Joe Scarborough goes after bloggers (I mean, who else is watching your show, Joe?) on a regular basis, denigrating us as Cheetos-eating Star Wars fans living in our mothers' basements.  Joe's court jester Willie Geist interviews bloggers in the DNC Big Tent, and finds very few bloggers who fit Joe's slurs. 

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As with most issues, what Joe says as opinion, is simply contrary to fact.   Surveys of top political bloggers (here and here) in 2006 found that most are male, white, well-educated, around 45 years old, and earning above-average income.  Kinda exactly like you, Joe.  We also have extensive activist experience (I shook Ted Kennedy's hand at 18 and haven't really washed under the nails since), and we have an addictive level of news consumption (which is the only explanation I have as to why we get up to watch Morning Joe).

As an Ivy-educated middle-aged mother-of-three homeowner who does not own any Star Wars memorabilia, I can see why you might be jealous of bloggers, Joe.  Few of us have to deal with little niggling details like dead staff in our office or having to carry the water of the Worst. President. Ever. 

Also, as a blogger, I can tell you in the presence of my considerable, well-educated audience, to kiss my liberal elite blogger ass.  

  Bill O'Reilly has officially lost it. In his warped little mind, bloggers who organize and engage in public advocacy for causes they believe in like universal healthcare and an end to unnecessary and dumb wars are the same as Klansmen who used to lynch black people. Seriously. How can you logically make that connection? Dumb question.

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"Obama must condemn organizations like MoveOn and DailyKos if he truly wants to run without a race component. These are the people who are dividing Americans along racial lines. It is not a stretch to say MoveOn is the new Klan."

Here's a fun game to play in comments, kids. Finish this sentence: 

"Bill O'Reilly is the new _______ "

Enjoy!

  On "Morning Joe," seemingly in response to this C&L post, Joe Scarborough denies he was talking about his colleague Keith Olbermann when he referred to a pundit who "ignorantly" reported on McCain's Anbar gaffe, and then goes on a hysterical little rant about the "Cheetos Brigade" without mentioning who he was talking about. 

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"I was talking about someone on another network. [...] But again, you know the problem is when you're in the basement and you're blogging and you're eating Cheetos, sometimes the Cheetos dust goes up, ya know, and you get two choices: You can either keep typing, or you can stop for a second and wipe the Cheetos off your chest, clear out your ears and take a closer listen. But they don't do that. And therein lies the problem with the 'Cheetos Brigade.'"

What other cable news host reported on the story Tuesday night that Joe could have been talking about? Was it Andersen Cooper? We'll probably never know because although Joe may not be a keyboard-carrying member of the "Cheeto Brigade," he sure doesn't have the courage to name names.

Maybe Joe can lament about the evil bloggers with Brian Williams at the next DC cocktail party. I can just picture them yukking it up about guys named Vinny with "Cheetos-stained" shirts in their pathetic "efficiency apartments." Maybe our pads would be a little nicer, Joe, if we were handsomely rewarded for being wrong about everything like you are. Then again, I'll take my snack food, modest housing and clean conscience over your mansion and war-cheerleading record any day of the week.

Be back in a minute....my fingers are orange and the bag is empty.  [Blue Gal has a Cheetos message for Joe, too]

John McCain, Town Hall Meeting, Merrimack, NH 12/29/07

Hey right wing bloggers. I think he's talking about you too.

JOHN MCCAIN: "Now we've got the cables. We've got talk radio. We've got the bloggers. I hate the bloggers. We've got all kinds of sources of information."

I'm giddy with the thought that he isn't very fond of me.

On Tuesday's "O'Reilly Factor," BillO went after DailyKos founder Markos Moulitsas for having the audacity to run a site where people are free to write posts like this one, in which dKos member Mahler3 <gasp> juxtaposed photos from Jenna Bush's wedding with graphic pictures from Iraq. This was not a recommended diary, by the way, and was almost universally panned in the comments section.

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Transcript via MediaMatters:

O'Reilly: And Newsweek magazine, by the way, has legitimized him by giving him a columnist position. I talked to the editor by email, and I said I can't believe that you're -- that's like hiring David Duke. Again, I use Duke too much, but I have to -- the level of hatred coming out of that website is unprecedented. Isn't it?

Markos responds here with some friendly and hate-free emails he got from O'Reilly viewers.

C&L'er Bill W writes:

Somehow Newsweek shouldn't have hired Kos because of what other people say in the comments or post in their user blogs, but of course he's okay with their hiring Rove who has been involved in scandal after scandal. Who's more like David Duke? Kos, or the guy behind the robocalls that said McCain had an illegitimate black child? I'm just sayin'.

Building on his extensive resumé of ambush journalism, Bill O'Reilly sends one of his flunkees "producers" to confront Arianna Huffington over cherry-picked comments left by an anonymous person on HuffPo.

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Arianna responds:

I find it laughable to be lectured on hate speech by Bill O'Reilly, who has done as much if not more than anyone else in the media to debase the public dialogue. He spews hate as readily as he breathes. It's his lifeblood.

O'Reilly's relentless crusade to smear Arianna should finally leave no doubt that he has absolutely zero journalistic standards and/or shame.

As John Amato just documented with some original reporting, FOX News allows hate-filled-racist comments on their own website. You know, the kind BillO says is ruining our country. We're still waiting for O'Reilly to clarify those comments or deem them really not hateful at all. Will Howard Kurtz include them in his next column also?

Exit question: If you ambushed the Falafel King and got to ask one question, what would it be? I think I would ask what he meant when he told Andrea Mackris that Al Franken was going to "get a knock on his door" one day and have his "life change forever."

On Wednesday, Bill O'Reilly continued defending his slanderous assault on Arianna Huffington, repeatedly comparing her to the KKK and Nazis after blaming her personally for a handful of cherry-picked comments from readers of her website, The Huffington Post.

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What makes O'Reilly's phony outrage all the more ridiculous is the fact that his own site has been caught spewing even worse comments from his 'premium' members than the few from HuffingtonPost that he's pretending to get all riled up about. Let's recap just a few of the comments about Hillary Clinton from billoreilly.com:

If Hillary wins, I will be respectful of our leader. If you could read my thoughts, I would be on the SS [Secret Service] watch list.

As a woman, i would open the door for her.....now, if there was nothing on the other side but empty space and a 50 foot drop into a moat filled leeches and (gulp) rats...well, I can't be held responsible.

If Hillary wins which I hope she won't. My guns are loaded for the revolt are yours?

Pot, meet kettle ...

Why Fox News, or any network, would continue to allow someone with such a long history of racist remarks even before his Sylvia's restaurant rant which gained so much attention, much less the same man who just two weeks ago threatened "to go on a lynching party against Michelle Obama," to get away with baselessly and repeatedly calling anyone a racist genocidal murderer on air is shocking.

As Media Matters notes, "O'Reilly frequently attacks those with whom he disagrees, comparing them to the Nazis or the Ku Klux Klan." Last year it was the DailyKos, now it's HuffingtonPost. I'm really quite surprised he hasn't set his sights on C&L by now. Perhaps it's because he knows we're well versed here in the 'three magic words' guaranteed to keep BillO at bay: Malmedy, Mackris, and loofah (and for those of you taking notes, falafel will work just as well).

In an op-ed piece for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution entitled "Unfettered 'citizen journalism' too risky", David Hazinski, a former NBC correspondent and associate professor of telecommunications at the University of Georgia, says that

...having just anyone produce widely distributed stories without control can have the reverse effect from what advocates intend. It's just a matter of time before something like a faked Rodney King beating video appears on the air somewhere....Journalism organizations should head that off. Citizen reports can be a valuable addition to news and information flow with some protections:

• Major news organizations must create standards to substantiate citizen-contributed information and video, and ensure its accuracy and authenticity.

• They should clarify and reinforce their own standards and work through trade organizations to enforce national standards so they have real meaning.

• Journalism schools such as mine at the University of Georgia should create mini-courses to certify citizen journalists in proper ethics and procedures, much as volunteer teachers, paramedics and sheriff's auxiliaries are trained and certified.

Um, Mister Hazinski sir? There are just a few bloggers who would like to have a word with you....

So Helen Thomas asked fellow WH pressroom regular David Gregory who is responsible for polarizing American politics. Gregory responded:

I think it’s because of the internet largely. The polarized atmosphere in the internet and blogs and whatnot have been a major contributor to that.

Bless his heart*.

Words of Power has the appropriate response:

Yes, of course, it was the bloggers who polarized the US body politic. ...In 2000, the bloggers stopped the counting of the ballots ordered by the Florida Supreme Court, and installed the man who lost, as the counting, finished later by researchers, would confirm. ...In 2004, the bloggers made sure there weren't enough voting machines in the poorest and blackest districts of Ohio. ...The bloggers made Habeas Corpus and the Bill of Rights optional. ...The bloggers established a Gulag system, instituted torture and rendition, and started disappearing people. The bloggers stayed on vacation while New Orleans drowned. Read more...

*Get used to me saying that. It's the way Southern women use a common two-word put down containing a familiar expletive.

John Amato: Yea, and it was the blogs that spent millions of dollars trying to impeach and indict President Clinton for years and years and of course, we accused him of murdering Vince Foster. Didn't we? Or maybe it was Richard Mellon Scaife. Isn't he a blogger too?

This is news? Blogs? Biased? From Fox!?!

Tell us, Eric. Who writes your screen titles? And are they completely lacking in shame, or self-awareness?

I guess Rupert Murdoch bought both their shame and self-awareness and threw them in a chipper.

Cenk's had all he can take and he can't takes no more...

The Washington Post, in the interest of "neutrality" (remember their "balance" of Abramoff coverage?) decided to "fact-check" the MoveOn "General Betray-Us?" ad, and as would be expected, there was a disconnect between the facts (they agreed that MoveOn had it mostly correct) and the final score.

Cenk has more here.

Chris Shays is suffering from BDS, Blogger Delusion Syndrome. Check out this rant against MyLeftNutmeg.

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The terror filled Shays was laughable. Macca Allen attacked a man with racism---is Shays worried about doing something like that? Although----remember his Abu Ghraib is a Sex ring thang?  And he is a hot head.

Earlier this summer, Shays was forced to apologize after verbally haranguing a capital cop who refused to hold onto the congressman's cellphone. He had previously been pilloried for his rough handling, during a committee hearing, of widows of Blackwater employees murdered in Iraq.

FairfieldWeekly has more: Battle Fatigue

Don't Block the Blog rallied against Pakistan's banning of Blogspot in February 2006. Now Don't Block is fighting Turkey's banning of Wordpress. Ali Eteraz has more on the Turkish situation. H/T for the story and the badge to Geography, Telecast.

Skube bashes blogs and admits to Ed Cone that he doesn't even read them. He answers TPM's question like this:

So against my better judgment, I sent Skube an email telling him that I found it hard to believe he was very familiar with TPM if he was including us as examples in a column about the dearth of original reporting in the blogosphere.

To which I got this response: "I said I did not refer to you in the original. Your name was inserted late by an editor who perhaps thought I needed to cite more examples ... "

Who inserted the names of the blogs for Skube's article that were included if he doesn't read them? Ask jim.newton@latimes.com

(h/t Mark Groubert)

Maybe Michael Skube should read a few blogs before he...oh, nevermind...

Now doesn't this put a smile on your face? Actually it's quite sad...