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(Dr. W.S. "Stuart" McBirnie - warnings against the all-malevolent "them")

Every time I hear about "Liberal Media", another batch of tapes fall off my shelves, always from some extreme right-wing group, or quasi-religious organization with an extreme agenda. Never fails. There are thousands of them. The airwaves have been jam-packed with them since the beginnings of broadcasting.

This particular tape comes by way of The Voice Of Americanism, a daily radio (and later TV) show hosted by William Stuart McBirnie, a wildly anti-Communist preacher who was heard on over 300 stations from the early 1960's to the 1980s.

On this broadcast, from the 1980s (no exact date) he plays host to a Gordon Browning who was Executive Assistant to California State Senator H.L. "Bill" Richardson. Not much is known about Browning (although I'm sure someone out there has a whole file someplace), but Richardson, who has since "retired" from the State Senate, is around and flying slightly under the radar.

The subject of the broadcast is how the left manipulate people through issues - this issue being Clean Air. Sound familiar?

McBirnie: “Smog is not only a product of automobiles, it is also the product of many things. Now, help us understand though, how the leftists and the Stateists, the people who want to control people, are stepping into this picture to use this problem?”

Have a listen and have at it. Should be lively.

Oh . . .and hit the button below and feel a whole lot better!



Mike's Blog Roundup

Calculated Risk: Fed Chairmen never learn. Meanwhile, in the UK the gubmint is trying to rein in the bankers...

Little Green Footballs: Has seen the light!

Pulp Friction: America has become one big, crappy reality show

Pressing Issues: No terrorist angle, not news

Legal Schnauzer: A "Deep Throat" emerges in the Mike Connell plane crash

ANNALS OF JOURNALISM: Journalism 2009...Dana Milbank is an ass...Politico reports wingnut talking points as news...Cato rips Fox...Politico deep in the tank..."Bold Strategy"...Moonie Times to lay off 40% of 'staff'...WH Mainstream hacks object to bloggers...Watching America...Steyn/Beck's Fakes of Wrath...Celebrity Nonsense...Don't think, kill!...Ask This


...why do Americans care if taxes are raised at all? And why should Americans care about tax cuts also?

As you guys know, I watch the mind numbingly sophomoric Fox Saturday block of Stock Shows that goes by the name of "The Cost of Freedom." They consist of four 30-minute shows, and every single week there's an idiot on who says the only people that pay taxes are the richest members of our society.

OK, let's say I agree. Then why should 290,000,000 Americans more or less give a rip about the ramifications of raising taxes? They make the argument for us that taxes should be raised since only the very rich pay them.

Dave Neiwert wrote about this in one of his earlier posts: Populism: It's all the right-wing rage these days

The Tea Parties, in every incarnation -- from the Tax Day protests to the health-care town halls to the "Tea Party Express" and the "912 March on Washington" to Michele Bachmann's lame "Super Bowl of Freedom" -- has been all about populism, and it is distinctly right-wing populism.

A giveaway moment came during Sean Hannity's April 15 evening "Tea Party" broadcast from Atlanta, when he brought in a live feed from the Rick and Bubba Tea Tantrum in Alabama:

Hannity: And I'm going to tell you one other thing: When did we ever get to a point in America where, we're nearly at the point where fifty percent of Americans don't pay anything in taxes! Nothing!

[Crowd boos]

Rick: The numbers out are just astounding that, that, how much that the very top taxpayers actually pay. I feel like these taxpayers are disenfranchised. I want them to have a share of the burden just like they have a share of the vote.

That's right -- it's the wealthy top percentage of the country that needs a tax break. After all, they are the one Obama's targeting, right? So at least they're being upfront about just who "the taxpayers" are whose interests they're out marching to defend...read on

Don't you feel sorry for these poor rich bastards? If this is their argument, then I say President Obama should impose immediate tax increases like a war tax, a health-insurance tax and a jobs creation tax on the top tier of Americans. Make it a payroll tax and take it right out of their checks every pay period. That would immediately satisfy the deficit scolds.

After all, who will care if it's only the Fox Noise demographic? In the end all conservative policies do is destroy the least of us. They treat the American worker like trained seals, whose only function in life is to fuel their wealth.

Digby has more:

I think they tend to make their judgments about the upper and lower classes based as much on tribalism as anything else. (Recall that the populist hero Ross Perot was a billionaire who made his fortune from government contracts -- but he sounded like a good old boy.) These things never play themselves out exactly the same ways but the fundamental appeals remain the same. The upper levels of society usually find a way to pull the strings and control these people, but the more vulnerable often suffer quite a bit at their hands. Neiwert's piece is a very important primer for those of us who are trying to understand where this Palin-Beck teabag phenomenon comes from and how it relates to other right0wing philosophies like Randism and militias. At the end of the day it all translates into ugly know-nothingism that lashes out at everyone but the adherents themselves, who see themselves as the defenders of the Real America.

I get the impulse and I feel the same frustrations. But their solutions are always worse than the problems they seek to solve.


Our friend Rick Perlstein had an interesting interview on Big Think that is a good morning starter. He opens up with a really important point:

Question: Has Obama succeeded on his promise of being a “post-partisan” President?

Rick Perlstein: Well, the problem with Obama’s post-partisan agenda is that he came into it. He came into his presidency at a time when millions of Americans, perhaps even tens of millions of Americans don’t consider a Democrat president legitimate. Don’t consider liberalism legitimate. Don’t consider the idea of the state forming new programs to help people legitimate. So, he’s in a situation a lot like, you know, Abraham Lincoln faced in 1860 when you had millions of Americans who didn’t even consider what was going in Washington to have anything to do with them.

Yep. And the mainstream right-wing media is explicitly promoting the view that Obama is not a legitimate president.


Mike's Blog Roundup

MyDD: Tea Baggers set their sights on Climate Change. Here's more...

Consortiumblog: Shining light on the roots of terrorism

Truthdig: Testing next year's lies today

Respectful Insolence: Hmmm...maybe I fell for Obama's liberofascist plot to poison me

The Existentialist Cowboy: The End of American Community

HOLY CRAP: Faith is no defense...How Rev Moon bought Washington...In the 'next world'... Robertson puts McDonnell in a bind...Meet John Thune...God, the Army, and PTSD...Catholic morality...I thoroughly enjoyed their evisceration...Godless billboard moved after threats...Charles Colson on Atheists...Nashville gets secular...Ted Haggard returning to revivalist racket...Postcard from God to Glenn Beck...The God Gene... onegoodmove is one of my favorite sources for Holy Crap and lots of other good stuff!


You know, you have to appreciate that guys like Anthony Weiner and Joe Sestak will go on Bill O'Reilly's show to try to bravely counter his nonstop deluge of right-wing talking points. But as he demonstrated last night when he had them on to talk about the New York City terrorism trials, he just proved once again why it's never a winning proposition to go on his show, no matter how hard you try.

O'Reilly only invites liberals on to set them up for a shoutdown, really -- and that's what he did last night. Both Weiner and Sestak pointed out the absurdity of O'Reilly's fears about the civil court system setting the terrorists free -- and worse still, in O'Reilly's view, actually being permitted to stand up and voice their beliefs as part of their defense.

O'Reilly just wound up shouting at them about the four-year trial of Zacarias Moussaoui -- who in fact was convicted. But to O'Reilly, what was intolerable was that Moussaoui was able to use the trial as "propaganda" for radical Islam.

O'Reilly just doesn't believe in the American way of justice, and is afraid to let the world see our justice. Fortunately, many more of us are not so cowardly.


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Recently, Kevin Ecker of the right-wing Minnesota superblog True North posted the following item:

Political activism at it's best is honest grassroots efforts by people finally fed up with lying politicians who decide to do something about an issue rather than just complain. We have a great example of that coming up here in Minnesota on the immigration issue.

On Saturday, July 11th at 2 PM, there will be a rally held at the Mower County Courthouse. It's located at 201 First Street NE, Austin, MN. This will be the second rally in a month at that location.

Basically Austin is a town that the residents feel has been devastated by illegal immigration, and a lone resident, Sam Johnson, finally got fed up. He organized the first rally despite being up against professionally organized counter protests by the likes of La Raza, Centro Campesino and various Marxist organizations bussed in from the cities.

So Sam Johnson and his supporters need your help to rally the people necessary to stand against illegal immigration. South Eastern Minnesota has become a battleground on this issue and the public needs to know that they don't have to just stand by and let their towns be overrun as a result of apathy from both Washington DC and St. Paul.

You can contact Sam Johnson by email : nsmsoutheastmn -at- gmail -dot- com

Now, note that e-mail address: Yep, that's "NSM Southeast MN" -- or "National Socialist Movement Southeast Minnesota." You'd think that would have been a little red flag for Kevin Ecker.

But it was up to Jeff Fecke at Moderate Left to point out that this is what Sam Johnson looks like when he goes out in public:

samjohnson_cd1a5.jpgIn case you’re wondering — and I doubt you are, but some people might not be able to view the picture — yes, that’s a guy wearing a neo-Nazi uniform. Because Sam Johnson isn’t just a hard-working white American who’s fed-up with illegal immigration. He’s a neo-Nazi, the head of the National Socialist Movement Southeast Minnesota.

Sally Jo Sorensen at BlueStemPrairie recently interviewed Johnson in a three-part series that's well worth reading for the insight you get into the white-supremacist mentality (Part 3 is here), but this outtake pretty much sums it up:

"Minorities should not be citizens," Johnson said, "only 100 percent true white Americans." He outlined his vision of a nation in which all people of color would be stripped of their citizenship, no matter how long their families had lived in the United States, and moved to communities that would be strictly delineated according to race.

People of African descent would live with other people of African descent, Latinos with Latinos, Asians with Asians, American Indians with American Indians, and "real Americans" with other "real Americans. "Real American" and non-citizen status would be determined be having had family living in the country for five generations or 50-70 years.

Only if non-whites broke the law would they be sent back to the country of their ancestors' origins, regardless of how long their families had lived in the United States. Of course, Johnson emphasized, this would dictate deporting all immigrants living here illegally.

"Minorities could have jobs, own homes, and enjoy their own culture," he said. They simply wouldn't be citizens of the United States, nor could they become citizens. They would have to keep separate.

Upon realizing what he had done, Ecker added the following note:

NOTE (10/27/09) : It has since been pointed out to me that Sam Johnson is, to put it lightly, a Neo-Nazi. Let me make it clear I do not endorse such a hate filled ideology and wish to express no endorsement of any such views.

At the time I thought Sam Johnson was merely a small time illegal immigration activist, mainly cause I've never heard of him. I'm not of a mind to assume the worst motivations of someone plus googling a name like "Sam Johnson" seemed an act of futility at best.

Knowing what I know now, no I would not have posted this and his entire event would have been forgotten, if not actively shunned.

Well, as Fecke observed:

This is why those of us on the left don’t buy it when the right claims that they’re not racist — because they are so very willing to embrace racists when it helps them. If Republicans want to stop being seen as the party of hate, they need to stop the hatred. Otherwise, they need to own the fact that a sitting Republican congresswoman is a contributor to a website that promoted a neo-Nazi hate rally, promotion that included sharing Sam Johnson’s email address with those looking to get involved. Only a party that found racism acceptable could be comfortable with that.

Indeed, as Phoenix Woman observed, it wasn't as if Ecker and his fellow Republicans shouldn't have known about Sam Johnson.

He has, after all, been in the Minnesota news a lot lately. For instance, earlier this month he led a protest in Minneapolis outside a local YWCA, which was holding a diversity seminar, that was attended only by Johnson and three of his fellow neo-Nazis -- and several hundred counter-protesters. As you can see in the video above (compiled from YouTube videos shot at the event), the crowd not only shouted them down, but followed them to their car, and chanted "Don't come back!" as they pulled away.

Continue reading »


Mike's Blog Round Up

Sadly, No!: According to the Virgin Queen of the Right Wing Baloney-sphere, the title of "Teabagger" was worn with pride by our colonial forebearers. No, really.

Dependable Renegade: Seriously Meghan, put the iPhone DOWN. But first, tweet Carrie Prejean a message from the General.

Earth Bound Misfit: "Republicans for Rape" isn't just a vote, it's thirty votes. And now it's a blog. Susie Bright (NSFW) points to a simple statement on "how to prevent rape." Highly recommended.

Distributorcap NY: Discovered at Schwabs.

Mike Finnigan returns tomorrow; send tips to finnsagain AT aol DOT com.


Sy Hersh: Military 'In War Against The White House'

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So many of the saner people were driven out of the military during the Bush administration, it doesn't surprise me that the people left include a lot of the right-wing, racist fringe elements. Still, it's shocking to hear this:

DURHAM — The U.S. military is not just fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, America’s most renowned investigative journalist says.

The army is also “in a war against the White House — and they feel they have Obama boxed in,” Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Seymour Hersh told several hundred people in Duke University’s Page Auditorium on Tuesday night. “They think he’s weak and the wrong color. Yes, there’s racism in the Pentagon. We may not like to think that, but it’s true and we all know it.”

In a speech on Obama’s foreign policy, Hersh, who uncovered the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War and torture at Abu Ghraib prison during the Iraqi war, said many military leaders want Obama to fail.

“A lot of people in the Pentagon would like to see him get into trouble,” he said. By leaking information that the commanding officer in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, says the war would be lost without an additional 40,000 American troops, top brass have put Obama in a no-win situation, Hersh contended.
“If he gives them the extra troops they’re asking for, he loses politically,” Hersh said. “And if he doesn’t give them the troops, he also loses politically.”

The journalist criticized the president for “letting the military do that,” and suggested the only way out was for Obama to stand up to them.
“He’s either going to let the Pentagon run him or he has to run the Pentagon,” Hersh said. If he doesn’t, “this stuff is going to be the ruin of his presidency.”

Hersh called the “Af-Pak” situation — the spreading conflict in Afghanistan and Pakistan — Obama’s main challenge.

The only way for the U.S. to extricate itself from the conflict, Hersh said, is to negotiate with the Taliban.

“It’s the only way out,” he said. “I know that there’s a lot of discussion in the White House about this now.


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(h/t Heather)

David Axelrod backed up Anita Dunn on ABC's THIS WEEK by saying that he believes FOX Noise is not a news station. It's taken a while for them to say this publicly and at least Axelrod didn't back off her comments.

“I’m not concerned, Mr. Murdoch has a talent for making money,” Axelrod said.

“The only argument that Anita was making is that they are not really a news organization, if you watch even its not even their commentators, but a lot of their news program. It’s really not news, it’s pushing a point of view and the bigger thing is that other news organizations like yours, ought not to treat them that way. And we’re not going to treat them that way, we’re going to appear on their shows and participate, but understanding that they represent a point of view.”

It's much more than a point of view. FOX News should be considered a right wing PAC. They actively set up rallies and protests. When will they start raising money for republican candidates? Will FOX advertise a big network special and take a full day out of their schedule and raise money for the 2010 mid terms? Hannity already does republican fundraisers. I might have given them an idea...


[Warning: Naked self-promotion ahead.]

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My book The Eliminationists: How Hate Talk Radicalized the American Right continues to attract a lot of interest, partly because it so clearly anticipated the current descent into madness of mainstream conservatives, currently drowning in a lake of right-wing extremism. I didn't predict tea parties, but I did warn that '90s-style militia wingnuttery was about to swamp the Republican Party, and I do explain how this is happening.

So this week I was the featured interview at Amanda Marcotte's podcast at RH Reality Check. We specifically focused on the way right-wing domestic terrorists have had a profound impact on women's reproductive rights. This is a brief interview; it starts at about the 8-minute mark and continues to the 24-minute mark.

And I was also featured as the live guest on Second Life for this week's episode of Virtually Speaking on BlogTalkRadio.

This is an hourlong session and fairly broad-ranging. It was fun for me because I've known Jay Ackroyd for over 10 years -- online (we useta post at the old Slate forum The Fray back in the day), but we only finally met in person this summer at Netroots Nation. We talk about posting at Crooks and Liars, among other things. I also get to talk about my favorite moment of the past year: Having been the guy who made Sarah Palin crazy enough to try to have McCain lie, thereby cementing her rep as a diva among the McCain campaign.

It's now been a full year since I've been at C&L. I think I'll celebrate by running the video that made Palin crazy, which occurred my first week here:

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Meanwhile, John Amato and I are ensconced in the writing process this weekend for our upcoming book from PoliPoint Press: Over the Cliff: How Obama's Election Drove the American Right Insane. (Due out next spring.) We'll have more details as we get closer.

In the meantime, I'd like to say thanks to the community of readers and commenters here at C&L for welcoming me so warmly and making me feel right at home from the start. It's been a blast, with lots more to come.


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Ann Coulter revealed her inner Lyndon LaRouche last night on Sean Hannity's Fox News show:

Coulter: This has nothing to do with reality. There -- I mean, most of the things, it's not a matter of forgiving Rush for saying them, he never said them -- but one thing that I think might be, I don't know, in my book, unforgivable, would be being a Nazi collaborator. And oh yeah, part of the consortium trying to buy the St. Louis Rams is still George Soros, who admitted on TV to having collaborated with the Nazis. But he's fine, because he owns the Democratic Party.

... But in any event, I would wager that a fair number of the players would agree more with Rush Limbaugh's politics than with George Soros' politics. I mean, not for nothing, a lot of them are Christians, point one. Point two -- and I mean real Christians, you know, Christ Christians -- and point two, they make a lot of money. I don't know that they like all these tax-and-spend plans of the Democrats. So I wouldn't hold it against the players. It's just these wussy owners --

Hannity: I want to know if Dave Checketts is now going to tell Soros to take a hike. Maybe that's the next question. Somebody needs to ask the NFL if they want George Soros to be a part owner. If this is the world we live in --

Coulter: An admitted -- right -- and he's an admitted Nazi collaborator. He pointed out who the Jews were in Hungary when he was 15 years old. He admitted that to Steve Croft on TV.

She's right, this explanation certainly had nothing to do with reality. Leaving aside the absurdity of claiming that NFL owners -- who are probably some of the most right-wing rock-ribbed group of Republicans in business -- were being "politically correct" and "prejudiced against conservatives" (as Hannity put it) ... And the absurdity of claiming that "he didn't say those things" by cherry-picking two fake racist quotes while ignoring the twenty genuine racist quotes ...

Coulter is not just grossly, immorally distorting Soros' story, she is also flat-out lying about it too. The claim that Soros was a "Nazi collaborator" originated with the LaRouche organization and has since spread to the likes of David Horowitz.

The facts: Soros was a Hungarian Jew who survived the Holocaust. From Media Matters:

Michael T. Kaufman wrote in a biography of Soros, Soros: The Life and Times of a Messianic Billionaire (Knopf, 2002), that Soros' father attempted to protect his family from Nazi persecution by paying an employee of Hungary's Ministry of Agriculture named Baumbach to take in Soros, "ostensibly as his godson." Soros accompanied his "godfather" as he went to oversee the confiscation of property from Hungarian Jews, as Media Matters has noted.

This is also where Coulter actually lies about Soros, too -- and it's an outrageous lie, too. Soros never was involved in "pointing out Jews" -- he simply accompanied his protector while he carried out his civic duties, which included confiscating property from Jews.

Here's the relevant passage from the 60 Minutes interview in question:

Continue reading »


The Verdict On The New GOP.com: FAIL

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It's no secret that effective and intelligent use of the internet has escaped the Republican Party. That said, it should come as no surprise that the reviews are in on the new and improved GOP.com, and it's not good. Of course, progressive blogs give it the thumbs down, but let's see what right wing blogs have to say -- starting with Townhall:

As Jillian subtly points out, GOP chairman Michael Steele is not 13-years-old and, therefore, should not have a blog entitled "What Up?"

But along with the chairman's new blog, a new GOP site has been unveiled as the party attempts to re-brand itself. "Something is happening at GOP.com," booms the voice of Steele as the page loads. No joke: a digital Michael Steele struts across the computer monitor to explain the new website and how "that something new -- is you!" Sure this tiny Michael Steele and cheesy line is enough to make you roll your eyes, but it gets worse. Much worse.

In fact, it gets downright embarrassing.

And how about Little Green Footballs?

And even worse, the new website violates one of the cardinal rules of web design: web pages should never make sound without the visitor’s consent. The GOP home page has a little Javascript-animated Michael Steele who comes walking out and starts talking, like one of those incredibly annoying advertisements you see on cheesy websites.

It’s the political party with a website that’s not safe for work.

Red State loves it, but it must be discouraging that the "Future Leaders" page doesn't actually have any names on it. As I looked around the site, I noticed that each time I changed or refreshed pages, a new face would pop up on the page, just like my screen cap above. Strangely, a disproportionate number of those photos were of African-Americans and there were plenty of fresh, young faces too. You know, people who don't belong to the Republican Party, and never will? They even have the nerve to try to claim the ghost of Jackie Robinson!


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Bill O'Reilly was helping lead the chorus of whining that erupted on Fox News yesterday in response to Anita Dunn speaking the truth about their right-wing propaganda operation.

He opened with a Talking Points Memo segment attacking Dunn and the White House. He wrapped it up with a series of claims that could only have been uttered by someone who's pathologically delusional:

Finally, Ms. Dunn is seeing the world through the prism of the other media, like NBC News and CNN. By all accounts, those networks favored Barack Obama over John McCain, and NBC actually promoted the president's candidacy and continues to give him excellent coverage.

So by that measure, Fox News is indeed troublesome to the White House. But our hard news coverage is fair and balanced. Again, if somebody doesn't believe that, let's see the evidence because bloviating walks.

Oy. Where to begin. Over the years, there's been a mountain of evidence amassed -- both here at C&L as well as such sites as Media Matters and ThinkProgress -- demonstrating Fox News' extraordinary right-wing bias, and its utter lack of anything approaching fairness or balance. Indeed, Fox's adoption of the phrase "fair and balanced" has transformed it into a popular reference to up-is-down Newspeak.

The fact that O'Reilly blithely dismisses this mountain as the product of a "far left bias" by those groups is itself clear evidence of his own bias: It's clear he a priori dismisses any facts produced by such groups, regardless of their actual validity.

O'Reilly wants evidence of an utter lack of "fairness and balance"? OK, let's try a single sample out of that mountain: Griff Jenkins' reportage from the "Tea Party Express" in which he not only blatantly led the teabaggers in their anti-Obama chants, but where a Fox producer was caught exhorting the crowds to cheer.

Of course, O'Reilly will never accept such evidence simply because it disproves his claim. Yeh, that's the Fox brand of "fair and balanced."

But O'Reilly really severed any tie with reality in the following part of the segment, where he talked over the White House meanies with fellow Foxite Brit Hume. Reaching his apotheosis when the subject of Fox's treatment of George W. Bush came up, O'Reilly claimed:

O'Reilly: And I have to say that when President Bush was in trouble in Iraq, this network and this program, and your program as well, routinely, routinely hammered President Bush. On Iraq.

Hume: Well, we certainly -- we, we were very faithful about covering all the bad news that came out of Iraq for a very long period of time. The criticisms that were made of him were reported and discussed at length on Fox News. Um, now, he had his defenders, the war had its defenders, there was commentary on Fox --

O'Reilly: But there was no cheerleading -- There was no cheerleading of President Bush on this network when his administration ran into trouble. There was no cheerleading, you know -- it was skeptical coverage, Iraq's going south, when the economy started to wobble last September, we were right on that.

OK, done with that long belly laugh? Good. Because we all remember how Fox not only fawned over every move made by the Bush administration, but how it viciously attacked anyone who dared criticize Bush or Dick Cheney or their incompetent gang of cronies.

Recall how it attacked war critics as the situation worsened in Iraq? (It also transformed proponents of the war into "critics" when it became convenient to do so.) How it openly cheerled for Gen. Petraeus?

Remember how O'Reilly routinely attacked anyone who criticized the Bush torture regime?

Then there was the way O'Reilly consistently dismissed the Abu Ghraib scandal as unimportant.

Remember how it routinely attacked Valerie Plame and Joe Wilson, and sturdily defended Scooter Libby?

And those are just a few examples of how Fox didn't merely cheerlead for the Bush administration, but also acted as its propaganda arm by viciously attacking its critics. And there's no shortage of evidence of that reality at all.


BREAKING: Barack Obama wins Nobel Peace Prize

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Well, well, well....:

President Barack Obama made history again Friday, winning the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize for his "extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples

The Norwegian Nobel Committee recognized Obama's efforts to solve complex global problems, including working toward a world free of nuclear weapons.

President Obama is the first sitting President since Woodrow Wilson to be awarded this honor. (Videos from CSpanJunkie)

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Of course, the right wing is saying it's because he's not George Bush, without acknowledging the shame our country still wears from Bush being the "Anti-Peace and No Prize" President:

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