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CNN's "media critic" Howard Kurtz brought on Air America's Ana Maria Cox and the Washington Examiner's Chris Stirewalt to discuss the statement by the White House Communications director Anita Dunn that "Fox News often operates as either the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican Party".

The topic turns to ACORN and Cox points out that the story Fox was pushing on ACORN was really not a story and notes that the problem was not voter fraud but in problems with some voter registrations and before Kurtz can change the subject says this about Fox’s attacks on Kevin Jennings.

Cox: And I’m sorry, I have to say something about this Jennings story because I think it’s really offensive. They’re persecuting someone because he’s gay.

Kurtz: We don’t have time to go through each controversy right now, but did Fox have the same appetite for stories that reflected poorly on the Bush administration?

Somehow Kurtz then found the time to talk about the reaction to President Obama being given the Nobel and later the David Letterman sex scandal.

Media Matters has much more on Fox’s attacks on Kevin Jennings.

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Sean Hannity's desperation in his dire quest to keep up with Glenn Beck by getting a White House scalp in the form of safe-schools advocate Kevin Jennings has now gone from simply fabricating stories out of distorted evidence to outright gay-bashing.

Last night he brought on Rep. Steve King of Iowa -- one of the nation's leading bigots, the guy who predicted Al Qaeda would love Obama and claimed that the hate-crimes bill would protect pedophiles but not veterans. And it quickly became clear what their chief objection to Jennings really is:

He's gay.

King objects to having someone "pushing the homosexual agenda" in charge of advocating safety in schools -- even though one of the primary forms of violence within our schools involves bullying gay students. But then, King is a guy who objects to including gays and lesbians in hate-crimes protections on free-speech grounds -- which is to say, he thinks that beating up gays is a First Amendment right -- so it fits.

And Hannity chimes along. Because, like Inspector Javert, he is a man possessed ... of the need to beat Glenn Beck. He doesn't mind whatever casualties pile up along the way.

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Sean Hannity still wants Kevin Jennings' scalp so he can keep up with Glenn Beck.

But since his smear has been debunked about as thoroughly as a right-wing smear job ever can be, he's getting a bit, ah, desperate.

Last night he not only was still clinging desperately to the false notion that Jennings should have reported a teenager's sexual affair to authorities, but he came up with a new line of attack -- borrowed directly from the fine fools at Powerline -- claiming that Jennings, in "a 1977 speech," had praised "one of the founders of NAMBLA," a gay-rights pioneer named Harry Hay. Hannity calls him a "big supporter of NAMBLA."

As usual, the fine researchers at Media Matters have the whole story:

Power Line's Hinderaker cited Jennings' speech, NAMBLA. In an October 1 post, Power Line's John Hinderaker noted Jennings' 1997 speech and wrote: "Obama nominee Kevin Jennings actually said that the founder of NAMBLA -- the North American Man-Boy Love Association -- Harry Hay, is '[o]ne of the people that's always inspired me,' " ... Hinderaker's claim that Hay founded NAMBLA is false. As the Associated Press noted in 2002, Hay "in 1950 founded the secret network of support groups for gays known as the Mattachine Society." Hay wrote in the Gay Community News (retrieved from Nexis) in 1994, "I am not a member of NAMBLA, nor would it ever have been my inclination to be one."

Moreover, as the piece explains, Jennings' speech was part of a eulogy to Hay upon the occasion of his death, and specifically praised him for his work in the 1950s in organizing gay activists -- not for any of his later views.

Hannity must really be looking over his shoulder these days to be getting this desperate. Hey Sean, how are those ratings looking these days?

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Hey what do you know... Lou Dobbs lying on the air again. Hard to belive, right? This time at least Joe Conason was there to correct him. And he cites Media Matters to do it. That had to get under Dobbs skin since I'm sure he loves Media Matters about as much as Bill-O does. It's pretty pathetic when you've got a network debunking lies about Jennings on one show, and one of their anchors spreading them on another.

DOBBS: Let's turn to, very quickly, another czar issue, Kevin Jennings. The Safe School czar, charges that he mishandled a homosexual relationship between a young man, 15-year-old, and an older man in which Jennings did not report it. Is there sufficient pressure that he'll be forced to resign and should he be forced to resign?

CONASON: I think we should start with the known facts, at least as I understand them about this case, which is that this is something that happened, I believe, 20 years ago. So, that's a pretty long time ago. George W. Bush, when he was running for president, did not want to be held accountable for things he had done 21 years before he ran for president and yet, a lot of people voted for him and everyone said that he should be absolved.

(CROSSTALK)

DOBBS: You seem to look at politics in a rather binary fashion, Joe...

CONASON: No, I mean, I'm just trying to make some valid comparisons.

DOBBS: Oh, I understand. And they are valid.

CONASON: Your favorite Web site, Lou, Media Matters for America has a statement, I believe, tonight on...

DOBBS: You're one of four people who reads that.

CONASON: Well, then that's why I'm telling you about it. From the young man who was allegedly involved in this incident, absolving Kevin Jennings of any responsibility, saying he was of age when this happened, so this may turn out to be nothing. I don't know. But so far it's a mixed story.

DOBBS: Well, nothing we know it won't turn out to be, because it is already something.

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As Media Matters has documented, the right wing has been after Kevin Jennings for some time now. Conservative media unleash anti-gay rhetoric in attacks on Jennings:

The latest target in the Glenn Beck-driven conservative media witch hunt for Obama administration "czars" is Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools director Kevin Jennings. In their attacks on Jennings, numerous conservative media figures have resorted to thinly veiled homophobic appeals to paint Jennings, who is gay, as a "radical" "gay activist" with an "agenda" of "promoting homosexuality in schools," and have misrepresented or distorted Jennings' previous comments about religion and tolerance.

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CNN's Jessica Yellin debunked some of those attacks on CNN's The Situation Room.

Transcript below the fold.

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