One of the reasons Fox News has become such a serious problem is that journalists as a profession have utterly failed in their traditional role of self-policing their colleagues. Journalists need to be speaking out about the truth that Anita Dunn pointed out in October: That Fox has ceased offering even a resemblance of a news organization and has become a propaganda channel 24/7.

Fox has largely been able to get away with it because its money and influence are so sizable that it has silenced with profession with a combination of threats and bribes: If you call them out, you get blackballed. On the other hand, if you play along, you get invited on their shows and get a fat contributor's paycheck.

Among the most disturbing examples of this have been NPR's Mara Liasson and Juan Williams, who have become such regulars on Fox that their identities are increasingly that of a typical Fox commentator. And in the process, they've deeply marred NPR's hitherto-sterling reputation as a reliable source of accurate and unbiased news.

A classic example of this took place in early September (see the video above), when Liasson, in a discussion on health care with Fox's Brett Baier, agreed to go along with the new Luntz-approved Fox talking point that it wasn't a "public option" in the health-care reform package, but a "government option.

So now, according to Politico, Liasson at least is coming under sharper scrutiny:

Executives at National Public Radio recently asked the network’s top political correspondent, Mara Liasson, to reconsider her regular appearances on Fox News because of what they perceived as the network’s political bias, two sources familiar with the effort said.

According to a source, Liasson was summoned in early October by NPR’s executive editor for news, Dick Meyer, and the network’s supervising senior Washington editor, Ron Elving. The NPR executives said they had concerns that Fox’s programming had grown more partisan, and they asked Liasson to spend 30 days watching the network.

At a follow-up meeting last month, Liasson reported that she’d seen no significant change in Fox’s programming and planned to continue appearing on the network, the source said.

... Liasson defended her work for Fox by saying that she appears on two of the network’s news programs, not on commentary programs with conservative hosts, the source said. She has also told colleagues that she’s under contract to Fox, so it would be difficult for her to sever her ties with the network, which she has appeared on for more than a decade.

As Eric Boehlert avidly observes:

I find it comical that Liasson reportedly thinks that because she's on two 'serious' Fox News shows that that means she's no way associated with the rest of channel's nutty and hateful programming. Apparently, Liasson is able to magically cocoon herself within the confines of two programs. And even though she cashes those Fox News checks she's not really, y'know, part of Fox News.

Gimme a break.

You can't be half pregnant in a situation like this, which means Liasson needs to forcefully defend Fox News in its entirety. But if she can't do that and she still cares about her reputation as a journalists, than she ought to walk away from Rupert Murdoch's money, because the glaring truth is that Fox News jumped the rails many, many months ago.

At least Jacob Weisberg is making an effort to talk about the problem as one encompassing the entire profession:

Any news organization that took its responsibilities seriously would take pains to cover presidential criticism fairly. It would regard doing so as itself a test of integrity. At Fox, by contrast, complaints of unfairness prompt only hoots of derision and demands for "evidence" that, when presented, is brushed off and ignored.

There is no need to get bogged down in this phony debate, which itself constitutes an abuse of the fair-mindedness of the rest of the media. One glance at Fox's Web site or five minutes' random viewing of the channel at any hour of the day demonstrates its all-pervasive slant. The lefty documentary Outfoxed spent a lot of time mustering evidence that Fox managers order reporters to take the Republican side. But after 13 years under Roger Ailes, Fox employees skew news right as instinctively as fish swim.

... Whether the White House engages with Fox is a tactical political question. Whether we journalists continue to do so is an ethical one. By appearing on Fox, reporters validate its propaganda values and help to undermine the role of legitimate news organizations. Respectable journalists—I'm talking to you, Mara Liasson—should stop appearing on its programs. A boycott would make Ailes too happy, so let's try just ignoring Fox, shall we? And no, I don't want to come on The O'Reilly Factor to discuss it.

Liasson can't sit there on a panel on a "news show" -- whose tea-party promotions and slanted attacks on the White House are a matter of public record -- as the token "liberal" with Stephen Hayes and Charles Krauthammer every few days, and more often than not go along with their right-wing characterizations of events, and promulgating the right-wing narratives that are the basic fabric of these shows, and not be tainted by the association.

If Liasson wants to pretend that Fox is unbiased so she can keep collecting it paychecks, then let her. But NPR should move on to someone who actually displays real journalistic standards.

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Gee, who could have seen this one coming? I know, Paul Krugman.

Stimulus arithmetic (wonkish but important):

Bit by bit we’re getting information on the Obama stimulus plan, enough to start making back-of-the-envelope estimates of impact. The bottom line is this: we’re probably looking at a plan that will shave less than 2 percentage points off the average unemployment rate for the next two years, and possibly quite a lot less. This raises real concerns about whether the incoming administration is lowballing its plans in an attempt to get bipartisan consensus.

[....]

I see the following scenario: a weak stimulus plan, perhaps even weaker than what we’re talking about now, is crafted to win those extra GOP votes. The plan limits the rise in unemployment, but things are still pretty bad, with the rate peaking at something like 9 percent and coming down only slowly. And then Mitch McConnell says “See, government spending doesn’t work.”

Let’s hope I’ve got this wrong.

Looks like Paul was right. It's not Mitch McConnell but Kristol and Hume are basically saying the same thing. And for the record, since Bill Kristol seems to think that it was a terrible thing for the economy for the minimum wage to be increased, I'd like to see him try to live off of it for a year.

Transcript below the fold.

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Like many conservatives, The Weekly Standard's Bill Kristol seems delighted that President's Barack Obama's attempt to bring the Olympics to Chicago failed. "You couldn't help but be amused by it," Kristol said on Fox Sunday.

Kristol's publication, The Weekly Standard, reported cheers in their newsroom when it was announced that Chicago lost the Olympic bid.

The conservative columnist thinks that Obama should have been campaigning against America. "By Barack Obama's view of the world, he should have been rooting for Brazil to get the Olympics. South America's never gotten them. It's a rising power. It would help Brazil. We don't need the Olympics. We've had them a million times. Our economy doesn't need the boost of the Olympics," said Kristol.

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Interviews of President Barack Obama was broadcast on five news outlets Sunday but Fox News was not included. Chris Wallace called the White House "the biggest bunch of crybabies I have dealt with my 30 years in Washington."

The White House responded Saturday. "We figured Fox would rather show 'So You Think You Can Dance' than broadcast an honest discussion about health care reform," Josh Earnest told ABC News.

Earnest indicated that Obama would probably appear on Fox News again. "Not that their whining particularly strengthens their case for participation any time soon," said Earnest.

Chris Wallace continued to criticize the president Sunday. "Every president is thin-skinned, but I wonder whether this administration, this White House, has a particular problem with criticism," he said.

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Why on earth would anyone ask Bill Kristol's opinion on foreign policy when his percentage of being correct on any issue is somewhere well below the Mendoza line?

But on Fox News, having a grasp of facts is not a hiring qualification, though it appears that bloodlust is. Because in discussing North Korea's recent missile tests, the consensus among all the pundits is that it's time to go bomb North Korea. You know, Obama has had all of five months in office to show that his sissy diplomacy tactics could work and as per Mara Liasson, clearly, they've failed.

But it's "Brother Kristol" (when did Fox News hosts start sounding like Communist Party Leaders?) who so righteously earned his spot on the Worst Person list on Countdown by saying that it's probably not a bad idea to launch an attack or two (or a dozen) against North Korea:

You know, it might be worth doing some targeted air strikes to show the North Koreans, instead of always talking about ‘gee, there could be consequences’ to show that they can’t simply keep going down this path.

Funnily enough, this was the same advice he gave for Iraq. Problem was he didn't have any ideas about what we do after those air strikes. And we're still there in Iraq, losing lives left and right six years later. Then after Brit Hume, Juan Williams and Liasson weigh in with their eagerness to sacrifice other people's children, William the Bloody ups the ante, by raising the spectre of North Korea encouraging a nuclear Iran --NIE and signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty be damned--that leads to some ooga-booga scary Middle Eastern nuclear domino theory:

We have some huge priority in—correctly put a huge priority in trying to stop Iran from going to nuclear...going nuclear. If we look back-- if the Iranians look around and see that Pakistan went nuclear, no consequences. If North Korea is going nuclear, has gone nuclear, no real consequences, except a lot of talk of how it's not acceptable. Well, now we’re saying, ‘Gee, Iran is not acceptable too.’ North Korea is awfully important to Iran for a couple of reasons -- proliferation issues, they could actually help directly or indirectly the Iranian program, bu more importantly, the example. I do think the Obama administration to the degree that they really do not want four years from now looking at a world where Iran is nuclear and Egypt and Saudi Arabia is going nuclear and the entire non-proliferation regime has collapsed. They need to be, from their own point of view, in actually dealing with Iran, much tougher on North Korea, I think, than our previous policies have been.

Seriously, are we not paying dearly for your utter wrongness enough now? If you're so gung-ho for yet another war, Wiliam the Bloody, suit the hell up or shut the hell up.

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Brit Hume and Bill Kristol were in usual form on Fox News Sunday crying about the release of the torture memos by the Obama administration. Without blinking an eye Bill Kristol dismisses the methods used in the interrogations.

Wallace: As you read the memos and you learn what we did and how top Justice Department officials justified it, are you struck by how brutal we were or how careful we were?

Kristol: How careful. I mean has any other country at war gotten memos from the Justice Department? Extremely carefully of recent I would say. Especially the Steve Bradbury 2005 memos before going ahead and trying to deal with the rather small number of terrorists who had been involved in murdering thousands of Americans and were very much intending to do more of that..I think..you read those memos, you think that's what everyone's so upset about.

Kristol goes on to rant about the memos being released and decry the potential investigations that can come from it. I'd like to know how anyone could read the things that were in those memos and have that kind of response?

Brit Hume thinks that this is just old news now since the Obama administration has decided to stop torturing prisoners and can't understand what possible benefit can come from the specifics being released to the terrorists. Brit I hate to tell you this but I think the gist of what was in those memos has been out in the public domain for some time now for those terrorists to read.

All of these talking heads today had a couple of themes with their arguments. One that if torturing prisoners "worked" and we got some vital information from them, then it's just fine to violate the law and it justifies this brutality. The other is the we need to look forward argument and that there's no need to dwell on what happened because the Obama administration says using these methods has stopped. Would they ever apply that same argument to defend some drug dealer on the street that killed someone or to any street crime that occurs in the United States for that matter? Somehow I doubt it.

I wonder just how "careful" Kristol would think anyone was being if he was waterboarded an average of over six times a day for a month? And if it didn't work the first five or ten times even, what are you going to get from anyone from waterboarding them that many times other than some sadistic pleasure from knowing you're punishing the person being waterboarded? I wonder how "careful" he would think they were if it was his child being tortured in front of him because someone thought he was a terrorist? I wonder how "careful" he would think they were if it was his head getting knocked in?

We have laws on the books that don't allow policemen to beat confessions out of people in the United States for a reason. Why these clowns can't manage to bring the same reasoning to this debate is beyond me.