From Fox News Watch the panel has a nice 'fair and balanced' discussion on media bias, using of course Brent Bozell's winger site the Media Research Center as their guide for what to point to as their proof that the media has a liberal bias. I'm quite sure Bozell doesn't consider all the garbage Fox pumps out day after day as any sign that there might be just a slight conservative bias out there to counter whatever they manage to find from the other media outlets.

They show a clip of Katie Couric sucking up to President Obama which won Bozell's 'Let us Fluff Your Pillow Award' and cite an article by JokeLine in Time Magazine on Obama's first 100 days in office as two examples of bias towards Obama. When Dana Perino is asked to compare those stories to the kind of coverage Bush received here's how she responds:

Perino: Well there is no comparison and I gave up a long time ago as a Republican thinking that we were going to get comparable type of coverage. There are though--a lot of Democrats will tell you that President Bush got a lot of fawning coverage after 9-11 and obviously that swung back the other way. But I always say if you are, if you're looking for communications advice, ask a Republican because they've had to try so much harder.

Scott: To be fair Ellis, you think there's a quote from a conservative member of the media that deserves to be (crosstalk)

Henican: Those are two icky examples. I mean I wouldn't want to be caught on tape saying either of those things.

Scott: Icky.

Henican: But yeah, come on. Let's be honest though. There is some pretty awful stuff on the other side and I did a little poking around and how's this one from Limbaugh, right? You know he said a few things. He said we've been told that we have to hope he succeeds, that we have to bend over, grab the ankles because his father was black. And that's pretty awful.

Perino: Okay, that isn't... I would never say something like that, but Limbaugh doesn't pretend to be a... objective journalist. Okay? And Katie Couric does.

Henican: And there's a variety of quotes we can pull from any of those venues. But listen, people have asked stupid stuff in both directions. Let's admit that.

Lowry: What's different Ellis is one he's not supposed to be an objective reporter. Two if you go to the Media Research web site and look at...

Henican: An objective organization right?

Lowry: and look at every single video clip from the inauguration and in your words, icky, every single one of them is icky from every single major media outlet. They were in love with this guy. And they still are most of them.

So Perino thinks as long as you're not pretending to be objective, it’s alright to say the most foul, racist crap imaginable with sexual references to boot about the President, and Rich Lowry thinks that The Media Research Center’s video collection is a fair and balanced look at the media coverage of President Obama, and obviously doesn’t consider Fox News or right wing talk radio a 'major media outlet'.

I’m so glad sweet little Dana Perino at least qualified her defense of Limbaugh with saying that she wouldn’t have said it herself. Well, that makes your defense of his statement much better Dana. I'm sure Perino also doesn't think any of the negative coverage Bush got in the press was deserved but we'll never get any honest discussion on that on Fox News either. I assume playing apologist for him is at least paying well for her along with the rest of the Bush lackey's that keep showing up on my television screen on all of the networks.

Can someone explain to me why Rep. Stupak and Sen. Nelson's attacks on a woman's legal reproductive rights are not being called into question over nothing more than their push to inject conservative ideology into the health-care bill? And why are the media not highlighting this at all?

It's a complete and utter media bias against women. Liberals are being portrayed by the media elites as being against the Senate health-care bill on the grounds of ideology because of the exclusion of the public option, but any serious person knows our beef is with the actual legislation of the bill and how it will help Americans. The public option is a tool that could create real competition against the health care insurance industry, and is its own cost-control mechanism. We also loved the Medicare buy-in at fifty five, but that fig leaf which was yanked out from under us -- a fact missing from the Sunday talk shows.

What function does the Stupak amendment or Nelson's anti-abortion compromise actually serve in the implementing of health-care reform for America, except to target the health-care concerns of women across America?

Barbara Boxer's compromise gives states the right to opt out of actually having health-care providers cover abortions and all medical issues that arise for women who deal with this issue. That's a huge step backwards for women in America.

Does allowing all those "pro-life" state legislatures like South Dakota's to completely opt-out of any requirement to offer coverage for abortion sound like an improvement to you? Do we all relish the inevitable, bloody state-by-state abortion battles?

On Meet The Press, David Gregory didn't even bother to have one female on the panel to discuss what is happening to their rights, as Taylor Marsh observed:

Well, as with the late Tim Russert, once again with David Gregory on “Meet the Press,” women are not seen or heard at a time when abortion politics has been at the center of the healthcare debate. (I’ve been covering this reality for years.) That women also pay more for health insurance evidently doesn’t meet the “Meet the Press” standards for being included in the debate. That says it all, not only about the continuing If It’s Sunday, It’s Misogyny...

Yeah, why would the opinion of a woman be needed when talking about abortion rights anyway?

Andrea Mitchell, Pat Buchanan, the Morning Joe crew and Bloomberg's Al Hunt were fawning over Sarah Palin's visit to the Gridiron Club over the weekend. It's interesting that she went to talk to the group of people she says she despises the most. An outside observer would say that Sarah is trying to butter them up so they will report her in a much more sympathetic way. And looking at Al Hunt's literally foaming at the mouth over her indicates that her ploy is working out perfectly.

Mika: He escorted Sarah Palin to Saturday Night's Gridiron dinner.

Joe: How exciting.

Mika: That's a black tie event for the media and she was pretty good I hear.

Hunt: I did, ahhh she went into the lions den and I gotta tell you something, the lions were absolute pussy cats.

Group laughing and howling: Ahhhh, hahahaha

Hunt: They wanted to have their picture taken with her. They wanted to have her autograph and it was just say I thought we, being the Grid Iron Club did as well as ever. Our two speakers were Sarah Palin representing the republicans and barney Frank representing the Democrats. Can you think of a better pair than that? They both were quite good.

I'm sure they were, Al. Did you get a snapshot with her? She should have charged 20 bucks for a Polaroid and would have made a killing from these journos. The media were just such pussycats to Palin even though she's making her living off of blaming them for every mistake she's made or problem she's created for herself. She's a lion I tell you. And you wonder why America is so ill-informed...

Here's some coverage from US News:

"Who would have guessed I'd be palling around with this group?" she asked, and surely there are Sarah fans wondering why she was there going vogue, instead of rogue. Well, a gal's gotta make her millions, and the media helps sell books. Besides, being anti-everything can wear a person down. "The view is so much better from inside the bus than under it," she noted.

The only mousse was for dessert (rim shot, maestro please), but Palin did some field-dressing of her egotistical audience. It was fun to be among the capital's "leading journalists and intellectuals," she said. "Or as I like to call it, a death panel."

She noted that the journalists may have missed out on the policy prescriptions in her memoir, Going Rogue, when focusing instead, as they are apt to do, on how many times she mentioned their names. What a group of heavy thinkers, Palin said: "You read a book in its entirety—from the first page of the index to the last."

She'll keep reaching her hand out to the media; they will take it and then she'll bite it firmly and painfully. And then they will stick out their other hand and ask for more...

Palin's book tour had the media also fawning over her, which has helped her with a small bump upward in a CNN poll. Now only 46% of people have an unfavorable opinion of her while 46% approve her.

That's a small jump after the media gave her the Anna Nicole Smith coverage. She's had the best coverage she will ever get. And what's up with the hat?

Andrea Mitchell asked a Villager health-care panel on her show today to discuss how Harry Reid can get to 60 votes with the public option since the "Gang of Four" refuses to budge and threatens to kill health-care reform entirely.

Mitchell: And Ruth Marcus, what do they do, how do they water down the public option to make it acceptable to some of the moderates but placate some of the more liberals?

Marcus: Well, it's the "and still placate some of the more liberals" is the hardest part. You're dealing with a very complex Rubik's cube really at this point because every time you change something to please someone, you're annoying someone else and potentially losing his or her vote.

But the public option, I think, could be scaled back. There is already something that Sen. Carper from Delaware is working on in terms of allowing it to take effect perhaps more quickly in states or immediately in states which have very high costs and other states could opt in. There is Sen. Snowe's old trigger option that one could still pull the trigger on, so there are ways of doing it.

I think that in the end it is possible to mollify enough of the centrist Democrats, perhaps even a Republican -- now that seems awfully remote. The president, I think, is going to have to tell the left wing of his party and the balking liberal Senators that it is crazy to pull down the entirety of health care over this one issue which the president has already said is not the be all end all of health reform.

It's always the liberals who need to compromise their positions to the conventional wisdom of the Villagers. The Gang of Four are all righteous and virtuous while liberals are out-of-control hippies who act like barking dogs. How dare they want to produce a real reform measure that could eventually provide true competition for the health care industry and that will help lower overall health care costs? Outrageous!

Remember, Marcus was being a concern troll the day after America elected Obama to the presidency with a mandate to overhaul health care and wrote a column telling him to not to govern from the left.

Yet the experience of President Bill Clinton's rocky early months -- remember gays in the military? the BTU tax? -- suggests the steep political price of governing in a way that is, or seems, skewed to the left. This risk is particularly acute for Obama, whose opponents have painted him as a leftist extremist. The good news is that his advisers seem exquisitely aware of this trap and determined not to fall into it.

As David Sirota wrote:

The standard lie about Clinton's failures aside (it was NAFTA, stupid), the last sentence is particularly odd. Obama's "opponents have painted him as a leftist extremist." Yet, that supposed "leftist extremist" won the largest presidential mandate in the last generation.

And somehow, having done that, we are supposed to believe that means he should tack to the right.

Say what?

Email Marcus and ask her why the Gang of Four aren't the real problem, since 56 other Senators are fine with the public option: marcusr@washpost.com

Did you know that Luke Russert is the new political It Girl?" From now on, I'm calling him Clara Bow.

Digby explains.

Little Luke:That's what all signs are point to right now. But the interesting thing we can take away from this is a point that NBC producer Ken Strickland made that I think is great. It's that Harry Reid, no matter what happens, he is showing to the liberal base that he has done everything in his power to get a bill with a public option to the floor at least up for debate.

This satisfies the liberals, this satisfies the MoveOn.org crowd, and really, I think it will show him to be the standard bearer of the liberal cause, Andrea.

Andrea Mitchell: Luke Russert, you're in the right place with the best story in town. Thanks so much.

Young Luke is quite the analyst. You can see why he was vaulted to the top of the American news business over the heads of others who have far more training, brains and ability. It's in the blood.

Just in case anyone missed it, Little Luke thinks that actually getting a public option in the bill isn't important to liberals -- the real victory is that the public option got to the floor. Apparently, Villagers think this whole thing was simply a bid for attention and now that the savvy Reid has delivered that, it doesn't matter what the bill has in it, we just love him to death. After all, liberals would certainly would never be so bold as to forget our place and think we might actually win something. How silly.

To the wise and worldly Little Luke, liberals are children to be appeased with gestures and shiny objects. I wonder where he learned that?

The Villagers are covering their asses because they declared the public option dead a long time ago, so now the story is that we're all happy little Cheeto-eaters because Harry Reid got it this far. What morons. And they wonder why blogs are cutting into their world. Maybe Luke is just looking for more college football tips.

Gawker has a little more.

John Cole finds Chuck Todd wanking away on Twitter.

Shorter Chuck Todd: It’s only big news if the Democrats fail!

I guess he didn’t pick up on the fact that if they had failed to get the 60 votes, HCR would, for all intents and purposes, be dead in the short run, as the Republicans would filibuster. That is why this is such a big deal- they have overcome the obstructionism of the GOP, and the debate can advance.

Although in fairness to Chuck, he may be more concerned with why Obama didn’t reach out more to President McCain. Not to be too subjective, or anything.

*** Update ***

Can anyone imagine the feeding frenzy for the next two weeks if they had failed to get 60 and advance the debate? Can you imagine the Sunday shows tomorrow? Can you imagine all the headlines speculating if Obama was a lame duck? “Senate fails to advance health care reform. Is Obama’s entire agenda at risk?” and “Obama’s signature legislation killed in Senate. Can he recover?” and “Republicans, spurred by sagging Obama poll numbers and grass roots support from tea party, stop Obama administration in their tracks.”

And Chuck Todd would be leading the goddamned charge with that crap.

Chuck Todd explains in Twitterific form what the Village really thinks. Does he not understand how the legislative process works? Nope. Does he remember that it was a Blue Dog Royal Senator named Max Baucus that helped pass Bush's tax cuts and medicare drug plan:

Some Democrats think Mr. Baucus betrayed the party in 2001 when he supported President George W. Bush's tax cuts, and in 2003 when he was one of two Democrats to help Republicans pass a Medicare prescription drug plan.

If George Bush had failed at getting these through, would Todd be questioning the conservative movement? Nope. They would be telling America that since they elected Bush, the Democrats were traitors to America. But when a Democrat is President all the Villagers look forward to is failure.

Deleted scenes from Sicko (2007) showing the health care system in Norway.

Ever wonder why the single most sensible, economical and democratic way to provide health care to every person in the US was never really mentioned in the rhetoric whirlwind of public options, opt-outs, co-ops, triggers and free market embracing?

Part of the reason why is that the media refused to mention it:

The media analysis group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) issued an action alert September 22 titled "NYT Slams Single-Payer" that described lopsided reporting in a New York Times article about "Medicare for all," a form of a single-payer health care system. FAIR noted that the article, titled "Medicare for All? ‘Crazy,’ ‘Socialized’ and Unlikely", laid out a list of arguments against single-payer while failing to include any balancing responses from the option's supporters.

Yeah, those nutty Norwegians, not to mention Canadians, Danes, French, Brits, Swedes, etc. etc. They're all just crazy for treating health as a human right, instead of a corporate profit opportunity. FAIR continues:

It's worth noting that thousands of doctors have voiced support for a single-payer system (see, for example, Physicians for a National Health Program's letter to Barack Obama), in part because they believe they spend too much on the administrative costs associated with private insurance companies. A survey of physicians published in the Annals of Internal Medicine (4/1/08) found that 59 percent supported government-sponsored national health insurance.

Seelye also wrote that Medicare for all "would almost certainly mean a big tax increase on the middle class," before noting in parentheses: "Supporters argue that a tax increase would be somewhat neutralized by the elimination of premiums that people pay now to insurance companies." Actually, single-payer advocates argue that a payroll tax on businesses (many of which currently pay for private insurance for their employees) and a small income tax increase that would likely amount to less than what most citizens currently pay out of pocket could fund a single-payer program. By calling a "big tax increase" a near-certainty and treating the savings on insurance premiums as a claim made by advocates, the Times told readers which side it was on.

Seelye cited Stuart Altman--identified as "a Brandeis economist who specializes in health care and who advised Barack Obama in his presidential campaign," but not as a director of a managed-care company that offers health insurance plans (WhoRunsGov.com)--to make a similar point about potential tax increases, and then went to "the other end of the political spectrum" to quote Robert Moffit of the conservative Heritage Foundation: "I don't see popular support for it beyond liberals.... It's a philosophical question: Do you want to give the government that kind of power?"

Of course, one might point out that public polling for years has demonstrated that support for single-payer is much broader than merely a liberal sliver of the population (FAIR Action Alert, 3/12/09); a July 2009 tracking poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation found 58 percent support for Medicare for all. But a piece detailing the deficiencies of a "crazy" single-payer system is an unlikely venue for that.

FAIR is asking that you contact NY Times Public Editor Clark Hoyt as to why they would run such an unbalanced and factually-challenged piece that hurts Americans by lying to them about their health care options.
CONTACT:
New York Times
Clark Hoyt, Public Editor
public@nytimes.com
Phone: 212-556-7652

Poor, poor old Pat Buchanan thinks that Fox News has "objective" reporters... like Chris Wallace... and that the White House was completely unfair "to say that the Fox News reporters sittin' in there are the Republican opposition". Chris Wallace huh? Have you even watched his show Pat? For that matter have you turned their station on lately as I unfortunately have?

I have watched Wallace's show on Sunday just about every stinking week for the last several years since I've been helping Mr. Amato out with video at this site, and the words "objective" or "reporter" are not what come to mind for me when watching Chris Wallace in action. Hack, partisan, corporate lackey and Republican shill are some of the kinder terms that come to mind for the likes of Wallace and his buddies over at ClusterFox.

Since Pat would probably be more comfortable in a chair at Fox rather than MSNBC which is trying to paint itself as a "liberal" network, his response is not surprising. Of course the rest of the panel chimed in that this smack down by the White House of Fox was just terrible for them. Heaven forbid they might eventually say something about what has happened to all of the rest of our sorry excuse for "news" shows which have been turned into info-tainment instead of something designed to inform their viewers.

If either the Democrats or the Repulicans cared at all what's happened to our media in this country, they'd be doing something to break this up. When six companies control the majority of what most people watch on the television, see at the show, read in the newspaper and listen to on the radio, we are no longer a democracy. Buchanan and his ilk are just a one part of a bigger problem we have, which is something that is allowed to pass itself for "news" is designed keep the American public dumbed down, ill-informed and more worried about the latest celebrity gossip than anything that will affect their daily lives.

(h/t David N.)

When news came that Obama had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, I looked at my husband and said, "just watch, the wingnuts will lose it over this." And sure enough, I was right. But what threw me for a loop was how nakedly partisan CBS's Chip Reid was in attacking Obama for having the audacity to win the Nobel Prize, something even the great St. Ronnie didn't do:

REID: I mean, most Democrats have praised it, and most Republicans have said, you have got to be kidding me -- Ronald Reagan didn't get one, but Barack Obama, nominated 12 days after he was sworn in, gets a Nobel Peace Prize. And the fear among some, even some Democrats, is that this is going to widen the partisan divide and make things even more difficult to accomplish on every front.

Really? Even more difficult than reflexively fighting *every* *single* Obama agenda item now? How is that possible?

It's touching, isn't it, to hear Chip Reid's concern that this will widen the partisan divide? After all, past winners have included Al Gore and Jimmy Carter...obviously the Nobel committee loves them some Democrats.

But here's the thing that all these insulated Beltway Villagers continually forget: Outside of DC, life is more than Republican vs. Democrat, something that Gibbs gently tries to suggest to Reid:

GIBBS: I'll leave the pundicizing to the pundits. The notion that somehow this is going to more greatly divide America, you know, I think it should be mandatory that pundits spend a certain amount of their days each year outside of the friendly confines of the viewership of the Washington, D.C., media market.

Of course, that goes right over Reid's head. For Reid, this is all about dismissing the Nobel committee -- in Norway, mind you, and not subject to the mind-numbing partisan reduction that Reid seems to breathe as oxygen -- as some liberal organization. He just can't get his head wrapped around the fact the Ronald Reagan -- the man who ended the Cold War! -- was never awarded the Peace Prize. As my friend, Steve Benen says:

A few thoughts here. First, when White House correspondents from major news outlets start sounding like members of Grover Norquist's "We Love Reagan" fan club, it's not a positive development.

Second, the notion that Reagan "helped bring the Cold War to an end" is, at best, a dubious proposition.

Actually, I think Chip Reid is unintentionally letting us into his psyche more than he realizes. He's continually been a go-to guy for Republican talking points for years. He routinely criticizes Democrats for things he lets pass by Republicans and uncritically passes on Republican attacks without context or fact-checking. And here again, he mouths the GOP mentality.

But think about it: if the Nobel Peace Prize only supports liberal causes, isn't Chip Reid admitting that peace is liberal? Then we need never look to conservatives again, because they will never bring peace. Right, Chip?

Transcript below the fold

Continue reading »

This too funny. Apparently Bill-O isn't happy with the way Jon Stewart has taken Fox to task for its "news coverage" and thinks he's "off the rails" for his treatment of his network. Truth hurts, doesn't it Bill? Bill tried to qualify his use of the word "loons" when it comes to liberals by cherry-picking one segment featured on the Daily Show, ignoring the fact that he throws the slur out there about every time he uses the word liberal. I'm sure the Great Orange Satan Markos Moulitsas or the good folks over at Media Matters that make Bill-O's head ready to explode on at least a weekly basis can attest to that.

Bill wraps this one by being worried that too many people think that Jon Stewart is "presenting an accurate picture of this country on his program". The propagandist doth protest too much about the court jester doesn't he? Sadly Bill, most people who watch The Daily Show are a whole lot more well informed than the ones who watch your show or your network, and the informed ones are well aware they're watching satire, and not "news".

Bill Moyers did an excellent segment with Kathleen Hall Jamieson and Drew Altman on health care reform, and in this segment they discuss how the polling and narratives being driven by the mainstream media and the 24 hour "news" cycle are actually preventing there from being an honest debate on health care reform.

BILL MOYERS: Kathleen, what's playing out here?

KATHLEEN HALL JAMIESON: People who are angry and frustrated and not necessarily well informed in part driven by people who are on the other side of the reform effort. And it's driving into news evocative visuals that are leading the public, I think, to overgeneralize the extent to which there is principal, reasoned dissent from health care reform.

DREW ALTMAN: It's part of our democracy, but I think it's actually kind of sad because the left, doesn't like this legislation a lot. They're not really enthusiastic about it. They would prefer a single-payer approach with more government. And on the conservative side, they're not crazy about it either. They would like a market approach, people getting vouches or a tax credit and just shop in the marketplace. This is down-the-middle legislation. And yet we see these fears and concerns as if this were a radical approach. It's not a radical approach. It's just a down-the-middle approach.

KATHLEEN HALL JAMIESON: But you're also seeing something else. In your clip you see a woman who says, "Is it coming out of my paycheck?" She's raising a legitimate question. But when people are shouting at each other, the answer doesn't get through. And when you're impugning the integrity of the person who's answering the questions, the member of Congress, that person's response isn't going to be believed if it is able to be articulated and isn't simply shouted down.

And so it's not creating context in which misinformation on both sides can be corrected. And that's the problem. We don't have a deliberative process here taking place in public to inform public opinion.

Instead, we're potentially distorting it.

Continue reading »

You know, I've been doing this Sunday morning shift for a few years now and I'm feeling a lot of sympathy for Bill Murray's character in Groundhog Day. Every morning I wake up, and it's the same ol' participants and the same ol' conversations and the same ol' media bias. Look at this line up: Sen. John "I didn't get elected POTUS, but I'll get the Sunday shows!" McCain on State of the Union; former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan on This Week (not to mention the ever-unbalanced and factually-challenged Michelle Malkin as part of the roundtable); National Economic Council's Larry Summers on both Face the Nation and Meet the Press and Senators Jim DeMint and Mike Pence on Fox News Sunday. Most egregiously, Tweety poses the question whether overt and extremist racism might actually help the Republicans. I can hardly stand it. Balance? A liberal perspective? Some journalistic integrity? Ha!

Doesn't it sound eerily familiar to pretty much every Sunday?

ABC's "This Week" - Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner; former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan.

CBS' "Face the Nation" - Lawrence Summers, director of the National Economic Council.

NBC's "Meet the Press" - Summers; former Reps. Harold Ford Jr., D-Tenn., and J.C. Watts, R-Okla.

NBC's "The Chris Matthews Show" - Panel: Eugene Robinson, Norah O'Donnell, Jennifer Loven, Howard Fineman. Topics: Why is President Obama losing public support for health care reform? Could racist talk from extremists help mainstream Republicans in elections? At the end of 2009, will Obama be viewed as a change agent? YES: 8 NO: 4; Will a handful of Senate Republicans vote for the final health care bill? YES: 11 No: 1.

CNN's "State of the Union" - Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz; Christina Romer, head of the Council of Economic Advisers.

CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS" - Will a new president help to stop the deadly downward spiral in Afghanistan? Fareed interviews the two candidates with the best shot at unseating President Karzai in this month's Afghan elections. Plus, is the U.S. government interfering in Iran? Spying? Supporting the opposition? Sending in radio and tv messages? All of the above?

"Fox News Sunday" - Rep. Charlie Rangel, D-N.Y.; Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C.; Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind.

Luckily, I got you babes to let us know what you see this Sunday morning. Leave your tips in the comments.

Connecting.the.Dots: The politics of personality disorder

Young Republican Voter Fraud Candidate

Whiskey Fire: True media bias is towards eyeballs, profit, and getting ahead according to the  strange rules of elite insider journalism.

Alternate Brain: Galloway on McNamara: Reading an obit with great pleasure

thump and whip: Thugs in Massey Coal shirts invade Keeper of the Mountains July 4th celebration and try to bust heads

Contextual Criticism: Answers in Genesis -an evil organization

In a yet another completely tone-deaf move hailed by GOP sycophants as cagey, Sarah Palin complained about the mean ol' bloggers chasing after her and sic'ed her lawyer after them, threatening lawsuits. Palin's lawyer, in point of fact, put out a four page letter (.pdf) outlining the "defamatory" charges against his client that would embarrass a first semester law student.

One of those in Palin's crosshairs is blogger Shannyn Moore. Shannyn has one message for Palin: Bring it on.

On the Fourth of July, when Americans everywhere were celebrating our most sacred national holiday with parades and barbeques, Governor Sarah Palin was busy having me, Shannyn Moore, declared an Enemy of the State.

In a rambling quasi-legal letter, the most powerful person in this state accused me of defaming her for pointing out the fact that there have been rumors, -rumors- of corruption, rumors that have been around for years.

When Sarah Palin gave her three-weeks notice to the people of Alaska, aborting her term as Governor, a lot of people wondered why she quit. Mid-level managers turn-in their notice, not elected public officials. It didn’t make sense. It still doesn’t. People have been trying to guess why she really quit, and everyone in Alaska has been playing the guessing game. They’re rumors. There are a lot of rumors. And with all the corruption we’ve had here in Alaska, of course we wonder what’s really behind her resignation.

Governors don’t just quit. But Governor Palin did.[..]

Sarah Palin is a coward and a bully. What kind of politician attacks an ordinary American on the Fourth of July for speaking her mind? What’s wrong with her? The First Amendment was designed to protect people like me from the likes of people like her. Our American Revolution got rid of kings. And queens, too. Am I jacked-up? You betcha. Sarah Palin, if you have a problem with me, then sue me.

You gotta love this woman.

Hat tip for this video to Shannyn's fellow Alaska blogger Gryphen at The Immoral Minority, who points out,

"Do you know the difference between a Shannyn Moore press conference and a Sarah Palin press conference? Shannyn's made sense."

(h/t David)

Oh poor, put-upon Bill O'Reilly. Those mean old "liberals" in the media are just itching to blame him for the assassination of Dr. George Tiller. Never mind that the only "liberal" cited is Olbermann, who flatly rejects the label and those who did actually call attention to the inciting rhetoric of O'Reilly in regards to Tiller were bloggers like C&L, who of course, were not invited by Howard Kurtz to give their point of view.

Kathleen Parker has the unenviable job of defending O'Reilly, though it's made easier by Kurtz's framing, which shows clearly where his sympathies lie:

KURTZ: Some liberal commentators couldn’t wait to accuse O’Reilly of inciting the violence that led to George Tiller’s murder. Fair or unfair?

PARKER: Irrelevant. I mean, yes, of course, it’s unfair. You can’t blame anyone for a crime except the person that commits the crime. Clearly, people on the far left are always looking for an excuse to attack Bill O’Reilly. And Keith Olbermann and O’Reilly tend to bounce off each other a good bit. So I’m not sure who this argument is really between.

Um, news flash to Parker, you absolutely CAN blame someone who incites violence, even if they don't actually commit the act. Ask Charlie Manson.

Parker's viewpoint is a little morally troubling, as she tries to play false equivalencies in the abortion debate and pooh-pooh the violent rhetoric as an "all's fair as each side tries to defend their stance":

KURTZ: What George Tiller was doing was legal, although many people did not like what he was doing, but I also want to mention he was shot in 1993 when there was no “O’Reilly Factor”, like there was no Fox News. Do you think, Kathleen, that the people pointing the fingers at O’Reilly with varying degrees of fervor are politicizing this tragedy?

PARKER: Well, of course they are. This is…this is the Topic du Jour anyway, because of Obama’s recent address to Notre Dame. It’s on everyone’s mind. And you know, any opportunity for the pro-choice people to make their case more strongly is going to be taken advantage of, and same…and vice versa. I mean, we’re always listening to the extremes on either side. They’re the squeakiest wheels, the loudest voices and they get the attention.

So denouncing organizations that foment violence like Operation Rescue is the equivalent of shooting women's health providers? Defending the rights of women to make a legal choice is an extreme position? Really? Ugh, the morality of the "Moral Majority" is enough to make you sick.

But here's where it gets funny. After denouncing the media for going after Bill O'Reilly, Parker actually agrees with all those liberal talking heads (seriously, someone point out to me where these multitudes of liberals are, I need to do some DVR programming) that this tragic event should illustrate how important it is not to broadcast such violent rhetoric:

PARKER: I would love for the outcome of this to be that O’Reilly—and all of these talking heads who become so completely over the top so many times—just to say look, this is a teaching moment. We’re not gonna do this anymore. We’re not …we’re gonna make our cases as strongly, we’re going to be passionate, but we’re going to tone down the rhetoric. I mean, wouldn’t that be a great result?

Well, yes, it would, Kathleen...and that's why we're saying that Bill O'Reilly should take responsibility for that kind of violent rhetoric. Is that so hard to understand?

PARKER: The media followed the fire, clearly. You know, wherever the heat is, that’s where—and I’m part of the media, I know how this works, I’ve done this for a long time—where the action is. But there is, I think, the media are always going to defend the pro-choice position. They’re less likely to portray sympathetically the pro-life position, that’s just a fact.

Damn, and just when I thought you were getting it, Kathleen. The media (which is neither monolithic nor particularly liberal-leaning) is not defending the pro-choice position, you nimrod. That's the law of the land, whether you like it or not. Violating laws--like murder and terrorist acts--and trying to disrespect civil rights of others is not a sympathetic position for anyone to advocate.