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This has to be one of the most pitiful things I've seen in a long time, even by Fox's "standards" -- if they had any. Brit Hume jumped the shark on Bret Baier's show this Monday and tried to conflate their drummed-up Benghazi non-scandal to George W. Bush lying about Saddam Hussein and fearmongering to get us to invade a country that was not a threat to the United States.

HUME: Long experience teaches that highly anticipated Congressional hearings often fail to meet expectations. Witnesses don't quite say in public what they told investigators ahead of time. Congressional interrogators prove inept and unfocused. But if Wednesday's Benghazi hearing lives up to its billing and the truth about what happened that night and the administration's efforts to disguise it, might at last begin to come out.

Yet for this case to become the scandal it surely deserves to be, will require another ingredient – relentless news coverage of the kind the media typically avoid when the subject is someone or some cause they favor. That's why the Gosnell abortion horrors were played down for so long. And that's why the now-discredited Benghazi talking points are treated as just an honest mistake.

Each new advance tidbit from Wednesday's witnesses makes it clear that the State Department, CIA and White House deliberately concocted the Benghazi cover story that was false in nearly every particular. Now, think back to the disputed claim by President George W. Bush that Iraq had tried to buy uranium in Africa. It amounted to sixteen words in his 2003 State of the Union Address and it was arguably true.

But it triggered a media firestorm that did much to advance the notion that Mr. Bush had lied to the U.S. into Iraq. Now, suppose that administration had done what this one has on Benghazi.

It's hard to say what's more disgusting and reprehensible: The revisionist history on Bush lying us into invading Iraq, or the fact that he thinks his audience is stupid enough to believe four people being killed in a country that they knew full well was dangerous and in turmoil is in any way akin to the hundreds of thousands of lives that were destroyed and God knows how much money flushed down the toilet due to the actions of the Bush administration.

Every time I think Fox can't sink to a new low, they outdo themselves once again.

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If you didn't think the new George W. Bush library and its "Decision Theater" was bad enough already for the history revisionism on the invasion of Iraq, as MSNBC's Melissa Harris-Perry explained this Thursday evening when filling in for Rachel Maddow, wait until you get a load of how Bush's disastrous handling of Hurricane Katrina is treated.

HARRIS-PERRY: What are you doing this weekend? Got any big plans?

If for some reason you happen to find yourself in or around Dallas, Texas, there is a brand spanking-new attraction that just popped up in your own backyard. Introducing the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum.

Yesterday was the grand opening for the general public and this weekend marks the library`s long-anticipated inaugural weekend.

And if you`re going to be in Dallas over the next few delays, I`m telling you, you just must check it out, if only for the shock value.

Last night on this show, Rachel discussed the main attraction inside the new Bush Library, which is an exhibit called Decision Point Theater. It`s basically an interactive game where you can reenact the biggest
decisions that George W. Bush had to make as president. Decisions like should we invade Iraq.

The problem, as Rachel pointed out last night, when you try to say no, we should not invade! Please let`s do anything but invade Iraq -- President Bush pops up on the screen and starts making the case of all the
overwhelming evidence against Saddam Hussein, evidence that has since been thoroughly discredited 10 years later in what`s supposed to be a library is being taught as fact that Saddam Hussein was an imminent threat who must be dealt with unilaterally if necessary?

So there is a certain shock value to the new Bush Library. But if the Iraq war isn`t exactly your thing, if you want to relive the glory of another Bush decision, the George W. Bush Library gives you the opportunity
to do that. [...]

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Now that we've just had the opening of the George W. Bush library this Thursday, The Daily Show's Jon Stewart had field day with the former president and what he's been doing with his time compared to his counterparts, who are devoting themselves to public service or doing NGO work, in sharp contrast to Bush, who told CBS that he was painting "two or three hours a day."

STEWART: Sometimes it seems only a gallon of paint can... drown out the screams of those I've wronged. Plus, sometimes they let you use your fingers.

Stewart showed a portion of the softball interview with Bush given by Charlie Rose this week, asking him if he's getting any better at his painting and Bush responding that "It's all in the eyes of the beholder." Stewart concluded, "So in other words, art history will be the judge."

After showing news footage that the library is going to contain over 43,000 "artifacts" from the Bush presidency, Stewart concluded:

STEWART: So it's basically the Hard Rock Cafe of catastrophic policy decisions.

Stewart went on to take some shots at Bush and the reports on his rising poll numbers and why, and then wrapped things up with his "Senior Correspondent" Al Madrigal and the ridiculous "Decision Theater" on display at the library, or as they rightfully dubbed it here, "Disasterpiece Theater."

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Following today's niceties by his fellow former presidents and President Obama, who of course felt compelled to try to come up with something polite to say about George W. Bush at the opening of his library, Chris Hayes reminded his audience that, luckily, he and his staff are under "no obligation to be nice for the sake of being nice" to Bush.

Hayes proceeded to lay waste to the Bush apologists who have been doing their best to rewrite his legacy, such as Fox "News", Jennifer Rubin and a host of his former advisers who have been making the rounds on the talk shows these days.

And then there's the bizarre "choose your own adventure" video game being featured at the library and the fact that they're trying to paint Bush as a great president because he had to make "tough decisions," regardless of how horrible those decisions were.

HAYES: This does not sound like the kind of thing that's going to make everyone realize what a great president George W. Bush was. In fact, it sounds to me like the world's easiest video game. Invade a country for no reason, or don't invade a country for no reason? Don't invade a country for no reason.

Celebrate John McCain's birthday while a deadly storm hits New Orleans or don't celebrate John McCain's birthday while a deadly storm hits New Orleans? Don't celebrate John McCain's birthday while a deadly storm hits New Orleans. I could do this all day.

Torture people or don't torture people? Don't torture people. Deregulate and tax cut the country into financial ruin, or don't deregulate and tax cut the country into financial ruin? There is no reason people, to over-think the Bush presidency.

It was just as bad as you thought.

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Chris Hayes took a shot at him the night before and this Thursday, The Daily Show's Jon Stewart took his turn skewering Rand Paul for his appearance at Howard University. Paul asked the audience there how his party has managed to go from being one that elected the first twenty African American congressmen to becoming a party that now loses ninety percent of their vote, and Stewart was happy to answer that question for Sen. Paul.

Stewart proceeded to explain for Paul that maybe that pesky Southern Strategy employed by Nixon and St. Ronnie and Bush Sr. -- all the way up to recent times and presidential contender Gov. Rick Perry and his Niggerhead Ranch -- might tend to alienate a voting bloc.

Jon continued by going through baby Paul's train wreck of a speech at Howard which you can read more about here: The history Rand Paul struggles to understand:

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MSNBC's Al Sharpton took former President George W. Bush to task for the latest attempt to gloss over the disaster that was his two terms in office with the opening of his presidential library,

Omission accomplished: President Bush uses library to try to rewrite history:

According to the library’s official website, it will be ”a results-oriented institute that will have an effect on our country and, we think, on the world,” focusing on areas including economic growth, human freedom, and education reform. But it’s tough to say what results can be gleaned from the legacy of the president who turned a budget surplus into a deficit, left us into a major recession, permitted the use of “enhanced interrogation” techniques, and instituted the “No Child Left Behind” education policy that is widely criticized even by Republicans today. [...]

“It looks like a theme park as much as it is a library,” according to Lou Dubose, co-author of “Bushwhacked: Life in George W. Bush’s America.” Dubose points out the library also includes a freedom tower, a freedom plaza, a decision points library, the bullhorn Bush used to talk to first responders from ground zero, and even Saddam Hussein’s pistol.

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Even though host Bob Schieffer admitted that he has not read conservative author and columnist Amity Shlaes' recent book, The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression, he and his producers were more than willing to allow her to come on Face the Nation this Sunday and give their viewers a big heaping helping of the right-wing revisionist version of just what Coolidge's economic policies brought to the country.

It's shameful that someone like this right wing hack is still being allowed time on our airways, but not surprising, since I'm sure the bile she's spewing here, dressed up as an intellectual, high-minded conversation about political biographies, fits in perfectly with the economic policies favored by the 1 percent running the network she's appearing on. They don't seem to be concerned one iota if there's nothing but rich and poor left in America, and as long as their pockets continue to be lined.

Here's more on Coolidge that Shlaes and her ilk are doing their best to make sure never makes its way into the history books: What the right forgets about labor history:

Busting unions gave Calvin Coolidge the White House, but it gave America the Great Depression

For years, American workers’ wages have stagnated, even as they produced more. Since 2008, they have been socked with staggering new bills for bank bailouts and hammered by a Great Recession brought on by the very same banks. Now public sector workers are confronted by a new crop of Republican governors who want to put an end to unions. Union workers in Wisconsin have already conceded all of Governor Walker’s draconian demands. But they want to hold onto their right to bargain so that they won’t be at the mercy of the whims of political appointees or rogue school boards. Tens of thousands have swarmed Madison to show their support for the working people of Wisconsin.

Conservatives are tasked with coming up with a narrative that makes villains out of these working folks and heroes out of the powerful people who aim to squeeze them for what’s left of their economic security.

This is not easy. And you have to admire their ingenuity. Amity Shlaes, ever the eager revisionist, has whipped up a widely parroted narrative that contains just enough truth to give it the ring of plausibility.

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Most conservatives these days are doing their best to pretend that former President George W. Bush didn't exist at all and wipe him from their memory banks. It seems his brother is hoping for some revisionist history to redeem him instead: Jeb Bush: 'History will be kind to my brother':

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush says that the public will view his older brother, former president George W. Bush, more favorably as time passes.

"In his four years as president a lot of amazing accomplishments took place," said Jeb Bush, the son of former President George H.W. Bush, during an interview on NBC's Meet the Press. "So my guess is that history will be kind to my brother, the further out you get from this and the more people compare his tenure to what's going on now."

The 43rd president has largely stayed out of the spotlight since leaving office. After presiding over broad public discontent over the Iraq War and a flailing economy, George W. Bush left the White House with poor approval ratings and was notably unpopular even within his own party.

Jeb Bush said he hasn't yet spoken to their famous parents about the idea of his own 2016 run.

"I don't want to begin the process to think about it until it's the proper time to do so," he said.

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After Sen. John McCain gave his most recent excuse for opposing the nomination of Chuck Hagel for Secretary of Defense, which is that Hagel was "disagreeable" to George Bush and was mean to him after we found ourselves lied into invading Iraq, Rachel Maddow took on McCain for his history revisionism and for wanting to re-litigate the fact that everything we were told about why it was necessary to go in there and how things were going once we did was wrong.

Maddow has a new documentary which will be airing this Monday titled: Hubris: Selling the Iraq War and it seems John McCain inadvertently has done his best to do a promotion for the special with his behavior this week, because as Maddow pointed out in this segment, if we allow the likes of McCain to pretend that going into Iraq wasn't a disaster and one of or biggest foreign policy disasters since Vietnam, we're going to see it happen again.

Here's more on Rachel's special next week: Rachel Maddow To Probe Lies That Led to Iraq War in TV Special 'Hubris':

Perhaps you think you’ve read or heard it all. Hell, I even wrote my own book about it, So Wrong for So Long,. But now Rachel Maddow is promising surprising revelations in her MSNBC special Hubris: Selling the Iraq War, next Monday night in her regular time slot.

It will be President’s Day, but it looks like she sure won’t be celebrating George W. Bush. Or the mainstream media.

The special marks the opening of what will surely be a slew of tenth-anniversary programs and other media revisits. If you want to go back yourself now: Ten years ago today Hans Blix made another fateful presentation to the United Nations on his team’s search for WMD in Iraq. It was said to bolster both opponents and proponents of a US invasion, since he still found no evidence of such weapons but Saddam was still not cooperating fully with inspections.

Why does this all matter? Well, consider this major Washington Post piece last night on Iran allegedly boosting nuclear program by pursuing certain…magnets. It never ends. [...]

It will be interesting to see if she covers her colleagues, such as Chris Matthews, backing the war, and her network’s move to oust Phil Donahue partly for opposing it.

Given the deference we generally see her give David Gregory, I doubt it. Go read the rest and Greg's got some excerpt clips embedded along with links to a few others. I read Michael Isikoff and David Corn's book, which her documentary is based on, shortly after it came out, but I haven't picked it back up since. Apparently there are going to be some new revelations that weren't in the book as well. It sounds like it will be well worth tuning in.

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Surprise, surprise! It's all sour grapes over at Fox now that it seems Republicans are finally going to allow a clean vote on this so-called “fiscal cliff” bill that had passed the Senate. Leave it to their resident curmudgeon Charles Krauthammer to use the opportunity to paint President Obama as some evil Socialist who just wants to extract money from those hard-working rich people so that the lazy, good-for-nothing moochers out there can have their “entitlements.”

Never mind that he's completely wrong about President Obama being willing to negotiate with Republicans (far too often with the hostage taking we've witnessed), or that Republicans were the ones who originally voted to have these tax cuts expire. And never mind that we've got record income disparity and if we want to pay for a democratic society with a middle class, we should have a progressive tax code where the rich pay their share.

And of course no segment on Fox would be complete without some revisionist history in the form of St. Reagan worship.

BAIER: I mean, if you look at his deficit and debt commission, the Simpson-Bowles commission and the recommendations that came out of there (sorry Bret, but there were no recommendations from that commission, it failed) and what has not been followed through on, now two years ago, it's pretty remarkable.

KRAUTHAMMER: But he's not interested in that. And he's not interested in leading on spending. He's not interested in cutting spending. I think if you look at this in a large view, it's now becoming very clear who he is and what he wants to do. He's now in his second term. He's liberated.

He can be open about what he wants to do. He once said on '08 that Reagan was a historical President in a way that Clinton or Nixon was not. He meant Reagan changed the nature of the country. He got it hooked on low taxes, less government and an increase in inequality, is the way Obama sees it.

He sees his historical role, Obama, is to undo Reaganism and that means, not to cut spending. It means to raise taxes and he let the cat out of the bag on Monday. In that little rally he had, he said to Republicans, you're not getting any spending today and you know that, any spending cuts, but he said that if you think that you can get spending cuts after this in the rest of our negotiations, the answer is no. If you want a cut in spending, you're going to have to increase taxes on the rich.

Remember, he got an increase in revenues now by raising the rates on the rich. Well, now he's going to return, as he said on Monday and get increased revenue from the rich by eliminating deductions, the other way to do it. So he has no interest in anything other than raising the level of taxation, to sort of pre-Reagan levels, so he can support the entitlement state, which is what his presidency is all about. It's a very long view and I think he's attacking it in exactly the right way, if you were of his ideology.

Yeah, that's the ticket. The Kenyan usurper Socialist Communist just wants to beat up on the poor, oppressed rich people and steal all of their money for those lazy, undeserving seniors who would like their Social Security benefits so they don't starve. Krauthammer's still stuck in the '60's if he thinks this sort of talk is going to move most people when you still have so many people hurting from the recession and unemployed. That said, he knows he's speaking to the Fox viewers here, who are probably stuck right there with him.