Chris Cross

Politically, this really is the quote and image of the day: ardent Romney supporter Chris Christie addressing Fox News's couch-of-dingbats this morning and enthusiastically praising Barack Obama's response to Hurricane Sandy. He's so effusive, in fact, that it's actually a little uncomfortable to watch because you keep waiting for the screen to suddenly go to color bars or a "Please Stand By" slate as you hear Roger Ailes storming into the studio in the background shouting, "What the fuck is going on?!"

It's sad that what should be standard operating procedure -- leaders of different political stripes coming together during a time of crisis -- seems so shocking in our current political climate. Either way, this kind of pro-Obama PR on Fox News, of all outlets, is exactly what the Romney camp doesn't need right now. Although Romney's in Ohio today staging a "flood drive," because apparently, as Cesca said last night on Twitter, Ohio is Manhattan's route to the sea.

Action News

Thank God. You'll be glad to know that Fox News's exhaustive internal investigation into the wholly unacceptable and absolutely unauthorized airing of a four-minute-long piece of anti-Obama political propaganda, multiple times, is now over.

Obviously, strong action will be taken against those responsible for this gargantuan error, one that unfairly smears the good name of Fox News Channel as a bulwark of fair and balanced journalism.

Right?

The Huffington Post: Fox & Friends Associate Producer Supposedly Behind Anti-Obama Video Will Keep His Job/6.1.12

And with that, we roll credits. Hope you enjoyed the show.

The Fox and the Pig

As promised yesterday, my latest column for the Daily Banter is now up and it deals with the four-minute-long piece of political propaganda aired yesterday morning by Fox News as an alleged news item -- and the network's laughable reaction to being called out for it.

Here's the opening shot:

"There’s an old saying that I’m a big fan of: Never try to teach a pig to sing — it wastes your time and annoys the pig. I think of this every time I get the urge to lash out at Fox News for some irresponsible, grossly unethical thing or other that the network has done or has had the gall to broadcast under the guise of being a real news organization. My criticism, like everyone else’s, won’t matter one bit — the attack will just bounce off of Roger Ailes’s prodigious belly like he was Kung-Fu Panda. Not only does Fox News not fret over its many detractors and their grievances, it generally welcomes the outrage as an opportunity to once again let its pit-bullish media relations department off the chain to maul the crap out of the poor bastard with the bad sense to hassle its master. The result is always bloody and the guy who dared to take a swipe at Fox rarely comes out on top..."

Read the Rest Here

Quote of the Day, Jr.

"I have to tell you even I am shocked by how blatantly Fox is throwing off any pretense of being a journalistic entity with videos like this. Don't be fooled by Bret Baier's Boy Scout smile or all the talk about how some shows are news and some are opinion on the channel. Any news organization that puts up this kind of video is rotten to the core."

-- David Zurawik of the Baltimore Sun on the extended "look back" at the Obama administration's time in office, aired this morning on Fox & Friends, which was really nothing more than a four-minutes of blatant Republican propaganda

You really have to see this thing to believe it -- and this is coming from somebody who truly believed that Fox couldn't possibly get any more shameless.

In an almost comically full-of-shit move, the network is now distancing itself from the story -- the one that was lauded by Doocy the Clown and the other two F&F dingbats as exceptional journalism -- and is blaming the "mistake" on a lowly associate producer, essentially throwing a person with almost zero authority within the newsroom directly under the front tires of the bus.

I'll have more to say about this tomorrow at the Daily Banter.

Dopecephus

This will probably surprise a few people, but at least no one can accuse me of that whole consistency/hobgoblin thing.

Let me start by saying that Hank Williams, Jr. is a blithering redneck idiot and a national embarrassment whose pride in his own ignorance and self-satisfaction at promoting the worst kind of Ugly American stereotypes are matched only by his complete lack of anything approaching talent. Now let me go on to say that the indignant furor over comments he made yesterday morning on Fox News Channel supposedly comparing Barack Obama to Hitler amounts to a really silly, media-generated overreaction. The reason is that Hank Williams, Jr. wasn't purposely attempting to draw a connection between President Obama and the most infamous mass-murdered in history.

As much as it pains me to defend this boob, anyone who watched the interview -- and it pains me even more to admit that I saw it live -- should have been able to grasp the point Williams was trying to make. See, in his booze-addled mind, not only is a casual golf game between Barack Obama and John Boehner on par with Benjamin Netanyahu yukking it up with Adolf Hitler -- since, obviously, the former two are comparable mortal enemies to the latter two -- but making this analogy on live television proves that Hank Williams, Jr. is just all kinds of clever. He's the thinking man's Larry the Cable Guy, if you will.

What Williams said was unbelievably ill-advised, but not for the reasons a lot of people think. He obviously doesn't like Barack Obama, that's true, and maybe he even thinks he's a threat to America and a danger to the world -- and he certainly proved the political codicil of Godwin's Law -- but that's not what he was trying to get across with his dumb crack. The truth is he's not a hateful fuck so much as he's just a dumb drunk who can't express himself properly. There's a difference.

Still, if all this outrage gets him banished from our culture forever, I guess the greater good is served. And I do have to give him credit for managing to make the regular clowns on Fox and Friends -- that would be the hosts -- look like rank amateurs for a change.

Pressure Cook

Nick Denton may be a notoriously mercurial pain in the ass, but that doesn't mean Gawker isn't generally a really good read. And the people he hires -- and occasionally fires because the pillow goblins told him to -- are a major reason for that.

This morning, Fox News's #1 comedy show, Fox & Friends -- specifically the show's most shameless hack, Doocy the Clown -- went on a somewhat inexplicable tear against Gawker, basically casting it as irrelevant and declaring the website officially way past its prime. While Fox and Gawker have never exactly been on the same page politically or culturally, the attack seemed especially odd simply because there hasn't been anything in particular lately that might prompt Fox to lash out in Gawker's direction like the schoolyard bully that it is.

Well, Gawker's John Cook -- who has admittedly made it his mission to be an ongoing thorn in the side of Fox and Roger Ailes -- says he knows exactly why Fox is choosing now to strike. Why it needs to plant the seed among its audience that Gawker's is a voice not to be trusted. According to Cook -- the move was preemptive.

Gawker: Why Fox Is Attacking Gawker/8.26.11

Quote of the Day

"That was a bit of history being made... 2008, the first time Americans elected an African-American haircut."

-- TV producer Peter Funt, this morning on a Fox & Friends segment that aimed to figure out why the candidate with the best haircut supposedly always wins the White House

I just -- I got nothin'.

The Party Line

I realize that this is beating a long-since-dead horse, but every once in a while I think it's a good idea to remind everyone that Fox News continues to call itself "fair and balanced" and insist that it's a legitimate and unbiased news outlet.

Media Matters: Fox & Friends Airs Michelle Malkin's "Obama Birthday Party Games"/8.4.11

Yeah, I know -- at this point the kind of thing that makes you turn your pillow over to the cool side and go back to sleep.

Another completely worthless point: Am I the only one who's always thought the name "Fox & Friends" sounds amusingly like some kind of Orwellian Newspeak?

Duck and Cover

It should surprise no one that Fox News isn't devoting a whole lot of time or resources to covering the seismic phone hacking scandal that's threatening to rip its parent company apart and put its owner on the receiving end of criminal charges. True, if Fox were an actual news outlet it'd have a responsibility to report on the mess, and in fact there'd be at least a few journalists within its newsroom chomping at the bit to use their privilege as insiders to get the story that maybe no one outside the four walls of the castle could. But of course, Fox News isn't an actual news outlet. Feel free to argue with that, but you're an idiot if you do.

Still, it's one thing to ignore the story as best as possible -- it's another thing entirely to do what perpetual company cheerleader Doocy the Clown did this morning on Fox and Friends. You really need to see this to believe it. Doocy brought on a guy no one's ever heard of, who has nothing at all to do with anything going on at News Corp, to basically agree with him that the rest of the media is "piling on" poor Rupert Murdoch and that since, well, we already know that this is a hacking scandal, we really should just "get beyond" that obviously trifling little part of it. Nothing to see here, folks. Doocy and guest say that the bigger story here is the ease with which the victims' phones were hacked, and they likened the whole thing to the hacking of Citicorp and Bank of America -- which would be a worthwhile comparison were it not for the fact that News Corp employees are the ones who did the hacking in all of this.

The argument is basically like saying, "Okay, so I shot a guy, and that's terrible -- but what's done is done. The real issue here is how easy it was for me to shoot him. Oh, and by the way, people get shot all the time. Why is the fact that I shot somebody such a big deal?"

It's such a hysterical and nakedly shameless bit of misdirection that it actually kind of surprised me. And I didn't think anything Fox did could surprise me anymore.

You've gotta hand it to them -- they've got chootspa.

Quote of the Day

"I wonder what a duel between the U.S. Flag and the U.S. Army would look like."

-- Aunty Em at Newshounds on the above tweet from über-dunce Brian Kilmeade of Fox and Friends