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CNN media critic Howard Kurtz on Sunday said that Fox News host Bill O'Reilly had "missed the mark" by offering an absurd defense after asserting that NBC News had not covered a story about drone attacks that the network was actually first to report.

On Wednesday night's O'Reilly Factor, the Fox News host opined that liberals had not complained about recent revelations of the Obama administration's justifications of drone attacks on American citizens the way that people on the left were outraged about the use of waterboarding against detainees during President George W. Bush's presidency.

"Remember the outcry over waterboarding?" O'Reilly asked Fox News contributor Bob Beckel. "You know, everybody jumping up and down? NBC News, I thought they were going to, like, melt down over there."

"You heard anything on NBC about the drones?" he continued. "So you haven’t heard anything over there about this, and neither have I. Neither has my staff. Okay? So we haven’t heard anything. But we heard a lot about waterboarding, but nothing about drone strikes. How do you process that?"

Kurtz pointed out that O'Reilly's comments were "kind of curious," given that the story had been discussed on NBC News and the MSNBC cable network repeatedly after NBC News chief investigative reporter Michael Isikoff exclusively released the memos that President Barack Obama's administration used to justify the drone strikes.

"So O'Reilly obviously misspoke and I thought he would just come back the next night and correct the record," Kurtz assumed.

But, instead, O'Reilly shocked viewers by blaming the "far-left machine" for painting him a "deceiver."

"True!" he exclaimed. "I didn't say NBC broke the [drone] memo story because we weren't talking about that. Waterboarding vs. drone strikes!"

"Bill, the only reason there is a drone debate right now is because NBC News revealed that memo," Kurtz said.

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I've been listening to the talking heads on the right rant and rave all week that Democrats are hypocrites because they didn't speak up about this drone program from the Obama administration, and that is somehow equal to George W. Bush sanctioning torture. That if everyone is not equally outraged and calling for accountability or impeachment, they should just shut up because they're just partisans who don't really care about any of this if it means speaking out against their own party.

Examples like this one aren't helping the cause any. As Digby noted, we had Fox on the attack, quoting John Yoo and calling the Obama administration hypocrites, and then we were treated to Krystal Ball proving their point:

Today's Fox News Special Report showed footage of Candidate Obama in 2008 hotly condemning the Bush administration's extra-judicial terrorism policies and then the "all-stars" debated whether President Obama and all his supporters are hypocrites. It's hard to argue that there isn't some serious hypocrisy going on here. Unless you are Stephen "those WMD are there somewhere I swear it" Hayes who insisted that he is not a hypocrite, he's nothing but a pansy who's letting terrorists run free, I tell you, free! Everyone nodded solemnly. [...]

Meanwhile on MSNBC, Krystal Ball proves their point. She starts off saying that she's mostly "ok" with the drone program but thinks it needs more transparency and oversight. And then she discusses what really bothers her about the debate: the idea that we should have the same standards for all presidents. No, I'm not kidding:

Look, I voted for President Obama because I trust his values and his judgment and I believe his is a fundamentally responsible actor. Without gratuitously slamming ex-president Bush, I think he displayed extraordinary lapses in judgement in executing his primary responsibility as commander in chief and put troops in harms way imprudently.

President Obama would have exercised better judgment and he has exercised better judgment. The way it stands now the drone program is exclusively within the domain of the Executive. Their protocol, their judgement. So yeah, I feel a whole lot better about the program when the decider, so to speak, is President Obama. That's not to say that again the process shouldn't be codified, that there shouldn't be oversight.

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From this Friday's Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO: Assange urges leak of US drone rules:

WIKILEAKS founder Julian Assange has urged US officials to leak secret documents on drone strikes, saying that the broad discretion to kill citizens shows a "collapse" in the American system.

Assange, who has angered US officials by releasing thousands of secret memos, used a rare US television appearance to condemn President Barack Obama's controversial green light to kill American citizens who conspire with al-Qaeda.

"I can't see a greater collapse when the executive can kill its own citizens arbitrarily, at will, in secret, without any of the decision-making becoming public," Assange told the HBO talk show Real Time with Bill Maher.

"That's why we need organisations like WikiLeaks. I encourage anyone in the White House who has access to those rules and procedures, work them on over to us. We'll keep you secret and reveal it to the public."

Assange spoke to host Bill Maher, a supporter of WikiLeaks, by video link from Ecuador's embassy in London, where he has been holed up since June to avoid extradition to Sweden. Britain has refused him safe passage to Ecuador. Read on...

Full transcript below the fold.

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Never mind the latest disturbing and chilling news that the Obama administration believes they've got the right to be judge, jury and executioner with this drone program of theirs, all in the name of fighting this endless "war on terror." Sen. Lindsey Graham is just fine with that. Graham appeared on Sean Hannity's show on Fox to continue ranting and raving about their drummed up fake controversy over the attack in Benghazi. This horse was beaten to death a long time ago, but that didn't stop Hannity and Graham from declaring that "a major bombshell was revealed" during Panetta's testimony this Thursday.

Here's the way Fox covered this interview: Where Was President Obama During the Benghazi Attack? Hannity Discusses With Sen. Lindsey Graham:

On Capitol Hill yesterday, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee, which is looking into the Pentagon’s response to the Sept. 11, 2012 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi.

The most revealing piece of information to come out of the testimony was when Panetta said that President Obama was absent on the night of the attack, in which four Americans were killed. Panetta and Dempsey said they briefed Obama during a pre-scheduled meeting at 5pm ET on that day, as events in Benghazi had just started to unfold. They said there was no communication with the president until after the attack was over more than eight hours later.

Last night, Sean Hannity discussed Obama’s absence with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who questioned Panetta at length about why the president was apparently not engaged as the attack unfolded.

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Fareed Zakaria read his recent article at Time Magazine during the opening of his show on CNN this Sunday and while I take issue with his idea of who the "experts" that Romney should be enlisting on foreign policy are, he's exactly right that Romney is doubling down on the very policies that have made President Obama unpopular -- our lopsided support for Israel and the use of drones to go after so-called terrorists.

Failure to Launch:

Mitt Romney picked a bad day to launch a blistering attack on Barack Obama's foreign policy. As Romney was speaking to the annual gathering of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, charging Obama with weakness, betrayal and mendacity, NBC News and the Wall Street Journal released a new poll. It turns out that on "handling of foreign policy," Americans prefer Obama to Romney by 15 points.

Romney's principal charge against Obama is that he has angered America's allies and emboldened its enemies. Again, it turns out that some recently released data contradict the claim. The Pew Foundation released one of its global surveys in June, soliciting opinions from several countries around the world. When asked if they have "some" or a "great deal of" trust in President Obama, the numbers are overwhelmingly positive. In Britain, for example, which is Romney's first stop on his foreign tour, 80% of people trust Obama, compared with 16% who trusted George W. Bush. All countries surveyed have much higher approval ratings of America in 2012 than they did in 2008, when Bush was President. (It's fair to note that the numbers have come down from their 2009 highs, just after Obama's Inauguration, when expectations were soaring.) [...]

There are parts of the world where approval rates for Obama have dropped significantly and where America is viewed with suspicion. They include Russia, China and the countries of the Arab world. This would suggest that Obama has not given these countries what they want, thus earning their disfavor. That is precisely what Romney seems to want in his speech--approval from allies and disapproval from adversaries.

And consider the reasons Obama's ratings are low in the Arab world. The two strongest justifications given by people in every Arab country that was surveyed are, first, that he has not been fair in dealing with the Israeli-Palestinian issue, and second, that he has used drone attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan to go after terrorists. In other words, the reason Obama has lost some of his global popularity is that he is perceived as too pro-Israeli and too hawkish. [...]

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House Homeland Security Chairman Peter King (R-NY) on Sunday refused to confirm the existence of U.S. drone strikes in other countries, but later insisted that the unmanned flying machines were being used to "carry out the policies of righteousness and goodness."

During an interview on CNN, host Candy noted that an analysis by the New America Foundation estimated that drone strikes have had an 17 percent civilian casualty rate since 2004.

"Because I'm on the Intelligence Committee, I can't officially acknowledge that we have a drone program," King told Crowley. "I'm not concerned [with the casualty rate]. My belief is that when you're in war -- and we are in war -- the idea is to kill as many of the enemy as you can with minimal risk of life to your own people. As far as the civilian casualties, every one of those is tragic. But the fact is in every war, there's a large amount of collateral damage, of civilian casualties -- whether it's World War II, whether it's the Korean War -- and if we were using ordinary explosives, we would also have those type of civilian deaths."

Crowley pressed King on whether the U.S. would criticize other countries -- like Russia -- if they began using drones to strike outside their airspace.

"I think we have to assume that the Russians would use drones if they could," King explained. "Just as we had to assume during the Cold War that they would use nuclear weapons. ... I wish we could all live in a world where we could hold hands and love each other. The fact is, that's not reality. We have an enemy that wants to kill us. I live in New York. I lost over 150 constituents on 9/11, and if we can save the next 150 by killing al Qaeda terrorists with drones then kill them."

He continued: "We have to assume that there's always going to be an increase in weapons. This has been the history of mankind. That's why we have to make sure our defense budget is not weakened and that we stay ahead of the enemy."

"There's evil people in the world. Drones aren't evil, people are evil. We are a force of good and we are using those drones to carry out the policy of righteousness and goodness."