors.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/32894267@N00/2873370217/

And all of the sudden O'Reilly becomes tolerable, what was old has become new etc.

I've always liked Shep since Katrina when he was live in New Orleans and went off.

"Soldiers are moving those people from one hot overpass to another. They need water. Somebody get these people some water. What is going on here?" (that's how I remember it)

It was the first sane moment I saw on television that awful couple of days and I've always respected him for breaking character at that moment regardless of who he worked for, and I've enjoyed seeing clips of him over the years even though I won't watch FOX in general.

I saw this too!!! It was easily one of the awesomest things I've seen on television...

Seriously, guys, the fact that this thread has turned into a Sheppard Smith lovefest has totally totally totally restored my faith in ILX!

update: found out that Shep's brother's father-in-law and my dad are buds (Shep grew up in Holly Springs, MS and went to Ole Miss). I kind of want to forward this thread to him.

Shep is also a total queen in his personal life, according to a buddy who works at a Fox affiliate.

gossip! excellent. shep is the best.

here is the long version of shep goofing on glenn beck

btw it is clear chris wallace is just playing along in his deadpan way.

yeah i was kind of wondering if wallace was being serious. it's hard (for me) to get a read on that dude, and i sometimes wonder if my distaste for him is excessive

wallace is a blowhard but i think hes enough invested in journalism as a respectable institution to not be taking beck very seriously

cable news is morphing into pro-wrestling

funny to say this but it drives me up the wall, because i am def a partisan, when.. ppl on liberal blogs are convinced that when anyone on fox is fair, they're suddenly 'enlightened' and coming over to the other side. i get the impression with wallace that he is.. of course committed to being a serious journalist but his point of departure is heavily right-leaning sources like washington times so the spectrum of what he takes seriously starts there and ends with.. washington post, say. i don't think you can help but start with a set of basic assumptions and his are more conservative, i guess.

heh, otm with the pro wrestling. whatcha gonna do when glenn beck runs wild on you? can you smell... what olbermann is cooking? hannity is a great american, fight for the rights of every man..

yeah the other day after shep murked glen beck on his own friday all the commenters on liberal blogs that linked to the videos were like "oh i guess this shep fellow isnt the enemy!" and it was like... fools

Fox just needs someone from Al Jazeera to come over and be the Iron Sheik

You guys are making me want to start watching Fox News.

FOX is funnier than Comedy Central!

Cable news as pro wrestling boggles my mind with OTMness.

Brian Kilmeade: Best of the Worst.

A queen in his personal life?

"He made you a moron, potential H-bomb."

"A brief holiday in other people's misery"

"unlimited supply"

shep is indeed ole miss. his coverage of the presidential debate there was great. lots of colour commentary.

Ahhhhh . . . I may have to agree about Hannity after all. Also, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) is an inarticulate dummy.

the amazing part of the bachmann exchange w/ my man hannity is the phrase "If Tim Geithner is successful under President Obama, and they move us to an international currency..." this is AFTER she aired out this piece of total larouchey paranoia in an open session of congress and had geithner and bernanke politely say, TO HER FACE, no, we are not planning to take the US off the dollar (wtf!@#!@#)

plain facts spoken directly to her don't get through. it's possible for insanity to be self-cultivated i guess.

god bachman is our eternal shame.

sterns county syndrome indeed.

plz can we put Bachmann in an inner tube and send her floating away

then pay a gang of frat guys to drown her in the apple river

plain facts spoken directly to her don't get through. it's possible for insanity to be self-cultivated i guess.

Call it: The Bachmann Effect.

yglesias has the details on the economic stuff they think they're talking about:

http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2009/03/bachmann_and_beck_double_down_on_currency_conspiracy_theory.php

Fox just needs someone from Al Jazeera to come over and be the Iron Sheik

^^ hardcore lols

fox has been running chyrons & quoting emails today asking about the new world order.. <sigh>

also this is random but i just noticed shep says city/state names in the regional accent all the time, like chicawgo & fahrgo north dakohta. cute

I only really get to watch Studio B on Fridays because I have afternoon classes M-TR. Starts in 15 mins!!

Too bad Shep didn't slip into an Andy Kaufman imitation when he read that letter from Memphis.

Bachmann quickly approaching B-1 Bob Dornan levels of quotable lunacy

Oh shit, my clock is still an hour behind!!! I though it was 2:56 now, but it's actually 3:56. Missed out on Sheptime.

Oh shit, my clock is still an hour behind!!!

dude

Just my computer clock. All the house clocks are fine.

Fox News is the Two Minute Hate, except 24/7.

Esquire article on Shep Smith: http://www.esquire.com/features/shepard-smith-fox-news-0309

There are several Shep Smith Creation Myths circulating around Fox — several stories of how Fox brass came to see that he was Their Guy — and what they all have in common is his willingness to do what needed to be done, without standing on ceremony. For John Moody, executive vice-president of news, it was the time when Roger Ailes — Moody's boss and the president and architect of Fox News — looked up at a television and saw footage of O. J. Simpson's civil trial and said, "You know, just once I'd like to hear some reporter have the guts to say that he's here at the O. J. Simpson trial, where there's nothing going on and nothing happened today." Moody: "I called Shepard in L. A., which is where he was at the time. I said, 'Let's think about this.' He said, 'I got it.' I said, 'Well . . .' And he said, 'No, I got it.' It was the kind of thing where he was on the air before I finished my sentence. And Shepard just did this dry, absolutely dead-on thing where he said, 'There's nothing going on at the O. J. trial today. If something happens, we'll let you know about it. But for now, this is Shepard Smith in Los Angeles, at the O. J. trial, where nothing's happening.' That's when you knew, that's when you went, 'Oh yeah, oh yeah. . . .' "

It's the same animating principle behind that Paris clip upthread.

I first saw Shep Smith during Katrina and he was fantastic.

Shep was apparently a reporter here in the Orlando area a while before I lived here, but people have told me he was exactly the same back then as he is right now. I've gotta give that dude love for keeping at it for all these years.

that's a good story, tom junod is a good dude

really good article. i somewhat remember seeing him & geraldo on the air during katrina, i def watched a ton of cable news then but was not paying attention to who the anchors were on fox. there's a clip of this on youtube in which he's trying to tell sean hannity straight up that there is no explanation as to why the people on the bridge in nola weren't getting food and water. hannity is all about helping bush cover his ass, of course, keeps trying to pull this "let's get some perspective" bs & shep is having none of it. along with this are some clips of geraldo freaking the f out.

i do appreciate that shep's team thinks a lot about what's valuable to the audience when putting those shows together - they try to always start by hitting all the basic points of complicated issues & though there's silly stuff in there (friday had like.. a parrot on a skateboard that went missing XD) IMHO it actually gets less airtime than it would on major network. also both of the shows shep does (also baier) are very watchable b/c they're not obsessed with proving how everyone in politics (or everyone in general) is a hypocrite and acting in bad faith, or that politicians being political is shocking and wrong. (shows fixated on assuming/proving hypocrisy all the time & that get v tedious: campbell brown, 1600 penn ave, dobbs, blitzer has cafferty on to grumble about how everyone in public life is worthless).

shep and 538.com were my go to guys during the election.

nate silver was on point with his predictions, that's for sure. def helped him that he's a baseball stats nerd and stuck to the data. i admit that i avoided his site though, because he was so negative when it came to HRC during the primaries (under his former alias @ the daily kos, which is where he got started.. total bunch of haters over there in general, the atmosphere is completely poisoned).

let it go daria

Even after all this time on Fox, Shep is still Jenny on the blowjob for me.

not letting it go! it's a free country, somewhere. but dkos is poisoned regardless of the subject at hand, was my point.

so i watched studio b today -> serious news report concludes with shep & jonathan hunt (britishes correspondent for his show) riffing on how funny it is that north korea has missiles called nodong and taepodong

ended with a segment about a dude arrested for drunk driving who was on.. a vehicle he had built which is a barstool attached to a lawnmower

hoping one/both of these show up on the youtubes, as he called it XD

u guyz I think shep is an alright guy and all, but I do not get this sanctification. fox news is still fox news. this guy is a big part of that institution. he gives a tiny bit of legitimacy to something that really doesn't deserve any.

he gives a tiny bit of legitimacy to something that really doesn't deserve any.

This is true. OTOH, Shep Smith is funnier goofing on other FOX hosts than Joe Scarborough is goofing on Glenn Beck. Sort of an "inside-the-belly-of-the-beast" POV, plus a wry wit.

That other guy on MSNBC who put together the video clip of Beck crying, the guy who was sitting alongside Scarborough on Morning Joe, now that guy was funny.

his presence casts everyone else on the network in the proper light and he almost acts as an on-air ombudsman, therefore the dude rules

I think we all can agree that DailyKos should be ignored as much as possible.

his presence casts everyone else on the network in the proper light and he almost acts as an on-air ombudsman, therefore the dude rules

I am pretty sure Hannity and Beck would seem equally crazy with or without this light that Shep apparently casts on them.

When you have a reasonable and relatable person like Shep arguing that Fox News really is fair and balanced and all about the news...well it's almost even believable when he says it. But c'mon, he's either stupid or lying.

oh he's a company man, to be sure. it's just kind of cool when he goes off script (& tbh I don't have cable so my shep experiences are confined to youtube clips, which are obviously going to be the most o_O moments).

idk maybe i'm putting too much faith in his appeal. but but when you think of all the mouthbreathers in this country who get 100% of their news from Fox, I think it's invaluable to have someone with a shred of sanity inside the Hannity-O'Reilly-Beck idiot echo chamber.

shepard smith makes everyone else around him look even more histrionic, moreso because he clowns on them mercilessly and is a fellow fox news anchor. i dunno about the fair and balanced thing, he might see it that way which would make him neither stupid nor a liar, he might just actually believe it to be true.

that would be option 'stupid'

I don't think he does or is, fwiw

that wouldn't be stupidity, that would be a different perspective, sort of a "forest for the trees" kind of thing

you clearly do not watch the program! I watch! :)

the younger guy on scarbs' show is willie geist, the bald guy is mike barnicle.

far as clowning on the other anchors.. i started to notice (i'm fascinated by this) that there is an understanding going on between many of them, as well as with their audience, as far as what's to be taken serious and what's a joke - and if you don't follow them too much, it looks weirder than it is. for instance apparently a big part of beck's persona is to make fun of himself all the time for being.. dopey, silly, crazy, etc. his own people do this on his own programs.

however, given that making fun of beck somewhat was fair game, shep took it waaaaaaaaaaaay further than it was supposed to go. i don't have a real good perspective on how o'reilly/hannity's real audiences take them, but it's not necessarily true that fans of these guys believe everything they say. limbaugh is damned entertaining and very good at radio & some ppl listen for entertainment alone. of course he's also a shameless liar who poisons the national discourse. i should hate these guys but usually it's just.. SMH.

starting to wonder (krauthammer is on bret baier's show right now being a Very Serious Pundit and i don't believe a damned word he says) if one big problem on fox is with the people who book the shows. on panels, they're going to have a right winger, a conservative, and a centrist, most of the time. i dunno. it's on, it's well produced, people watch it - might be better if the left tried hard to get more people on & talk to that audience b/c so many fewer people watch msnbc.

haha wait, MIKE BARNICLE

no wonder I haven't heard that name in years

right, it's clearly the left that's purposely choosing not to be represented on fox news.

willfully misinterpreting what i wrote, replying with sarcasm <- get one (1) new style of argument, this one is already taken by approx 1 billion people on the internet

oh okay, I will look for a new one

it's just aggravating, i don't know why do that.

I'm just O_o over fox news apologism. an edgy position to take I guess?

but...it's still fox news. it is the conservative news channel run by rupert murdoch and roger ailes.

basically i work for a liberal nonprofit so this is why i know so much about fox pushing conservative talking points. i am just fascinated by it from a theoretical standpoint, also it's hard to maintain anger, it's easier to develop a healthy sense of the absurd.

this is why i heart shep, he gets it. also do not have the impression he hangs out with a bunch of other journalists who often seem to regurgitate the exact same ideas at any given moment..

i can't help it, i kind of love fox. it's soooo over the top. o'reilly is absurd. karl rove is going to be on hannity tonight, i'm sure that will be.. informative. i think i prefer to listen to people when you know where their biases are, and you have to actively think about what's wrong with what they're saying. i know lots of people who like olbermann/maddow but personally find it gets dull to be told stories from their POV.

ok cnn international AFAIK is pretty good, i would watch that if we got it.

the problem is that 75% of fn viewers are not watching it ironically, hoping that this is gonna be one of the days that their inside man winks at them.

and I mean, does shep 'really get it'? if we really believe omar's 'forest for the tree's thing, maybe he doesn't?

Who cares if he gets it? Watching anything "ironically" is so tiresome. Shep Smith is just funny sometimes; he's the only one who doesn't take newscasting seriously, and, on that network, it's a huge plus.

"Shep Smith is funny sometimes" is something I can agree with - I just don't see how that translates into this crazy lovefest.

We all want him to officially come out.

he's the only one who doesn't take newscasting seriously

Deep down, I think he does. He wishes all his peers did too, and that he could go back in time and be a 60s/70s journalist. But given the current state of things, he plays the rational objector.

....with lavender lipstick.

they way i look at it, shep has been w/ fox since its inception, before it was the station of o reilly and hannity and the reputation that it has now, but i think when shep says it's fair & balanced it's him being party company man & part referring to his programs and those non-punditry ones that have a bit of a bent but who doesn't? the duo who are on in the afternoon (forget their names always! one has a really matronly name the other is a bumbling dude but i forget) aren't any better/worse than norah o donnell for instance and i think that's where shep is coming from. it's obvious who he has a distaste for in the network.

this feels like excuse-making to me. fox news inception = top republican media consultant gets put in charge of a news channel. shep (and colmes, who says the exact same things in public) probably thinks "they never asked me about my politics, never tell me what to say..." but like...does he not read the marquee text under his face on the screen? does he just forget who karl rove is when he walks by him on the way to the bathroom? is he really just missing the bigger picture...again and again...every day of his life for the last decade?

"Working for the Man seemed really good to me"

like, why not just skip ahead and appreciate the dude

sounds like a springsteen line

One day all of them decided they wanted to put on make-up and hair pieces and read crap out loud in a phony voice in front of a camera.

I think it was important for folks who get all their news from Fox to see that the fed gov's response to Katrina was woefully inadequate and disgraceful. It was important that Joe the Fucking Plumber get taken to task for his completely uninformed & paranoid opinions, and for someone (outside the librul media) to reiterate that a vote for Obama DOESN'T = the "death of Israel." And even though it was done under the guise of good-natured ribbing, Sheppard's clowning surely did more to undermine Beck's lunatic ravings (among those most susceptible to them) than anyone else could.

I'm certainly not suggesting he's deserving of a Peabody award or anything, but a healthy dose of OMG WTF from inside the Fox News family and (hopefully) diffused among the loyal viewership ain't a bad thing at all.

'course the O'Reilly & Hannity fanatics prob think he's a big pussy so eh...

Yeah, Shep is NOT loved by most of those who watch Fox's primetime programming.

iatee, how many people do you know who are going to throw their careers down the toilet because they're unhappy with what happened the last decade (esp when it wouldn't accomplish anything)? i mean one could look at it as, being a journalist who is objective is valuable to the public, perhaps moreso than yet another.. partisan on the air. should new york times reporters quit or stop being objective because their paper ran judith miller's articles re: iraq, and still runs horrible opinion pieces from dowd/rich who trash dems all the time?

re: colmes, that guy - smart of hannity to have a 'liberal' on his show who ended up taking watered-down stands on most issues and losing arguments most of the time. imho hannity is a little sad without him. dunno if his ratings have changed any. there was a lady at my prev job who was a big hannity fan (also used to work for lieberman.. heh) and she was super duper nice to me & all the ppl in the department who'd argue with her about politics. it was so funny, like <whine> 'i like you, but you haaate america! you just dooooo!' </whine>

great user name, daria

is he really just missing the bigger picture...again and again...every day of his life for the last decade?

It's like a Greek tragedy, titled "Colmes." Better yet, a myth, interpreted by Camus. He alwyas hopes that the next time he passes Rove on the way to the men's room, he will acknowledge him. Hope is all he has.

iatee, I take your points, I do. But when I think of TV journalists to hold Shep up for a blistering comparison to, my mind goes a bit blank. Steven Colbert can't really count, can he?

this feels like excuse-making to me. fox news inception = top republican media consultant gets put in charge of a news channel.

Again, I do get your point, but I don't think you're fully taking into account what a frighteningly debased institution our fourth estate is right now.

This clip isn't just about a bunch of idiots sitting around saying idiotic things, although it certainly is that; it's about them saying baseless, probably libelous things about someone who (gasp) was once a JOURNALIST for CNN.

(Ok, slanderous. Not libelous. Put that correction on the record.)

"By the name of... I think it's... some fucking mexican shit, who can be bothered, god people with hispanic names are beneath contempt, amirite?"

Add to this the serious (I think more serious than people realize) problem of large newspapers going out of business, who are the only institutions who can (under the current system) pay for serious investigative journalism, and... look. If Shep and his little pisstakes are all I'm left with, I'll take it. It's something.

Glenn Beck really dropped some knowledge tonight:

more useful things to remember

By that I mean, things that are more useful. Not an addition number.

additional

Some quibbles with Glenn Beck's latest attempt at an uprising-to-no-particular-end:

Ranting sarcastically about the "politics of fear" looks a little less ironic when he has Nazis on the green screen behind him. I know subtlety doesn't sell, but really now. Nazis? Does he even understand what Nazis were? Scarier still, does he understand EXACTLY what they were?

He mentions G20 riots... "People once again are feeling oppressed by an out of control state." The STATE? Are you fucking kidding me? Is that why they're smashing up banks? Because of the state? How fundamentally can you misunderstand something? These people WANT the state. They want their respective states, all the states in the world, to enact trade agreements that somehow (and I'm fuzzy here myself) make sure no one ever gets hurt by capitalism again. And I feel bad for them, and I wish I could believe in something as fervently and uselessly as they do. I'd be less depressed most of the time, for sure. But my point is, they're not feeling oppressed by the STATE.

I shouldn't even listen to this shit, but I do, and I'm still trying to hear it through my dad's ears. He swallows this stuff whole. I suppose I am encouraged by the fact that both of us have come around to believing that "too big to fail" will be inscribed on our little's empire's headstone.

That Glenn Beck clip reminds me of the televangelist show that Otto's parents were watching slavishly in Repo Man.

Glenn Beck reminds me of one of the President's monologues in Fallout 3.

holy shit glenn beck fucking a.

That clip is amazing. Wow. I am now a fan. The sound he makes at 1:15 is jaw-dropping.

i remember beck's radio show oh, pre 9-11 perhaps? I thought he was pretty funny (for quasi-right wing radio) at the time. but i think in general political stakes seemed much lower to me back then. overall, thought, he seemed pretty harmless and goofy and the show was kind of enjoyable depending on your tolerance for that sort of thing.

I'm wondering if these paranoid leanings were present then, but i cant remember. is this a relatively recent development for beck?

He was a lot less unhinged when his team was winning, and his bank account was flush. Back when he was working on his film adaptation of his book/play "The Christmas Sweater."

i remember listening to his radio show one time back when subprime mortage crisis mania was going mainstream and he seemed fairly reasonable. goofy, sure, but he at least seemed to know who the bad guys were.

lolz lil Glenn Beck vs the nazis

love his non-college-degree-holding ass insisting that people need to read and educate themselves bahahahaha

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51AsGwrXEcL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA240_SH20_OU01_.jpg

Last year I got so goddamn tired of looking at displays of this book every time I went into Borders.

ok that new 'fascism' clip is brilliant. incoherent and unproductive, but that bit where the screen goes black and there's just a miniature Beck yelling at you from the bottom of the screen for a minute, to slowly fade up on aged film stock of Lenin-Bernanke...

Beck's show is now reminding me precisely of the work of documentary film maker Alex Jones. Who I describe to people as someone who saw Craig Baldwin's 'Tribulation 99' and thought it was all real. Except instead of having to special order his ranting direct from his DVD company... it's on a major network.

http://infowars-shop.stores.yahoo.net/endgamedvd.html

http://infowars-shop.stores.yahoo.net/videos.html

did i mention that i love shep? he just asked the panel on his show about the reaction to obama in europe, such a turnaround, after bush was so hated. so this fox business guy started off, explaining that europeans hated george w bush so much because bush is so christian, so overtly wearing his religion on his sleeve, and europeans just hated any displays of religion.

shep: "also.. the war?"

^^^yesssss - he has been on fire today

"he's a socialist"
"a... what??"

Beck is totally insane, so when he falls, it will be spectacular. Trust me.

yeah that GOP consultant started in on how obama was a socialist & shep was like "what???" but she kept on it - he cut her off after that & said to the dem, ok, now it's your turn to talk

that was great - i was genuinely shocked when the britishes guy from fox business (varney) immediately launched into this diatribe on how europeans hated bush because they religion. it was so bizarre. i mean, who believes that? (OK doubtless a LOT of people do, but dude should've known he wasn't on hannity)

for a lot of british people, bush's religosity/religion/cultural background doesn't exactly help.

i'm sure that doesn't make bush extra popular. the stunning thing though, was that varney instantly went off on how europeans hated bush because he was a christian and left out every other possible reason bush might be unpopular. it was just bonkers.

also, shep's lavender tie does kind of make it look like he is wearing lipstick <3 <3 <3
yesterday he & the britishes correspondent (hunt) on the show were riffing on how funny it was that north korea had missiles named taepodong and nodong.

and now... you know the news.

the whole Bush-is-a-Christian thing is some political stagecraft on the same level of Bush-is-a-Texan. The more comes out about him the more its apparent he was a Satanic Blue-Blood

http://crooksandliars.com/node/9850

^^ shep vs bill kristol, who is being his usual smug self (ugh)

i watched a few min of glenn beck today and maybe what disturbs me isn't so much that people think he's right.. it's that they think he's coherent. what kind of sense are they making out of this that i don't see, where communism = fascism = socialism = new world order = obama administration = big brother, and it's all plain as day? is beck playing 12 dimensional chess & my brain isn't sophisticated enough to catch on? he's going to give a "history lesson" tomorrow and i. can't. wait.

he's like one of those late-night self-help tv ads, or Tom Cruise & his Scientology even, where it's just this platitudinous cocktail of fervency & inanity and your left going, "well, what's the skinny?? i'm ready, baby, drop that k-nowledge on me!"

except instead of a cheeseball seduction to expensive classes or books or cd's, there's just more lunatic ravings tomorrow.

platitudinous cocktail of fervency & inanity

well done sir

Daria, have you seen Bret Baier's show since they changed it from Special Report to The Fox Nation? Any claims the old show had to remaining neutral seem to have gone out the window.

Oh wait, I was confused by the spinning graphic at the bottom of the screen. Is The Fox Nation just a new online portal or some shit? Anyway, last night's Special Report (which is being repeated now in the middle of the night) is offending my sensibilities about every 90 seconds.

yeah baier goes on every night in front of o reilly and hannity - no real surprise that he has a huge boner for that style even tho he cut his teeth doing actual reporting for them

for them being for fox not hannity and o reilly

Yeah, I remember when he was just a correspondant. What happened to Brit Hume, anyway? Why'd he exit Special Report?

i just assumed cuz he was old - he's still around tho so i assume he just wanted to get off the day-to-day grind of doing nightly news

i miss brit - that time slot is really slow

i usually watch the situation room but i'm not a huge blitzer fan

Brit's lip got stiff and it was hard to continue making the sounds come out

Okay, Wikipedia confirms he's taken on kind of a Tom Brokaw role at the network. I guess that makes sense, because he's closing in on 70.

Also this, which I never knew: "Brit Hume's son, Washington journalist Sandy Hume, was a reporter for The Hill and broke the story of the aborted 1997 coup against Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. In February 1998, Sandy Hume committed suicide by a self-inflicted gunshot from a hunting rifle."

i miss brit - that time slot is really slow

The Ed Show starts Monday on MSNBC during that 6pm slot. Not sure it'll be any good, because Ed Schultz gets on my nerves frequently. But at least I won't have to sit through so much David Schuster in the evening anymore (what a toad!). Unfortunately, though, he's being moved to the afternoons and pushing Norah O'Donnell somewhere else on the MSNBC schedule, AND THAT SUCKS

the worst surprise ever is when i make dinner and sit down to watch olbermann and schuster's nasally ass is subbing

This is why I want more Norah O'Donnell on my television

i usually go w/ cnn during the day - esp rick sanchez for all the insane twitter/myspace/facebook/blog/skype/voicemail/ break ins. his show is almost like a circus, i love it

He's also a local boy!

They're giving Ed Schultz a show? I'd actually watch that.

rick sanchez is pretty great, what a goofball

New tory pin-up Daniel Hannan on Sean Hannity. It's a fucking dumbfest from start to finish.

"It's a huge honour to be on your show for any conservative or indeed for anyone, Sean."

Hannity quotes the Daily Mail at some point and that's when my head exploded.

hannan - he is on every other fox news show lately, what is his deal?? also hannity can totally get away with quoting whatever b/c no one is going to have any idea about britishes media

also, just to add to the list of why he is awesome, shep was anchoring last friday following the third to latest disgruntled shooting (eg, binghamton.. following that were pittsburgh, tacoma) & departed from reporting for a bit re: immigrants in America. i think he was about to ask someone a question but he just kept talking instead of getting to the question, saying how you could see that immigrants are following the path to citizenship, and working hard at it, and they are learning English, and how everyone in this country who isn't a native American actually comes from a family of immigrants, etc. Basically a couple minutes' worth of anti-Lou Dobbs commentary. go shep.

btw sean hannity is basically a fascist

but i'm pretty sure i despise lou dobbs and nancy grace more than sean hannity. hannity will reliably hammer away at whatever the current rightwing talking points are, but at least those change. dobbs on this relentless anti-immigrant crusade, and nancy grace, anti-fair trial and due process. i was horrified when my mother said some comment worrying about mexican immigrants to this country & knew that's where it comes from - for crying out loud my hometown doesn't really have any, we should be so lucky to have an influx of immigrants, since the population's declining and the economy's been in the toilet for a couple decades..

Many descendants of 18th and 19th century German immigrants who took up to three generations to fully assimilate and begin using English as their first language are now among the most stridently anti-immigrant. Also, "white identity" groups have lately taken to fetishizing Irishness, of all things, as quintessentially American. So, you know, Beck and Hannity.

Anti-immigration stance is what the opiate of the middle class masses. Why be mad at someone you voted for stealing billions of tax dollars when you can direct it at a Mexican mom getting her kids flu shots?

that norah o'donnell clip just made my day.

Why is Shep Smith still at Fox?? He really needs to be on a more credible, non-batshit news station.

the worst surprise ever is when i make dinner and sit down to watch olbermann and schuster's nasally ass is subbing
― strøm thurmond (J0rdan S.), Friday, April 3, 2009 1:51 AM

OTM!!

i said this on another thread but beyond his personal politics (which are opaque to me) I just love the WAY he reads the news. he'd be great on radio too.

shep, that is.

hannan - he is on every other fox news show lately, what is his deal??

Yeah, he's a piece of work alright. I think he has more in common with Hannity et al than his own party leadership so perhaps he's looking for some lucrative gig where he's more appreciated? Certainly he seems to have changed his tune on Obama to suit this audience.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/daniel_hannan/blog/2008/03/21/why_im_for_barack_obama

i think shep is on the radio as well? or used to be? i think he had a news show, not opinions/call-in (unfortunately). apparently during the convention shep was running "mystery science theater DNC" from the strategy room (fox news' webcast) where he & some other dudes wore antennae on their heads and did running commentary over top of the speeches. how did i miss this?!! i had to work late every damn day of both conventions and was probably watching CNN or some shit. :(

anyway i revived to post this:
http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2009/04/hannity-highlights-obamas-team-america.html

My poor animated Shep gif is just going to waste in a different thread, so I'ma throw him in here.

http://i41.tinypic.com/211m24m.gif

http://idude.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/msdns01.png

The Hannan lovefest for American TV continues...confuses Fox broadcasters with real journalists...
I suppose this is what it must feel like to be a Leftie on the BBC. You're listened to politely, you're allowed to develop your arguments, your assertions are not automatically greeted by incredulous leers.

hannan does realize that beck, cavuto, hannity are listening to him politely because.. they booked him on their shows in the first place because he'd tell their audience exactly what they wanted to hear?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/mar/26/conservatives-europe

and these days, at the Strategy Room.. Freedom Watch brings on Alex Jones to explain you the New World Order

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/33154_Video-_Napolitano_with_Alex_Jones_Ron_Paul_Lew_Rockwell_Etc

[via another blog, I do not read LGF]

in general the comments are pretty sane (?!) but i love that the first couple are just as batshit paranoid conspiratorial

ahahaha. just read the first couple comments. of course there are ppl on there thinking it's a saudi conspiracy. has to be someone's, after all.

i used to read LGF back.. wow, 2002 or 2003? relatively early days of the blogosphere during runup to iraq war, there were very few blogs on topic (LGF, agonist, atrios, daily kos pre-scoop, tacitus, juan cole, liberal oasis, talking points memo, calpundit..). anyway LGF was basically a neocon blog far as I could tell, I followed out of fascination that.. it was like watching a hate group develop in real time - their methodology was to find any/all possible news items casting middle eastern countries and muslims in a bad light, hype them up, and let commenters run wild.

ah wait so does the relative sanity of those comments spring basically from hatred for ron paul, then? no love lost, etc...

"obama is going to destroy this country... but not the way these nutcases are saying!!"

honestly the crosscurrents running through LGF escape me, wild guess would be.. LGF neocons vs. libertarians/paleoconservatives & the LGFers finding the latter group to be anti-semitic? i'm not sure. reading it now since i have downtime @ the office. IMHO lots/all of these political blog communities have.. black holes, subjects on which everyone just goes batshit crazy, but maybe LGF's is not so noticeable at the moment because they're looking at the glenn beck/alex jones crowd like WTF.

i'm amazed at the following at places like LGF; a post like 8 minutes old will have 400 some comments on it.

It's the same here (see that Guardian link above - 520 comments - almost all hostile to Michale white and pro-Hannan) - seems like various shades of the Right have the whole Comments pages thing wrapped up.

get the feeling hannan is starting to say stuff with fox news in mind, rather than the uk electorate: http://timesonline.typepad.com/oliver_kamm/2009/04/nhs-a-mistake.html

My father-in-law, who is a staunch republican, announced he has stopped watching Fox News because of Glenn Beck's insanity. The quote: "The more I watched Glenn Beck...the more I realized that maybe Fox News is not really so fair and balanced!"

You have no idea how hard it was not to laugh.

today Rick Sanchez on CNN straight up called out Fox and Glenn Beck in particular for promoting crazy rhetoric eg, Obama is leading us to socialism & destroying America, is going to take everyone's guns away, etc.

he was tweeting about it last night

wkiw rick sanchez

i see.. just checked the twitter. it was fun to watch, though he was def editorializing & not just reporting.

otherwise watched shep who covered the somali pirates story for a solid hour (it was v informative about a whole bunch of different angles to the story)..

followed by cavuto throwing softball questions at guest of honor rush limbaugh & then sputtering his way through a petulant defense of fox news promoting these "tea party" protests. followed by glenn beck going "ARRR" and demanding to know why we were too afraid to confront the pirates & why don't we just send in the marines to kick some ass and make a point.

zing http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090407/COMMENTARY/904079997/-1/RSS?ref=fp6

its a beautiful thing

newtgingrich: I am doing hannity tonight on fox

about 1 hour ago from TwitterBerry

MY EYES MY EYES

hahah saw that & was about to ask one of you guys.. PLEASE someone rt and just comment "TMI"

ana marie cox prob did already? i quit following her b/c she just pissed me off with relentless nonsense that wasn't funny

Rick Sanchez seems an unlikely candidate to call out FOX hosts on their craziness. Sanchez was pretty-much FOX-lite when he was the anchor at Miami's Channel 7 News. But whatevs: Seasons change; people change.

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/state_of_change/425664

Suddenly the conversation veered into the (apparently real) news that Russian and Chinese spies have hacked into the U.S. electrical grid--Commies in the wall sockets! Perhaps encouraged by how Beck seemed to appreciate his cheerful, neo-Paranoid Style, the Colonel (whose name I unfortunately didn't catch) shared some related intel: "all Chinese restaurants," he said, "are sleeper cells."

Doodz teh Chinese and Russians are going to take us over cos Obama is a communist and they are communists and that is a thing that happens DONT YOU SEEEE??

for the sake of pete that was a wild ride!

Also the whole Obama = slavery meme has been really encouraged by the Fox guys. Did they sleep through middle school history?

What a f----g lunatic.

something hannity has been really fond of during obama's european trip has been this line of thinking where he goes "WE SHOULDN'T BE TRYING TO ENDEAR OURSELVES TO EUROPE! WE SAVED THEM FROM THEMSELVES ONLY 70 YEARS AGO". like okay dude

i wish someone would go on his show and say "sean, shouldn't we be bowing down to france!! remember the revolutionary war?!??? we owe them!!"

the statue of liberty

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/13/foxs-cavuto-claims-networ_n_186156.html

CAVUTO: Just a reminder, we are going to be right in the middle of these protests because at FOX we do not pick and choose these rallies and protests. We were there for the Million Man March, even though, as I pointed out, it turned out to be well shy of a million men. We were there for the Iraq War protest, and the protest against the Iraq War protest. So see, we really don't decide what populist causes matter. Just that when a whole lot of people gather, in a whole lot of towns and cities across America, it is indeed worth checking out, not just shutting down. Which is why we are in Sacramento on April 15 for the one of the biggest of these, at 4:00 p.m. Eastern time.

...

Neil Cavuto has been defending FOX News' coverage of the upcoming tax day tea parties by repeatedly suggesting that FOX News gave similar coverage to the Million Man March. But the Million Man March occurred October 16, 1995 whereas FOX News was not operating until October 7, 1996, nearly a year later.

^^^classic

watching studio b. they love reports on cute dogs but this time shep was like, well, this was covered on all the sunday shows, i don't even know why we're talking about it.

anyway, my point here would be: holy shit, judith miller is on talking about this pirate thing. judith miller! credited as "pulitzer prize winning journalist" with no mention of the new york times! i knew she signed on but i never saw her on there until just now.

you know nobody at fox will ever ask her about those WMDs in iraq..

This kid is the number one FOX News Host for 2019

Wha? What?

Oy, that ad.

"ttyih"

you have seen the Fox Nation site right? their answer to HuffPo I suppose?

http://www.thefoxnation.com/justice/2009/04/10/obama-picks-easter-church

^^^ these comments have been up for days. i hit the "report" button on the one (3rd one I believe), this morning. still there.

"Why bother? Just because you sit in church doesn't make you a Christian. I can sit in my car all day, and that doesn't make me a car."

lollllllll

wtf

also, this
http://homepage.mac.com/mkoldys/iblog/C168863457/E20060207160313/index.html

shep sounds like a nascar announcer when they're really hyped about a three-car battle going around the turn

xpost: haha, I thought long and hard about making that my new display name too

http://www.foxnews.com/video/index.html?playerId=videolandingpage&streamingFormat=FLASH&referralObject=4282776&referralPlaylistId=playlist

idiot glenn beck delivering "public service announcement" on how global warming isn't real (many fox hosts are great at this: one snowstorm somewhere in the country = no such thing as global warming)

a tour of the fox studios!
http://homepage.mac.com/mkoldys/iblog/C168863457/E20060228024121/index.html

"No! O'Reilly is angry! Where's Olbermann!?"

cable news is my substitute obsession until it's time for football season again.. still 5 months til kickoff ;_;

http://homepage.mac.com/mkoldys/iblog/C168863457/E20060602155929/index.html

more goofing on o'reilly
also, where do i get one (1) drudgesiren for my desk?! WANT

&

"Then there was the media, specifically the FOX news channel, including Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity. Both are looking forward to an up close and personal taste of teabagging themselves at events this Wednesday."

ROLFL

classic

oh my damnn!

that was an epic round of teabag puns.

dick army... good one

juvenility aside, some v important points made

fox is pretending they're not sponsoring this thing despite promoting it w/tons of segments, commercials, calling them "FNC Tax Day Tea Parties," etc. it's kind of unprecedented for a news organization to promote protests like this & they are (I thought) a news organization first

wondering if the shows who are supposed to be just news will be covering this.. as it deserves. don't let me down, shep!

SIR —

http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2009/04/the_voice_of_the_opposition.cfm

The comments to that "Obama picks a church" article on the Fox website make me question whether the human race deserves to continue.

granted, every political site on the interwebs that allows comments is full of ugly, horrible stuff but.. imho this rightwing 'we're on the way to communist/fascist/ socialist/totalitarian new world order' + 'obama isn't a christian and will take all your guns' crap.. it's headed down a really dangerous road & fox is promoting it esp with glenn beck.

...and the DHS report has sent these ppl into overdrive

about 15 minutes ago @ studio b, shep had an intelligence analyst on who completely debunked this nonsense that the DHS report = obama administration targeting political opponents

also, this

Basically Daria, what I am getting from you is that Fox runs reasonable stories in the middle of the day while everyone is at work and batshit insanity during the morning program and at prime time. Is that a fair assessment?

"OBAMA = USSA UNITED SOCIALIST STATES OF AMERICA"

"TIME FOR AmRevII"

Good luck, USA.

let's see..
fox probably runs some actual news from about 10am to 4pm, but probably has a lot more right leaning stories and talking heads on there. i don't really watch until studio b is on at 3. fox used to be "news" from i think 10am until "opinion" started at 8 with o'reilly, but IMHO.. cavuto is a rightwinger (4pm show), beck is on there at 5pm being insane, so..

"reasonable story" time would be from 10am - 4pm, 6pm - 8pm. so, yeah, effectively, if prime time starts at 8pm, that's when it goes off the rails.

i love shep

megyn kelly and trace run a really entertaining mid-day program imo

I am not worried about these people. I'm not particularly worried about FOX News either. They're entertaining, and they play to a demographic that ebbs and flows like all audiences. As far as their journalistic integrity goes, they don't have any, but I don't see why that's any cause for alarm. This country has a rich and storied tradition of demogoguery, "yellow" journalism, whatever you wanna call it. Ever since the country's inception wide swaths of the media have been wildly biased, slanderous, exploitative, etc. from the Gazette of the United States (Jefferson called it "a paper of pure Toryism... disseminating the doctrines of monarchy, aristocracy, and the exclusion of the people" - thx wikipedia) to Hearst and any number of other baldly partisan news outlets. Cable TV is no different, FOX is just an extension of this tradition (just as CNN would like to think its in the tradition of Pulitzer, or Ben Franklin, or whoever)

"As a partisan [Noah Webster] soon was denounced by the Jeffersonian Republicans as "a pusillanimous, half-begotten, self-dubbed patriot", "an incurable lunatic", and "a deceitful newsmonger … Pedagogue and Quack." Fellow Federalist Cobbett labeled him "a traitor to the cause of Federalism", calling him "a toad in the service of sans-cullottism", "a prostitute wretch", "a great fool, and a barefaced liar", "a spiteful viper", and "a maniacal pedant."

some days I don't think there's anything more entertaining than American history

some of it i don't worry about. i think it's a shame, though, when shows like cavuto really push rightwing talking points & left-leaning news outlets don't use their airtime effectively. i mean, i don't know if keith o. or maddow have even spent time covering something like the employee free choice act, and they *could*, and how much time have they spent on silly stuff that doesn't matter.

but some of it i really do. the extremist rhetoric about obama & his administration disturbs me & people who have an audience of millions are throwing fuel on it.

Yah, what daria said -- I worry about the less stable parts of the audience who are being fed a steady diet of this stuff. When all we really had was Rush Limbaugh and the John Birch Society, we got Tim McVeigh. Amplify that x1000, and who knows? We've already had the Pittsburgh cop-killer, that dude who shot up a church last year, and a few others. When "their" party is out of power, it can only be worse.

^^^yeah I think that's the real, concrete danger here - I'm not worried about any kind of organized armed insurrection (the very idea from either end of the spectrum is totally unworkable and preposterous) but yeah we are liable to see an uptick in right-wing loony attacks, militia activity etc. which is a bummer, and hopefully the appropriate authorities will be prepared for it.

http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2009/04/the_militia_right.php

What’s interesting in particular about the militia mindset, however, is that its narrative sources are very different from those of left-wing radicalism. People who believe in violent revolution and the murder of American soldiers and policemen generally, if on the left, appeal to basically anti-patriotic attitudes. Which is about what you would expect from advocates of the violent overthrow of the established political order. But the militia crowd exhibits much more the attitudes one would expect from a coup leader—a Franco or a Pinochet who’s actually appealing to the concepts of patriotism and nationalism as justification for violent revolution.

I suppose there are some different ways of characterizing the asymmetry, but the underlying issue seems to be that rule by conservatives is integral to the right’s conception of the United States of America. This is part of the rhetoric of the “heartland” and “real America”—a period of political victory by a coalition grounded in the coasts and Greater Chicago is a period in which America has ceased to be herself.

Don't know where else to post this:

http://img259.imageshack.us/img259/1291/sp3220090415160311.gif

i hope the authorities are.. competent. what struck me abt that DHS report was that they pointed out that some of these groups might target returning veterans, and there was this instant screeching outrage.. newt gingrich on twitter wrote that the person who wrote it was obv against conservatives and attacking veterans and should be fired. excuse me? it's just a fact that this might happen, and that some people will come home from war with problems and might be recruited by these groups and might be dangerous. it's just a fact. all this tough talk about security and then there's a security threat they don't like and the answer is to cry foul and stick their heads in the sand. joe scarborough (surprisingly) was on the same tack this morning. wtf.

I'm reading Nixonland right now and that kinda stuff seems hand-in-hand with violent rightwingers complaining about the lawlessness of the left/civil rights activists/antiwar "communists" etc. when most of the violence was actually being committed by... rightwing racists. its a very self-serving ideology, transparently so.

^^^er shoulda appended "in the mid-60s" to my post there

i have not read the DHS report, so i can't comment on its tone or content exactly, but i have read excerpts. it seemed pretty clear to me that the report was about st*rmfr*nt and militia types, not 'staunch conservatives' as such. what i find interesting is that the malkin crowd immediately thought the report WAS about them.

when wobbly hippies and ANSWER and them were being kicked off planes in 02 you couldn't get an establishment democrat w/in 100 paces of them or their complaints. now, with the right out of power, its tea bag city. they're running toward this shit (notable exceptions of course)

btw i checked in at my favorite ex-puma obama hate site and they had this:

http://i43.tinypic.com/1z6dzdd.jpg

^^^critical commentary there lolz

when wobbly hippies and ANSWER and them were being kicked off planes in 02 you couldn't get an establishment democrat w/in 100 paces of them or their complaints. now, with the right out of power, its tea bag city. they're running toward this shit (notable exceptions of course)

the dynamic in play here is obvious - for the right the admonitions/threats from the left are to be worn as a badge of honor, as symbols of their true commitment to conservative causes. its a way of playing to the base, and solidifying their credentials. But the Dems have never shared this kind of rabid dedication to their base, primarily because their base is more fractured and made up of a weird agglomeration of mutual interests - so they feel vulnerable to attacks on their patriotism and the like. They see it as limiting their political viability, not solidifying it. By contrast, the rightwing persecution complex is kinda central to their identity, they have no qualms about fomenting it and reveling in it.

is there a thread about these tea party protests?

afaict it's been covered a little here and a little on the TAX thread.

TAX QUESTION thread, that is

I bet Newt Gingrich listens to Grateful Dead while he's planning these tea party protests. Stick it to the man, Newt! Yeah!

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/sleuth/2009/04/obama_meets_privately_with_the.html

Shep shoots down Fox's idiocy about the DHS memo.

That Shep bit was pretty good.

yeah, i mentioned this upthread as well, this segment was on the day the report was released. he's done a couple reports to that effect. meanwhile the majority of shows on fox carry on as if this had never been reported.

also, something else i saw via related vids on youtube, this is after the election - carl cameron finally reports on all the crazy happening behind the scenes re: palin, and shep says his team looked at the polls & saw the point at which obama really broke away started *not* with lehman brothers crash, but after palin's couric interview.

i remember the shit hitting the fan pretty fast re: mccain camp attacking palin, but didn't know it was from fox. the rightwing blogs went apeshit over this.

haha, ok this. was looking up some particular examples of why people might be a little irritated with dana milbank, who devoted a whole column this week to complaining about haters on the interwebs who write him nasty emails and post rude comments. (? everyone in media gets hate mail.)

so, milbank basically fabricated an obama quote last summer and everyone on the tv news freaked the F out over it. but check the clip at the very end XD

shep narrating this tractor trailer thing is amazing

Just to back up a bit: R Maddow, at least, has spent lots of time covering EFCA -- actually she started covering Hilda Solis during the confirmation process, pointing out that Solis' support of EFCA was almost certainly the issue Repubs were delaying her for, regardless of what they were saying on the record. She has re-reported on EFCA many times since then, including what right-wingers are saying about it in the news, and how they're simply factually WRONG about what EFCA contains and what it would mean for employees in practice.

lol daria, that is amazing

xpost - hahaha i totally saw that! fantastic. one of my friends messaged me like 'ZOMG TRUCK CHASE! WATCH STUDIO B'

the talking points memo had a video the other day with every news program going nuts over this swine flu thing..
a-ha!

lol Buchanan calling Obama "America's Hot Dog"

shep seems rather pissed off at 1) people writing in blaming "illegal aliens" (the crazy emailers words) for the flu outbreak and 2) eric massa on studio b right now making this a thing about closing borders and free trade (what?)

you guys watch fox news

"there's a flue. forty people have the flu."

copneb returns

fuck i always mistype 'flu' what is the DEAL with THAT

i watch every news, effectively. fox is more fun to talk about

that's how they get the ratings

you guys watch fox news

this sounds like an Anal Cunt song title.

what's your estimate of the fraction of FNC's nielsen take that's curious/loling/aghast liberals

interjection: o'reilly remains a wretched scumfuck and is not worthy of "well, he's not as bad as the other dudes" shit upthread.

best of the car chase!

<3 <3 - "is he not wearing pants or is he wearing shorts. it's a hot day"

next completely off the hook moment, shep should get his own thread, i don't really want to talk about the other people on fox any more. studio b seems to have more of those. i can't believe that for all these years i was totally unaware of the weirdest show on television.

via josh marshall

^^ this went on for like 6 minutes. i hope someone posts the whole thing on the youtubes. started to wonder if they booked cliff may specifically so they could yell at him again for being such a fascist.

http://www.publishersweekly.com/index.asp?layout=talkbackCommentsFull&talk_back_header_id=6598637&articleid=CA6655969#149323

Glenn Beck signed an international, multi-division deal with Simon & Schuster, oh fuck.

^^^awesome

srs lolz here

wow that was awesome

I don't understand. Was he drunk? Ill? I can't stand to watch these shows so I don't really get this thread but I try to y'know keep up.

afaik, just a random guest booked on the show who wasn't used to doing TV and got nervous/ill. that keyboard cat song is waaayyyyy too damn catchy

watching studio b @ the moment. interview with bernie madoff's secretary who is sort of getting cross-examined right here & doesn't seem to have expected it - which is very entertaining.

this was just on CNN!
keyboard cat and bristol palin's anti-teen-pregnancy tour are situations in that room over there at the CNN, i guess.

The thing I love about the Glenn Beck one is Keyboard Cat getting ready, waiting for the guy to eventually pass out before playing.

OMG those last two video clips were AWESOME.

LOL at O'Reilly becoming totally unglued.

Play him off Keyboard Cat is like the greatest thing ever, isn't it?

that O'Reilly thing is OOOOOOOOLD

Uh obviously! Just look at his hair!

I now feel kind of bad for the "I'm going to pass out" guy in the Glenn Beck clip.

Yeah, and Beck was all "hey shake my hand and go pass out off-camera, guy"... 'cept he didn't make it.

That's funny that you interpreted it that way. I actually thought he seemed pretty sympathetic, too, in a "I'm emotionally close to the edge myself and I feel for you, man" sort-of-way.

But I can see how you got to your interpretation.

i don't have any software here to make an interwebs meme out of this thing, but.. bret baier cracks me the hell up. at the end of his show every day (this is just before shep is on at 7), they play some humorous little clip from daily show or late night tv. i guess those are funny but what is REALLY funny is baier's reaction to this - they always show him chuckling at it afterward and it is exactly the same reaction every single time. i can't really explain why this is so hilarious but it is. he's his own moment of zen.

daria, seriously, you should write a FOX News watch blog. I would read it!

^^^cosign

my wife was asking where I was getting all this goofy Fox News stuff from and I was like "er, uh there's this person on the internet who watches Fox News so I don't have to..."

heh. i've seen way too much lately. i get home from work early & tend to have a total and complete energy crash in the late afternoon so that's when i catch a block of this stuff

earlier shep & catherine herridge (dc correspondent) were straight up *laughing* at the GOP "keep terrorists out of america act" (which is actually what it is called). "those republicans are subtle, right?"

This is certainly stale material, but the first :30 of this O'Reilly remix made me smile:

My favorite: "I dunno/I dunno/I dunno . . . F--k!" (at about the :22 mark).

yay, thread revive. i wish it was on youtube but it's not.. the other day studio b had the SO-CALLED world's smallest cat. i dunno if i believe it. because there was this:

World's Smallest Cat!

who IS the small cat, really?

Must re-poll, and include "Pink Eyes." That's F----d Up, no pun intended.

red eye is the worst show on television, bar none

the host is a smarmy asshole and the commentators are no names who'll say whatever just to keep the show even the slightest bit lively

i dont even understand why fox news produces the show? it runs at 3 AM ET/2 AM CT only and they don't replay it during the day at all - who is watching the show? i dont understand it

the 3 AM ET/2 AM CT slot is the worst one in cable - mostly everything has switched to infomercials except for this lineup

cnn: replay of 'the larry king show'
msnbc: replay of 'hardball with chris matthews'
fox news: first-run of 'red eye'

^^these are the worst shows on each respective network

it's too bad, you could do all sorts of crazy stuff at that hour! they couldn't find someone funny?? (i've never watched the red eye, myself.)

btw more lols from the shep
http://gawker.com/5244602/shepard-smith-demonstrates-proper-mic-placement-lady-treatment

one of the entertainment reporters was on a few days later talking about miss california (lots of snarky coverage of that on studio b). he made some remark like hey you could be the next miss california but you wouldn't have to take naked pictures, & she was like UH WHAT

haha yeah i saw that - was super weird

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxvunbIWNyI

shep was great today

he was reading some of the stuff written by the holocaust museum shooter just in this droll voice - "i was sentenced to jail by a jew judge" or whatever - then he looks up at the camera and intones "happy guy"

also on the lol @ fox news tip, they were interviewing a guy who was in the museum at the time of the shooting, and this happened:

random fox news correspondent: "and you're from israel right? so you must have experience with this kind of thing"
guy being interviewed: "uhhhhh, well not really no... but i was in the military so i know what a gunshot sounds like"

How is Smith still on Fox. He's better than anyone on any network.

wow @ that video

does shep work separately from fox news?

btw http://gawker.com/5284865/fox-newser-accused-of-dragging-cyclist-through-central-park?

people are crazy. and the crazies on the right will make threats and a few will act on them. every time this happens i'm thinking what will be next. here in dc especially.

glenn fucking beck had some ayn rand dude blaming this on the left because the left are racists and socialists.

birth certificate stuff is all over the goddamn place again, maybe since obama spoke in cairo it got amped up one more time.

someone is going to try and kill obama within the next two years imo

here we go again

i can't believe i never posted this picture itt - i took this on DECEMBER 8TH!! - lowest moment in hannity's history imo

http://i40.tinypic.com/1z14pq1.jpg

i got nothin else really but i've heard/read too much of this. some people out there are completely fucking hateful and crazy, and then it gets fed on the airwaves and web and chain emails, and it draws more people in. i don't know what you do when facts and reality just make them angrier. you know? they build up a little world amongst themselves around some of these theories, and lash out like mad and threaten people when they're told they're wrong.

tho i will say the tiller shooting has me a little more apprehensive about the ability of the conservative media to make certain acts of violence more....possible? acceptable? i dunno

i totally recommend watching rachel maddow's show on that where she ran down all the similar incidents at clinics in the 90's. yes, i was incredibly disturbed by the tiller shooting. i probably didn't post on it here, i didn't see a thread.

How is Smith still on Fox. He's better than anyone on any network.

― Matt Armstrong, Wednesday, June 10, 2009 9:08 PM

Keep him on FOX! He's more valuable there.

today

- new jeremiah wright controversy
- miss california is fired
- david letterman's palin family joes

=

a raging, throbbing, near-bursting boner for hannity - this is must see tv

damn, i missed seeing all these things get hannitized! but wasn't sarah palin on there too lately?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oycFlw20_2Y

I mean, who says that! XD

via new republic, where some writer just posted a series of clips where 'fox news anchors occasionally show their liberal side' (its like 5 clips from shep's shows and 2 of megyn kelly). which IMHO is a misguided thing to say because.. facts and reality aren't liberal! i mean, liberals start losing arguments over politics and policy straightaway, if they want to say others are liberal simply because they also deal in facts and reality.

i was watching fox & friends the other day--all the conservatives on in the evening are annoying but goddamn are the morning assholes some of the dumbest people ive ever heard open their mouths

Yeah, Fox & Friends is some kind of next level demonstration in willful ignorance.

http://www.comedycentral.com/videos/index.jhtml?videoId=229028

daily show doesnt do enough fox & friends stuff

probably cuz its like shooting fish in a barrel

that's such a weird non-sequitur troll from shep it seems like he either knows he's unfireable or is trying to get fired. either way, he is cool.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiIK8jh3ZCE

fox and friends vs. chris wallace!

this thing was referenced on the tvnewser today because of some interview with wallace. i'd never seen it before.

Wallace recently spoke at Rhodes College and we went to check it out for the lols and because it's like 2 blocks from my gf's house. i'm sure i've registered my dislike of him on this very thread, but he actually came across much more measured, less blow-hardy, and dare i say more intelligent than his FOX News persona would suggest. still pretty smug and needlessly dismissive of (a lot of) Obama's policies (duh. the discussion coincided with O's first 100 days btw), but not nearly as offensive as I expected. The most offensive thing the whole evening was the 6 or 8 popped-collar Rhodes douches wearing their "college Republicans" pins. fucking shameful.

IMHO wallace is all right. i've actually been listening to his show for years, b/c i'm a total news junkie (came from living in dc from late summer 2001-fall 2002.. interesting times) so i usually spend part of sunday cleaning up stuff & listening to all the sunday shows. if NFL isn't on. they replay them on cspan radio so you don't have to sit through commercials.

it's been really fascinating to me listening to some of the people covering the iran elections today, because i can kind of sense the same currents of thought that swept a lot of people into supporting the war in iraq.

also i'm fascinated by fox news just because.. every institution has its own particular culture, internal politics, running jokes, turf wars, connections to outside organizations, treatment of staff at all levels, attitude in general. it's like the end of last season where i spent all this time going through forums and blogs trying to figure out how the redskins are so fucked up as an organization. (i am not saying that fox is, at all. i'm just saying: trying to figure out how things work behind the scenes is interesting to me.)

i watched a bit of the glenn beck program right now simply for this reason - what's the deal with his world and why are people into it? from what i gather, it's a general sense of grievance with both parties and the media, and the fact that those tea parties didn't seem to have any coherent point wasn't accidental. i mean the maudlin thing he does about actually listening to people who feel like their grievances aren't being expressed.. i think that might be the hook, and after that he sends them all down the path running in terror from the socialist/fascist/marxist obama apocalypse.

OTM, daria, and you needn't feel defensive: I'm on your side. I listen to Cuban talk radio and read The Corner several times a day for the same reasons.

btw didn't Chris Wallace vote for HRC in the primaries?

nah, i don't feel defensive, it's cool. i don't know who wallace voted for, or if he remarked on it.. i don't expect he would.

beck strikes me as something of a cult leader.

Fox News Anchor Draws Ratings, and Ire of Conservative Critics

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/22/business/media/22smith.html?_r=1

“The Fox Report,” is having its best year, up 36 percent to almost two million viewers a night. He has beaten his cable news channel competition for 92 straight months. His coverage of the museum killing beat CNN and MSNBC combined.

this is awesome

Of colleagues like Mr. Beck, Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity, Mr. Smith said, “There’s a lot of money in opinion, and those guys are fascinating, terrific entertainers. This is a news organization. There can’t be a Fox News without news.”

this is an amazing quote

I love that I absolutely cannot tell what side of the political spectrum his personal philosophy leans, and that he both takes his job absolutely seriously bringing people facts of all things, but also has a wicked sense of humor and isn't afraid to use it.

I saw on the sign-off of The Fox Report one night as he led into The O'Reilly Factor he said, "You all know who's coming next....RUN...RUN AWAY!"

If Murdoch's number one imperative is ratings (that's what pretty much everyone says), shouldn't the success of the Shep make him consider airing other shows that aren't propaganda based?

The show that really blows my mind is Fox and Friends. The combo of cheerfulness and bizarre rightwing hatred is really unsettling. Why not try a morning show that's actually fun and good-natured and see if the ratings jump a bit?

Two mentions for crappy Atlas Shrugs blog in that NYT piece. Couldn't they find any coherent criticism (he asks knowing the answer to be "no")?

my oh my: http://videogum.com/archives/the-news/fox-and-friends-pays-children_075332.html#more

http://i39.tinypic.com/24l8ymv.gif

gretchen carlson was on o reilly last night talking VERY SERIOUSLY AND STERNLY about jon & kate plus 8 - it was so awful - anyone associated with "fox & friends" shouldn't be allowed to have any sort of self-importance

there's an interview with glenn beck in the new GQ - the photos are supposed to mock the fact that he cries and is generally insane but they just make him seem like even more of a lunatic

I like the idea of Jordan and dar1a as our FOX beat reporters.

ha! makes me feel like my life is less worthless tbh

This has the potential to be the best hour of Shepard Smith tv in a long time. Shep vs. Sanford! Bring it!

nothing weird today really. i kind of feel sorry for sanford. there's a lot of people making fun of the whole thing and it is a bizarre story but.. i don't know, seeing some people on the liberal side all gleeful about it, sort of bothers me.

all right the SC newspaper has a few emails from the governor and this woman? ugh. & they'd been sitting pn the story for a couple months?

daria you are missing out on some e-mails that are full of erotic beauty

I dunno, d-g, it doesn't bother me for a SECOND. This guy AND his wife are famously anti-gay & anti-gay marriage. I would say at the very LEAST that this is a little asshattery coming home to roost, and right where it belongs.

well, obv i think they're completely wrong what with being anti-gay, though i didn't know anything particular about it (don't pay attention to SC politics, though i was pretty disgusted with his attempt to turn down the $$$ from the stimulus, which would really hurt the people in his own state esp the poor..)

just generally saddened, on a level, about anyone's private life getting dragged out in public like this. though of course it was completely shitty to make his staff & whoever else in SC cover for him.

idk, i think if you're governor this kinda shit is fair game, especially in the manner that he attempted to pull it off

yup - if yr an elected official setting policy about a given issue and then you turn out to be a massive hypocrite, well the guilt piled on you is your just reward. suck it up, loser.

anyone's private life getting dragged out in public like this

Did you WATCH the presser? The guy went into uncomfortable detail about his mistress. He's doing a lot to pile it on himself.

Shep disppointingly respectful today. :(

sure was stupid to vanish for six days, that's for sure. the presser.. saw part of it, heard a bit more. weird and sad and uncomfortable.

everyone's a hypocrite about quite a lot of things IMHO.

not saying that in a cynical way exactly.

these sort of ritualistic public humiliations are fascinating. did we have these before they went after bill clinton?

presser is hard to watch. i gotta be somewhere, will prob sit through the rest later.

No sense in being gleeful about it, but really, fuck these dudes imo. That's a brand of hypocrisy I can not abide.

I think for a long time, extra-marital affairs in politics were de rigueur and no one made a big deal. It was about the time "The Moral Majority" rose up and hardline moralists started getting caught with their pants down that the phenomenon became newsy.

^^^Swaggart

I was about to say:

http://janeheller.mlblogs.com/swaggart_621.jpg

http://www.11points.com/images/animatedgifs/drudgesiren.gif
CAR CHASE

haha

it has to be a requirement for any anchor on fox, to know how to talk their way through one of these things even if it goes on for an hour. trace gallagher knows his car chases

man you guys are missing out
dude drove up onto the grass and wrecked through a road sign and is back on the freeway

yay, the twitter:

Just watched crazy car chase live in dallas with entire office cheering on the 'bad guy'

Wat was da damn dude n Texas highspeed chase thinkin...He jus got cracked real talk DAMN.

Note to self: Next whip to get - Nissan Maxima.

whom ever the n**** is from fox news covering the car chase is funny as hell

damn that car chase was crazy.... an hour and a half and it ended with a crash... Texans do it big!

Newsroom staffers are watching a car chase in Dallas on the plasma. And they shouted "OHHH!" when the fugitive's car broke and got caught!

Entire office is watching current chase on TV. And people say *Twitter* is a productivity sucker...

the entire twitteronia was watching, and no one here? I MIGHT QUIT ILX TODAY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCOiT5n-AKg

we know of shep's love for car chases!

I MIGHT QUIT ILX TODAY

Never quit ILX daria.

hey guys

sarah palin didn't die today

sincerely yours,

jordan

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uvj-Xr0irhE&

http://www.11points.com/images/animatedgifs/drudgesiren.gif

ANOTHER ONE

do we need a car chase thread?

I am learning about the virtues of Liz Claman.

http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/File%3ALiz_claman_CNBC_20070604_1_122_427lo76146_.jpg

fyi yall, tonight hannity and greta are both on for the first time since palin's resignation, must see tv imo

We're depending on you to get this right. Don't let us down.

i will report back don't worry

O'Reilly hasn't returned since Franken won, right?

Who is the idiot FOX commentator trying to harangue Liz Trotta into championing Sarah Palin?

What a tool.

greta has used the term "fired back" about 12 times in 5 minutes

fyi sarah's friend would like us to know that palin resigning is a "win-win" for every citizen in amaerica because now she can further the conservative agenda - we have won

greta is off the hook with this palin thing. it's weird because her husband runs palin's PAC, come on, you might do a news magazine/opinion show but isn't that an absurd level of conflict of interest?

ok when is the rerun of greta?

they had a tea party segment just now with a dude at a party, big sign: "this government would have to be a lot smarter to be morons"

the funny thing is, clearly he had misspelled it MORANS yet again & then painted a big O (in a different color) over top to fix the spelling

hannity had coulter on in his first segment and she said that the main hate of palin is coming from "women in new york who hear their husbands say 'you know what, she's pretty attractive'"

Ann is such a treat!

car chase live commentary vs ILNFL live commentary

greta is on again. going to try and find mr MORANS. and jeez, nobody hates sarah palin. lots of people think she is unqualified and kind of embarrassing, and then there are all those dudes on the interwebs who adore her because she inspired them to invent snark.

http://img11.imageshack.us/img11/7785/moransoopsmorons.jpg

GET A BRAIN MORANS oops

hahahahahahahahahaha yessss!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

daria thank u so much

"blown cover."

good grief shepard needs to switch to decaf O_O

What is he doing and why?

some days he is a little bit hyperactive and it stresses me out a little bit watching this show!
i could swear he riffed on that tina fey sarah palin impression earlier this hour PEW-PEW-PEW

no no no I was already assuming he was doing that; he does that every day.

oh btw apparently the left is still really really skeered of sarah palin? says mom; said I didn't get that memo, sorry, but wished palin every success in her new career, community organizin'.

today is more hyperactive than usual. though there was one show from.. it must have been last year around the iowa primaries & the entire hour had like 20 times more slang than usual and was maybe the weirdest newscast ive ever seen, like 'TODAY in HOTLANTA this car chase was OFF THE HOOK'

the left loves sarah palin! they get to congratulate themselves for being so clever whenever she comes up! i suppose she may do some damage fundraising in specific GOP races around the country, to be fair.

http://gawker.com/5310208/brian-kilmeade-would-like-species-and-ethnics-to-remain-pure

?!?!?!

hah. i wonder if he was partly making fun of gretchen (minnewegian). it's kind of funny because when my dad was growing up (also minnesota), the swedes hated the finns and the finns hated the swedes and they would probably not marry each other, and god forbid they marry irish/italian/polish etc, not that there were many of dem up dere

lol shep 'accidentally' breaking into gripping mcnair news conference to ooh and ahh. who is this cockface after shep's show

yeah it's pretty clear that he was trying to make fun of gretchen, but also talk about the purity of the blood.

And species and ethnics.

lol Gretchen Carlson is Minnewegian in excelsis. Daria your dad was raised in the Iron Range, y? If so Swedes = managers and Finns = workers; any frowning on intermarriage is probably related to perceived social position. Down in the Cities it's probably down to what kind of Lutheran that makes you. My mom's half-Swedish and doesn't participate in this charming provincial game.

'TODAY in HOTLANTA this car chase was OFF THE HOOK'

the other day he was was exclusively referring to steve mcnair as "AIR MCNAIR" as if all his viewers would know him by that name. and he was just dropping it casually like "and coming up after the break, more news on the tragic death of air mcnair"

haha yeah. sometimes i wonder how old are most people watching the fox news at this hour, and if they can understand what the heck he is saying? even the syntax can be really eccentric, it isn't hard to understand, just an interesting way of emphasizing a point. i wish i had lexis-nexis (they do transcripts of most news right?) and i'd have examples handy, he (or the writer) tends to rearrange sentences & they don't follow normal speech patterns.

major garrett, fox news white house correspondent, now in twitteronia:

About to takeoff for Ghana. Request; Gimme one Tweet explanation of Joni Mitchell's "Coyote." Will b listening on iPod

Equator bar in hotel open. Tequila found. Twet pix not forthcoming.

Fox News Hosts: Who Is The Best?

one thing i have never understood about sean hannity - among a host of things of course - is this idea that if you listen to something you will automatically accept and adopt the ideals of the person talking. he is always railing against obama for like, listening, to some 'radical' foreign leader's speech as if all of a sudden it's going to be gospel. like if that was true i would be #1 sean hannity disciple.

i know it's sean hannity but really.

this was a huge thing w him and jeremiah wright

Hannity also said that Obama and his cabinet hold seances in the Oval Office during which they conjure the ghost of Trotsky and Ho Chi Minh.

interesting if true

It is true! Tim Geithner is a trance-medium for Vladimir Lenin.

ok i saw some hannity just now. 2 out of 3 great panel americans agree, health care in canada is just terrible, why would anyone here want that? then he talked about how the left hates god and managed to end that debate by name dropping rev wright, bill ayers, and hugo chavez! on a level, i have to appreciate that he's still successfully trolling with this stuff.

today shep called BS on some pundit - smug sexist jerk, just saying, w/the angelina jolie reference - arguing that HRC risked becoming irrelevant as sec of state. mad props always & forever from me to anyone who stands up for hillary. (also looooooool @ wrapping up this segment: 'respect! jordan, thank you')

hannity sets a standard for irl trolling. /b/ people should be taking diligent notes every night.

i've started to appreciate this. also beck, sorta. i mean, he's absurdly wrong, besides that. but immediately upon moving to fox, he started getting all emo, doing his ridiculous prop punditry, ranting while playing b-roll of the nazis.. he caught so much flak, and what did he do? he got EVEN MORE WEIRD

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3QWF1bZc3M

perhaps best appreciated with the sound off? someone needs to write their own subtitles though!

do they book guests on shep's show that they know are functioning at a lower brain level and therefore might open up the door for a shep eruption? cuz, no offense to jordan lieberman, publisher of politics magazine (?), but im sure they could have interviewed a more qualified person on that subject

it's from an organization "campaigns and elections" and.. they're legit, but it's (afaik) like a trade mag that nobody reads unless they're in the game, but the people in the game do read it.

my impression of how it works is that.. there's the shitshow of the day that's being talked about, and the bookers of a given program have a (long) list of contacts at organizations that have people who do tv, so they find organizations who deal with the subject at hand, and find someone in their contact list who's qualified/interested to go on tv and talk shit. i can't imagine they book people to intentionally have them look stupid. (that's o'reilly's people's job.)

i was half kidding cuz that guy seemed like a total joke to me

that's because he is a dude who lives in washington, dc and does politics

working from home would be so devastatingly boring if it weren't for fox. slang tally for the shep today:

my bad
peace out
up in there (referring to the white house. and again referring to the parliament in south korea: 'there's some hate up in there!')
one mo' time
help a brother out (to WH spox bill burton, asking when burton can get obama on his show XD)

kinda bummed that bret baier is covering tonight's press conference, baier is a good dude, but this means nothing crazy will happen.

^_______________________________________^

cavuto now going on about how the white house is mad at him. why? because he had on some loser of a guest yesterday wearing a 'no chubbies' t-shirt so they could argue about whether the appt. for surgeon general is too fat. cavuto is all like what, my bad? gee, i dunno dude, maybe your people BOOKED THIS GUY BECAUSE THEY KNEW HE WOULD SAY THAT. what an ass.

lol TPM mounted one of their FULL ON INVESTIGATIONS of that dude. long story short: he's an asshole

glenn beck mispronounces Привет, i am pretty sure he just said 'privyetz' instead. why do i know this? because i am already on the path to socialist fascist communism

I know Dobbs isn't on Fox (not histrionic enough?) but seriously why does this douchebag get any airtime at all

he's such a transparent demogogue

I really appreciate how lou dobbs takes on the mainstream media in his nightly show on FUCKING CNN.

. Dobbs was originally conservative, but now he describes himself as an "independent populist" critic of the "excesses of capitalism."

http://conservapedia.com/Lou_Dobbs

ok, i'm procrastinating here and it is not NFL season yet. so..
it seems in keeping with the spirit of the fox news that the rolling thread is about who's the worst. i think they'd appreciate.

CNN prez trying to shut down Dobbs on this birther thing

CNN chief twitter correspondent Rick Sanchez starts some ish (god help me, this links to that horrible dan abrams site)

if i didn’t believe in doing right thing, i’d be rich anchoring at fox news

do u know how much money i’d make if i’d sold out as hispanic and worked at fox news, r u kidding, one problem, looking in mirror

also, SHEP
guys, actual lols every time i look at this photo!
http://cache.boston.com/resize/bonzai-fba/Globe_Photo/2009/07/23/1248395721_5844/539w.jpg

omfg Bill O'Reilly said last night that Canada has a higher life expectancy because they have a lower population and thus fewer traffic accidents. Seriously.

xp http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_hXukzc_YLTM/Ru62tAR6ZAI/AAAAAAAACo8/E8osF7OaoiM/s320/wire-mcnulty.jpg

Umm, not quite.

http://cloudfront.mediamatters.org/static/images/item/live-20090727.jpg

lmbo

What's the problem with that graphic?

facepalm

LOL Egypt.

Oh lol. Nm. Didn't notice Egypt there.

I was looking at the elevated countries!

revisionist geography

That's obviously just someone mislabeling Iraq.

Someone (D)

what's an Iraq?

http://www.blogcdn.com/television.aol.com/insidetv/media/2008/12/fat-tony-200x225.jpg

maybe Fox figures that since we've already invaded and destroyed Iraq, it no longer exists

ahahah oops

ok this from yesterday is finally on the youtubes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBrzNMP1C7w

so it's fair to say you stand firmly on the side of the robots on their war against the people?

also, note, far as i can tell from SHAQ twitter, this is apropos of.. nothing:

http://twitter.com/kilmeade/status/2891535981

@THE_REAL_SHAQ you are tall
kilmeade about 3 hours ago from web

haha

Kilmeade is on something.

lol robot woman a little defensive there

loooooooooool shep was all bent out of shape over possibility of no-texting-while-driving laws, explains in detail how much more dangerous it is to eat a big mac while driving, bummed that you can't drive 110 on the LIE

don't they have no speed limit in parts of montana? this is why i want to visit montana. but i guess that would get boring what with no other cars on the road. must join NASCAR

anyway it's like even moderate people on fox actually want some libertarian paradise where everyone has lots of money, pays no taxes, the government doesn't regulate much of anything ever, you can drive as fast as you want.. i'm not saying this sounds bad but maybe a little bit unworkable for 300+ million people?

i think obama's decision to hold a meeting that one might call a "Beer Summit" or "Beer Diplomacy" has endeared him to some of the people on fox

it's funny because obama so obv has a distaste for beer

Remember: it was Hillary who took shots with Okies.

boilermakers. indiana. she won the oklahoma primary going away..

i bet obama likes beer but is unwilling cause another nationwide controversy by admitting that he prefers some weird microbrew or some snobby import over budweiser.

yeah when obama had to do those bar photo ops during the campaign he would rarely drink his beer iirc, and if he did it would always be in really tiny sips. and when someone last night asked gibbs what kind beer obama liked he was so obv taken aback by the question that he spurted out "budweiser" and really no one likes budweiser and the press core called gibbs on that and gibbs was all "oh.. well... idk... what's wrong with budweiser!!" - i'm surprised hannity didn't jump on obama for enjoying beer owned BY A GAY EUROPEAN SOCIALIST CONGLOMERATE

fyi lots of people like budweiser incl me

sorry - i like budweiser too. what i meant was that it's obv no one's favorite beer

apology accepted

actually, i noticed that gibbs was very precise, he didn't say obama *liked* budweiser, he said that obama *drank* a budweiser (when he was at the all star game, maybe?). a distinction with a difference!

also, i appreciate fox's chief florida-is-weird correspondent phil keating who appears to have never visited a barber nor purchased a hairbrush in his life, also the fact that clearly, fox doesn't care

i want a beer so bad right now

what kind of beer

this beer issue might explain why recovering alcoholic glenn beck had a six pack of COORS on his desk yesterday. coors is the rightwing beer of choice isn't it?

ok studio b continues to get loopier, as a segment on h1n1 virus is introduced with some animation thing which shep sings over, then talks to the stage manager about her baby shower instead, then asks them to play the animation again so he can sing over it again

i'll have what shep's having

^___________________________^