When you watch Roger Ailes on TV, you can really see why Fox News is what it is: a compulsively mendacious propaganda operation. Because nearly every word out of Ailes' mouth is a lie, distortion or prevarication of some kind.

The most egregious yesterday on This Week, as John already noted, was in defense of Glenn Beck, after Arianna Huffington -- who has already made an issue out of Beck's rhetoric recklessness -- called Ailes out on it:

HUFFINGTON: Well, Roger, it's not a question of picking a fight. And aren't you concerned about the language that Glenn Beck is using, which is, after all, inciting the American people? There is a lot of suffering out there, as you know, and when he talks about people being slaughtered, about who is going to be the next in the killing spree...

(CROSSTALK)

AILES: Well, he was talking about Hitler and Stalin slaughtering people. So I think he was probably accurate. Also, I'm a little....

HUFFINGTON: No, no, he was talking about this administration.

AILES: I don't -- I think he speaks English. I don't know, but I mean, I don't misinterpret any of his words. He did say one unfortunate thing, which he apologized for, but that happens in live television.

Well, as John pointed out, this is flatly false. Just a couple of months ago, Beck was telling his audience that "progressives" like President Obama and SEIU chief Andy Stern were taking the country down the path to genocide:

Beck: I told you yesterday, buckle up your seatbelt, America. Find the exit -- there's one here, here, and here. Find the exit closest to you and prepare for a crash landing. Because this plane is coming down, because the pilot is intentionally steering it into the trees!

Most likely, it'll happen sometime after Christmas. You're gonna see this economy come up -- we're already seeing it, and now it's gonna start coming back down again. And when you see the effects of what they're doing to the economy, remember these words: We will survive. No -- we'll do better than survive, we will thrive. As long as these people are not in control. They are taking you to a place to be slaughtered!

Moreover, as Arianna pointed out, he talked last October about the Obama administration embarking on a "killing spree," inspired by Mao:

Spread the wealth -- hello, Mao -- that is what this is all about. And anybody not on board, look out because you too could be the next victim of the killing spree.

More to the point, the point of Beck's most recent big project, his fake "documentary" touting Jonah Goldberg's "Liberal Fascism" thesis, is that the progressive movement -- represented by Hitler, Mao, and Stalin -- is responsible for all of the genocides of the previous century.

It's nothing new, in fact. Beck has been telling his audiences for some time that Obama and "the progressives" are planning all kinds of evil and nefarious activity in pursuit of the destruction of America -- including rounding people up into concentration camps, and marching us toward a "new" kind of fascism.

We've put together a compendium of these various moments.

So, who do you believe? Roger Ailes, or your lying eyes?

As Simon Maloy at Media Matters points out, Ailes also lied about Beck supposedly apologizing for an "unfortunate remark." Moreover, in spite of his endless deluge of misinformation and lies, Beck has not once apologized for a single thing he has said on Fox. On the few occasions when he has corrected a falsehood, he has decidedly not apologized; instead, he has used those occasions instead to launch fresh rhetorical assaults on the persons about whom he's already lied.

Seems a perfect fit for Ailes, really, considering just who Roger Ailes is and what he's done for years. Fox is just the final outcome of a lifetime stoking the politics of resentment -- a politics stoked by hate, fear, and above all, lies.

Roger Ailes was a guest on ABC's THIS WEEK and after watching the entire round table discussion I understand why FOX News say what they do. Roger made it crystal clear by reinforcing every radical notion that is said about the president and his agenda on FOX and then uses nonsense to defend Glenn Beck's bizarre rantings. I'll have more on Ailes later, but Arianna called him out over FNC's behavior as soon as the topic turned toward the administration's relationship to FOX News.

HUFFINGTON: Well, Roger, it's not a question of picking a fight. And aren't you concerned about the language that Glenn Beck is using, which is, after all, inciting the American people? There is a lot of suffering out there, as you know, and when he talks about people being slaughtered, about who is going to be the next in the killing spree...

(CROSSTALK)

AILES: Well, he was talking about Hitler and Stalin slaughtering people. So I think he was probably accurate. Also, I'm a little....

HUFFINGTON: No, no, he was talking about this administration.

AILES: I don't -- I think he speaks English. I don't know, but I mean, I don't misinterpret any of his words. He did say one unfortunate thing, which he apologized for, but that happens in live television. So I don't think it's -- I think if we start going around as the word police in this business, it will be...

HUFFINGTON: It's not about the word police. It's about something deeper. It's about the fact that there is a tradition as the historian Richard Hofstetter said, in American politics, of the paranoid style. And the paranoid style is dangerous when there is real pain out there. I mean, with...

AILES: I agree with you. I read something on your blog that said I looked like J. Edgar Hoover, I had a face like a fist, and I was essentially a malignant tumor...

HUFFINGTON: Well, that's...

AILES: And I thought -- and then it got nasty after that...

HUFFINGTON: ... that was never by anybody that we had...

(CROSSTALK) AILES: Then it really went nasty, and I thought, gee, maybe Arianna ought to cut this out, but..

We now have to question if Roger Ailes does understand the English language. Ailes uses the old method of quoting a single post that attacks him from the Huffington Post as some sort of justification for the behavior of FOX News. Conservatives are always good at deflecting criticisms and trying to equate a small sliver of a blog post to Beck's entire hour long freak show that day after day calls liberals 'parasites' and pictures President Obama as a Nazi wanting to slaughter people. When Arianna calls out Beck for his violent language, Roger says we can't be the word police and then says he understands him. You see, Beck only meant to be outlandish against Stalin. Ailes is lying of course.

MMTV:

But now, last night, I get there and I see, I get on the website, and I see that Obama wants to legalize the illegal aliens, you know, when unemployment is 8.5 percent and underemployment rate is 15.6 percent. You know, you're having a hard time finding a job, you know, without having to be forced -- do you have any matches -- forced to complete, you know, compete with a whole new crop of workers.

So what does Obama do, he says, boy, I'm not -- I'm just out of stuff to do. What else could I possibly do to the American people?

President Obama, why don't you just set us on fire? For the love of Pete, what are you doing? Do you not hear -- do you not hear the cries of people who are saying stop? We would like some sanity in our country for a second!

We didn't vote to lose the republic. We didn't vote for any of this stuff. We voted for change.

When Glenn Beck poured gasoline over a lady and said Obama wanted to see Americans burn, that wasn't about Stalin, Roger. Do you think that might be incendiary?

UPDATE: Here's the post when Beck talked about being "Slaughter"

Beck: Black Obama fans were 'taught to be slaves,' while progressives like Stern are 'taking you to a place to be slaughtered'

It came, incidentally, at the end of an equally incendiary attack on the SEIU's Andy Stern -- the day before, Beck told his audience that Stern was "really running our country" -- which he wrapped up with a truly vicious attack on both the Obama White House and on progressives in general:

Beck: I told you yesterday, buckle up your seatbelt, America. Find the exit -- there's one here, here, and here. Find the exit closest to you and prepare for a crash landing. Because this plane is coming down, because the pilot is intentionally steering it into the trees!

Most likely, it'll happen sometime after Christmas. You're gonna see this economy come up -- we're already seeing it, and now it's gonna start coming back down again. And when you see the effects of what they're doing to the economy, remember these words: We will survive. No -- we'll do better than survive, we will thrive. As long as these people are not in control. They are taking you to a place to be slaughtered!

Evidence doesn't enter in the equation for Roger Ailes.

The State of the Union speech is normally just a big kabuki theatre exercise. On both sides of the aisle, political parties make clear what they value and show their support or lack thereof for the President's agenda.

No news there. But I think in these days where the political spectrum has been so skewed that tea-baggers actually think Hitler was a liberal, it's a good idea to know just what the GOP does not support, like:

Assistance and tax credits for small businesses to create new jobs:

Or ending tax breaks for companies that send American jobs overseas:

Student loans and helping Americans get higher education:

Prohibiting foreign money from influencing our elections:

Nice to see where small business, education and oligarchy play into the GOP's values, isn't it?

The right wingers are pulling out all the rhetorical stops in trying to pretend that global warming is all just a hoax cooked up by Marxist ideologues. Take, for instance, Bill Bennett last night on Sean Hannity's show:

Bennett: It's amazing, you know -- the power of ideology to blind people to reality. You've got this Russian report that you cited -- you know, this thing is falling apart. You had the stuff out of East Anglia University -- I mean, this is reminiscent of the old alchemy, and phrenology stuff.

I mean, this, this -- there's so much junk, so much corruption in the fact that we would fork over a hundred billion dollars. Plus I think the biggest event at Copenhagen was the standing, thunderous standing ovation to Hugo Chavez when he condemned capitalism. That tells you really what that meeting is all about, it seems to me.

Hannity: That's what I want to get to. If we look at the ClimateGate scandal, coupled with what you just pointed out, we've pointed out, about this Russian climate center, what they had to say, there's another agenda. Why would a scientist -- and I have really not gotten a satisfactory answer from anybody -- why would scientists risk their careers and their reputations to lie and manipulate data if there wasn't some agenda? And if they are, and there is an agenda, what is it?

Bennett: Yeah, well, take a look at Soviet psychiatry under Stalin, take a look at various kinds of medical, quote, science under Hitler, and you'll again see the power of ideology to bend men to their, to the ways of the dictator.

You know, I remember reading that biography of Einstein. There's a list of all the scientists who were driven out of Germany by Hitler because of his crazy policies. It's the world's roster of greatest scientists. That's what's happening here. You're getting some of the best people in the world questioning what is going on in this supposedly accepted wisdom, and the thing's falling apart.

Really? A minor dustup among a handful of e-mails is just like Hitler's persecution of the Jews within the German scientific community? Climate scientists are acting like Nazi medical experimenters? Climate science is just like phrenology? Global warming is about bending us to the will exactly which dictator?

Christ on a crutch, get a grip, people. Or at least some tiny bit of perspective.

Hannity has been out leading the parade in trying to make global warming out to be a hoax. And he's obviously pulling out all the stops.

Bennett is right about one thing, though: This situation does indeed powerfully illustrate "the power of ideology to blind people to reality." Just not the way he thinks it does.

Or as the Pat Bagley cartoon put it:

(Alf Landon - in 1941 had a curious solution to our problem in Europe)

After an unsuccessful run for President against FDR in 1936, former Republican Governor from Kansas Alf Landon went back to the oil business and sat on the sidelines, taking up a vast array of positions with regards to our Foreign Policy. He was against isolation but was tacitly for Lend-Lease, but only in the sense that the U.S. should hand a check over and quietly go away - presumably tossing dollar bills at Britain, rather than actual arms and equipment. But if push came to shove, then the U.S. would have to get into the fracas.

Alf Landon: “So far, in our aid to the British we are following, step by step, the pattern of the last World War. First: Materials. Second: Money. Third: Men. I’m willing to take the first two steps, but not the third. (applause). Boldly stated, this brings little disagreement, publicly at least. But the way we do the first and the second is the answer to the third. To many of us are overlooking the inevitable effect of our actions regardless of our intentions. Those who really mean all aid short of war should specifically say; No convoying, No American ships in war zones. (applause) Are we for, or against sending convoys of American ships into the war zone? Or lending any more of our defense equipment, over the protest of Army and Navy officials? This, ladies and gentlemen, is a vital issue. Because the minute an American ship is sunk, the American flag is fired upon, and Americans are killed, we are then in the war as we should be with men. That means we have to underwrite a victory for Great Britain. If we’re not to undertake that, we cannot give a blank check to Great Britain.”

Not exactly a clear-cut position, which probably spoke volumes about his run for the White House in 1936. Nevertheless, he did speak for a large portion of the Republican base just prior to our involvement in World War 2.

From the wonderful artist Zina Saunders (click here for larger):

"Double, double, toil and trouble," chant Michele Bachmann, Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh as they stir up the pot against health care reform.

A few incantations from the trio's trick or treat bag: Congresswoman Bachmann says sex clinics will result from Health Care Reform, Ann Coulter says Obama's plan encourages assisted suicide for the elderly, and Rush Limbaugh says Obama's health care plan is right out of Hitler's playbook.

Boo!

Open thread below and John Amato has a World Series thread going as well...

President Barack Obama explained to the Congressional Black Caucus that some people were confused about why health care reform opponents were comparing him to Hitler. Ann Coulter told Fox News' Geraldo Rivera that she suspects posters showing Obama with a Hitler mustache were created by "liberal agitators."

One of the more laughable right wing attack lines against President Obama has been the number of "Czars" he has appointed. Of course, we know that former President Bush had more czars than Obama, but why would Fox News report that? During his health care reform speech last week, the president said "If you misrepresent what's in the plan, we will call you out"

Release the hounds, the pushback has begun:

Last week, when the President addressed the Joint Session of Congress in a speech on health reform, he referred to some of the untruths – okay, lies – that have been spread about the plan and sent a clear message to those who seek to undermine his agenda and his presidency with these tactics: "We will call you out." So consider this one of those calls.

Over the past several weeks, we've seen with increasing frequency and volume issues raised around the use of "czars" by this Administration. Although some Members have asked serious questions around the makeup of the White House staff, the bulk of the noise you hear began first with partisan commentators, suggesting that this is somehow a new and sinister development that threatens our democracy. This is, of course, ridiculous. Just to be clear, the job title "czar" doesn’t exist in the Obama Administration. Many of the officials cited by conservative commentators have been confirmed by the Senate. Many hold policy jobs that have existed in previous Administrations. And some hold jobs that involved coordinating the work of agencies on President Obama’s key policy priorities: health insurance reform, energy and green jobs, and building a new foundation for long-lasting economic growth

But of course, it’s really the hypocrisy here that is noteworthy. Just earlier today, Darrell Issa, a Republican from California and one of the leaders in calling for an investigation into the Obama Administration’s use of "czars", had to admit to Fox News that he had never raised any objections to the Bush Administration’s use of "czars". Many of these members who now decry the practice have called on Presidents in the past to appoint "czars" to coordinate activities within the government to address immediate challenges. What is clear is that all of this energy going into these attacks could be used to have a constructive conversation about bringing this country together to address our challenges moving forward – and it doesn’t take a "czar" to bring that about! Just some folks willing to act in good faith. Read on...

This is a blogger with a spine. The blog post was written by Anita Dunn, and she goes on to nail numerous right wing politicians and pundits, calling them out on the nutbaggery. It's worth clicking through to the original to read it all.

CNN's Jim Spellman has been following the teabagger express and he's reporting what bloggers and our readers already know. There is a dark fringe, a radical element that makes up the fabric of the teabagger party who believe in wild conspiracy theories and hate Obama because a black man won the election. They can't handle that Bush isn't in the White House. And wasn't it Bush who said that elections have consequences?

Spellman:...we saw handguns from time to time, but running through this subculture that's developed around these tea parties is a bit of a dark undercurrent. The bulk of the people are for lower taxes and less government control, but there really is an element that's go these kind of outlandish conspiracy theories about death camps and about this take over, people comparing President Obama to Hitler. It really is a sizable...It's not just a couple of people around the edges. One of the big questions will be if this movement go forward while maintaining this kind of element on the edges...

At least Spellman is willing to say the truth instead of trying to put a ribbon on it. This isn't something new. It's been around a long, long time, but before the media gave them a platform they only existed in the radical right militia meetings and dark alleys of the wicked. The media is main streaming them into right our homes. They will continue onward unfortunately for America.

Meta Watershed:Seeing what's been broken for centuries

SCOTUSblog: Two precedents in jeopardy

William K. Wolfrum Chronicles: Angry Town Hall protesters accuse Hitler of being "the new Obama"

Apoliticus: Open Letter To an Angry Mob

Harold's Left: The 5 Wacky Theories The Right Wing will invent in 2010

Feministing: "Family Values" Assemblyman caught on tape bragging about his affairs

Even the media is starting to call out republicans over their seriously ridiculous protests against President Obama--who dared to give a back to school speech to the children. Usually the teabagger brigade compares Obama to Hitler or a socialist, but Joe Watkins (former Bush 41 guy) came up with a new and even more stupid argument than usual. Parents can't compete with his charisma----ergo he shouldn't speak to the kids. Huh?

Watkins: This president is not an ordinary president. He's one of the most gifted speakers that the world has ever seen. He's gifted, he's charismatic and when he speaks he speaks with tremendous authority and great conviction and with tremendous persuasion. And it's one thing to talk to adult who maybe have the ability to discern between right or wrong or whether they agree or disagree. The challenge becomes the parents when he talks to their kids about the present, he's so persuasive, he's campaigning for the hearts and minds of the kids. Today's speech was fine....but what moms and dads are afraid of is that what happens when kids who can't distinguish what moms or dads can when the Defense of Marriage is repealed or the act comes up to...

Dr. Nancy: Joe, Joe, he didn't slip, there was no gotcha in this speech, you know that, there was nothing like that here.

Watkins: No, but we know they'll be other times when the president will make very strong and compelling arguments for issues that moms and dads don't agree with.

Usually, this would be the perfect trait that American appreciate in a president, so he could be a positive influence on the kids of America. Telling them that cutting class and to study hard is what they need to hear, but not to republicans. And Watkins turns it into a gay bashing segment. Is Joe saying that the president will schedule a speech to school kids in favor and talk about the Defense of Marriage Act? Is he kidding me? Even Chuck Todd looked at Watkins like he had an alien brain.

Todd: Joe, it sounds like you're worried the president's going to be too popular with kids. I guess...is that the concern that if he were less charismatic you'd be OK with him speaking to children?

Watkins: No, not at all....he's so popular and persuasive that parents don't want to compete with that

Say, what? Liar, liar, Watkins' pants are on fire. As long as the president is conservative then that president can speak to the kids every single day. I'm waiting for conservatives to ban their children from ever watching an Obama speech or interview. Republicans have become freaks since they've let the teabaggers take over their party.

Can they get much crazier than this? Yes they can! Every day brings another new high on the wacky scale, as rightwingers continue to sound the alarm about our new National Socialist president:

Parents across the country are rebelling against plans by President Barack Obama to speak directly to their children through the classrooms of the nation's public schools without their presence, participation and approval.

The plans announced by Obama also have been cited as raising the specter of the Civilian National Security Force, to which he's referred several times since his election campaign began, but never fully explained.

"He's recruiting his civilian army. His 'Hitler' youth brigade," wrote one participant in a forum at Free Republic.

"I am not going to compare President Obama to Hitler. We'll leave that to others and you can form your own opinions about them and their analogies. … However, we can learn a lot from the spread of propaganda in Europe that led to Hitler's power. A key ingredient in that spread of propaganda was through the youth," wrote a blogger at the AmericanElephant.com blog, where the subject of the day was a national "Keep-Your-Child-at-Home-Day."

"Totalitarian regimes around the world have sought to spread their propaganda and entrench their power by brainwashing the children. I guess it's easier to indoctrinate a six-year-old instead of fighting a 26-year-old or being challenged by a 46-year-old in the voting booth," the blogger wrote.

At issue was an announcement that Obama plans to deliver a message directly to students via the Internet into public school classrooms across the nation on Sept. 8.

According to announcement posted on ServiceWire.org, Obama will address students "about the importance of persisting and succeeding in school" at 1 p.m. Eastern at the WhiteHouse.gov website.

See, that right there? That proves it! Because if children actually pay attention, learn to read and write and apply critical thinking skills, they're actually a lot less likely to read fine publications like World Nut Daily - except when they're mining them for comedy gold like this.

The announcement said the federal Department of Education "is encouraging educators, students and parents to use this opportunity to help students get focused and begin the school year strong."

The government also is publicizing a list of suggestions for students and teachers to do in preparation for the speech, including studying Barack Obama's writings and presidency.

Obama had announced the speech during a child reporter's visiting the White House.

During the interview, Obama said, "On September 8, when young people around the country are … will have just started or are about to go back to school, I'm going to be making a big speech to young people all across the country…"

But opposition is assembling quickly, similar to the concerns expressed on the AmericanElephant blog:

"Now the former community organizer and current president of the United States is making an unprecedented speech to the school children of our nation. I'd like to believe his motives were pure and politics didn't play into this. But viewing this administration's track record doesn’t afford such benefit of the doubt.

"When the president browbeats property owners who want to protect their legal rights… when the president admits he doesn't know the facts but impugns the integrity of a police force… when the president calls me a liar for reporting what is actually in the health care bills and encourages my neighbors to report me to some enemies list… when the president apologizes to nations around the world and bows to a Saudi king… he loses the benefit of the doubt," the blogger wrote.

"Without benefit of the doubt, the president doesn't get to speak to my children unchallenged," the writer said.

Whereas starting a war based on fake information and killing hundreds of thousands of civilians - and letting an entire city of American brown people die - well, that inspires blind devotion, right? Which pretty much lets us know where these folks are coming from.

I don't want war! All I want is peace...peace...peace...!
A little piece of Poland,
A little piece of France,
A little piece of Austria
And Hungary, perchance!
A little slice of Turkey
And all that that entails,
And then a bit of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales!"

-Mel Brooks, To Be Or Not To Be

I guess the news peg for this is the anniversary of the start of WWII in September 1939, but Pat Buchanan has gone ahead and apologized for Hitler, claiming he sought no empire or wider war with Europe, and had merely benign interests of German unification at heart:

Indeed, why would he want war when, by 1939, he was surrounded by allied, friendly or neutral neighbors, save France. And he had written off Alsace, because reconquering Alsace meant war with France, and that meant war with Britain, whose empire he admired and whom he had always sought as an ally.

As of March 1939, Hitler did not even have a border with Russia. How then could he invade Russia?

Matt Yglesias does quick work of the historical inaccuracies - Hitler invaded Russia as soon as he achieved a border with them by conquering Poland. And this is a decent riposte as well - Buchanan seems to expect a crazy person to also be a rational military strategist, and when he's not, searches for alternative explanation ("Hitler couldn't have wanted war because he didn't have enough planes! So it's Britain's fault!").

But I'll take the less dainty approach. In 1939, in a small town called Averduct on the German-Polish border, practically every member of my family was rounded up by Nazi authorities, herded into a local synagogue, and burned alive inside. This would fall in Buchanan's revisionism as part of the supposedly honest and forthright effort by Hitler to annex Danzig and restore the German homeland (hey, Hitler just wanted some Lebensraum - why not let him annex whatever he decided was part of Germany, right? Don't you want to save lives?). But my dead ancestors didn't live in Danzig (now Gdansk). They had nothing to do with such a conflict. Maybe that was the work of a few bad apple Nazis acting alone. That and the other 6 million incidents.

But the bigger point here to be made is that Pat Buchanan is paid by the allegedly liberal cable news network MSNBC, he has been on it for years, if you add up all his appearances throughout the day he probably spends as much time on the air as anyone outside of the Morning Joe crowd, and that's... OK. Calling Hitler misunderstood is not a firing offense at the liberal cable news network MSNBC.

Good to know.

My favorite comment in the Buchanan thread, by the way:

summarex
Great Article Pat.
But what’s your beef with general Pinochet?

Must be a follower of Milton Friedman.

Enjoy, Juggalos and Juggalettes.

Thom Hartmann: Dear President Obama

Booman Tribune: But did they get overtime pay?

The Washington Independent: How the CIA can fudge on torture effectiveness

They gave us a republic: Nightowl Newswrap

Zaius Nation: We must save Hitler's brain!

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