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CNN host Howard Kurtz on Sunday blasted News Corp chief executive Rupert Murdoch for an "atrocious" suggestion that stereotyped the "Jewish owned press" as having a hidden agenda.

In a tweet on Saturday, Murdoch had lashed out at what he called the "Jewish owned press" for its coverage of a recent conflict between Hamas and Israel.

"Why is Jewish owned press so consistently anti-Israel in every crisis?" he wrote.

The Daily Beast's Peter Beinart quickly noted that Murdoch's tweet managed to offend both journalists and Jews.

"It’s offensive to journalists because it implies that institutions of the 'press' should reflect the ideological biases of their owners," Beinart wrote. "Reading Murdoch’s tweet, it would be logical to conclude that he believes that any newspaper he owns should reflect his right-wing views, even in its news coverage."

"Murdoch’s tweet is offensive to Jews because he’s suggesting that when it comes to Israel, Jewish media-owners should let their Jewishness guide their journalism. ... Murdoch seems upset that Jewish media owners are not Israel-firsters. He wants their tribal loyalty to a Jewish state to trump their professional obligation to oversee fair-minded, unbiased journalism."

In his Sunday media analysis on CNN, Kurtz also tore into Murdoch.

"Last night, he went beyond outrageous to offensive," the media critic said of Murdoch, observing that most media organizations -- with the exception The New York Times -- were owned by public companies like Viacom, Comcast, Disney and Time Warner.

"And beyond that, this media mogul who isn't shy about interfering in his own newsrooms is suggesting that Jewish Americans have a hidden agenda in which their religion trumps their commitment to journalism," he added. "That is atrocious and it is beneath Rupert Murdoch."

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The Nation's Jeremy Scahill and The Daily Beast's Peter Beinart joined Joy Behar to discuss the latest document dump from WikiLeaks and the implications it might have on our diplomatic relations and the debate over our foreign policy.

I agree with Scahill that there's been a lot of attack the messenger here with the rhetoric about Julian Assange's decision to make this information public which has taken away from the larger debate we should be having in America. I for one would like to hear a discussion on why we think that dropping bombs on poor people's heads rather than addressing poverty is a good idea as a means to end terrorism.

The Obama administration has done nothing to hold the Bush administration accountable for their crimes and are continuing way too many of their policies with this ridiculous "war on terror". Peter Beinart's assertion that we'd be having this conversation in our so called "mainstream media" if we just left this to the journalists in America is ridiculous. We've had plenty of journalists like Jeremy Scahill reporting on the these subjects and they've gotten little attention and garnered little discussion on the cable news shows.

I spend a great deal of time monitoring those shows and if you're not watching Amy Goodman's Democracy Now, you're not hearing these sorts of discussions very often, if at all. They're drowned out by debates from "the left" and "the right" and who's ahead in some poll for the week and what Sarah Palin is posting on her Facebook or Twitter page. Joy Behar looked like she couldn't wait for the segment to end so she could move on to the rest of the really important things she was covering on her show, like celebrity gossip. She'd have better served her audience by allowing these two the full hour to continue the conversation here.

WikiLeaks next document dump is apparently going to give our masters of the universe on Wall Street some headaches, which I look forward to since they haven't been held accountable for their actions either.

Full transcript below the fold.

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Apparently Liz Trotta has dispatched a team of investigators to Martha's Vineyard to check on t-shirt sales and they discovered that Sarah Palin is very popular there, or she's just making stuff up. She also thinks that we shouldn't take any attack ads about George Bush seriously because some of the beltway Villagers that she decides to label as the "far left" said some nice thing about George Bush and his insistence that we don't conflate the religion of Islam with terrorism. It's all an evil plot by the terrible "liberal media" where they're pretending to miss Bush now, only to attack him later when the mid-term elections come around, or something.

What Trotta really doesn't want to discuss here is that Republicans would like to keep George Bush locked away somewhere far from sight until the mid-term elections are over and aren't happy about the timing of the release of his new book.

Trotta: Well, let me give you... in keeping with the spirit of what we've just seen, you know, the president is a... President Obama is vacationing up at Martha's Vineyard and apparently the t-shirt that's selling the most is one that deals with President Bush and it says “Miss me yet?” Apparently the subtitle says, "How's that hopey-changey thing workin' out for ya'? " Well we know where that would come from.

But that's the funny part. The serious part is yes, there are invocations to Bush. the Washington Post editorials, their columnists; namely Eugene Robinson " you can't get any more far left than that. And the New York Times and of course Maureen Dowd are all making the case he took the right stand on the... the right Constitutional stand, the right First Amendment stand when it came to separating terrorists from the Muslim... from the Islamic religion.

And so there's what what looks to be a sort of nostalgia at first glance about Bush. What you are seeing from the liberal media is attempt to use his arguments to further their own cause; and that is, that the mosque should be banned. So, I don't think we should take much of it seriously.

Howard Fineman of course of Newsweek did a sort of half serious piece saying that because of Obama's sinking popularity, because of the economy, because of the upcoming elections, there is this kind of wistfulness for Bush and he does have a book coming out.

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I could not agree more with Glenn Greenwald on this one. What the hell is wrong with Howard Dean and any of the other Democrats who have lost their spine on this issue? If we don't have the Democratic Party standing up for the First Amendment, who the hell is going to? We sure as hell can't count on the Republicans to do it. This just disgusts me to no end as it did Glenn.

Howard Dean: "Mosque" should move:

Certain things are disappointing and surprising even for the most hardened cynics. Hearing Howard Dean -- the former liberal standard-bearer -- join Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin by saying the following is definitely one of them. [...]

Making this more repellent is that he doesn't even have the "I-want-to-get-re-elected" excuse. Today, former Reagan Solicitor General Ted Olson -- whose wife, Barbara Olson, was killed on 9/11 -- said he saw no reason for Park51 to move. And Peter Beinart, expediting his ongoing transformation from TNR Seriousness Guardian into shrill liberal blogger, today called on Democrats to -- as he put it -- "Grow a Pair" by standing up to this increasingly toxic campaign. Yet here comes Howard "I'm-from-the-Democratic-wing-of-the-Democratic Party" Dean, advocating that the vicinity of Ground Zero be turned into a Muslim-free zone because some people don't want Muslims near it. It's episodes like this which breed increasing levels of pervasive disgust and even indifference about electoral outcomes.

Read on...

UPDATE: As aggravated as I was with Howard when I wrote this post before it went up for promotion to the front page and before he went on Countdown to explain himself, I respect that fact that he was willing to defend his stance and try to clarify it, but I agree with Keith, he's not doing the Democrats any favors by giving weight to the extremists in the right wing. He may not have meant to, but he did.

The victims of 9-11 are not the ones driving this or that need to be talked to. They already had a chance to have their positions heard when they had the local meetings in New York. The extremists he says should be left out of the debate are the ones pushing this.

I would not be as aggravated at Howard Dean as I am if I didn't think he was one of the good guys who's just dead wrong this time around and if I didn't think his comments were fueling those who want to spread hatred instead of tolerance. I'm sick to death of them using any Democrat to justify their bigotry.

You can watch the Countdown interview here.

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Is anyone else as tired of seeing this man compare apples to oranges day after day on CNN? I've had about a belly full of him ever since he came on the air and compared Ed Schultz and Alan Grayson to Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin in his weekly "Wingnuts" segment on Saturdays. In this segment it was Nancy Pelosi somehow being equal to Rush Limbaugh and Dick Armey in John Avlon's world.

First of all, Nancy Pelosi does not "run the Congress". She is the Speaker of the House and she has no control over what happens in the Senate. And she's "polarizing" because flame throwers like Armey and Limbaugh love to beat up on her night and day and paint her as some evil flaming liberal that's out to destroy the country with her "socialist agenda". Nancy Pelosi is not out there race baiting and working wingnuts into a lather day after day like Armey and Limbaugh are.

I've got issues with Nancy Pelosi but it's for allowing the Bush administration to have a pass afer the Democrats got the House back and took impeachment off the table.

Transcript below the fold via CNN.

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It seems Bill-O isn't taking too kindly for the criticism of Fox News over their lack of coverage of the earthquake in Haiti. Bill lashes out at Media Matters: REPORT: Top Fox News programs devote scant coverage to Haiti earthquake, The LA Times: CNN does it right in Haiti, but Fox drops the ball and Peter Beinart at The Daily Beast--Doing Disaster Relief Right.

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Joan Walsh and Peter Beinart do a pretty good job here of tag teaming Nancy Pfotenhauer on her punishing the rich talking point. It was nice to watch a panel where they didn't let her talk over everyone the entire time as she likes to do if they let her.

HUGHLEY: Nancy, what do you think? Is he a communist?

PFOTENHAUER: I heard communist and socialist thrown around, and they are two different things. If you want to talk about communism, that's more "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs." So it would be more the redistribution of wealth aspect.

I do think his tax the rich thing is punishing prosperity, which is an antithetical to the American dream, and completely ignores the fact that the top five percent of the earners in this country, they do earn about 36 percent of the income. They pay about 60 percent of the income tax, and the bottom 40 percent pay zero. So I'm not sure that's the way he should be going. So that would speak to the redistribution act.

WALSH: But why is it --

PFOTENHAUER: Excuse me?

BEINART: Sorry, go ahead.

HUGHLEY: We just turned into Jerry Springer. Who is going to say -- Joan, what were you saying? You were about to say something.

WALSH: I think that we have had a situation. We are not punishing the rich. Let's be honest. In this country, we have a game that is rigged. If you're born wealthy, you stay wealthy. It's very hard to climb out of the middle class into wealth.

It's still possible. It's a great country. We provide a lot of opportunity. But the rich are finally about to pay their fair share, and Obama, finally a president did what he promised to do. He gave a tax cut to 95 percent of the country. And if you're lucky enough to be in the top five percent who will pay a little bit more, well, you're a lucky person to start with and you should be paying more.

(CROSSTALK)

BEINART: What happens is Republicans always play this game, Republicans always play this game when they start talking about taxes. They start talking about taxes, and then they add the word "income taxes."

PFOTENHAUER: I will talk about payroll.

BEINART: Payroll taxes are much more regressive. They fall much more aggressively on poor people. So do sales tax. So Republicans always talk about income taxes are so weighted against the rich. That is actually the most progressive part of our taxes.

PFOTENHAUER: Let me talk then, particularly, to payroll taxes. When you include payroll taxes with income taxes, the numbers do drop, but not demonstrably.

So you can look at it. You still see the top earners paying the lion's share of both the income and the payroll taxes, and you see the prime earners -- I'm not arguing for anybody to pay more taxes. In a recession, no one's taxes should be raised.

Since President Obama is not talking about raising anyone's taxes other than the upper earners I don't think Nancy is really too worried about everyone's taxes. Just the types she used to lobby for. Just a hunch.

Full transcript to follow.

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D.L. Hughley talks to Peter Beinart and Bay Buchanan about Bush's exit speech, the future of the Republican party and the spinelessness of Harry Reid. Bay Buchanan as usual has about as little introspection as George Bush. I commend Hughley for managing to get through a segment with her and not allowing her to talk over everyone the entire time. Hughley is spot on with what's wrong with Harry Reid and the Democratic establishment. I think Hughley is also right about Obama in the sense that he's already showing himself to be more of a leader than Bush ever was, but that's a pretty low bar to hurdle. It goes without saying that the higher bar will be whether he can clean up the mess he's inherited.