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Last month, Fox's KT McFarland was attacking President Obama's policy in the Middle East and calling it a failure because he did the opposite of George Bush. This Saturday, she was back, going after Hillary Clinton and telling more lies about their drummed up fake scandal, Benghazi-gate and making the absurd claim that the Middle East was pro-American and stable until President Obama was elected and these uprising we've seen with the Arab Spring.

I'm not sure just how much more revisionist history someone could manage to pack into a four or five minute interview as we had here, but McFarland was doing her best to set a record with the amount of b.s. she was shoveling. Never mind anything that happened under Republican presidents. Everything was perfect until the Kenyan usurper came along and got himself elected.

JARRETT: What do we expect to hear from Secretary Clinton? Joining me now to talk about it KT McFarland, Fox News national security analysts. And, one takes her letter word when she and her spokespersons say she's been ill but she has certainly managed to dodge a lot of this event since September 11.

MCFARLANE: Yeah, you know Gregg, she says she takes full responsibility, but so far she's managed to avoid taking any blame. One thing though I think with these hearings, this will probably be the last opportunity these lawmakers have to question Secretary Clinton as Secretary of State and I hope instead of looking back and saying well “What did you now when did you now it?” and “Why did you talk about the video?” I hope instead they focus forward.

Which is “Why have you not responded?” Why has the American government not responded to these attacks? Why have we not gone after the people who killed our own? Because we know that ten years ago or in the late 1980's... '90's... 1998 East Africa bombings US embassies were bombed. 2000 and the USS Cole was bombed. We did not retaliate. We beefed up security. We changed the rules of engagement, but we never went after al-Qaeda and we knew al-Qaeda had done those attacks.

What happened as a result? Bin Laden said, let's go get them again and my concern, and I hope these lawmakers ask Secretary Clinton why has the United States not gotten those people who killed ours? We know where those people are. We could do a drone strike against them.

And then I think Gregg the second point they ought to ask her is why in two years have we gone from a Middle East which was stable and secure and pro-American to a Middle East which is in political and economic chaos, and and governments that are anti-American and increasingly turned over to Islamist radicals.

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In sticking with their running theme that President Obama doesn't spend enough time meeting with world leaders, Chris Wallace asked former White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs why President Obama was going to have time to appear on The View, not making time to meet with leaders during the U.N. General Assembly next week. As Gibbs reminded him, they have these things called telephones these days where President Obama can talk to these leaders at any time without the need for some formal meeting with any of them.

Obviously Wallace didn't think much of the explanation since he was still making snarky remarks about it during the panel segment later in the show. And I think Gibbs is probably right. If President Obama were agreeing to appear with Wallace, I don't think we'd hear him say a word about it.

WALLACE: I want to go back to the U.N. though and New York this week. You say that he’s got schedules, that foreign leaders have schedules. But the President has blocked out time to appear on The View on Tuesday. So, he has time for Whoopi Goldberg but he doesn’t have time for world leaders?

GIBBS: No, Chris. Look, the President is going to be actively involved at the U.N. General Assembly.

WALLACE: He’s not meeting with any private leaders. He's giving a speech.

GIBBS: Chris, they have telephones in the White House. Last week he talked to the President of Egypt. He talked to the leader in Libya. We don't need a meeting in Washington just to confer with leaders. We’ve got a strong...

WALLACE: But he does need the time to be on The View?

GIBBS: ...we have a strong diplomatic... I’m sure if he was doing an interview with you on Fox News, you’d have no problem with that.

WALLACE: Well, he hasn't. But that’s not the point.

GIBBS: I’m sure that’s not the point. No look Chris, he’s got a strong schedule. He’s actively involved. You...

WALLACE: You don't have a problem with the fact that he’s not meeting with any world leaders, but he’s going to appear on The View?

GIBBS: I have no problem with that, because, Chris, you’re the President of the United States every minute of every day. That's why he talks to the leader in Turkey that's a hugely important leader in a country in that region of the world. That's why he picked up the phone and talked to the president of Egypt and tell them they have to have a strong reaction to this violence at our embassy.

They have to protect our consulates and our embassies and the people that work in them. Chris, this isn't just about one meeting on one particular day in New York. The President's actively involved and engaged in the most dangerous places in the world every single day of every week.

After years of carrying water for Bush on foreign policy, Fox is now doing their best to help the Romney campaign and painting President Obama as somehow weak on foreign policy and not doing enough to keep us safe from terrorism. As was pointed out on Rachel Maddow's show last week: New York Magazine's Frank Rich Tells Rachel Maddow: "Fox Really Is An Arm Of The Romney Campaign".

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Jon Stewart took a shot at Sarah Palin as well on this Monday evening's The Daily Show, but he spent the majority of this segment absolutely skewering Sean Hannity and Dan Senor, or as we like to call him, Baghdad Bob, for their sheer and utter hypocrisy on the topic of whether the United States ought to be promoting democracy around the world.

Apparently their view is completely dependent on whether it's George W. Bush, or that Kenyan usurper they hate so much in the White House. Stewart ended the segment by having Senor literally debate himself.

Maybe that hack Scarborough can show Senor this clip the next time they decide to have that neocon warmonger sitting in on the entire three hours of Morning Joke again.

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If it's Sunday, it's meet John McCain. McCain appeared on Face the Nation for I think about his gazillionth Sunday show appearance to throw some more stones at the Obama administration and beat some more war drums, because lord knows this man is not happy unless we're getting involved in another military engagement.

I hate to break it to McCain, but America's standing in the world improved the minute that President Obama was elected and the rest of the world was breathing a sigh of relief that George W. Bush was gone. There are plenty of us out here who don't like the fact that he's been too hawkish and continued too many of Bush's policies and hasn't held the Bush administration accountable for their actions. But to claim that because he hasn't been more aggressive that the President has somehow harmed our standing in the world is just utterly ridiculous.

McCain: U.S. "is weakened" under Obama:

Senator John McCain, R-Ariz., was skeptical that violent attacks on the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya were not preplanned.

"Most people don't bring rocket-propelled grenades and heavy weapons to demonstrations. That was an act of terror," McCain said on "Face the Nation" Sunday. "For anyone to disagree with that fundamental fact I think is really ignoring the facts." [...]

McCain said the United States has adopted a policy of "disengagement" under President Obama, which, he said, has "weakened" America's standing in the world.

Pointing to the violent protests this week in Benghazi, Libya and Cairo, Egypt, McCain said, "The fact is the United States is weakened.

"It was Osama bin Laden that said, 'When people see the strong horse and the weak horse, people like the strong horse.' Right now the United States is the weak horse." [...]

He also defended Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's rapid criticism of a statement put out by the U.S. Embassy in Cairo - before the protests turned violent - condemning the anti-Islam film.

"It was a semi-apology," McCain said of the Embassy's statement. "We shouldn't be apologizing for freedom of speech. We should be saying we demand freedom of speech for these people," he said.

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This clip from this morning echoes many of Kirsten Powers comments in her op-ed at the Fox News site. The rightwing twitter-verse may applaud Ms Powers for speaking truth to power, or whatever, but viewed from the opposite political perspective, one wonders why Fox News employs this token "Democrat" if she's just going to come off as a less shrill, less hysterical version of Ann Coulter? Don't appearances such as this one just blow her cover?

Team Obama’s unseemly groveling to violent extremists has been cloaked in a newfound concern on the left for respecting religious sensibilities. Tuesday, a liberal professor argued in USA Today that the maker of the Mohammed film should be arrested.

President Obama said in the Rose Garden: "We reject all efforts to denigrate the religious beliefs of others" and Clinton asserted that, "The United States deplores any intentional effort to denigrate the religious beliefs of others." Deputy National Security Adviser Denis McDonough endorsed efforts to create "a world where the dignity of all people—and all faiths—is respected."

Apparently our foreign policy is now being run by Dr. Phil. Someone needs to explain to the White House that our Constitution protects freedom of religion from government interference, not the protection from people who say mean, critical or offensive things about one's religion.

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At the so-called Values Voters Summit, which should have been called the lying-liars' wingnut summit, hypocrite and former gambling addict, Bill Bennett, came to Mitt Romney's defense and attempted to do some rehab for him after his disastrous response to the attacks on our embassies.

Bennett: The Press Attacked Romney on Libya and Tried to 'Kill This Truth in the Womb':

During his astonishingly smug introduction of Paul Ryan at the Values Voter Summit, self-styled "values czar" Bill Bennett blasted the Obama administration's response to the attacks in Libya and Egypt while hailing Mitt Romney's crass attempt to exploit them for political gain as a bold stand for truth.

After falsely claiming that the administration responded to the attacks "by shuddering and shaking and wondering at the consequences of our First Amendment," Bennett then declared that the fact that Romney's response was so widely pilloried as tactless and inappropriate by the media was itself proof that what he sad was true because the press sought to "kill this truth in the womb; something it is well-practiced at":

And as the Washington Post pointed out after noting this about his speech: Bill Bennett proposes new fact-checking, media-bashing formula. "Now there’s a fresh fact-checking model for you."

BENNETT: Whatever timing, wording or parsing one may want to bring up, one may want to suggest as an improvement on his remarks, his words had a shock effect, didn't they? They had a shock effect because they were true. When they are condemned so broadly, so almost universally, among the establishment press, it is likely that they are true.

Sorry Bill, but they were shocking because they were so easily disprovable, completely brazen and crass in how ill-timed they were, but hey, heaven forbid that should get in the way of your talking points here. Bennett had the feigned victimhood and the "liberal media bias" nonsense all wrapped up in one nice steaming sack of lies with this one. Nice "values" you've got there pal.

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Rachel Maddow let Mitt Romney's running mate, Paul Ryan have it for showing up in the middle of all of the turmoil going on right now in the Middle East and Africa and just after the death of our ambassador in Libya, at the Values Voter Summit 2012. As she noted, if anyone wanted to know why Hillary Clinton was being attacked along with her aid Huma Abedin, look no further than the wingnuts appearing at this event.

Here's more with a rundown of that from Right Wing Watch: Who's Who at the Values Voter Summit 2012:

This weekend Republican and conservative leaders, including GOP vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan, are set to address the Values Voter Summit in Washington, D.C. Last year, nearly every single Republican candidate for President addressed the conference, where speakers denounced gay rights, secular government, legal abortion and the Mormon faith.

This year, Ryan will be speaking at a conference that is playing host to some of the most extreme activists in the Religious Right who have made careers demonizing gays and lesbians, attacking the freedoms of Muslim-Americans and promoting wild conspiracies about President Obama. [...]

Jerry Boykin

Family Research Council vice president and retired Army Lt. Gen. William “Jerry” Boykin sparked a controversy when, as a high-ranking official in the Bush Defense Department, he framed the War on Terror as a holy war against Islam. He has since built a career as a Religious Right speaker, specializing in anti-Muslim rhetoric and anti-Obama conspiracy theories. He:

• asserted that “Islam is evil”;
• rejects religious freedom for American Muslims, claiming that Islam “is not just a religion, it is a totalitarian way of life.”
• wants to ban mosques;
• warned Obama is using the health care reform law as a cover to establish a private army of Brownshirts loyal just to him;
• accused the Obama administration of showing “support for the infiltration of the Muslim Brotherhood into our government”;
• claimed the bailout of AIG led to the establishment of Sharia law;
• said that American Jews were misled into supporting Democrats by wrongly thinking Adolf Hitler was right-wing extremist;

Along with his role at the FRC, Boykin is also a leading member of the dominionist group The Oak Initiative. In a speech at the group’s conference last April, he declared that George Soros and the Council on Foreign Relations conspired to collapse the U.S. economy in order to help Obama get elected. [...]

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Wow. Even poor old John McCain can't get any respect on Fox these days. During an extremely contentious interview with Sean Hannity Thursday evening, Hannity ends up cutting McCain's mic after he refuses to agree with him that the United States should cut off aid to Egypt after the protests there over the last week.

It's pretty bad when Fox is so desperate to attack the Obama administration that they can't even get McCain to go along with them:

HANNITY: This is a Fox News alert. The violence has fanned out across the Middle East with anti-U.S. protests spreading in countries like Iran, Iraq, Bangladesh and Morocco.

And the U.S. is fearing that this violence will continue to spread. We will continue to monitor the situation throughout this hour.

Joining me now with reaction from Washington, Arizona Senator John McCain. By the way, Senator, I do know that you personally knew Ambassador Chris Stevens. I am sorry about the loss, both for him, the country and his family and all the other families involved. Thank you for being with us.

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It takes a special sort of cravenness to be someone who supported the United States invading a couple of countries that were never a threat to us and then have the gall to ask if the Middle East is better off now than it was four years ago. But that's exactly what we got from Romney surrogate Norm Colemen during this Wednesday's PBS Newshour.

Sadly the likes of Coleman are going to be allowed back on the air time and again without ever having to explain why anyone should listen to them now when they were so wrong not too long ago, because there is no punishment for lying to the public on our airways any more.

Coleman was on there trying to make the case that Romney didn't shoot himself in the foot with his response to the attacks on our embassies. I'd say he didn't do any better than Romney did himself during his debacle of a press conference this Tuesday.

Coleman's talking points on the Middle East are going to end up falling just as flat as their four years ago economic nonsense has so far. The Romney campaign has been extremely long on name calling and extremely short on policy, even though they keep pretending they're the "serious" people in this campaign. The GOP clown care is more like it these days and you can add Coleman's ridiculous statement here to the list of why.

Transcript below the fold.

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As Dave already noted here, the roof has caved in on Mitt Romney with the number of people calling him unfit to lead after his disastrous response to the murders of American diplomats. We had Peggy Noonan and Chuck Todd throwing Mittens under the bus and you can add Mrs. Greenspan to that list as well.

Romney adviser Richard Williamson appeared on Andrea Mitchell's show this Tuesday to defend his candidate's craven political response to the incidents and it was nothing but more flame throwing and being extremely condescending to Mitchell. President Obama's leading from behind. He's apologizing for America. It's the same old tripe we hear over at Fox day in and day out, but they're not having quite so much luck selling their talking points this time around.

Williamson even attacked former ambassador Nicholas Burns, trying to pretend he's a partisan because he worked for Jimmy Carter. As Mitchell pointed out, he also happened to work for Republicans as well, but never mind that. His response was basically to shrug his shoulders and say, "So what?"

The Romney campaign has been lying so much, I was wondering what it would take for him to finally start losing the media. I think we got our answer this week. When you're losing the likes of Todd, and Noonan and Mitchell, Mark Halperin and Jake Tapper, you're in trouble. They've all been carrying a lot of water for the Romney campaign thus far to put it mildly. When even they can't take the cravenness of this campaign any more, stick a fork in him. I guess we'll see if this lasts and how much pressure gets put on any of them after the fact by the Romney campaign to change their tune as the week goes on.

Rough transcript below the fold.

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