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And the scandal-mongering over at Fox continues. On this Saturday's so-called "media watchdog" show, Fox News Watch, which does a good job of actually making Howard Kurtz look legitimate in comparison, host Jon Scott and a couple of his panelists were determined to continue to push the fake story about the IRS commissioner, appointed by George Bush, supposedly visiting the White House 157 times, despite the fact that the story has already been completely discredited.

Mediaite's Noah Rothman threw a little bit of cold water on some of his fellow panel members who were more than happy to go along with Scott, by pointing out that, no, IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman did not actually visit the White House that many times, but was simply approved for that many visits. It didn't stop him from doing his best to pretend that there's some validity to the rest of the piling on we've seen lately with them playing this IRS story for every ounce they can squeeze out of it, nor did he bother to point out that the fake story originated from Fox contributor Tucker Carlson and his rag, The Daily Caller.

He also couldn't bother to point out that it's pretty ridiculous to believe that some Bush appointee was doing political favors for the Obama administration. And he did not let the Fox viewers know, as the story in The Atlantic pointed out this week -- which he clearly read since he knew the 157 visits number wasn't correct -- that those clearances to visit the "White House" also include all of the surrounding buildings as well.

Fox regular and faux "liberal" Ellen Ratner gave some mild push back as well, but just like Rothman, she couldn't be bothered to point out all of the obvious, glaring problems with this latest, trumped up bit of "scandal" either.

I'd recommend reading the entire article from The Atlantic linked above on this, but Josh Marshall at TPM summed some of it up nicely here: Why GOP Scandal Mongers Can’t Have Nice Things:

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While others in the media are finally acknowledging that the Benghazi "scandal" which Fox has been pushing for months on end is nothing but a witch hunt and that ABC's big "scoop" on White House emails just left egg on their face and was nothing but lies being fed to them by Republicans, what are they doing over at Fox?

You guessed it... still scandal-mongering over Benghazi. And of course there was no acknowledgement by anyone on the panel of Fox News Watch this Saturday that the Republicans were caught feeding lies to ABC News. In Fox-land, the talking points by Susan Rice are still supposedly a scandal. They're carping that the White House doesn't treat the press nicely enough to suit them and that they don't know how to handle their messaging properly -- because we all know if they were better at messaging and nicer to the press, Fox would then give them a fair shake, right? They haven't managed to make this fake scandal of theirs stick, but they're still grasping at straws to be outraged about.

I thought that maybe they would just move on, since they've got themselves a couple of new drummed up "scandals" to chase after as well, but apparently they're not ready to let this witch hunt go any time soon.

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On this Saturday's Fox News Watch, the fake outrage that's been going on for months on end on the network over the embassy bombings in Libya continued, with the talking heads on the panel of course doing their best to hype Darrell Issa's upcoming hearings this week. When host Jon Scott asked his guests why the other networks weren't giving this story the same type of media of coverage as Fox, hilarity ensued.

The National Review's Rich Lowry claimed there's some conspiracy with the rest of the media to do the administration's bidding and help stonewall the issue and then later call it old news and say “let's move on.” Regular and Fox token “liberal” Ellen Ratner claimed that the other networks were just “jealous” after quoting someone saying anything that comes from Fox “ought to be taken with a grain of salt.”

Scooter Libby stenographer Judith Miller called the administration refusing to answer all of her network's questions “chutzpah” and Fox's Jim Pinkerton criticized the Washington Post for running a story about protests at a nuclear facility and how dare they write that story while ignoring Fox and their fake Benghazi outrage.

Judith Miller wrapped things up by having the “chutzpah” to actually claim it's “lamentable” that this story has become “politicized.” Well, there's one thing I agree with that was said here, but it's been the Republicans and her network that are responsible for it.

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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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Fresh off of the heels of the media complaining about their lack of access to President Obama and his golf outing with Tiger Woods and with Chris Wallace complaining that his was the only Sunday show where the new White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough refused to make an appearance last week, the panel on their Saturday joke of a media watchdog show, Fox News Watch, decided to continue on with the carping with a good portion of the jeering done by one of their faux Democrats, Kirsten Powers.

It appears that this is just a rerun of the what the viewers were treated to on the same show last week, where, as News Corpse took note of, we were hearing some very similar complaints out of the same culprits:

Fox earned a ninth place showing by having been called on for questions fourteen times. That is only two fewer nods than CNN and the New York Times received. And if Fox can be described as having been shunned, then the Washington Post, USA Today, and NPR were victims of blatant and deliberate neglect since they came in even lower than Fox at tenth, eleventh, and thirteenth.

Nevertheless, Fox seems to be the only news outlet that is complaining about their treatment by the President. They devoted a segment of their Fox News Watch program to whining that they aren’t getting enough attention, poor things. Host Jon Scott started the bitch session by crying “Why does the president not like to call on us?” Jumping in without being recognized was Fox’s fake Democrat Kirsten Powers who shot back “Because he doesn’t want to be embarrassed. When Ed Henry asks questions to Jay Carney, inevitably Jay Carney ends up looking stupid because he doesn’t know how to answer the question. He’s used to pushing people around.” And she’s supposed to be the voice of the left on Fox’s fair and balanced roster.

With friends like Kirsten Powers who needs enemas? And that is a perfect illustration of why Obama ought to start shunning Fox News. It has never been a credible journalistic operation. It is an unabashed agent of the Republican Party whose only purpose is to bash the President and support the right-wing agenda.

Meanwhile, over at Dan Abrams' rag, Mediaite, Fox and Politico, or as Charlie Pierce calls Politico, The Tiger Beat on the Potomac, were being treated as though they actually have any legitimate complaints about lack of access to the White House and that somehow preventing them from acting like journalists, if that's what either of those organizations actually decided to do one of these days.

Fox’s Kirsten Powers To Panel: Chris Wallace ‘Should Be Proud’ Obama Won’t Go On His Show:

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I've got to wonder if anyone over at Fox ever asked if something Bill Maher or any other left-leaning comedian said on the air was an indication of the rest of the media "coming around" on anything? I would guess the answer to that question is "No."

But that's the way Fox News Watch host Jon Scott opened up his show this Saturday, prior to yet another round of beating the dead Benghazi-gate horse. Fox does always have their double standards when it comes to "celebrities" though. If you're a Republican, you must be taken seriously at all times and might even end up being one of their idols, like the revisionist version of St. Ronnie they love to prop up. But if you're a liberal, you're going to find yourself either being completely ignored or scorned and mocked.

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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 joke of a media "watchdog" show over at Faux News, the panel members of Fox News Watch spent one of their segments again perpetuating the myth of the so-called "liberal media" and complaining that those "elitists" haven't shown hatchet-man Dinesh D'Souza enough respect. And we got treated to the false equivalency of them comparing D'Souza to the way Michael Moore has been treated by the media and the awards he's won, as opposed to them generally ignoring D'Souza.

Nonny already went through D'Souza's god-awful movie for us here, so just go read the post if you haven't already -- Doing the Right Wing Limbo – How Low Can They Go?. And judging from his terrible interview with Piers Morgan, which was featured in Nonny's post, and with Bill Maher and Cenk Uygur who both just took him apart, I think the best thing D'Souza could do for himself is to avoid doing any more interviews -- unless of course they're at Fox where he's just going to get softballs lobbed at him.

I hate to break it to the hacks at Fox, but D'Souza is being treated with disdain by the media because he deserves to be, not because of some supposed bias against conservatives. Once again rather than having an iota of concern for the truth, the talking heads at Fox are playing the poor, aggrieved victim-card for D'Souza, who supposedly just can't get a break from those liberal snobs who just want to keep him down. Break out the waaammmbulance. There are a whole lot more talented and truthful people out there all over the country who would love to have the money behind them that D'Souza's had to fund his hit pieces on President Obama. Sadly most of them will never be receiving the national attention or the money that D'Souza has been for cranking out his garbage to poison our public and political discourse.

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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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After Judith Miller went on Fox News Watch over the weekend to join the other guests there in carping about how dangerous the Obama administrations supposed national security leaks are which they've been accused of after the death of Osama bin Laden, Jon Stewart gave her the treatment she deserves on The Daily Show this Monday evening.

Sadly as everyone here knows all too well, after her stenography at The New York Times for Scooter Libby and his boss, former Vice President Darth Cheney to help lie us into invading Iraq, Miller is the last person that should be coming on the television complaining about an administration leaking.