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They just can't stop themselves. This is what a panel discussion on Saturday's Fox News Watch over Chuck Todd trying to monopolize the press pool time in Israel devolves into when regular Jim Pinkerton opens his mouth. Forget the dog whistles, they've just gone straight for the blow horns again.

h/t Media Matters

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You've gotta' just love it. From the network that did nothing but hammer on the drummed up fake Benghazi debacle and that has done nothing but attack President Obama ever since he became the Democratic nominee years ago, comes complaints about supposed "media bias" and favorable coverage received by President Obama during the last week prior to the election.

Host Jon Scott asked his panel on Fox News Watch (their so-called media watchdog show which almost makes Howard Kurtz's Sunday show look respectable... almost) what they thought about the poll by Pew Research, which showed President Obama receiving 29 percent positive coverage, and 19 percent negative, compared to Mitt Romney getting 16 percent positive and 33 percent negative.

What they failed to discuss was the fact that the study from Pew also stated that "The final week of the campaign marked only the second time in which positive stories about Obama outnumbered negative dating back to late August," or the fact that most of that positive coverage was due to his handling of the response to Hurricane Sandy. Mitt Romney was running around still campaigning and pretending to hold a "storm relief event," while President Obama was just doing his job. So heaven forbid that Mitt Romney might have actually deserved that negative coverage.

But the hacks at Fox can't believe everyone else didn't follow their lead with being the one organization that the study looked at, which still had much higher negative coverage for President Obama and positive for Romney during that final week. It's always rich watching the pundits over at GOPTV complaining about "media bias" from the other networks and media outlets and pretending that the rest of them are all liberal.

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From this Saturday's Fox News Watch, regular guest and columnist Cal Thomas comes up with this doozy when his fellow panel member Alan Colmes points out the fact that the Republicans' presidential candidate Mitt Romney and his veep lie like rugs and haven't been called out for those lies by the media. Thomas' response... well the Democrats aren't asked enough why they don't have more of their politicians running on the Republican platform. I kid you not.

It's bad enough that he just completely ignores Colmes' points about the lying and how unrealistic and harmful his campaign rhetoric has been, but then he's got to stretch and claim that the media pointing out the fact that the Republican party is pretty much all white and not all that inclusive of minorities or concerned about issues that affect women, is the same as the media not asking Democrats why they don't have any "pro-life, pro-traditional marriage, smaller government, lower taxes people in your party." Never mind the fact that it's not true that there aren't any Democrats who agree with some or all of the issues Thomas was addressing here. As Colmes pointed out, it's a completely ridiculous comparison.

SCOTT: Well, should these presidential candidates be pressed to give us more?

COLMES: Of course they should.

SCOTT: We don't know what President Obama wants to do in the next four years.

COLMES: Of course we do. We've had him for four years. He's been much more opaque than Mitt Romney and Mitt Romney the minute you ask him in an interview, nobody presses him on how you gonna'... he wants to cut everything down to twenty percent of the G.D.P., he wants to cut taxes for the rich. He wants to raise military spending. And he wants, he said last night... that he was going to not increase taxes on the middle class. That is physically impossible. How's he going to do all that and solve the budget deficit problem? Nobody has pressed him on this and the media has not done its job nor have they held these people accountable for their lies, their constant lies about Barack Obama, the constant lies about what their plan is. They have not been held accountable.

THOMAS: You sound offended.

COLMES: Well, I am offended.

SCOTT: Well, are the media going to do the same thing at the Democratic convention?

THOMAS: Oh, no, no no. Here's what the media are going to do at the Democratic convention. They're not going to apply the same standards to Democrats as they do to Republicans. If they did, this is what it would look like. The media would be asking the Democratic leaders, why don't you have any pro-life, pro-traditional marriage, smaller government, lower taxes people in your party? It is all monochromatic, ideologically among Democrats. But when it's Republicans, they always say we need to hear more from groups, blacks, African Americans, women. So when the Republicans get those people up on the stage, Susana Martinez, Marco Rubio and others, well obviously they're just tokens. They don't really represent the party. So it's a complete double standard and you're never going to hear the same questions asked of Democrats as you do of Republicans.

COLMES: You're talking about race and ethnicity versus ideology. They're two very different things.

THOMAS: Well, not to the media they're not. Because if you're a black conservative, then you've gone off the, to mix a metaphor, the reservation...

COLMES: And I wonder why black conservatives aren't too happy about the Republican party. I wonder why.

I'd like someone to ask Thomas what's "pro-life" about starting wars, why after busting the bank under Bush that anyone should really believe Republicans are for "small government," and why the only ones Republicans want to raise taxes on are the working class. I don't expect we'll see that happen any time soon. Republicans are "pro-life" until you're born. Then you're on your own. And all the happy talk or minority speakers at their convention and propping up a few of their leaders which is supposed to show they care about diversity isn't going to change the fact that their policies are cruel and benefit the rich. If we had more "fair" coverage Cal, Republicans would be asked about those issues more often, rather than all this stupid horse race coverage we're treated to day in and day out.

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A Fox News guest on Monday rejected calls to drop the use of term "illegals," and suggested that undocumented immigrants could "return to their country" if they didn't like the slur.

The Daily Caller's Michelle Fields told Fox News host Sean Hannity that liberals were trying to "demonize" conservatives in the Colorlines campaign to "Drop the I-Word."

"I'm not stopping it," Hannity insisted. "Illegal immigrant! Illegal!"

"People that enter into the country illegally are illegal," Fields remarked. "OK, that's not a racial slur. That's not racist. This is simply just liberals trying so hard to change the subject, to distract voters from Obama's failed policies."

"I think it's a racial slur, to be sure," left-leaning Fox News contributor Bob Beckel replied. "It's hate speech, which you right-wingers are pretty good at."

"So, you think I'm a racist?" Hannity wondered.

"I just think that in and of itself it is a racist word," Beckel replied.

"If illegals are so upset about the term 'illegal,' why don't they return to their country, apply for a visa and then come back legally," Fields advised. "And then we won't call them illegals."

In a online video produced for the Drop the I-Word campaign, Baruch College Professor Robert Smith explains why the word is so dangerous in political discourse: "'Illegal' functions like a racial epithet. It’s a way of legitimizing violence against a particular group of people because of what they are. That the definition of a hate crime."

(h/t: Media Matters)

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Completely ignoring Cal Thomas' very ugly remarks about Rachel Maddow at CPAC, where he said that "she is the best argument in favor of her parents using contraception" Fox News Watch host Jon Scott asked the panel this week if there really is a "war on women" or if it's just a ploy created by the left.

The segment opened with some video of Hillary Clinton weighing in on the matter at the Women of the World Summit and the best Jim Pinkerton could come up with was to say it proved she's running for president in 2016, because she dared to weigh in on "political" matters instead of staying above the fray in her position as Secretary of State.

Judith Miller shot back and talked about all the sorts of sexist attacks Hillary Clinton has had to endure over the years and applauded her for speaking out. Cal Thomas responded by citing some poll that was supposedly quoted by The New York Times, saying that 46-44 percent of women agreed it was alright for employers to opt out of contraceptive coverage and that you don't see enough conservative women having a chance to speak out on the matter (I guess he doesn't watch his own network) as proof that somehow conservative women aren't being given the same treatment as liberal women in the media.

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About the only thing more ridiculous than the decision by the producers on Morning Joe to bring on Franklin Graham to throw flames on whether President Obama is a Christian or not, or whether he's supposedly "more concerned about Muslims than Christians that are being murdered in Muslim countries" was this bit of concern trolling for Graham by the panel on Fox News Watch, where host Jon Scott asked if Graham was "ambushed."

He wasn't "ambushed" or forced to participate in any flame throwing during that segment any more than he was when CNN had him back on again for more of the Obama is a secret Muslim ridiculousness. What's really pathetic here is the panel in the Fox segment tried to claim Graham's agenda and he wanted to talk about got sidelined by questioning him on whether he thought he was a Christian or not, when what they claim he came on there to discuss was raising the exact same sort of drummed up concerns, which is that he supposedly more concerned about Muslims and making them angry than he is Christians being murdered in Muslim countries.

Apparently they're really upset that one line of calling President Obama a secret Muslim that's not really a Christian got highjacked by the crowd over at MSNBC and didn't allow him to make another attack on pretty much the exact same issue. And just ignore the fact that Graham got ample opportunity to discuss exactly what they claim he did not during that same interview.

Anyone watching this debacle with Graham every time he shows up on television knows what his game is about, which is painting the President as "the other" who is not really one of us, and somehow foreign, and playing to the birther nonsense that Graham has already made himself notorious for.

It's a really sad state of events when you've got one network slamming a really horrible interview where the producers should have known better than to bring Graham on in the first place because they knew what they were going to get and being upset because it wasn't more horrible yet and trying to pretend Graham's agenda got highjacked somehow. It wasn't. MSNBC should be ashamed for putting this birther who's just out to line his pocket and push a right wing agenda on the air and so should Fox for carrying water for him.

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After discussing the press conference held earlier in the day with students from Catholic University and other local campuses, held at the National Press Club who wanted to bring attention to the fact that a large number of Catholic universities and hospitals already cover contraception in their health plans, Rachel Maddow responded way too kindly in my opinion, to this:

Fox Pundit Tells CPAC Crowd That Rachel Maddow Is ‘The Best Argument In Favor Of Her Parents Using Contraception’:

In the “closed circuit world on the right,” MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow is often the subject of ugly denigrations. Whether it’s being mocked for her sexual orientation, her name, or even her education, right-wingers can’t get enough of slamming her.

During a political discussion at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) today, Fox News pundit and conservative columnist Cal Thomas continued the ugliness. After the Heritage’s Genevieve Wood played a quote of Maddow eloquently debunking the conservative argument on contraception, Thomas said:

I’m glad that you played the Rachel Maddow clip because I think she is the best argument in favor of her parents using contraception. I would be all for that. And all of the rest of the crowd at MSNBC, too, for that matter.

No one on the panel condemned the comment.

As Rachel noted in her segment, the thing that has Republican's in an uproar now with their feigned outrage, was supported by six of their own a little over ten years ago -- Six Republican Senators — Including Snowe And Collins — Co-Sponsored Federal Contraception Mandate In 2001.

MADDOW: Their rules are a compromised measure, trying to be super sensitive to religious institutions. Their rules are precisely what was proposed by Olympia Snowe and other Republicans in 2001, but yet they were being denounced as some sort of liberal abomination. It is in fact such a liberal abomination, that anybody who disagrees with Republicans' position on this today, according to the folks at Fox News, should never have been born at all. [...]

That happened at CPAC today, at the Conservative Political Action Conference today. Mr. Fox News person speaking there, I am sorry that you feel that way about me that you wish I had never been born. Personally, I'm glad that you were born.

Otherwise how would Republicans get the special Fox News bat signal that it's time to be outraged now, about what used to be Republicans' own policy idea.

UPDATE: Rachel Maddow reported tonight on her show that Cal Thomas called her personally and apologized to her and said he wished he had not made the remarks. Maddow graciously accepted Thomas' apology.

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After some typically dismissive coverage of the Occupy Wall Street protesters, Fox News Watch panelist Alan Colmes got into a somewhat heated exchange with conservative columnist Cal Thomas for the way Fox has been supportive of the so-called "tea party" while attacking the kids out there protesting on Wall Street.

When Thomas tried to claim that the "tea party" was actually a grass roots movement, Colmes jumped all over him and asked him about the big money behind those protests from the likes of the Koch brothers and Dick Armey's group among others.

Former Iraq invasion cheerleader Judith Miller wrapped up the segment by agreeing with Thomas that the movement started as grass roots, but also admitted that it had indeed been taken over by the Koch brothers and their ilk. Sadly no one had a chance to point out to her that the co-opting happened immediately and that the "tea party" would never have spread as widely as it did without the support of those AstroTurf-ers and the likes of Fox News and CNN supporting them with wall to wall coverage -- unlike these OWS protests that the media did their best to ignore for the first several weeks.

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In between their almost wall to wall coverage over the weekend of 9-11 ceremonies and specials recounting what happened during the attack ten years ago, Fox "News" still managed to take some time out to treat us to their excuse for a media "watchdog" show, Fox News Watch. And the panel members on there all seemed to be terribly upset that the much of the media seemed to lose their good will towards George W. Bush once we invaded Iraq, or they did in their revisionist version of what happened.

Jim Pinkerton actually makes the claim that there wasn't any sort of unity in the media as soon as the Bush administration decided to invade Iraq and that the notion of rallying around the flag ended once that invasion started. I guess Pinkerton wasn't watching too much of either his network or any of the others when we first decided to go in there, because I don't recall too many pundits daring to be critical of what we did or speaking out against the invasion that could be considered members of the “mainstream media” other than maybe Phil Donahue, and he got fired for it.

And how tragic is it that someone like Judith Miller who played stenographer to help sell the invasion of Iraq while she worked for the New York Times is allowed a seat at the table anywhere to talk about the media coverage of 9-11 today?

For a reminder of the details on that, go read James Moore's article on Miller from back in 2005 at the Huffington Post -- That Awful Power: How Judy Miller Screwed Us All:

Okay. I couldn't stand it any longer. When I saw the quote today from a New York Times spokesperson about Judy Miller, I blew coffee through my nose. "Judy is an intrepid, principled, and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who has provided our readers with thorough and comprehensive reporting throughout her career." I am submitting the lengthy piece below to prove precisely otherwise. I don't care how many awards Judy Miller has, she is a miserable failure who has irreparably harmed her country with bad journalism and by allowing her own personal beliefs to infect her reportage. Below is but one example. This is an edited excerpt from a book I wrote, which no one ever read, called "Bush's War for Re-election." And I am not trying to sell a damn book. I don't care if anyone ever buys it. But I do want people to know what this woman did. Read on...

Full transcript below the fold.

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After chatting during a commercial break that they weren't going to touch the Murdoch scandals, this weekend Fox's supposed "media watchdog" site devoted their first two segments to it.

‘Fox News Watch’ Covers Hacking Scandal For Two Segments:

Last week, “Fox News Watch” FNC’s media criticism show was criticized for not covering the hacking scandal involving its parent company, News Corp.

On this weekend’s edition, host Jon Scott led with the scandal, revealing the latest details — or almost latest, since the show was taped before Dow Jones CEO Les Hinton resigned late yesterday — and spending two segments of the half hour show on the growing scandal.

Cal Thomas, who last week said “I’m not touching it,” blamed News Corp.’s competitors for blowing up the story in order to end News Corp’s bid to take over BSkyB… which it did last week. “The left has been out to get News Corp. and especially Fox News Channel and the Murdoch family for years,” said Thomas.

Panelist and former Fox News host Alan Colmes, said don’t blame the left.

This knee jerk, ‘let’s blame the liberals, let’s blame the left. They’re out to get the News Corporation and out to get Mr. Murdoch.’ There has to be some personal responsibility and look, Mr. Murdoch seems to be taking that and put out an apology and visited the family of [Milly Dowler]. But there has to be personal responsibility and stop blaming the left and liberal media like it’s the liberals fault this happened.

And during the second segment, Jim Pinkerton complained that if the DOJ did launch an investigation, it would of course be evidence of an agenda by the White House.

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