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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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A Fox News military analyst who has previously justified the U.S. invasion in Iraq by asserting that Russia conspired to hide Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction (WMD) now says that there is a "very high probability" that those WMDs are in Syria.

Fox News host Brian Kilmeade on Friday spoke to retired Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney about recent rumors of a chemical attack near Aleppo, Syria.

"What are the chances of the return address on these chemicals being from Iraq?" Kilmeade wondered.

"Well, I think there is a high probability of that," McInerney declared. "That's conjecture, but we do know prior to Operation Iraqi Freedom, there was a lot of vehicles crossing the border into Syria. And there was a great deal of conjecture. A Iraqi major general swore by it. He said he delivered it."

"And so I think that it would be a very high probability if we could get into those bunkers that they would have Iraqi signatures on them."

In 2006, McInerney told Newsmax that there was "clear evidence" that Iraq had WMDs before the war and that the Bush administration "ignored Russia's involvement" in helping to hide the weapons.

"[T]he administration needed the Russians, the Chinese and the French, and was not interested in information that would make them look bad," he said.

A U.S. official on Thursday said that evidence suggested that chemical weapons (CW) had not been used in the latest attacks in Syria.

"Our growing sense is that weaponized CW was not used," the official remarked, according to Reuters.

A European security official noted that the use of weapons of mass destruction in Syria would have left a death toll much higher than 26.

(h/t: Media Matters)

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Thom Hartmann takes our corporate media and the cheerleaders for war with Iraq to task and ten years after our invasion, asks 'Where are the apologies?'

Via Truthout: How the Media Fueled the War in Iraq:

Yesterday, the U.S. marked the 10th anniversary of the start of the Iraq War. And, over the course of the past ten years, we've learned more and more about how the war with Iraq actually started.

It's incredibly easy to blame the Bush administration for its lies that led us into Iraq. But Cheney, Rumsfeld and company weren't the only ones who played an integral role in convincing this nation that Saddam Hussein was a threat, and that WMD's were a forgone conclusion.

In the days and weeks leading up to the invasion of Iraq, corporate media – and even NPR and PBS - were abuzz with the talking points of the Bush Administration, echoing claims that Iraq had its hands on "yellow cake uranium" and that it had a massive arsenal of "weapons of mass destruction."

Thanks to the media's repeated claims that Iraq and Saddam Hussein were immediate threats to our nation, in the weeks leading up to the invasion, nearly three-quarters of Americans believed the lie promoted by Donald Rumsfeld that Saddam Hussein was somehow involved in the attacks of 9/11.

One of the biggest proponents of the Iraq War was Bill O'Reilly.

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On the ten year anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, there has been an awful lot of naval gazing by our media, sadly with most of it being revisionist history on what happened during the run up to that invasion and occupation, with a lot of glossing over just how complicit the media was in helping the neocons beat the war drums. And as Jeremy Scahill noted during this interview on Martin Bashir's show, there's still a lot to answer for by our politicians on both sides of the aisles -- but in particular, the neocons and Bush administration.

It's too bad there wasn't any accountability for his fellow guest on the program, Michael O'Hanlon, who supported the invasion and who was as guilty as the rest of them with enabling the neocons. Scahill sadly didn't go after O'Hanlon, but I appreciate what he was given a chance to say during the segment.

SCAHILL: People like Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith should not be able to show their faces in public in this country without being confronted with what they did to Iraq. I mean, the reality is... having spent time in Iraq throughout the '90's... many of the Iraqis I knew are dead. Many of the Iraqis that survived the war are displaced and with the millions of others that have been displaced.

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You gotta love it. These wingnuts can't even wait to see what executive orders end up being issued on gun control before they start with the impeachment threats. I'm not quite sure what else remains on the list that Congressional Republicans can do to make themselves less popular than they are right now, but I'm pretty sure impeachment hearings would work out about as well for them as they did back in Clinton's days, which is not well at all.

GOP Rep. Threatens Impeachment If Obama Uses Executive Order On Guns:

The conservative discord in the wake of the Newtown, Conn. massacre went up another octave on Monday when Rep. Steve Stockman (R-TX) threatened to file articles of impeachment if President Obama uses an executive order to try to reduce gun violence.

“The White House’s recent announcement they will use executive orders and executive actions to infringe on our constitutionally-protected right to keep and bear arms is an unconstitutional and unconscionable attack on the very founding principles of this republic,” Stockman said in a statement. “I will seek to thwart this action by any means necessary, including but not limited to eliminating funding for implementation, defunding the White House, and even filing articles of impeachment.”

Stockman showed up on Greta Van Susteren's show on Fox Tuesday night and reiterated his statement about impeachment being an option on the table and he threw this stink-bomb out there: Republican freshman to Fox News host: Obama reminds me of Saddam Hussein:

Republican Rep. Steve Stockman of Texas unfavorably compared President Barack Obama to Abraham Lincoln and Saddam Hussein on Tuesday night.

The Republican freshman appeared on Fox News’ On The Record with Greta Van Susteren to discuss how he would try impeach Obama if the President attempted to use an executive order to enact new gun control laws.

“He is saying he is going to issue 19 executive orders,” Stockman explained to Greta Van Susteren. “If it breaches his authority into legislation which impedes on the Constitution, we have the right to take different steps to counter that. A lot of people are frustrated with Republicans not fighting back, and I was too when I was on the sidelines. I got involved with Congress, I said enough is enough, and we need to stand up and fight. I said these kinds of tools are available to us, and we’re going to use every tool possible to fight an administration which wants to abrogate the Constitution.” [...]

At the end of the interview, Stockman awkwardly interjected that Obama was “even using children.”

“Reminds me of Saddam Hussein, when he used kids,” he said with a laugh.

“Well, I think that is just a little bit of a stretch,” Van Susteren replied.

I think this turd just figured out how to make sure he gets himself lots of airtime on Fox. Every time we get rid of one of these flamethrowers, another one comes along and takes their place.

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Mandy Patinkin sat down with Stephen Colbert to discuss the his character in the Showtime series, Homeland, and what followed was a righteous rant and debate with Colbert -- with Colbert in full character -- on terrorism, whether we bear any personal responsibility for it here in the United States and the fact that words and not weapons are going to be the solution to our problems.

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Senators John McCain and his BFF Lindsey Graham found themselves receiving some similar criticism to that dished out last week by Rachel Maddow, when she slammed McCain for all of the times he said something wrong on a Sunday show. If these two and their "third amigo" Kelly Ayotte want to keep making hypocritical asses of themselves with their petulant attacks on U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice, I just hope there's more segments like this to come.

Jon Stewart exposes blatant hypocrisy of McCain and Graham:

The two senators have pilloried Rice for saying the attack in Benghazi was the result of a spontaneous protest against an anti-Islam film. However, Stewart noted that both McCain and Graham had falsely told the public that Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein was stockpiling weapons of mass destruction.

“Unfortunately, that’s not really a fair one-to-one comparison, because Susan Rice admitted to the error within weeks — these two still refuse to acknowledge that invading a country based on information from a source named ‘curveball’ was actually considered a pretty shitty idea by many at the time,” Stewart said.

“If only we had a more direct comparison to make here. Like another high-ranking government official passing what they knew at the time was misleading intelligence to the American public on a Sunday news show, also in line to become secretary of state, and was African American, and a woman, and lets say her name was also Rice. That’d be something.”

Stewart went on to play a mash-up of clips of McCain and Graham, lying about our invasion of Iraq and defending Condoleezza Rice. What's really pathetic is that any of these hypocrites are allowed to appear before what passes for our "news" organizations without being ripped to shreds as Stewart did here.

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After Judith Miller went on Fox News Watch over the weekend to join the other guests there in carping about how dangerous the Obama administrations supposed national security leaks are which they've been accused of after the death of Osama bin Laden, Jon Stewart gave her the treatment she deserves on The Daily Show this Monday evening.

Sadly as everyone here knows all too well, after her stenography at The New York Times for Scooter Libby and his boss, former Vice President Darth Cheney to help lie us into invading Iraq, Miller is the last person that should be coming on the television complaining about an administration leaking.

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The one thing you can say about this Cheney family -- they've got their lies and they're sticking to them -- no matter what. After feeling the need to give the Bush administration some glowing praise for torture, the Patriot Act and Guantanamo Bay, Bill O'Reilly actually challenged the assertion that we were greeted as liberators in Iraq made by Dick Cheney years ago on Meet the Press. Naturally, his daughter Liz, disagreed.

O'Reilly pointed to the falling of the statue of Saddam Hussein and that there was only a very small group of people there as evidence that we were not greeted as liberators. What Billo failed to point out to her during this softball interview, is that event was staged by our military as our own Silent Patriot reminded us of back on the 4th anniversary of that event.

As to Cheney still repeating the "greeted as liberators" line, John Amato wrote about this back in 2007 when John McCain was carrying water for the Bush administration, repeating that already tired and debunked line back then as well:

John McCain told Tim Russert that America was greeted as liberators when we got to Iraq. What is he talking about. When were we ever greeted as liberators? It wasn't like ten months of peace and tranquility. The looting began almost immediately. He also says that the war was easy. Easy for who?

One thing we can count on is that as long as these neocons and supporters of the Iraq invasion are still alive, they're going to do their best to continue to revise the history books in their favor.

Full transcript below the fold.

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I expect we'll see more of this over at Fox "News" and at their sister channel Fox Business as well as the ten year anniversary of 9-11 draws closer, but I wonder how many unsuspecting viewers who tune into News Corporation's National Geographic Channel will realize that what they're watching has been brought to them by the owner of the Fox Republican propaganda networks, Rupert Murdoch.

The segment above is a preview available right now on their web site here -- George W. Bush: The 9/11 Interview.

Here's more from Think Progress -- News Corp Set To Air 9/11 Documentary Glorifying Bush; Producer Says He’s Not Interested In ‘Facts’:

After spending over a decade promoting President Bush, the PATRIOT Act, and the Iraq War, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation appears to be up to the same tricks, this time with an hour-long promotional video about Bush’s leadership during the 9/11 attacks. Although News Corp. is perhaps best known for its Bush cheerleading through its Fox News subsidiary, the Bush documentary is airing on another News Corp. company with a better brand image, National Geographic.

The documentary has not aired yet, but is scheduled to come out a few days before the 10-year anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Early reviews of the program, however, paint Bush as a hero who discarded politics and his right-wing agenda once the planes hit the towers. The film also depicts Bush as a leader bent on capturing Osama bin Laden, no matter what. [...]

In reality, within hours of the 9/11 plane hijackings, Bush’s Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld began drawing up plans to launch a war in Iraq “even though there was no evidence linking Saddam Hussein to the attacks.” Indeed, Bush aides quickly went to work undercutting the proposed commission to study the events leading up the 9/11, and despite the growing evidence linking the terrorist act with Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda group, Bush never made bin Laden a priority. By January 2002, Dick Cheney told the press that bin Laden “isn’t that big a threat.” The next month, Bush said bin Laden was “not the issue.”

Will producer Peter Schnall critically, and accurately, explain to the public Bush’s actions during and after the horrific 9/11 terrorist attacks? In a recent interview about the program, Schnall said he tried not to push “it too far” with the former president, and that he was “less interested in facts than how” Bush “was feeling”. Read on...