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From Fox News Sunday, Nov. 9, 2008. Wrap your heads around this "logic" from Brit Hume. Liberals don't want to be called liberals anymore because they are ashamed of it and want to be called progressives instead because we all know it's a right wing country. Or something like that. Maybe someone else can explain what's going on in this man's twisted brain to me. I thought the terms were just pretty much inter-changeable, but hey, what do I know? Here's the transcript to read just in case watching him causes anyone physical pain.

Wallace: Brit what do you think are the key debates that over the next year that Republicans need to have about the future of the party?

Hume: I think this is not the moment for the Republican party to start trying to reinvent itself. The Republican Party's opportunity will grow out of what happens in an Obama administration and if Obama is shrewd and so far he seems to be in the little, in what little indications we have now is he won't try to pull the party and the country too far, his party and the country too far to the left or let his party pull him too far to the left. But if he does, ah, it won't be popular and it won't work, the programs won't work even if they can be stuffed through the Congress and the Republican party will reap the benefit just as the Democratic party reaped the benefit here.

The idea that there's been ideological shift is belied by the polls and it's belied by one other symptom you can see it time and again and that is what is, what is, what is the liberal, what are liberals call themselves these days? Do they call themselves liberals? No sir. They still call themselves progressives. This is a, this is a political philosophy that an America still to this day dares not speak its name. And, and until that changes, I think we can safely say that we, it's a center right country and the liberals know it.

John Amato:

For weeks John McCain, Sarah Palin and the entire Conservative base called Obama a Socialist and a Marxist. They tried to paint him as the Distributer in Chief, taking from Joe the Plumber and giving it to Cadillac welfare queens who are much too lazy to get a job. And guess what? the American people elected him anyway. There are millions of us who proudly call ourselves "liberals" and donated boat loads of cash to his campaign. Nobody is afraid of the term liberal more than the Hume's of the right because their time has come and gone and they are petrified. And their brand is in the middle of a complete melt down as we speak. And as Bob Cesca documents, this ain't no right wing nation via the polls. I would really love to think that Hume is unemployable if Fox ever let him go.

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The very exercise of FOX News Channel covering the Democratic National Convention in and of itself is laughable.  Like there is any way that they would actually employ any kind of intellectual honesty or ethics and analyze the coverage.  Pfffft. Everyone knows that they're bringing on their conservative and/or neocon roster of talking heads and find ways to tear about the Democrats, both individually and collectively.  And this little exchange between Brit Hume and Charles Krauthammer is endemic of the whole of FOX's coverage. 

First of all, I'm not sure if Krauthammer is on sedatives or merely aspiring to be the television version of a sedative, but it was painfully hard to stay awake through the transcribing process.  I'm convinced that Krauthammer had a hard time keeping awake too, because his sentences didn't completely make sense.  When asked for his impressions of Wednesday's speeches, Krauthammer (who, like his National Review buddy Bill Kristol, has a long history of being completely and utterly wrong in his assertions), he couldn't obviously break the FOX code, but his criticisms were so vague and so oddly similar to those things that he praised in Bush in 2000 that it's almost comical to hear him struggle to find ways to slam Biden.

Biden is apparently too blue collar for Krauthammer (as opposed to the 'guy you wanted to have a beer with' Bush, whose appeal to the common man is undeniable).   And he didn't talk about Obama enough--though why he'd be expected to in his acceptance of the nomination speech is never really explained.  And the attacks on McCain will fail (with whom? Democratic delegates? Who's gonna buy that?) because everyone  knows that McCain is a maverick and obviously not Bush's twin. 

But this is the depths that Krauthammer and FOX had to sink to find something to criticize the day with:  They had to pull the Kim Jong Il card.  Why?  Because delegates were waving signs at the convention!  My God, those commies!

The other element of the attack is the other theme, which is McCain as the Bush heir and that's why you heard the refrain from uh the Biden saying not change, more of the same and you had the effect, that I find rather creepy, the audience holding up signs with slogans like you do in Pyongyang, which read "Not Change, More of the Same." 

So lame.  I'll bet next you're going to accuse them of being terrorist sympathizers next because their cheers sound suspiciously close to Muslim ulullating, you pathetic neocon hack.  And given your track record of being right, Krauthammer, I'm going to take your predictions of doom and gloom as assurance that the Democrats are doing something right.

Full snore inducing transcripts below the fold:

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Last week Scott McClellan told Chris Matthews that the White House "certainly" made an effort to get "talking points" out to FOX commentators like Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly. You knew O'Reilly wouldn't take this lying down so yesterday he went into a diatribe about McClellan, calling him a "liar" and an "idiot" for daring to come clean and speak the truth.

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"I never once received a talking point from the White House, so McClellan is not telling the truth about me!" Should I be angry? Nah. But I have to call a lie a lie, especially because this garbage was picked up by CNN. [...] By the way, McClellan would never dare say that to my face."

UPDATE: John Amato: O'Reilly seems to think everything revolves around him. Scotty was talking about FOX News and not O'Reilly specifically. GOP talking points run through FOX like blood runs through our veins. BillO can throw all the temper tantrums he wants. It's just fact.  And Bill doesn't need White House talking points anyway. 

Warning! Warning! "Danger, Will Robinson!" Beware Brit Hume when he gets a bit snippy.

Unfortunately, to many in the industry, his quiet patina masks a nasty streak. "He drips with sarcasm and self-importance," claims a former senior producer at Larry King Live who dealt with Hume in the past. "He used to be a class act, but he got toxic real fast after drinking too much of the Fox Kool-Aid." And while Hume is a model of restraint on air (some might call him smug), frequent outbursts behind the scenes have done little to endear him to his younger staffers. "There was one meeting a few years back when he got so pissed off he threw a full carton of orange juice across the room," says a onetime researcher who is now out of the business altogether. "He can be incredibly snippy and dismissive if you don't do things his way." 

Does Kool-Aide and orange juice mix? Must be a new cocktail served up by Ailes. If only we had a video clip of that. Wasn't there video of another FOX host losing it? O'Reilly Gone Wild: F-bombs on camera.

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O’Reilly: I can’t do it. We’ll do it live, we’ll do it live, f&^k it…..f*&king thing sucks…

Digby was impressed with Tucker Carlson of all people:

I particularly like Tucker Carlson saying "most people in cable news are assholes. If they're not assholes, they have dysfunctional sex lives. But they're usually assholes." I mean, self awareness is always a very rare commodity among television personalities, but Tucker ... dude

Washington Post:

Brit Hume, a top anchor and executive with Fox News since the channel was launched 12 years ago, plans to step down at year's end. But he won't disappear entirely...read on

For some comedic relief, read MM's post on Roger Ailes trying to defend FNC as 'fair and balanced' on CSPAN. I watched this at the time and couldn't believe what I was seeing.

Here's a little Hume for you. 

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Brit Hume tries to dismiss McCain’s misstatements on the Iran/al Qaeda connections as a “senior moment” for McCain.  

Hume: I think it’s probably just a blip, but it was a bigger blip than he wanted or needed at the time.I think the overall impression of the trip was this is a man welcomed by, knowledgeable of and comfortable with foreign leaders across a big part of the globe. But the mistake, nonetheless, raises questions not about his knowledgability—we all kinda believe he has that—the question, perhaps, about his age, which is an issue. You know, the feeling was not that he’s a dope, didn’t know his way around, that he might have had a senior moment there, and I think that’s unfortunate for him. But I think probably the trip was a net plus.

Brit Hume and FOX news pride themselves on his one hour show. A while back---Roger Ailes said on  CSPAN that he dared anyone to dispute the fact the Hume's show isn't the most fair and balanced cable news program on TV. (paraphrasing) Roger, I think you need to rethink it. I was repeatedly emailed the alleged story of Obama's half brother calling Obama a Muslim in the Jerusalem Post yesterday. I googled it and found no story.

It was obviously pulled because it wasn't true. ABC did a fact check on it and guess what they found? It was a fraud.

It was a sloppy paraphrase that emerged as false evidence. Malik Obama, the older half brother of Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, gave a brief interview to Israeli Army Radio.

The Jerusalem Post listened to the interview, apparently, and produced a story saying "Malik Obama says his brother will be good president for the Jews. Barack Obama's half brother Malik said Thursday that if elected his brother will be a good president for the Jewish people, despite his Muslim background."

Nowhere is Malik quoted. The Jerusalem Post has since taken the story down of its website,

It ended up on Fox News, with anchor Brut Hume saying on June 16 that: "Barack Obama is a practicing Christian, married in a Christian church, whose children were also baptized in that church. His campaign has emphasized his faith in part to dispel what the campaign calls an online smear campaign which contends among other things that Obama was raised a Muslim. There is even a statement on his official campaign website reading, quote, 'Obama has never been a Muslim, and is a committed Christian.' But Obama's half brother is not so sure. Malik Obama tells The Jerusalem Post that, 'if elected his brother will be a good president for the Jewish people, despite his Muslim background.'"

So is it true? No.

Brit Hume reads the smear, repeats the smear because Conservatives pounced on it and once again pushed a false narrative into our airwaves. I watched the next two days of Hume's Political Grape Vine section and he didn't issue a correction. Leave a message in for FOX: Send news tip to FOXNews.com on the bottom right of the page.

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Brit Hume tries to dismiss McCain's misstatements on the Iran/al Qaeda connections as a "senior moment" for McCain.  

I think it’s probably just a blip, but it was a bigger blip than he wanted or needed at the time. I think the overall impression of the trip was this is a man welcomed by, knowledgeable of and comfortable with foreign leaders across a big part of the globe. But the mistake, nonetheless, raises questions not about his knowledgability—we all kinda believe he has that—the question, perhaps, about his age, which is an issue. You know, the feeling was not that he’s a dope, didn’t know his way around, that he might have had a senior moment there, and I think that’s unfortunate for him. But I think probably the trip was a net plus.

Once again, ONCE might have been a senior moment.  Repeated transgressions does not a senior "moment" make.  But even if we give McCain the benefit of the doubt, do you really think raising the spectre of Alzheimer's is a good way to legitimize the candidate before the general election?  If he's having four identical "McCain Moments" now, what is he going to be like in 2012?

I'm not a fan of Democrats appearing on FOXNews. I think it legitimizes a propaganda outlet stacked against Democrats and allows them to frame the issues. However, if Democrats who agree to appear on FOX do what Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida does here, then more power to them. Brit Hume desperately wants to paint the jam the Florida delegates are in as the fault of Florida State Legislature, despite the fact that it was really pushed by the Republican-led majority. So Hume tries to paint Wasserman-Schultz into a corner and she brooks no quarter from him and refuses to let him control the framing. Go Debbie!

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DWS: Well, I think when you’re talking about fairness, we have to remember this was started by the Republican-led legislature here, that actually set the date of our primary. So the victims here in all of…in the decision by the DNC to strip us of our delegates are Democratic voters in the state of Florida.

BH: Can I stop you there…just let me stop you there for a second, if I can.

DWS: Sure

BH: In the Florida state senate, who introduced the bill to move the primary forward?

DWS: The bill was introduced by a Democratic member, a new Democratic member of the state senate…

BH: And, and, and in the legislature, in the legislature, Senate and House as well, how many Democrats voted against it?

DWS: No, well, that’s an inappropriate line of questioning, Brit, because…

BH: But wait a minute, inappropriate or not, could you just answer it, answer the question?

DWS: Can I answer your question?

BH: Yeah, how many?

DWS: I would like to answer your question without you asking me another one, if you don’t mind. The legislation that was originally sponsored was amended into an overall election package that included the major provision to ensure that we could have manual recounts and a paper trail. So this was a major election package that a change in the date of our primary was included in. So the vote total was unanimous, but that was because there was no one in the Florida legislature was going to vote against changing our voting system so that you could have a paper trail and make sure that every vote could be counted, unlike our touch screen voting system right now, which doesn’t allow for that. So to try to hang a unanimous vote on the fact that Democrats supported that, that’s misleading. They supported it because they certainly weren’t going to vote against making sure there was a paper trail in Florida.

(hat tip Paul D.) Ya know, I thought we'd hit bottom on right wing stupid with Glenn Beck's "ugly women are progressive" comment. Guess what? The admittedly lovely Michelle Obama? According to Brit Hume, she's

"a liberal, and maybe an ARCH-liberal."

Brit? It takes a lot to out-stupid Glenn Beck. Congratulations, my friend.

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Hume: The American people don't like the Iraq war, probably never will, but they're not rooting for us to lose. They don't seem invested in our losing the way the Democrats so often do.

 Typical blather from Brit Hume on the Iraq war via FNS. The warmongers treat war like it's a college football game. The American people want us out of Iraq....PollingReport:

NBC/WSJ poll: 59% want withdraw of most troops by 2009. ABC/WaPo: 63% say the war wasn't worth it...He defeats his own talking points because their is no political reconciliation...

There has been no political progress in Iraq and that was the rationale for "the surge." Charles Krauthammer admits this point. Juan Cole has a round up of the violence in Iraq...35 decomposed bodies were found in Baghdad Saturday...

Think Progress has more...

On Fox News Sunday this morning, Brit Hume attacked Senate Democrats for “setting a goal that all U.S. combat soldiers withdraw from Iraq by December 15, 2008,” claiming that they have an “aura of unreality” because they’re trying “to force troop withdrawals, impervious to the fact that troop withdrawals have already begun”...read on

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Foreign Service officers like Jack Crotty (sp?) speaking out against forced assignments to Iraq certainly has the brave armchair chickenhawks of FOXNews Sunday in a tizzy.  I mean, how dare these diplomats--some of whom have given decades in service to their country--feel at all hesitant about going to Iraq?  After all, embassies are the safest place in the world, at least that must be what it seems like for Brit Hume, all nice and cozy in his studio.

Only among the people at Foggy Bottom would an assignment to a dangerous place be considered "forcing them." The fact of the matter, I think, is the key part of Mr. Crotty's statement when he began talking was about it would be one thing if people who supported what's going on over there to be asked to go. Clearly, a big portion, a big part of the State Department staff, diplomats, FSOs and the rest do not support the policy and do not think they should be obligated therefore to carry it out, which is contrary to their oath. Is there a more important diplomatic assignment in the world right now than Iraq? Obviously not. This is the most sensitive, the most difficult, the most challenging and I think the most important assignment you could have. And for someone like that guy, speaking obviously for many, to stand up and caterwaul about it the way he did, I think he's arguably a very great disgrace and a black mark on the Foreign Service in general.

Gotta love that authoritarian mindset that ignores all the people saying that this might be a mistake and refuses to concede--in the face of one wrong prediction after another--that he might not have it right.  By the way, that oath that FSOs take?  You tell me if there's any obligation there: 

I, [state your name.] do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. That I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same. That I take this obligation freely and without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion. That I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me, God. 

The former Wonkette, Ana Marie Cox concedes that there's no duty to follow orders in the FSO oath as there is in the military oath, but then goes ahead and takes a page from Brit and suggests an ignobility on the part of these diplomats.  Luckily, in the comments, someone who actually knows what he's talking about (and for the record, Ana, that would NOT be Brit or his buddy Bill Kristol) sets her straight.

(h/t Scarce & Silent Patriot for videos)

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On Tuesday night's Countdown, Keith Olbermann's special 9/11 Worst Person In The World segment, the runners up were Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell for his FISA fibs and FOXNews' Brit Hume for allowing both General Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker to spew their surge propaganda without challenge.

But the Worst Person honors went to Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CT) for proclaiming Congress needs to rekindle the unity they shared in the days after 9/11 and to stop the political partisan bickering -- and then chose to spend the anniversary of the tragedy at a Freedom Concert hosted by FOXNews' biggest hack, Sean Hannity -- featuring some of the biggest partisan haters in American history, including Ann Coulter, Newt Gingrich and Ollie North.

During his "exclusive" interview with Brit Hume on FOX last night, the objective and entirely trustworthy General Petraeus continued his propaganda blitz for a full hour, with nary an adversarial question about the GAO report or any of the other truly independent (and entirely contradictory) assesments. It's quite fitting that FOX billed the interview as "a briefing for America," because that's exactly what it was: a briefing, an hour-long extension of his Congressional testimony. In this clip, watch Hume prod Petraeus into explaining how the war in Iraq is really a "war against al Qaeda."

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I don't want (nor do I expect) Hume to berate Petraeus with a credibility-questioning line of inquiry. What I do expect from a so-called straight-shooting journalist is a "fair and balanced" Q&A about the conflicting reports of violence and/or the wisdom of maintaining a military commitment when 70% of Iraqis believe the "surge" has worsened their lives; not someone to help Petraeus point to his colorful charts and ask blatantly leading questions. Then again, we're talking about FOX NEWS and Brit Hume here. It should come as no surprise that FOX landed this "exclusive." As pathetic as our national press is, any other network/journalist would have managed to squeeze in at least a few hardballs.

As Josh Marshall notes:

The "exclusive" is also helpfully interspersed with commercials from the White House-organized pro-Iraq War astroturf group Freedom's Watch.

Matt Stoller and OpenLeft have started an online petition urging the DC Establishment to begin viewing General Petraeus' recent statements through the prism of his long history of inaccuracies. Sign it here and review his record here.

Glenn chimes in: Brit Hume and the Bush administration take propaganda to a new level

If there was any doubt to the US public that Gen. Petraeus was being used a puppet for Bush's war---it should be gone now. Brit Hume of FOX Propaganda was granted an exclusive interview with the general, who is supposed to be giving an honest assessment of the "surge" and the state of affairs in Iraq. Bush might have well as given Rush Limbaugh the honors. No longer can the administration claim he is the voice of reason or not acting as an echo chamber for their plan to keep the surge and the war going as long as possible.

"On Fox News Sunday this morning, host Chris Wallace announced the interview:

WALLACE: Now a special program note. Tomorrow night at 9:00 p.m. eastern on the Fox News Channel, Brit will have an exclusive interview with General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker about the state of the Iraq war and their testimony to Congress. Please be sure to watch."

The American people already have little faith in his report and this event should seal the deal. If he was truly non-partisan, then this interview would never be taking place.

Brit Hume follows the GOP/Giuliani script by saying that most Democrats think the war on terror is some kind of a political scam. Notice how fiercely he breathes these words.

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Hume: Make no mistake about. This is what a lot of Democrats and those who support them think. They think the war on terror is some kind of a political scam which the administration is using to undermine civil liberties and expand the power of the executive branch of the government. They do not treat it particularly seriously.

Juan Williams called him a propagandist..

Williams: This is unbelievable to me. Wait a minute, when you say it's likely to be passed, why doesn't the administration therefore let's just fix exactly this issue? (crosstalk). Let's not put the addition...let me just say one other thing...

Hume: Excuse me, Juan, that is what McConnell is proposing.

Williams: No, McConnell and the administration have a great deal more to say, Brit, and they're interested in advancing the idea that you don't have to go before the FISA court in order to get the warrant. That you can do things and get retroactive approval. But here is the larger point about being scared: who is it, you know, Republicans or Democrats that didn't properly arm this force to go out and fight this war? Who didn't put enough boots on the ground in order to get the job done early? Who is it that confused the mission? And then you say, "oh no, it's somehow Democrats who are running scared." On the contrary, Democrats this week put in place money to protect the homeland and make it tougher for terrorists to crack our defenses here at home. I don't see how you can say it's anything but scare-mongering and puppeting propaganda to say, "oh no, it's the Democrats, those bad guys."

FOX has infested their "prime time" news broadcast during the day with a major GOP hack...It wasn't the Democratic Party that used phony terror alerts or attack a country that had nothing to do with 9/11...Add to the list...

Fred Barnes wanks at the end...