Point 'Tard

And here it is, the best/worst thing you'll see this week.

If you didn't believe Brian Kilmeade was the world's biggest douche before, hearing him shout, "Do it for America!" to encourage a toddler to shoot baskets followed by seeing him hit that same toddler in the face with the ball and make him cry on live television should do the trick nicely. By the way, if you're looking for the moment that leads this kid to eventually grow up to join al Qaeda and engage in Jihad against the United States, here it is.

Quote of the Day, Jr.

"You're going to have to wait along with everybody else. I will say that there are vast programs, both domestic and international spying, that the world will be shocked to learn about, that the NSA is engaged in with no democratic accountability and that's what driving our reporting."

-- Glenn Greenwald to Fox News's Eric Bolling today

A tease. A tease, you fucking hack.

I swear, I'm going to deck the next person who tells me that Glenn Greenwald is a serious journalist and not a narcissistic child who's strictly doing this for the shot of pure adrenaline into the heart of his sense of self-importance it's giving him. First of all, Greenwald talks to a racist piece of crap like Eric Bolling as if he's someone whose views are worth taking seriously -- then he drops back to coy-little-girl mode just as Bolling decides can't take it anymore and needs to show his appreciation and excitement by basically pulling his dong out and stroking it for him.

Jesus, Greenwald's a joke.

I Give Up

It's rare that I'm left truly speechless. This, however, just about does it.

I feel stupider for having watched this. I'm one giant gringe. One huge douche-chill.

Jesus, the fucking white upper-middle-class condescension. The embarrassing display of just-not-getting-it. The not even slightly subtle dig at both hip-hop and hip-hop culture. I've watched so many examples of so-called "Republican outreach" fall flat on their face in the months since the GOP got the floor mopped with it back in November, but I'm not sure I've seen a better example of how, no matter how hard conservatives try, they're never going to be able to connect with anyone but the giant gated community of WASPS and the underbelly of unsophisticated yokels that are their base. Any attempt to be anything but what they truly are is just going to fail as spectacularly as Dana Perino rapping a response to Jay-Z's trip to Cuba.

Quote of the Day

"When was the last time you heard about a rape on campus?"

-- Bob Beckel of Fox News's The Five yesterday

The show's roundtable dunce chair was heatedly debating a Colorado measure that would ban women, and everyone else, from carrying concealed firearms on college campuses when Beckel unleashed this little gem. The show's conservative contingent roundly condemned one of the bill's loudest supporters, Democrat and bow-tie aficionado Joe Salazar, for saying that women didn't need guns to defend themselves from rape, that call-boxes and whistles should suffice. According to Eric Bolling and Dana Perino, the threat college women face these days is serious enough that they need to be able to fight back with deadly force; this is of course one hell of a dubious argument, relying, as most vehement pro-gun advocacy does these days, on the kind of paranoia that paints pictures of an America descending into a Thunderdome-esque hellscape where danger from marauding bandits lurks around every corner.

Still, for Beckel to make the asinine statement that rape doesn't happen on college campuses only proves what I've said more than a few times before: Beckel is a slovenly blithering idiot, a tomato can brought in by Fox News to be an easy take-down for its more seasoned, brutish fighters. Of course rape happens on college campuses -- there more than just about anywhere else, in fact.

The most fascinating and entertaining thing about this, though, is watching how quickly the two sides of the ideological spectrum will switch when it becomes politically convenient. If the debate was over, say, abortion in the wake of rape, you just know Bolling, Perino and the rest of those clowns on the right would be arguing that rape isn't that big a deal and that it's often over-reported on college campuses for the sake of covering up sexual encounters thought the better of the following morning, while Beckel would barely be able to contain his gnashing-of-teeth at his co-host's deplorable misogyny. But make it about guns and watch the confirmation bias play hell with the traditional orthodoxies and articles of faith.

All that said, don't you somehow get the idea that if rape-fearing college girls had been heavily armed back when Bolling was in school, he wouldn't even be alive today?

A Hen in the Fox House

Today's column for the Daily Banter looks at the latest Sally Kohn column for Fox News's website -- and the completely predictable reaction to it.

Here's the opening shot:

"Today I’m doing you the favor of reading Fox News’s website so you don’t have to. Feel free to forgo any thanks in favor of donations to my PayPal account which will immediately go toward my medical care. Now keep in mind, I’m talking about the actual Fox News site, not Fox Nation — the one comically billed as the specialized 'opinion' face of Fox — so of course you can expect that since Fox News is the “fair and balanced” network there will be less Alex Jonesian lunatic ranting, fewer hysterical cries about the dangers of Sharia Law and creeping socialism, and a more even-handed and civil discussion of the events of the day, minus demands for anyone not to the right of G. Gordon Liddy to kindly pack up his or her things and move to Cuba, right? Sure thing."

Read the Rest Here

Right Hook

Today's bonus Friday column for the Daily Banter examines Dennis Kucinich's new role as a Fox News contributor -- and Fox News's ongoing unwillingness to face somebody who actually has a chance of kicking its hosts' asses.

Here's an excerpt:

"So last night Dennis Kucinich made his debut as a Fox News contributor. The former Ohio congressman, perennial presidential candidate and liberal stalwart officially joined Fox earlier this week, but it was on yesterday’s O’Reilly Factor that he had his official coming out party. As you can imagine, Kucinich received a very cordial welcome from O’Reilly, who couldn’t resist taking the opportunity right off the bat to make the claim that Kucinich’s very presence on-air disproved Fox News’s critics, who insist that the network is nothing but a propaganda machine for the right. 'Wow, what a conversion!' O’Reilly said to Kucinich. 'Congressman, how did that happen? You know all the people on Fox News are far-right crazy people!'

Uh-huh. Because casting an ineffectual laughingstock like Kucinich as one of its maybe three token liberals, all of whom are ineffectual laughingstocks of one stripe or another, really proves that Fox News is committed to presenting a progressive viewpoint that’s as bold, slickly packaged and indomitable as the traditional conservative viewpoint that’s made it famous."

Read the Rest Here

Quote of the Day

"We're not nuts, are we? There is a war on Christmas.

-- Fox News's Gretchen Carlson

No, you aren't -- what you are is cynically opportunistic because you know your audience is nuts.

And no, there isn't.

The First Rule of Fox News Is, You Do Not Talk About Fox News

Today's admittedly late piece for the Daily Banter takes a look at Fox News's comically sudden shut down of an interview with a guest who called the network out for being exactly what it is.

Here's the opening shot:

"Despite the grotesquely incestuous nature of TV news, I’ve known only a few people throughout my career who’ve worked at Fox News at one time or another. When it comes to talent, particularly high-profile talent, the place is generally a final destination: Plenty of people have made the decision to jump over to Fox News from other places but very few do the opposite, moving on from Fox to the warm embrace of more traditional news outlets. There’s the occasional stunt-casting, like the hiring of Fox News regular S.E. Cupp over at MSNBC, but for the most part it really does feel like once you’ve got the stink of relentlessly shilling for Roger Ailes’s political views on you, it’s tough to wash off completely. Truly making a name for yourself at Fox is a zero-sum game: Unless you’re Shep Smith, who’s become famous for being a tiny island of reason in a vast sea of nonsense, you can’t do it without assuring that nobody else will take you seriously ever again."

Read the Rest Here

The New Abnormal

Today's column for the Daily Banter breathes a sigh of relief that things are finally getting back to "normal."

Here's the opening shot:

"Can you feel that? Isn’t it nice?

I may be a big fan of new experiences, but there’s nothing quite like returning to your comfort zone, where every minute of every day unfolds a like warm blanket of soothing predictability. Sure, it was entertaining and even, for the briefest of moments, somewhat encouraging to see the Republicans humbly soul-search following the trouncing they received at the polls last week. For a couple of days it seemed like all you heard was a steady stream of self-recrimination and conciliatory language coming from the right. Even as the usual apocalyptic raving and blustery doubling-down on the politics of division and eliminationism went on unabated, for the first time in a very long time these voices were uncharacteristically outnumbered by people at least trying to behave calmly and rationally. Just about everyone from every political stripe was apparently ready to acknowledge that the GOP had lost its way and its historic comeuppance was proof of its lack of viability in a changing America. November 6th was a date with demographic destiny the right shouldn’t have been able to forget.

But hey, that was last week."

Read the Rest Here

Kelly Grrrl

Today's column for the Daily Banter sends a little bit of love to Megyn Kelly -- who I have to admit redeemed herself somewhat over the past few days.

Here's the opening shot:

I never thought I'd say this but I'm kind of liking Megyn Kelly right about now.

I realize that in the past I've been pretty mean to her, saying that she "comes off like an extravagantly groomed chihuahua who's very angry about being left in somebody's Louis Vuitton handbag for too long" and insulting her mini-spread in GQ magazine, among other often admittedly petty nastiness. I say these things because she really does know how to peg the insufferability meter among Fox News's cadre of interchangeable blondes -- and also because I enjoy being a prick sometimes. But I have to give credit where credit is due: She's willing to turn that look that combines condescension, incredulity and revulsion -- the one that's become her trademark -- on just about anybody, even, apparently, Karl Rove.

Read the Rest Here

The Bubble Bursts

Sorry, but I can't stop going back to Fox News's reaction to last night's Obama victory because it's just so fascinating on so many different levels. It really is shocking how quickly and dramatically the wheels came off the entire operation and how a group of people who are dedicated to relentlessly pushing their agenda would break down and allow their political enemies so much delicious, tears of unfathomable sadness-style, schadenfreude. They had to know that by behaving this way -- taking the loss of their fully backed candidate with such indignity -- they'd be personally providing their critics with plenty of salt to rub into their wounds.

Of course if you believe that Fox News doesn't just cynically generate an epistemic bubble for its viewers but actually lives inside it as well then it makes perfect sense that this would be the reaction when that bubble explodes all over them.

Some of the best things said about the sadness, desperation and complete loss of professionalism over at Fox so far:

"(It) looks like it was scripted by Ricky Gervais... Last night, Roger Ailes' walls came tumbling down. Because their foundations were not based in reality, just ratings. Fox deserves a great deal of credit for re-electing president Obama. Because they refused to see who he actually was, they could not effectively counter him. They countered a figment of their imagination - and it was a particularly nasty, bilious, mean figment. Their universe became a black hole last night, sucking almost all of them in."

-- Andrew Sullivan

"What is unusual–really, one of the most spectacular things I have ever seen on cable news–is for one arm of a network to basically turn against itself on-air. 'Here’s what we’re going to do!' said anchor Bret Baier. 'We’re going to get someone from the decision desk and we’re going to bring them in here and we’re going to have them on air and we’re going to interview them about this decision.' That’s right: One of you nerds had better get in here and explain yourselves to Karl Rove! You have made an important Republican very upset!

It was a fitting moment for an election that often seemed to be a campaign over the idea of mathematical knowability itself. But it was also a glaring, and embarrassing, example of the extent to which Fox News has become an arm of the Republican Party and is expected by GOP operatives to behave as one. Rove may be a party big shot, but he’s just a guy giving analysis on Fox’s air. He does not run the network, even if his friends do.

And yet apparently no one in Fox’s studio felt empowered to tell him that, just because he’d raised a squillion dollars for his Republican SuperPAC this election, he is not entitled to have the decision desk hauled out to answer to him like chefs who sent out an undercooked steak. It’s the sort of thing that might cause you to examine your mission as a journalistic network. I’m not waiting up for that to happen, though.

In the end, Rove is a numbers guy too, and he finally had to concede to the arithmetic–but not before creating a defining image of a partisan, and a network, at war with the very reality it could not avoid reporting. Kelly, who at least took the whole interlude in good humor, at one point deadpanned, 'That’s awkward.' Yes, it was. And kind of amazing."

-- James Poniewozik of Time Magazine

"The Right used ideology as the intellectual underpinning of their projections, while everyone else used facts. Nate Silver isn’t a mystic or the modern incarnation of Nostradamus – he’s an extraordinarily thorough polling analyst who bases predictions on a formula that accounts for real world margins of error and reporting discrepancies. It isn’t perfect, but the methodology is pretty airtight when it comes to projecting accurate odds. That’s why every half decent political analyst took Silver’s projections seriously and discounted the Right wing noise machine when it came to picking a winner."

-- Ben Cohen at the Daily Banter

One other possibility, at least as far as one guy's reaction is concerned: Karl Rove's Crossroads GPS superPAC spent nearly $300-million on Romney. If you'd just watched that much money go down the drain in one bad bet, you'd probably be angry too.

Time's Up

Yes, I admit it: Once the race was called for Barack Obama last night, I immediately suggested to the people I was hanging out with that we switch the channel over to Fox News. I expected it to be interesting. I didn't expect it to be as interesting as it was. Watching the entire operation publicly deflate -- with Karl Rove refusing to accept reality and Megyn Kelly actually getting up and walking over to the "decision desk" to demand answers -- was honestly one of the damndest things I've witnessed in a very long time.

But Bill O'Reilly's bitter, crestfallen soliloquy on how America isn't really America anymore was the most memorable moment. Memorable because of how disconcertingly comfortable O'Reilly is with his own racism and xenophobia and also because he simultaneously acknowledged what some of us have been warning for a while -- namely that the Republican party in its current form simply can't survive and will soon be demographically pushed into extinction -- while making it clear that Fox News likely intends to now double down on the extremist rhetoric aimed at the dwindling resentful-old-white-guy crowd.

O'Reilly's sullen little rant is the statement of a man who's just had it finally made clear to him that he's not in charge anymore.

Quote of the Day

"That is an obscene lie... You are misleading the American people because you want to make a political point. We have never in the history of this republic mounted a raid on the circumstance described here ever."

Geraldo Rivera, smacking down Fox News über-douche Eric Bolling, who was continuing to push the conservative talking point that what happened in Benghazi was a failure of leadership, that there's a cover-up at work, and that U.S. forces should've attacked the crowd of protesters that attacked our embassy

Between Geraldo and Chris Christie bucking the Fox News tide of histrionic idiocy, I'd normally say that it feels like Opposite Day or something. But the reality is that while he can certainly be a pompous tool, Geraldo generally tries to be as intellectually honest as possible, and I've always given him credit for that.

As for Benghazi, I got into a big debate with someone about it on Facebook yesterday -- one of the very rare occasions that I choose to argue politics on anyone's page besides my own. Here's the deal: As tragic as it is, and it is absolutely tragic, it's a relatively by-the-numbers incident. Over the past few decades, our embassies in Arab and North African countries have faced deadly attacks countless times, irrespective of who happens to be in the White House. We choose to undertake diplomacy in very dangerous places and -- while I certainly don't mean to diminish what happened in Libya -- violence against our very brave and dedicated men and women stationed in those areas is simply the cost of doing business. Should every single possible question be asked about what happened in Benghazi in an effort to determine whether it could've been prevented and to help ensure it doesn't happen again? Of course. Is there some nefarious plot to cover up institutional incompetence afoot at the highest levels of government. Not a fucking chance.

I wouldn't have blamed George W. Bush or any Republican president had it happened on his watch, untethered to any specific administrational act overseas, simply because when you're in an Arab country there's almost no way to prevent the kind of anger and violence we saw in Benghazi. Pretending that Obama could, or that he reacted the wrong way to it -- which neither he nor Panetta, nor the military officers in that region did -- is ludicrous. No one left anybody to die. Also, do I even need to add that should the roles have been reversed and we'd had a Republican in the White House, the same people who immediately began beating up on Obama -- while our embassy was still on fire, no less -- would be calling any public critic of the president during a crisis like that a traitor who's guilty of giving aid and comfort to the enemy.

Gerlado, by the way, went on to say that he talked to Charles Woods, whose son was killed in the attack, and that it bothered him to hear Woods's accusations against the Obama administration because they're based on little more than conspiracy theory perpetuated by outlets like Fox News, who are looking for something, anything to hang around the neck of Obama during an election year.

"He is being led down a primrose path of misinformation that is making it look as if President Obama went gambling in Las Vegas when he could've been saving people in Benghazi and that's a lie." Rivera said.

Related: The Daily Banter: The Right's Made-Up Benghazi Cover-Up/11.1.12

Adding: Cesca remains convinced that if Obama wins next week, the Republicans will almost immediately begin looking to impeach him over Benghazi. And he's apparently not the only one who thinks this.

Adding More: Suck it, Bolling. You bullying little turd.

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.

Hounding Fox

Today's column for the Daily Banter takes a look at a big and somewhat surprising milestone for MSNBC, one that could signal a shift in cable news viewing habits -- or could just be a hiccup.

Here's the opening shot:

"Several years ago, when I was still working at CNN, there was a morning where I walked into anchor Carol Costello’s office to find her buried in the overnight numbers. I plunked myself down in the comfortable chair in front of her desk and waited for her to finish going through the not-so-rosy details and, sure enough, after a minute or two she dropped the paperwork, rolled her eyes in exasperation and sighed, 'I don’t get it — how does Fox do it?' I chuckled a little, then answered, 'Because Fox News is a brand, not a product.'"

Read the Rest Here

Quote of the Day

"It's National Badminton Day. Let's forget National Day of Intolerance. Let's just stay with badminton."

-- Shepard Smith, taking a nice little swipe at yesterday's "Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day" and its sponsor, his coworker at Fox News, Mike Huckabee

Shep is seriously a national treasure. I've said it before but it bears repeating: Not since Brando in The Island of Dr. Moreau have we seen somebody so entirely throw off the yoke of those paying him and just do whatever the hell he feels like. At this rate, Shep should suddenly stand up, unzip his pants and begin urinating on Andrew Napolitano during an interview segment sometime next week.

Quote of the Day

"CNN and other news organizations expect politicians to tell the truth; they expect business people to tell the truth; they expect church people, they expect athletes to tell the truth. And they issue a statement like this... I’m guessing the people who watch them don’t like Sarah Palin all that much anyway, which is why they did it, and thought that, like in the old days, they could get away with it. Well, it’s not the old days anymore, CNN. You can’t get away with this stuff."

-- Bernie Goldberg on CNN's claim that playing Pink's song Stupid Girls before a segment about Sarah Palin was an accident

Wait, what?

Look, I don't doubt that CNN is probably lying its ass off when it says that the choice of that particular song before a Palin segment was an innocent oversight; while it certainly could be, because you'd be shocked at how little attention to every small detail is paid in a 24/7 news operation, it was more than likely a joke played by somebody in the control room. But for Fox fucking News to self-righteously claim to be crusaders for the truth and defenders of integrity is goddamn laughable when you consider that just two months ago the network actually tried to make everyone believe that a four-and-a-half-minute attack ad against Barack Obama, produced for Fox & Friends and run multiple times, was an accident and ultimately the fault of one associate producer.

Stick that hypocritical indignation in your ass, Bernie.

Oh, and I happen to think it was inexcusable for CNN to play Stupid Girls before a Sarah Palin segment. Surely Eminem's White Trash Party was available.

Stage Left

Continuing the apparent theme here today, if you didn't get a chance to listen to the Bob & Chez Show After Party that I referenced in my little diatribe against John Stossel it probably won't surprise you to learn that Al Sharpton came in a close second on my list of most disliked cable news personalities. The shockingly dumb stunt his unwatchable MSNBC show pulled last night is a perfect example of why I think he has zero place on the air at a major news outlet.

He and his crew staged a "reenactment" of Mitt Romney's Hamptons fundraiser on Sunday, complete with four actors playing the Biff and Muffy Hamptons cliché to the hilt -- all tennis-wear and phony finishing school accents, like they're extras in a Whit Stillman movie -- while rattling off actual quotes from the fundraiser's hyper-wealthy attendees. It was, literally, political coverage as cheap theater -- and it never should've been allowed on the air at MSNBC.

The argument is often made from the right that MSNBC is as horrifically biased as Fox News, just from the other direction. This isn't true, simply because MSNBC ultimately has to answer to the objective-at-all-costs NBC News mothership and it maintains a modicum of independence and fairness in its regular news programming, while Fox News has a top-down political mandate that infects every single show on its air. Still, despite the fact that Sharpton's show is opinion and nothing more, this kind of stupid stunt just makes the entire network look bad, adds more fuel to the fire of its critics and proves that political punditry on cable is nothing but a circus act these days. It isn't even decent and insightful advocacy because no one with an IQ above that of a gerbil will take it the least bit seriously.

Sharpton's a buffoonish, inarticulate joke -- and he and his show should be scrapped for finally resorting to this kind of nonsense in an effort to make its point.

Although it's admittedly humorous and ironic that, in keeping with the need for liberal political correctness, the show included a black guy among the cast playing the Romney fundraiser guests. I'm betting the only black people at this thing were the ones serving the food and drinks.

Proud Bury

I'm convinced that the title of Stephen Colbert's book, I am America (and So Can You!), is a subtle knock at Lee Greenwood's dumb-shit NASCAR national anthem, God Bless the U.S.A. -- the chorus of which is a hilarious butchery of basic grammar: "And I'm proud to be an American -- where at least I know I'm free."

Still, there's a debate raging over this ridiculous song -- in Brooklyn?

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Fox News's latest entirely made-up "national controversy" -- the War on Lee Greenwood.

News Hounds: Fox News Advances Lie About "Student Rally" in Response to Principal Removing Greenwood Song from Graduation/6.21.12

Cesca writes about this kind of thing all the time: Fox's propensity for aiming its considerable firepower at "non-combatants" -- like school principals.

Personally I think that the song should be banned from a kindergarten graduation ceremony because, again, it murders the English language. But if Fox News does actually exert enough pressure to get it put back in, might I recommend using it as a kind of test. Any kid who doesn't sing the chorus and immediately turn to a teacher and say, "That doesn't make sense" -- that kid gets held back a year.

Quote of the Day

"I wonder if he was taking V... It'll make you crazy, the V."

-- Shepard Smith, completely derailing an interview on Fox News by suddenly deciding that he wanted to talk about HBO's True Blood

I really get the impression that Shep has just given up -- and for this I love him even more than I have throughout the very long time that I've known him. He either realizes that he can say whatever the hell he wants to on Fox and he'll still have a job or he's purposely trying to see if there's anything at all he can say that'll get him in trouble. Regardless, he's exercising his absolute authority and bulletproof-ness with giddy abandon.

Shep has basically turned into Brando in The Island of Dr. Moreau over there. It's only a matter of time before he shows up on the air in white makeup wearing boxer shorts and a lampshade on his head and talking to a midget he keeps as a pet.