"Only Nemesis remains, stronger than ever."

In the words of the late, lamented Doghouse Riley, I heart Charles P. Pierce.

Nothing to see here...it's Cyber Monday

Decision-making at Fox News

Have to admit it, I'm in agreement with Ailes on this one.

This time, it was the network divided against itself, and Fox News' top producers held a meeting to adjudicate. The decision desk stood their ground. They knew how momentous the call was. Earlier in the night, according to a source, before making the call, Arnon Mishkin, who heads the decision desk, told Fox brass, "let's remember this is Fox News calling Ohio. This will say something beyond Ohio going for Obama." Fox brass told Mishkin to get the numbers right and ignore the politics: "If we think Ohio has gone Obama, we call Ohio," said a Fox News executive.

With neither side backing down, senior producers had to find a way to split the difference. One idea was for two members of the decision team, Mishkin and Fox's digital politics editor Chris Stirewalt, to go on camera with Megyn Kelly and Bret Baier to squelch the doubts over the call. But then it was decided that Kelly would walk through the office and interview the decision team in the conference room. "This is Fox News," an insider said, "so anytime there's a chance to show off Megyn Kelly's legs they'll go for it." 

Avalanche on Bull#$%@ Mountain

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Breaking news

Another good day for the news professionals at Fox News

Fox News outdoes itself

Stossel has a Republican nomination candidate "debate" an Obama impersonator.

While elsewhere on the Republican Network we are reminded of all the "hoods" Obama invites to the White House.

"Don't make me cut your mic"

The manufactured voter intimidation "scandal" reaches new lows.

Goldfinger

Roger Ailes is most certainly a media and political strategist genius. But, according to this story, in addition to being despised by the children of his boss, he's also (unsurprisingly) seriously paranoid and self-absorbed.

As powerful as he is within the News Corporation, Mr. Ailes remains a spectral presence outside the Fox News offices. National security had long been a preoccupation of Fox News, and it was clear in the interview that the 9/11 attacks had a profound effect on Mr. Ailes. They convinced him that he and his network could be terrorist targets.

On the day of the attacks, Mr. Ailes asked his chief engineer the minimum number of workers needed to keep the channel on the air. The answer: 42. “I am one of them,” he said. “I’ve got a bad leg, I’m a little overweight, so I can’t run fast, but I will fight.

“We had 3,000 dead people a couple miles from here. I knew that any communications company could be a target.”

His movements now are shadowed by a phalanx of corporate-provided security. He travels to and from work in a miniature convoy of two sport utility vehicles. A camera on his desk displays the comings and goings outside his office, where he usually keeps the blinds drawn.

Mr. Ailes said he received frequent threats over the years, but his concerns for the safety of his family were heightened by an incident at his New Jersey home after the 9/11 attacks. There was an intruder on his property, but no arrest was made. In Putnam County, he has bought several properties surrounding his home. A sign outside his house shows an illustration of a gun and advises visitors that it is under video surveillance.

The former "Mike Douglas Show" staff member probably had more to do with getting Nixon elected in 1968 than anyone else besides Nixon himself. It's remarkable how much alike the two men seem to be, except that Nixon might have taken himself a little less seriously.

A Fox in the hen house

I haven't felt much like weighing in on the whole "White House Wages War Against Fox News" because a) between baseball and work, I've been busy and my attention has been elsewhere, and b) it's stupid; everyone knows Fox News -- run by "former" RNC operative Roger Ailes (and no, not the good one), comprises the communications and oppo intel arms of the Republican party. With the possible exception of Shepard Smith, it now exists solely to undermine the legitimacy of the Obama administration and to obstruct democratic legislation in Congress.

But Paul Waldman gets to the real issue raised by this amusing contretemps.

What's really been revealed in this little dustup is the way television journalists think that they should get to follow a set of rules different from the set their colleagues whose work appears in other media follow.

[...]

At times like this, you see what a thin understanding many people have of the First Amendment. Fox has the right to say anything it likes and report in whatever manner it chooses. That's a right it exercises every day. But freedom of speech and the press also means that other people are allowed to criticize you for the manner in which you exercise your rights. People can suggest that your reporting is slanted or say that your adherence to the facts is inadequate or even call you a bunch of jerks, and they haven't infringed on your right to speak and report.

What has the administration actually done to Fox? It hasn't tried to censor the network. It hasn't forbidden Fox reporters from entering the White House -- those reporters are still there, doing their jobs. Obama staffers have -- brace yourself -- criticized them. Egad!

The White House has also decided, as Axelrod said, to stop pretending that Fox is a legitimate news organization. So when Obama did a round of interviews on the Sunday shows a few weeks ago, he neglected to add Fox News Sunday to the list. Is that a choice the White House doesn't have the right to make? No one would argue that Obama has some sort of duty to give interviews to Rush Limbaugh or National Review, just as no one expected George W. Bush to sit down for a chat with Keith Olbermann or The Nation. Yet for some reason, the fact that Fox is a television network is supposed to confer upon the president an obligation to treat it with deference. No such obligation exists.

Yes, Fox broadcasts pictures as well as words. Reporters for television networks may be better paid, dressed, and coiffed than their ink-stained counterparts from the print media, but the fact that their faces appear on television doesn't mean they should be subject to a set of rules different from the one other journalists follow.

The fact that representatives of the other TV networks are defending Fox and screaming "censorship (the First Amendment, as Waldman notes, gives Fox News idiots the right to say -- or bawl -- what they think, not the right to a presidential interview)," shows just how corrupt their view of themselves and their role in the political discourse really is.

Cleveland attacked by pantomime bears?

This does not appear to be a comedy sketch.

Via the inexhaustible David Pinto.

Murdoch media: I'm good enough, smart enough, dammit!

Al Franken touches a nerve.

In which I wake up screaming

Imagine if McCain had won.

It's just like...Al Gore!

Fox News on Tina Fey Palin impersonation: Where's the Obama spoof?



"It could be a funny 52 days."

The full sketch:

Exhausting decency

If Kevin Hench is any indication, then Fox Sports is just as douchebaggery as Fox News!

Why? Here's why.

Baldelli will be sidelined indefinitely, but said Wednesday that he is not retiring. He said there hasn't been an exact diagnosis but that doctors have told him he has "some type of metabolic and/or mitochondrial abnormalities."

"Basically somewhere along the line ... either my body isn't making or storing ATP the right way, therefore not allowing my muscles to work as they should, and especially recover like they're supposed to on a day-to-day basis," Baldelli said.

Last year, he played in 35 games before hurting his hamstring running out a grounder on May 15. He aggravated the injury after just two games of a rehabilitation assignment with Triple-A Durham in June, and the Rays shut him down for the season in August, when lingering soreness ruined his comeback bid after two games with Class A Vero Beach.

The Rays had asked Baldelli to pace himself during spring training, hoping to keep him healthy and fresh for the start of the season. He said he felt fine when he reported to camp, but soon began regressing.

"My body is literally spent after a very short amount of time out on the field, which makes it extremely frustrating and difficult," he said, at times appearing on the verge of tears. "But it's something that's kind of a reality right now, something we're dealing with the best that we can."

Kevin Hench, writing for Fox Sports, finds this worthy of derisive "humor." Bravo, Kevin Hench.

A parade of propaganda

I don't know who this guy is, but he's deserving of a Congressional medal. Brilliant. Via Greenwald.

Update: He's Lee Camp.

Fox hearts Bush

Well, we knew that, but now we have visual proof.