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I'd like to know why the producers of This Week thought it was necessary to bring Laura Ingraham on the show to defend Fox News? She had about as much to add to the conversation as Michelle Malkin did not long ago. The rest of the Villagers did a pretty good job of circling the wagons around Fox whether the likes of Ingraham was there or not. Ingraham's hackery became even too much for the rest of them to take when she started comparing the White House's view of Fox to that of "Islamic Jihadists".

STEPHANOPOULOS: Now the president did cancel the subscription, George, but then he kind of blew it off. Is it time now as President Obama faces down FOX News down for a JFK moment?

WILL: I think so. Look, no president in the history of this republic has less reason to complain about his treatment in the press than President Obama. Liberals have academic, they have a mainstream media, they have Hollywood. They’re all for diversity and everything but thought. And out here is this one channel, FOX, and they’re all up in arms because in the words of Ms. Dunn of the White House, it is opinion journalism masquerading as news, which some of us would say describes the “New York Times” and certainly MSNBC.

PODESTA: Well, we have partners in journalism in America for a couple hundred years. But I think FOX takes it a little bit to a different level. I think Bill Shein, the vice president for news at FOX came out and said, “We are the opposition.” You know, that I think, can you imagine David Westin going out and saying something like that? Anybody, really in the mainstream news organization, they’re organizing. And I think it seems to me they were overcome with that feeling of joy you get from telling the truth once in a while. And probably they may actually even regret going as far as they have.

INGRAHAM: Well as the FOX representative on this show, by the way, you’re all going to be banned from any future White House events from having me at this table.

Bill Shein said that and I know him well. He said that, because he believes that of all the networks, FOX was going to hold the administration the most accountable. Last time I checked, I thought that was the role of the press. I think and again, I might not be invited back George, but when Charlie Gibson didn’t know what the ACORN story was all about, that was a collective gasp you heard across the United States. Charlie Gibson is an esteemed journalist, how do you not know a story about a group where President Obama cut his political teeth that had been exposed to the extent that Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill were ready to pull the rug out from under them in their funding? That’s the kind of the story that the White House doesn’t want to have reported and repeated on other networks. That’s why they don’t like FOX News.

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Now, there were dozens of close elections around the country in districts where there was a significant minority turnout, often with the help of ACORN organizers. But guess which one Bill O'Reilly considers the one most worth investigating.

Al Franken's. Of course.

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Keith's staff put together a montage of clips from Obama's speech mixed with the right wing freak out leading up to it.

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Okay, we've had the tea baggers, the birthers, the deathers and so what do we have now? The "speechers"? Good grief. Our own Susie Madrak wrote about this in her post Wingnuts Are In Full Bloom. Obama Speaking to Schoolchildren Is Really 'Recruiting for Hitler Youth.' and Media Matters has a good run down of the collective freak out over this at Fox Noise and some of the right wing blogs as well- Conservatives on Obama's stay-in-school speech: "Indoctrination," "brainwashing," Communist China, Hitler Youth.

Never ones to go off script, Laura Ingraham and Monica Crowley continue the hysteria about Obama potentially wanting to have some sort of mind control over children by giving a speech that they should stay in school and Alan Colmes, for once, counters his right wing Fox cohorts and treats this nonsense as anyone with a functioning brain should. By mocking it.

Crowley: This guy is not over exposed enough right. So now he's going after pre-K, four and five year old kids, up to sixth grade with this message. Look, just when you think that this administration can't get any more surreal and Orwellian, here he comes to indoctrinate our children.

Colmes: Indoctrinate...

Crowley: You know that there's going to be a political message in here Laura, right? It's going to be something about the environment, green jobs...

Colmes: Where? I don't see that?

Crowley: Something is going to be embedded here because the guy cannot help it.

Colmes: Right.

Crowley: And look, there's a reason why he's only going up to the sixth grade. Because number one the older kids would be like "what is this?" And number two, he's gotta' get them young.

Colmes: (laughter)

Crowley: This is such, this is what Chairman Mao did Laura.

Colmes: Oh my god.

Crowley: This is Max Headroom. This is going into every single classroom. There is no escape from him.

Ingraham: Monica, I hate to burst your bubble, but there are also materials going out for sixth grade and high school...

Crowley: Oh! See, I knew it!

Colmes: Get 'em young! Get 'em in that tent! Get 'em in that Democratic liberal tent!

Crowley: That is the point.

Ingraham: Well first of all Alan the thing I like is that it's so micro-managed, it's so micro-managed that they even suggest the ways to make posters with Obama's notable quotes...

Colmes: It will be like this..

Ingraham: ...about past speeches. What is this?

(crosstalk)

Colmes: Next you're going to accuse them of implant chips in these kids' brains, right?... And they're going to program kids to go Obama... Obama... Obama right? That will be your next ah...

And they go on from there. Jebus, I think Ingraham and Crowley were trying to give Beck a run for his money tonight. I was glad to see Colmes looking like he had some what of a spine for once.

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Wow. Imagine that. Someone on Fox News attacking a child, a funeral, Howard Dean, and universal health care in one fell swoop. Bravo Laura.

Transcript:

INGRAHAM: But tell me why you think it's okay for people to be up there on Capitol Hill saying do it for Teddy? Why is that okay?

SKINNER: Well, I'll tell you why. You said are they using this -- Ted Kennedy's death? Ted Kennedy himself called it, health care, the cause of his life. Okay. So it's not using it, Laura.

And here's what really bothered me during this debate over the weekend on the radio. And we were all talking about it is that you had these moving eulogies by Orrin Hatch at obviously the services, but McCain, and Mitch McConnell saying, and even FOX News, the coverage said lion of -- liberal lion crossed party lines. Everybody said how wonderful and how he crossed party lines.

Now that he's gone, they can't see how health care can get passed because he's not there to do it. That's like using him as an excuse to bury health care reform along with him. You're eulogizing him and saying he went to your mother's funeral.

INGRAHAM: Well.

SKINNER: You loved him, but you can't do what it is he's done his whole career.

INGRAHAM: Right.

SKINNER: .not a single one of his dear friends can do what he's done.

INGRAHAM: But that's - right. That's not quite accurate though because over the last several months clearly, the Democrats haven't been saying let's do it for Teddy. Let's do it for Senator Kennedy. He's struggling for his life. And let's fight for it. I didn't hear that a lot over the last several months.

So only after his death, and after the polls show that the public basically doesn't want this whole Obama care thing, do they think okay, the whole rebranding, the first two times around hasn't worked. So now we're going to try this. And let me just play -- we have a sound bite of one of the prayers at the mass on Saturday. This is the funeral mass. And this was one of the Kennedy grand kids during the prayers. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: For what my grandpa called the cause of his life, as he said so often, in every part of this land that every American will have decent quality health care as a fundamental right and not a privilege. We pray to the Lord.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Nancy do you think that that adorable little boy came up with that on his own? It mean, it sounds like it's right out of Howard Dean's speech or something. Come on, this was politicizing the funeral.

SKINNER: But you know what? I've been -- I was there, Laura, at the convention when Ted Kennedy actually gave his last speech. And he was bed- ridden before he even gave that speech. So I'm telling you, he said this is the cause of my life. Everybody - 1960s.

INGRAHAM: Who cares?

SKINNER: .I've been working on this.

INGRAHAM: Nancy, who cares? Who cares that it's the cause of his life? It's a sixth of our economy.

SKINNER: It's not just.

INGRAHAM: It's not a tribute to one man. This is our future.

SKINNER: Right.

INGRAHAM: This is our liberty and our freedom at stake.

SKINNER: That's why he worked on it.

INGRAHAM: It's not about Ted Kennedy.

SKINNER: What the calls are for, Laura, is for bipartisanship. If he crossed the line -- for Nixon, he got Nixon's cancer institute passed. And Nixon didn't want his name on.

INGRAHAM: Right, we're going back to Nixon for the bipartisanship.

SKINNER: He's done no child left behind. He's done lots of things. It's not about ted Kennedy. This is the thing. If we're going to look at a compromise on health care, which that's what everybody is talking about now. The far left wants single pair universal. That's gone. The far right wants the status quo. Well, these people are saying.

INGRAHAM: Far right?

SKINNER: (INAUDIBLE) for the American people.

INGRAHAM: Yeah. How about 55 percent of the country? Far right? I mean, I don't think that's necessarily working now when you look at these polls. It's broad based opposition. But Nancy, we appreciate it very much.

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Before President Obama delivered his eulogy for Sen. Ted Kennedy today, the right was all worked up at the prospect that he might actually use the eulogy to promote the health-care reform legislation that Kennedy himself championed (see, e.g., Laura Ingraham filling in for O'Reilly on Fox Friday night).

You could just see them licking their chops and waiting to turn the eulogy into a Paul Wellstone-funeral-like "look how tawdry those liberals are" moment.

But Obama disappointed them, while delivering a fitting farewell. There was only a brief reference to health-care reform and legislative battles:

Through his own suffering, Ted Kennedy became more alive to the plight and suffering of others – the sick child who could not see a doctor; the young soldier sent to battle without armor; the citizen denied her rights because of what she looks like or who she loves or where she comes from. The landmark laws that he championed -- the Civil Rights Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, immigration reform, children’s health care, the Family and Medical Leave Act –all have a running thread. Ted Kennedy’s life’s work was not to champion those with wealth or power or special connections. It was to give a voice to those who were not heard; to add a rung to the ladder of opportunity; to make real the dream of our founding. He was given the gift of time that his brothers were not, and he used that gift to touch as many lives and right as many wrongs as the years would allow.

We can still hear his voice bellowing through the Senate chamber, face reddened, fist pounding the podium, a veritable force of nature, in support of health care or workers’ rights or civil rights. And yet, while his causes became deeply personal, his disagreements never did. While he was seen by his fiercest critics as a partisan lightning rod, that is not the prism through which Ted Kennedy saw the world, nor was it the prism through which his colleagues saw him. He was a product of an age when the joy and nobility of politics prevented differences of party and philosophy from becoming barriers to cooperation and mutual respect – a time when adversaries still saw each other as patriots.

And that’s how Ted Kennedy became the greatest legislator of our time. He did it by hewing to principle, but also by seeking compromise and common cause – not through deal-making and horse-trading alone, but through friendship, and kindness, and humor. There was the time he courted Orrin Hatch’s support for the Children’s Health Insurance Program by having his Chief of Staff serenade the Senator with a song Orrin had written himself; the time he delivered shamrock cookies on a china plate to sweeten up a crusty Republican colleague; and the famous story of how he won the support of a Texas Committee Chairman on an immigration bill. Teddy walked into a meeting with a plain manila envelope, and showed only the Chairman that it was filled with the Texan’s favorite cigars. When the negotiations were going well, he would inch the envelope closer to the Chairman. When they weren’t, he would pull it back. Before long, the deal was done.

It was only a few years ago, on St. Patrick's Day, when Teddy buttonholed me on the floor of the Senate for my support on a certain piece of legislation that was coming up for vote. I gave him my pledge, but expressed my skepticism that it would pass. But when the roll call was over, the bill garnered the votes it needed, and then some. I looked at Teddy with astonishment and asked how he had pulled it off. He just patted me on the back, and said “Luck of the Irish!”

I also liked this quite a bit:

We cannot know for certain how long we have here. We cannot foresee the trials or misfortunes that will test us along the way. We cannot know God’s plan for us.

What we can do is to live out our lives as best we can with purpose, and love, and joy. We can use each day to show those who are closest to us how much we care about them, and treat others with the kindness and respect that we wish for ourselves. We can learn from our mistakes and grow from our failures. And we can strive at all costs to make a better world, so that someday, if we are blessed with the chance to look back on our time here, we can know that we spent it well; that we made a difference; that our fleeting presence had a lasting impact on the lives of other human beings.

This is how Ted Kennedy lived. This is his legacy.

If the wingnuts want to turn Kennedy's funeral into another liberal-bashing opportunity, they'll have to dig up someone else's eulogy.

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President Obama is pushing to make our 9/11 remembrances part of a national "Day of Service" -- and Laura Ingraham, filling in on The O'Reilly Factor on Thursday, says this is causing a controversy:

Ingraham: A controversy is brewing over President Obama's decision to remember 9/11 as a "National Day of Service." Some critics believe that marking 9/11 as a day for volunteerism demeans the memory of the thousands who were killed by Muslim extremists on that fateful September morning.

Ingraham then tells Alan Colmes that the idea sounded all warm and fuzzy until she looked at the organizations helping to make it happen: ACORN, the AFL-CIO, Color of Change, etc. etc. -- what she calls "a bunch of left-wing crazy groups".

Colmes then proceeds to pin Ingraham's ears to the wall over this nonsense: The "Day of Service" is being promoted by a broad range of organizations, including the families of the victims, all of them perfectly mainstream. And he adds:

Colmes: But the fact of the matter is, that to remember 9/11, and to make it a national day of service to your country -- I can't think of a better way to honor 9/11. What is your problem, Laura, with making it a day of service and remembrance? What is your problem with that?

Ingraham makes it clear she thinks 9/11 should be a right-wing holiday. Fortunately, the rest of us think it's a day that belongs to all of us.

And here's the funny part: The majority of Republicans disagree with her. As Media Matters points out:

The Senate passed the Serve America Act on March 26, 2009, by a 79-19 vote. Twenty-one Republican senators, including then-Republican Sen. Arlen Specter, voted in favor of the legislation. Nineteen Republican senators voted against the bill. The House voted to agree to the Senate amendments on March 31, by a 275-149 vote. Twenty-six Republican House members voted in favor of the bill.

Among those who promoted the idea of dedicating 9/11 remembrances to the cause of volunteerism: George W. Bush.

"Volunteerism is strong in the country. But the truth of the matter is, the farther we've gotten away from 9-11, that memory has begun to fade," the President said. "And my call to people is, there's always a need. You should be volunteering not because of 9-11, but you should be volunteering because our country needs you on a regular basis. And so today I call upon our fellow citizens to devote 4,000 hours over your lifetime in service to your country. You'll become a better person for it, and our society will be more healthy as a result of it."

Visit the 9/11 Day of Service website to see how you can pitch in. If for no other reason than that it will annoy Laura Ingraham.

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The right's favorite talking point on Thursday, with Ted Kennedy's funeral dominating the news, was to compare the event to Sen. Paul Wellstone's funeral and kvetch that Democrats were being crudely opportunistic in using Kennedy's death to help push harder for liberal health-care reform.

Laura Ingraham, filling in for O'Reilly on The Factor, was right in step, saying Dems were "playing the death card" and promising that such opportunism would cost them at the polls. Kvetch, kvetch, kvetch.

I think Amanda Marcotte has precisely the right response.

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Ann Coulter does her best job of cherry picking what she says were racial profiling hoaxes to basically insinuate that racial profiling never happens in the United States. She claims that "liberals" can never find a case that wasn't a hoax. I hate to tell you this Ann, but just because something isn't Al Sharpton's latest photo-op du jour or the media hasn't talked about it, it doesn't mean that it's not happening. Your argument is completely ridiculous. And Henry Gates never should have been arrested for disorderly conduct in his own home.

Ann I just don't know how all the bigots would get by without the likes of you and your other right wing hate mongers doing your best to make them feel better about themselves.

INGRAHAM: And now for the top story. What exactly is that teachable moment in all the recent racial banter? Joining us from us Florida with her provocative take as always is Ann Coulter, author of the huge bestseller "Guilty: Liberal Victims and Their Assault on America."

And Ann, I have to say I watched a competing cable channel. I had it DVR'd somewhere. I watched you last night with Sharpton. Okay? And just the look on his face when you came out and said well, what racial profiling? And I'm sure African-Americans across the country were saying what is this woman talking about? Explain.

ANN COULTER, CONSERVATIVE COLUMNIST: It's not that it's never happened. I've just been watching, you know, the gusher of cliches on television about this. I mean, this -- clearly there was no racial profiling in this case in Boston unless you're talking about Professor Gates racially profiling an Irish cop and assuming he must be a racist. There was some racial profiling that way.

But you know, I write about this in "Guilty". And I only give an abbreviated list in "Guilty" although it goes on for pages and pages of all of the alleged acts of racism or racial profiling that turn out to be hoaxes.

And I mean, as far as back in our lifetime as the Tawana Brawley case there was the case with the Exeter kid. And at first, you have to read all the headlines at first. You know, why would this Exeter have mugged an undercover cop. And then, you know, all the facts come out. They got witnesses. They got - have the autopsy. Yeah actually, the Exeter honor student on his way to Stanford did mug an undercover cop and the grand jury acquitted.

You have the one with a black kid who was carrying a machete. The cop thought it was a gun. Again acquitted by the grand jury after hysterical headlines throughout "The New York Times." You got the Clermont and the kennel woman. A white woman. A lot of these times, these are whites who are.

INGRAHAM: Yeah.

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When Laura Ingraham filled in for Bill O'Reilly on Friday's night's O'Reilly Factor, she ran a segment on abortion that was ostensibly an "investigation" into Planned Parenthood. It featured a logo that placed a red set of crosshairs -- the kind you find on a rifle scope -- over PP's logo.

I'd just like to ask one question:

What the hell were these people thinking?

Now, presumably, Ingraham herself did not order up this graphic, or if she did, it at least went through the hands of the show's regular producers and overseers. These are the same people who just went through a well-deserved round of approbation for their role -- in the form of those 28 references to Dr. George Tiller as a "baby killer" -- in the murder of Tiller by an anti-abortion fanatic.

And now they're running a graphic suggestive of what Ann Coulter calls "a procedure with a rifle" -- something, in fact, that Coulter has actually encouraged on The O'Reilly Factor.

Really, I'm serious. What are these people thinking?

Of course, we know all too well that O'Reilly and Co. did their best to disavow any culpability in the matter whatsoever -- somewhat less than convincingly. So maybe the continuing demonization of abortion providers on this program is part and parcel of that defiance.

And the same sort of anecdotal demonization that characterized O'Reilly's attacks on Tiller were similarly at play in this segment on Planned Parenthood. It essentially involved an ambush team using a youngish-seeming woman posing as a 14-year-old entering a variety of Planned Parenthood clinics and recording the responses -- most of which, as described by the fake teen here, actually fit the standard response of most properly run clinics in trying to make sure that younger patients feel at ease.

The overriding message, once again, is that these abortion providers are a pack of morally depraved sickos who deserve to be in the crosshairs. Lovely.

I can think of three possibilities here:

1. Someone just thought putting an organization in the crosshairs was the best way to represent that they were under investigation, and the other implications of such a graphic just didn't cross anybody's radar.

2. They thought about it, recognized that it might not be appropriate, but did it anyway, either out of defiance or simply not caring.

3. They did it with full intent, understanding full well that the suggestion of violence against Planned Parenthood was present, and in fact designing the graphic with that in mind.

Of the three, I think the second is the most plausible. But it's only slightly less appalling, for different reasons, than the other two.

Look, despite what the O'Reillys and Glenn Becks and Laura Ingrahams like to claim, no one is trying to "silence" them for expressing their opinions. This is about being responsible with that big media megaphone they hold. Promoting a violent mindset toward abortion providers, as we have already seen, is profoundly irresponsible. It's long past time that it stop.

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Fox News is airing a new commercial on their station that frankly had me almost throwing up in my mouth a little when I saw it. Fox has decided to roll out their full list of regular pundits to espouse the network's journalistic integrity and "core principles". No...I'm not joking.

Here are some of the "principles" they claim Fox News promotes: civility, mutual respect, strengthening our diverse society by striving for unity, tolerance, open debate and civil discourse.

Yeah, that's exactly what I think of when I see the likes of Sean Hannity or Bill O'Reilly screaming over one of their guests. Or Glenn Beck riding that crazy train off into the horizon. Or Laura Ingraham on one of her hate filled screeds that's akin to listening to finger nails on a chalk board.

And for a real hoot, check out the ticker that's running below the ad. Breaking News!!... Fox News realizes that Helen Thomas exists and actually cares about what she has to say now that it's criticism of the Obama administration.

I love Helen to death, but her whining about Nico Pitney getting a question from the White House sounds like sour grapes to me from a typical Villager. There's plenty to complain about besides a blogger getting to ask one lousy question that's wrong with that White House press corps if she wants to go on a rant about what's wrong with our media.

I think this Fox Nation ad could use a better description than the one I came up with for the video and the post. I'd love to hear suggestions from the readers here who by and large are always more creative than I am when it comes to these things. We've done some "write your own caption posts". I'll gladly have this be a "write your own video description" instead. Submissions welcomed if you'd care to give all of us a laugh.

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There is an old saying that it is better to stay silent and thought the fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt. I suspect that there are many on TV who would be wise to take that advice.

Take for example, Meghan McCain. I actually kind of like her, because she's shown a rare independence, refusing to simply spew the same talking points of other Republicans and some sass when dealing with the hackiest of the right wing hacks who take cheap pot shots at her. But there's no doubt that she is very young and perhaps needs a little more historical perspective before opining on national television.

It all got started during a discussion of George Bush, who McCain acknowledged was a less than perfect president. But McCain also pointed a finger at the Obama administration in Bush's defense, saying she felt that the Obama administration "has to stop completely blaming everything on its predecessor." When Maher asked McCain if she really thought this is what Obama is doing, McCain said "I do to a degree." A clearly annoyed Begala immediately shook his head and said "not to enough of a degree, I'm sorry not nearly enough." He then began to explain how President Reagan blamed Jimmy Carter for years, to which McCain responded blithely "you know I wasn't born yet so I wouldn't know." Going in for the kill, Begala fired back "I wasn't born during the French Revolution but I know about it."

McCain then reverts to the tried and true Republican tactic of playing the victim:

You clearly know everything and I'm just the blond sitting here.

Meghan, Meghan, Meghan...you can stand up to Laura Ingraham and yet you just wilt in front of Paul Begala and play victim? Is it having facts and an actual historical perspective instead of just making crap up to play to the lowest common denominator that intimidates you?

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Ali Noorani of the National Immigration Forum was on The O'Reilly Factor last night with substitute host Laura Ingraham, talking about the coming battle over immigration.

Ingraham, predictably, dismissed the key component of immigration-reform plans -- creating a path for citizenship for those immigrants already here -- as "amnesty". Cluestick to Ingraham: Since when is paying an appropriate fine for a civil violation -- which is what having illegal-immigrant status is in under our current laws -- "amnesty"? Because that's what the current plans call for.

Ingraham, though, wants all of those illegals to go back home first before they can get back in line. Noorani, fortunately, was able to point out the utter impracticality of that idea.

So Ingraham tried yet another tack: Why should we let all these undocumented workers into the workforce when we're suffering massive unemployment right now?

But that argument is predicated on the notion that immigrants "take jobs away from Americans" -- which is indeed a fundamental flaw. As Cristina Jimenez at The American Prospect pointed out a few months back, comprehensive immigration reform in fact "is a cost-effective path to short-term stimulus and long-term recovery":

Under current law, undocumented workers are at the mercy of employers to the same extent that unprotected native-born workers were before the union victories of the 1930s. Distance from those historic triumphs makes it easy to forget that when immigrants and non-immigrants are equally empowered, job quality improves and wages rise, because the common interests of immigrants and non-immigrants become much stronger than the artificial conditions that divide them. Today, as in the past, cooperation and coalition-building would benefit all immigrants and native-born Americans trying to work their way into the middle class.

The Immigration Policy Center [PDF file] explains (in a reform plan written for members of Congress):

In this economic downturn, many may argue that immigration reform is not a priority. However, reforming our broken immigration system is an important part of improving our economy. Currently, unscrupulous employers are able to exploit undocumented workers and create unfair competition by violating labor laws and paying sub-minimal wages. This is harmful to U.S. businesses and U.S. workers. Our immigration system needs to work for all Americans, not just for those employers looking for low-cost labor. We need to recognize that it would be far better if immigrant workers were here legally and could exercise the same rights on the job as native-born workers. Leveling the playing field for both workers and employers by legalizing all workers and enforcing labor laws against bad-apple employers will eliminate unfair competition and improve the wages and working conditions of all workers. Putting immigrant workers in the formal economy and higher wages will increase tax revenues and consumption.

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Gee, surprise surprise. Bill O'Reilly took extreme umbrage at Salon's Joan Walsh speaking the truth about his role in inspiring acts of domestic terrorism.

Here's what she said:

WALSH: Exactly. I was watching MSNBC all day today, Chris. And there were a couple of experts on these right wing groups saying, this guy was known to authorities. He went to jail in the ‘80s for an assault on I think the Federal Reserve Bank. This is not a lone wolf who has never come into contact or expressed publicly expressed his hateful views. He published a book.

I think there is a certain amount of surveillance that would have been wise. How somebody like that gets a gun when he used a gun in his prior crime—all these things, I think, should be looked at. I support the Second Amendment, but I think guns are too easy to get. All these things will come into play.

And I will say, you know, I do hope that some conservatives stand up. I don‘t blame them. I don‘t blame mainstream Republicans, by any means, for this. I want to be clear. But they could help in ratcheting down some of the rhetoric. When Bill O‘Reilly goes on TV every night and calls Dr. Tiller a baby killer and a Nazi and a Mengele, and shows where he works, why do we put up with that? Why is that entertainment in our culture? It's demonizing a private citizen for doing a lawful job. Why are people doing that? Why is that acceptable? I would like to see a debate about that.

O'Reilly dismissed her point by saying: "Private citizen? Sounds like he sells insurance." Because, in O'Reilly's world, a person's occupation makes all the difference in whether or not he should violate basic precepts of journalistic ethics by holding him up for public demonization and suggesting that someone oughta take him out.

But then he and Laura Ingraham decided to embark on attacking Joan Walsh instead -- by bringing up Salon's coverage of the Jeff Gannon fiasco:

Ingraham: Look, Joan Walsh -- I did a little research for you, OK, tonight. Joan Walsh -- this was in 2005, in a Q&A with the Columbia Journalism Review, she justified what Salon had done to that reporter, Jeff Gannon, that White House reporter who Salon published accounts of as outing! Outing his sexuality, I guess, because of who he was or what he was doing, what he wasn't saying to the White House. And she said, look, it was justified because it was, the White House wasn't very forthcoming with information it was giving reporters, and it apparently didn't even know who this Jeff Gannon was, and he was a fraud, blah blah blah.

So let's be clear: The Left uses, quote, hateful rhetoric when the Left thinks it's justified. So the Left on MSNBC will call President Bush a war criminal, a liar, the most hateful comments about people like Karl Rove, et cetera, et cetera. But when these comments are directed by you -- about you, or people like Rush Limbaugh, as this Joan Walsh character did last night, that is -- well, they deserved it.

Um, Joan Walsh didn't accuse Jeff Gannon of being a mass murderer or a baby killer. She didn't suggest someone should do away with him. She and her reporters just pointed out that Jeff Gannon was a fraud of a reporter to whom the Bush White House gave unbelievable access -- which wasn't a controversial matter at all, but rather a simple fact. It certainly didn't constitute hateful speech.

The same, it must be added, can be said about the rest of Ingraham's examples. She's going to have to work hard to come up with an example of any anchor at MSNBC, let alone any guest, actually spewing hateful rhetoric. Calling Bush a war criminal isn't hateful speech; there in fact is a complete legal case to be made that Bush is indeed a war criminal. And whatever might be said about Rove or Limbaugh pales in comparison to their own daily foul emissions.

But when you're backed into a corner and exposed for the hatemongers you are, you grasp for whatever straws you can. Sorry, Laura. That was an Epic Fail.

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Countdown's Worst Persons for May 26, 2009. Winner Laura Ingraham. Runners up David Zurawik and Pete Hegseth.