Fox News caught lying about Barney Frank

Even those of us who are fed up with Washington D.C. had to smile the other day when Barney Frank gave an eloquent verbal smackdown to a protester at one of those Town Hall meetings who compared health reform efforts to Nazi policy and and waved a photo of Barack Obama with a Hitler mustache. Frank's response to the Lyndon Larouche activist was all the more inspiring because Larouche is an antisemite and Frank is a Jew.

So Fox News did itself a real disservice yesterday morning when it spun the story against Frank by re-editing the video to make it appear that Frank was dressing down a nice lady in a funny hat, not showing the statement that led to his reaction, taking Frank out of context so it looked as if he was yelling at ordinary folks trying to have their say-- and using former DC weatherman and funny features reporter Steve Doocy to lie and claim that Frank was responding to two different people instead of the single Obama-Nazi protester. Doocy said Frank was "downright rude" and suggested that he might spend "a little too much time in Washington, D.C., away from real people."

Bad stuff. And way too obvious. Doocy probably never saw the original footage and was made into a fool by his producrs who were probably working off of Roger Ailes' talking points of the day. Doocy ought to apologize. And Fox News should save its lying for the O'Reilly and Hannity shows.

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Transcript From the August 18th Town Hall meeting in Dartmouth, Mass:

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Why do you continue to support a Nazi policy, as Obama has expressly supported this policy?

FRANK: Well, let me --

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Why are you supporting it?

FRANK: Let me -- wait, I will --

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: A real solution.

FRANK: When you asked me that question, I am going to revert to my ethnic heritage and answer your question with a question: On what planet do you spend most of your time?

[...]

FRANK: Do you want me to answer the question?

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Yes.

FRANK: Yes. As you stand there with a picture of the president defaced to look like Hitler and compare the effort to increase health care to the Nazis, my answer to you is, as I said before, it is a tribute to the First Amendment that this kind of vile, contemptible nonsense is so freely propagated.

Ma'am, trying to have a conversation with you would be like trying to argue with a dining room table. I have no interest in doing it.

Fox cancels winner of first courtroom series Emmy to make room for Republican politico talking head with scandal-plagued background & worse ratings

We read today that Warner Brothers Television has sold its courtroom strip series, Judge Jeanine Pirro, to the Fox Television Stations for next fall. The show had been running on Fox's CW Daytime lineup, and news isn't earthshaking at all-- until you read between the lines and realize what's been sacrificed to make way for the new arrival.

We've learned that the Fox Television Stations Group has canceled another courtroom strip show to make room for the former Westchester County DA and legal expert on Fox's recently-canceled The Morning Show with Mike & Juliet. They've given the axe to Cristina's Court, the series featuring crossover Latina star and legal eagle Cristina Perez.

Cristina's Court was doing a 1.1 household rating.

Judge Jeanine Pirro has been doing a 0.6 household rating.

Last year, Cristina's Court won the first-ever Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Legal/Courtroom series-- beating out Judge Judy (for whom the category was carved out).

Judge Jeanine Pirro is a dyed-in-the-wool Republican politico.

Cristina Perez is a rare crossover star from the Spanish-speaking Telemundo network, the first Hispanic TV judge to cross over to English-language television.

Jeanine Pirro is the former district attorney for Westchester County whose political career was burdened and often flummoxed by the philandering escapades, mental problems and criminal acts of her now ex-husband, Albert. She was still married to Albert when she announced in 2005 that she would seek the Republican nomination to challenge first-term Senator Hillary Clinton.

Cristina's Court generated buzz with its "Sex on the Bench" ad campaign.

Jeanine Pirro's unsuccessful run as Republican candidate for New York Attorney General was complicated by a federal probe when it was revealed she'd wiretapped her then-husband because of his philandering.

According to the Syndicated Network Television Association, Cristina Perez ranked as one of the most trustworthy and influential syndicated hosts on television, ranking second behind Oprah Winfrey among adults 18 to 34 years old.

Republican adviser and Fox News president Roger Ailes is also chairman of the Fox Stations Group, and calls the shots on what runs on the stations.

Wouldn't it be a nice twist for Cristina's Court to pick up another Emmy?

Geraldo Rivera toppled by storm-- deliberately?

Live on Fox News a few minutes ago, that old ham Geraldo Rivera went and got knocked over by the wild waves as he reported from Galveston on the approach of Hurricane Ike.

Geraldo tumbled after he had a word with a firefighter, then mentioned YouTube as soon as he got up.

Think he did it on purpose?

Geraldo?

Why do the Fox News gasbags fear the Palin story?

So now the Republican National Committee and its toadies at Fox News and other news organizations are trying to spin the headline from dangerous Sarah Palin's low-rent scandals to the so-called "liberal" media that's chasing them down.

What a crock. And what panicky little operatives these big media machers turn out to be. Sarah Palin, her fake pregnancy, and all the other petty crimes that the GOP powers didn't bother to find out about in advance is a great story, as nonpartisan and politically neutral as John Edwards' lovechild or Bill O'Reilly's phone sex.


It was funny, listening to Sean Hannity on the radio this afternoon, foaming at the mouth and shouting like one of those radio priests in the 1950s, running doubletime on his hamster wheel trying to spin away the Sarah scandals, forgiving Bristol her religious and sexual trespasses by bragging about his own "wild life" between the ages of 16 and when he found religion at 21. What a crock. Hannity was a nerd who discovered conservatism as radio schtik, who pals with the likes of Charlie Daniels and Phyllis Schlafly and has squandered his likability with demagoguery.


But once again, doofus extreme Bill O'Reilly, who's so perverted by his Catholic upbringing and paternal sadism that when he cheats on his wife with his subordinates he can only do it over the phone, takes the cake with his criticism of the Daily Kos, which did some nifty investigating of the Palin pregnancy story over the weekend:

"...Internet hate sites have made it easy for emotionally disturbed individuals to say just about anything they want to the entire world, and some of these nuts even get mainstream media exposure. The Daily Kos is the absolute worse, routinely printing defamation and hatred at a level never before seen in the United States.

"The latest from these guttersnipes is that Governor Palin did not give birth to a Down syndrome baby; her teenage daughter did. We can find no evidence to support that, and there are pictures of Mrs. Palin herself pregnant. But it doesn't matter to the Daily Kos?..."

Smarmy O'Reilly's got a lot of balls talking about hate sites. Kos was reinvigorating debate that raged through Alaska in April when Palin surprised everyone with the pregnancy announcement.

You know, the tabloid journalism that Rupert Murdoch nurtured in his career was among the best in history.

It's a shame that his legacy is being tarnished by these buffoons on his new front lines.

(All the photos above are real...)

The Democratic National Convention gets underway in Denver and Fox News is there (NSFW)

Don't play this in the office!