And The Olympic Gold For Freestyle Stupidity Goes To Dick Morris Of Fox News

Dick Morris has done it again. I wouldn’t cover this ignorant gasbag if it wasn’t so much damn fun. He has absolutely nothing of substance to say and what he does say is certifiably bonkers.

Dick Morris

Last night on the Sean Hannity program on Fox News (not exactly a Mensa gathering either), Hannity introduced his theory that Bill Clinton would be a drag on President Obama’s reelection campaign:

Hannity: You know Bill Clinton better than anybody else. Now here is a guy that I suspect, before all is said and done, is gonna, in his own way, undermine Barack Obama’s reelection chances.

First of all, Morris has not had any relationship with Clinton for sixteen years, since he was fired when it was revealed that he had allowed a toe-sucking prostitute to listen in on conversations with the President. That’s the sort of character that compelled Fox News to hire Morris. In response to Hannity, Morris said this:

Morris: I guarantee you, Sean, based on what I have heard from third parties or I have spoken to that William Jefferson Clinton is going to cast his ballot for Mitt Romney. However, he’s going to open his mouth for Barack Obama because his wife is hostage. They have her under lock and key as secretary of state, and he is scared that Obama will lose and blame him if he undermines Obama. So he will do everything he asks him to do and then he will jab him whenever he can.

Of course. It’s so obvious. Right after Clinton officially nominates Obama at the Democratic convention he’s going to rush off and vote against him. As if denying Obama that one vote will counter all the positive PR his convention speech will produce. Morris thinks that a life-long Democrat is prepared to vote against a Democratic incumbent for president based on what he’s heard from third parties.

The business about Hillary, however, is the truly idiotic part of this. Morris seems to think that making a woman the most powerful diplomat in the world is equivalent to tying her up in the back room of a flop house. And if Clinton is so worried about being blamed for an Obama loss why would tell anyone that he that he is voting for Romney? Particularly anyone who would actually speak to Dick Morris.

The manure spread by Morris is high grade bullshit. And it’s something he does frequently. Take for example his 2008 book “Condi vs. Hillary,” which contained his astute prediction for the 2008 race in the title. That didn’t exactly pan out for him, did it? From the introduction to the book:

{T]here is no doubt that Hillary Clinton is on a virtually uncontested trajectory to win the Democratic nomination and, very likely, the 2008 presidential election. She has no serious opposition in her party […]

The stakes are high. In 2008, no ordinary white male Republican candidate will do. Forget Bill Frist, George Allen, and George Pataki. Hillary would easily beat any of them. Rudy Giuliani and John McCain? Either of them could probably win, but neither will ever be nominated by the Republican Party.

So Morris got the Democratic nominee wrong, despite his conviction that there was “no doubt.” He also got the Republican nominee wrong. And the Republican who Morris said could not be nominated, but would win if he were, was nominated but actually lost. Is there any way he could have been more wrong?

And now Morris delivers that sort of analysis on Fox News. It is perfectly aligned with the low bar for intelligence and reason that Fox sets for their pundits and anchors. And anyone who watches and believes this tripe deserves the howls of ridicule they will receive when they are inevitably proven to be as stupid as Morris et al.

Fox Nation vs. Reality: On Al Sharpton

Fox Nation - Al SharptonIn the latest episode of Fox Nation’s departure from reality, the Fox Nationalists have jumped on remarks by Al Sharpton that suggest he intends to refrain from ever criticizing President Obama. The headline: NBC News Hires Anchor Who Pledged to Not Criticize Obama About Anything.

First of all, That is not exactly what Sharpton said. The reference is to a 60 Minutes interview (via Cenk Uygur) where Sharpton said that criticizing Obama with regard to a black agenda would diminish his role as President. What he said was…

“What I don’t want to see is because he is black we act like he’s not the real president – he ought to be leading the black cause or the labor cause. He’s the President. To minimize who he is, I think, is an insult to the achievement of having him there.”

So this was not about never criticizing Obama, just not obsessing over a single issue. For the record, I’m no fan of Sharpton, but I do think that accuracy and honesty are important. And in that regard Fox should acknowledge that their whole business model rests on not criticizing Republicans and conservatives. In a specific example you have Dick Morris, who has been on the Fox payroll for years, and recently pledged never to criticize GOP front-runner Mitt Romney:

“I decided a couple of – a month or two ago to stop dumping on Mitt Romney, for example … Not because I approve of Romneycare, not because I approve of his flip-flops, flip on abortion, but because I may have to be one of those who carries this guy for a couple of months when he’s running against Obama and I don’t want to make my own task harder.”

It’s safe to say that he has the same policy toward any other prospective Obama opponent. And the same goes for his Fox colleagues. Remember that when you hear any of them talking about any of the GOP candidates.

Fox Nation - Obama PathologicalAnd just for fun, take a look at the featured story on Fox Nation this morning: Opinion: Is Obama a Pathological Liar?

Hmmm. That’s something to ponder. Along with: Is John Boehner a Child Molester? Is Michele Bachmann in League with Al Qaeda? Is Rupert Murdoch a Reptilian Alien? Does the Republican Party and Fox News shill for billionaires and anti-American multinational corporations to advance their own personal interests and greed? (Oh, wait a minute. That last one has already been verified).

Fox News Analyst Dick Morris Admits He Is A GOP Shill

Anyone with a functioning brain stem knows that Fox News is the PR arm of the Republican Party. Their programming throughout the day is unabashedly partisan and overtly hostile to the White House and Democrats. And while they prove it every day in their news and commentary, it isn’t often that confess it openly.

Fox News contributor and political analyst Dick Morris appeared today on the Mike Gallagher radio show and made it clear that he has no intention of even pretending to be a objective analyst:

Morris: I decided a couple of – a month or two ago to stop dumping on Mitt Romney, for example … Not because I approve of Romneycare, not because I approve of his flip-flops, flip on abortion, but because I may have to be one of those who carries this guy for a couple of months when he’s running against Obama and I don’t want to make my own task harder.

There you have it. It doesn’t matter what his actual opinion is about Romney, he is only going to comment in a manner that will be supportive. So regardless what questions he is asked by Fox hosts like Bill O’Reilly or Megyn Kelly, Morris can be depended on to give a dishonest answer.

It would be interesting to ask O’Reilly what he thinks about this and how he will engage Morris the next time Morris is his guest. It calls calls into question every answer Morris gives on any subject. Is he just advancing the GOP position on not increasing the debt ceiling even though he may believe it should be increased? Is he really pro-abortion but doesn’t want to want make his task harder when he’s promoting a family values, fundamentalist Republican candidate?

OK, a lot of this is obvious partisanship that has always been a part of the Fox psyche. And Morris is, perhaps, the most consistently wrong pundit in America. But it’s still a little jarring to hear him make this admission. And the fact that he feels free to do so is likewise disturbing. When will Fox’s colleagues wise up and stop treating Fox as if it were a legitimate news enterprise? Fox is making fools of every real journalist that allows them to get away with this.

Fox News To Hire Judgment Day Preacher Harold Camping

Pray for Fox NewsWith his latest prediction of Armageddon behind him, Judgment Day Preacher Harold Camping is looking forward to his new position at Fox News as a politics and religion commentator. The announcement of this addition to Fox’s roster of pundits came this morning from Fox Vice President and Washington managing editor Bill Sammon:

Sammon: We are pleased to begin what we believe will be a long and fruitful relationship with this distinguished observer of American culture, religion and society. Harold has a keen insight into current affairs and a connection to America’s faith-based community. He also has a predictive track record that fits squarely with the team at Fox News.

Sammon is quite correct in that assessment of Camping’s history of forecasting. He is at least as accurate as the stars on the network. For instance:

  • Bill Kristol predicted in 2003 that “American and alliance forces will be welcomed in Baghdad as liberators.” In 2008 he predicted that “Barack Obama is not going to beat Hillary Clinton in a single Democratic primary.”
  • Glenn Beck predicted an economic collapse in November of 2009 and warned his viewers to “find the exit closet to you and prepare for a crash landing. Be prepared, it’s coming. Most likely after Christmas, you’ll start seeing the effects of what they are doing to the economy.” The Dow is up 25%, and unemployment down 10% since then.
  • Newt Gingrich’s prediction about a post-Iraq war was that “once you don’t have Saddam Hussein in Iraq […] the Syrians will start backing down and the Iranians will start backing down.”
  • Dick Morris predicted the candidates for the 2008 race for president would be Hillary Clinton vs. Condoleezza Rice.
  • Sarah Palin predicted that the result of passage of the health care bill would mean that “my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s ‘death panel.'”
  • Cal Thomas Predicted that “euthanasia is coming. You can call them death panels. That’s exactly what they’re going to be.”

A couple of weeks ago a study was released that showed that most pundits are only right in their prognostications about 50% of the time. The numbers were even worse for conservative pundits who, according to the researchers, were wrong more often than liberals.

Camping, a popular Christian radio broadcaster, could flow smoothly into Fox’s lineup. He shares most of the editorial slant favored by the network’s veterans. When reached for comment he said…

“What? Fox News? Oh yeah. Me and Roger [Ailes, CEO of Fox News] had lunch and discussed the return of Jesus. The world is ending, you know? What date is it? Could someone shut the window?”

That’s why Camping should fit right in with the rest of Fox’s commentators. There is certainly nothing in his past that would indicate that he would lower Fox’s average for accurate forecasting. He might even be a good replacement for the departing Glenn Beck. His areas of interest (politics, morality, the end of all human existence) match closely Beck’s favorite subject matter. In fact, with a little make up, Beck’s audience may not even be able to tell the difference.

IDIOT ALERT: Dick Morris Predicts Obama Loss In 2012

It is simply mind-boggling how some people continue to get attention from the media despite being consistently wrong about everything they discuss. Prostitute toe-sucker, Dick Morris, is the epitome of just such a loser. For reasons that are incomprehensible, The Hill has published an incoherent screed by Morris wherein he asks…

“Will Obama get reelected? No way! In the teeth of the economic catastrophe that is shaping up, his chances are doomed.”

Doooomed, he portends. To lead off his logic-deprived argument, Morris describes how a “consumer confidence scale,” invented by the ultra-partisan Scott Rasmussen, fluctuated from 81.7 in December, to 88.3 in January, to 84.5 in February, to 73.1 in March. According to Morris, this wild ride in a brief four month period is evidence that Obama cannot be reelected 20 months from now.

What a dolt! His own data illustrates that those numbers are unreliable projections of events far off into the future. Next month the index could be 63 or 91. And that says nothing about what it will be in six months – or twenty. He isn’t asserting a trend or taking into consideration current events now or later. Yet he still concludes that Obama is toast. Then he really goes off the rails:

“The tsunami in Japan, perhaps the greatest tragedy since 9/11, will further impede any prospect for economic growth. There will be a demand for spending to repair the devastation of the quake. But Japan is tied with China as the world’s second largest economy, generating 12 percent of the global GDP. With Japan neither producing nor buying for the foreseeable future, the drag on the global economy will be profound.”

Let’s begin with his assertion that the tsunami in Japan, with estimates of up to 10,000 casualties, is the greatest tragedy since 9/11. It is, without question, a horrific occurrence. But Morris’ diseased brain must have already forgotten the tsunami in Indonesia in 2004 (230,000 dead), the cyclone in Myanmar in 2008 (138,000 dead), and the earthquake in Haiti just last year (316,000 dead). Or maybe he thinks those weren’t great tragedies.

Then Morris, in the space of one short paragraph, contradicts his main point. He says that Japan will neither be producing nor buying, despite having said in the previous sentence that there will be a demand for spending to repair the devastation of the quake. So Japan will, in fact, be buying, and to a lesser extent producing, as they seek to rebuild. It is a sad reality that disasters can produce opportunities in reconstruction efforts. And because of the devastation at home, Japan is going to have to rely on foreign developers, including those in the U.S. So how exactly will that hurt the U.S. economy and Obama’s reelection prospects? Morris doesn’t say.

Next Morris offers his solution to America’s woes. But all it is is a reiteration of the Bush era policies that produced the financial calamities we are presently experiencing. For instance: rolling back regulations, canceling tax increases on the wealthy, reducing federal spending, repeal of ObamaCare, and of course, drill, baby, drill. Morris believes that…

“…the true legacy of the Obama years is likely to be stagflation and an entire decade wiped out by his policies, budget and programs. Long after he is gone in 2013, we will still be repairing the damage of his terrible decisions.”

So Morris is seeding the notion that even if a Republican president is elected in 2012, he will be hobbled by Obama’s mistakes for eight more years. But Morris is the same jerk who derides Obama for ever suggesting that we are still feeling the effects of Bush’s mistakes just two years hence. He accuses Obama of shifting blame to the past administration, but Morris is preemptively blaming Obama for imaginary economic troubles in 2020. He’s playing the blame game on steroids. Plus, he’s giving his prospective Republican president a pass for failing over two complete terms.

For the record, Morris also predicted that Obama would never be elected to begin with. His 2006 book, “Condi vs. Hillary,” contained his astute analysis of the upcoming election in the title. That didn’t exactly pan out for him, did it? From the introduction to the book:

[T]here is no doubt that Hillary Clinton is on a virtually uncontested trajectory to win the Democratic nomination and, very likely, the 2008 presidential election. She has no serious opposition in her party […]

The stakes are high. In 2008, no ordinary white male Republican candidate will do. Forget Bill Frist, George Allen, and George Pataki. Hillary would easily beat any of them. Rudy Giuliani and John McCain? Either of them could probably win, but neither will ever be nominated by the Republican Party.

So Morris got the Democratic nominee wrong, despite his conviction that there was “no doubt.” He also got the Republican nominee wrong, and the Republican who Morris said could win if he were nominated actually lost. Is there any way he could have been more wrong?

It is on the strength of this sort of analysis that Morris gets asked back to provide additional “insights.” That is just astonishing, and so very sad. Why would The Hill publish his irrepressibly misguided prognostications given his record? Why does Fox News feature him almost nightly? How often do you have to get things ridiculously wrong before people in the media decide to stop asking for your worthless opinions?

Unfortunately, we do not seem to have reached that threshold yet, because Morris is still getting invitations to opine on subjects about which he knows little to nothing. And the worst part is that he isn’t the only one. Isn’t anyone keeping score?

Hannity And Morris Campaign For Waterboarding

Sean Hannity and his guest Dick Morris spent some quality time advocating for waterboarding yesterday. They fell all over each other to see who could be the most vigorous proponent of torture for the would-be crotch-bomber.

HANNITY: We can’t talk to this guy. We ought to be waterboarding this guy.
MORRIS: Absolutely. This is an exact example of something where his insistence on treating everybody as a civil liberties issue gets in the way of the intelligence. By the way, the information we get after we waterboard him should not be admissible this criminal trial.
HANNITY: But you agree with me. We should waterboard him.
MORRIS: Yes.
HANNITY: And by the way, you and I are going to be hammered tomorrow.

Let the hammering begin. However, I would like to direct my hammering at the breakout idiocy of Morris. After drooling over the prospect of a lovely torture, Morris swerved to another topic so that he could peddle his disdain for the Constitution:

MORRIS: But, Mr. Blogs, I don’t think the evidence that we get from waterboarding him should be admissible in his criminal trial. The Fifth Amendment still exists. But it should be actionable for intelligence to break up other Al Qaeda plots.

Mr. Blogs? I’ll assume that he’s talking to me and answer thusly: Mr. Prostitute Toe Sucker, you can’t simply dismiss the Fifth Amendment on a whim. What’s more, your whole argument against placing a terrorist in the criminal justice makes no sense. You say that providing an attorney will result in the defendant clamming up. But that would not be the case when the defendant was captured in the act at the scene of the crime. Under those circumstances, an attorney would not be advising a not guilty plea and seeking an acquittal. He would most likely advise a guilty plea and seek to trade information for leniency. Consequently, there would be a greater likelihood of extracting intelligence through the criminal justice system than through torture, which has been proven to provide unreliable data.

But Morris doesn’t stop spewing stupidity there:

MORRIS: …the other point here is the reason 9/11 happened is that Bill Clinton treated the ’93 bombing of the Trade Center as a crime, not as an act of war.

Actually, unlike 9/11, we caught the perpetrators of that incident and put them in prison. In addition to that, we bombed their foreign facilities and “retired” some of their operatives. If anything, our success may have spurred the terrorists to seek revenge.

MORRIS: I think that if we don’t take our country back in 2010, it’s not going to be there for us to take back.

Where is it going to be, Dick? Is it going to spontaneously combust? Will it join Atlantis at the bottom of the sea? Will there be an asteroid collision with the planet? Are you really suggesting that there will be no more America after the 2010 if Republicans fail to assume power? I think you and Glenn Beck had better sit down and coordinate your stories on the Marxist, socialist, progressive utopia in our future.

MORRIS: There are Democrats and there are Republicans. Now I used to be one of them. I used to be a conservative Democrat. I’m not any more because it doesn’t exist. […] If you’re a Democrat, you’re a Democrat, you’re a Democrat, and that’s all you can be.

So despite the fact that it has been Democrats who have battled to form working majorities, and it’s the Republicans who have voted in lockstep throughout this session of Congress, it is still the Democrats who Morris regards as philosophical purists. Even though Republicans have actual “purity tests” that their members are pressured to abide by, while Democrats are plagued by Blue Dogs who vote more like Republicans.

It’s always interesting to observe this sort of cognitive breakdown. It’s just that it’s becoming a bit too predictable for people like Morris and his Fox News enablers. It would be nice if every now and then they refrained from saying things so monumentally stupid it makes you pity them. Just for variety they should try to make sense once in a while – if they are able to.

The Fox News Conservative Book Promotion Channel

Anyone who watches Fox News with any frequency is painfully aware that it is little more than a marketplace for rightist propaganda and rancor. But lately, I noticed another kind of hucksterism that is rampant on the network. Several of their regular anchors and contributors are identified as authors in the graphics at the bottom of the screen. This happens often enough that I began to wonder just how widespread this practice of co-promotion of TV and publishing was. As it turns out, it is pretty damn widespread. If you were to populate your library with books by Fox News personalities, you would have to purchase all of these – to start:

Bill O’Reilly
A Bold Fresh Piece of Humanity
Culture Warrior
The O’Reilly Factor
Kids Are Americans Too
The O’Reilly Factor for Kids
Who’s Looking Out for You?
The No Spin Zone

Dick Morris
Fleeced
Outrage
Rewriting History
Power Plays: Win or Lose
Because He Could
Off with Their Heads
Condi vs. Hillary: The Next Great Presidential Race

Michele Malkin
Unhinged: Exposing Liberals Gone Wild
In Defense of Internment
Invasion

Mike Straka
Grrr! Celebrities Are Ruining Our Country

Sean Hannity
Deliver Us from Evil
Let Freedom Ring

Glenn Beck
The Christmas Sweater
An Inconvenient Book
The Real America

John Gibson
The War on Christmas
Hating America
In Defense of Religion

Laura Ingraham
Power to the People
Shut Up and Sing
The Hillary Trap

Major Garrett
The Enduring Revolution: The Inside Story of the Republican Ascendancy and Why It Will Continue
The 15 Biggest Lies in Politics

Ann Coulter
Guilty
Slander
Godless
Treason
If Democrats Had Any Brains, They’d Be Republicans
How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must)
High Crimes and Misdemeanors

Bernie Goldberg
A Slobbering Love Affair
Crazies to the Left of Me, Wimps to the Right
110 People Who Are Screwing Up America
Bias
Arrogance

James Rosen
The Strong Man

Greta Van Susteren
My Turn at the Bully Pulpit

Updated to add:
Fox News Washington, D.C., deputy managing editor, Bill Sammon
At Any Cost: How Al Gore Tried to Steal the Election
Fighting Back: The War on Terrorism from Inside the White House
Misunderestimated: The President Battles Terrorism, Media Bias and the Bush Haters
Strategery: How George W. Bush Is Defeating Terrorists, Outwitting Democrats, and Confounding the Mainstream Media.
The Evangelical President: George Bush’s Struggle to Spread a Moral Democracy Throughout the World

This a wholly unprecedented marketing partnership between a so-called news organization and a right-wing political crusade. The books being plugged by the Fox spokesmodels are hardcore partisan tracts that all reflect the same regressive ideology. They have implemented a campaign that blankets their airwaves with pitches for published opinion pieces that are mostly dishonest, manipulative, and overtly hostile.

So where is the other side in this debate? Of course there are no anchors or hosts that lean even modestly left on the “fair and balanced” network. But even amongst their pseudo-liberal commentators like Kirsten Powers, Bob Beckel, or the recently departed Alan Colmes, you would be hard pressed to turn up a handful of literary works. Even so, I have never seen any of their limited line advertised on the air. Conversely, grousers like O’Reilly hawk their books on every broadcast. And you’ll find that appearances from the Coulters and Goldbergs increase coincident with the release of each new product. As for the other networks, there are a few authors scattered about, like Lou Dobbs, but the shelf space they would consume would be a mere fraction of the Fox Book Club.

The truly astonishing thing about all of this is that anyone would want to read (or watch) any of these pathetic characters to begin with. They represent a collection of the world’s most ill informed, logic deprived, truth averse losers in modern media. Bernie Goldberg, the fired CBS alum, is an unrepentant propagandist who writes books about media bias. Well, I guess he should know. Major Garrett, Fox’s White House correspondent, presciently penned a tome with the subtitle of “The Inside Story of the Republican Ascendancy and Why It Will Continue.” That was published just prior to the Democratic takeover of Congress in 2006, followed up in 2008 with additional congressional gains and an historic White House victory. Good call, Major

But my favorite is the Clown Prince of Fox, Dick Morris. His 2006 book, “Condi vs. Hillary,” predicts the prospects for the commencing presidential election. Here is a sample of his astute analysis from the introduction to the book:

[T]here is no doubt that Hillary Clinton is on a virtually uncontested trajectory to win the Democratic nomination and, very likely, the 2008 presidential election. She has no serious opposition in her party […]

The stakes are high. In 2008, no ordinary white male Republican candidate will do. Forget Bill Frist, George Allen, and George Pataki. Hillary would easily beat any of them. Rudy Giuliani and John McCain? Either of them could probably win, but neither will ever be nominated by the Republican Party.

So Morris got the Democratic nominee wrong. He got the Republican nominee wrong. And the Republican who Morris said could win if he were nominated actually lost. It is on the strength of this sort of analysis that Morris gets asked back to provide additional insights.

The truth is, it doesn’t matter on Fox (or almost any of the TV news nets) if you’re wrong. The only thing that matters is that you faithfully regurgitate the conservative dogma and talking points. If you do, then you will have a job for life, and your books, web sites, and other media spew will become part of the marketing machine that props up conservatism. It’s an elegantly parasitic relationship. TV exposure begets propaganda which begets book deals which begets TV exposure which begets propaganda, ad infinitum.

And at the center of it all is Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., a vertically integrated media empire that channels disinformation throughout it’s layers of television, radio, newspapers, magazine and book publishers, and the Internet. This complex web of entanglements insures multimedia distribution of the right wing’s political philosophy. Each props up the other to produce an architecture of lies in support of their lust for power and their Utopian dream for social Darwinism. Goebbels would have been proud.

Dick Morris Shills For GOPtrust On Fox News

The lines between Fox News and the Republican National Committee just keep getting blurrier. The latest evidence that this media giant is in bed with the political party came last night on Hannity and ???. Dick Morris was the guest and he made an overt solicitation for donations to the GOPtrust, a group that bills itself as a right-wing MoveOn.org.

This isn’t anything new, of course. Media Matters has documented multiple occasions where Morris did the same thing on Fox. Last night’s appeal was particularly urgent::

I’ve been pushing very, very hard for a group called GOPTrust.com that is running $1 million of ads in Georgia to elect Chambliss and defeat the Democrat […] It is crucially important that every American who cares about the free enterprise system go online as soon as this show is over, and Alan makes his announcement, and get online to GOPTrust.com and give Chambliss the money he needs to win. Your whole future depends on it.

But the story of this relationship doesn’t end there. As it turns out, Morris is not only fundraising for GOPtrust, he is getting paid by them. FEC reports reveal that the group paid Morris over $24,000 for “email communications.” Morris dismissed complaints of this by saying that what he did is no different from what the New York Times does when taking ads. However, it is completely different. The Times doesn’t run editorials soliciting donations on behalf of their advertisers. And they certainly don’t make television appearances to make pitches for donations for them either.

But this is precisely what Morris has done. And it is not an innocent expression of support for a political ally. Morris openly conspired with GOPtrust to take these actions. In a speech earlier this month at David Horowitz’s Restoration Weekend, Morris related this tale of how he helped fund GOPtrust’s anti-Obama ads. When the group’s director complained that he was broke, Morris said…

“I’ll take care of that, I’ll get on Fox News every five minutes, and I’ll push the GOPtrust.com, and I’ll get you money as long as you raise it against Reverend Wright.”

[Author’s note: David Horowitz is an ultra-rightist provocateur who is known for his racist diatribes against liberals and his targeting of universities and Hollywood as the cesspools of American culture and politics]

So Morris admits that he is raising money for a group that is putting some of that money back into his own wallet. And he is using appearances on Fox News to further his unscrupulous scheme. Furthermore, it is not plausible that Fox News is unaware of their complicity seeing as how candid Morris is about his intentions.

While the Republican Party is licking its wounds following the recent election, it must be feeling pretty good about having an international media empire in its pocket.

Spitzer Is To Clinton As Vitter Is To McCain

New York governor Eliot Spitzer has blown it in a big way. Anti-corruption crusaders ought not to be dallying with call girls. Ordinarily I don’t like to assign much importance to personal and/or family matters. But when a personal act is both illegal and hypocritical, it becomes a hurdle that is very difficult to get over.

That said, the media is demonstrating its customary tunnel-blindness in reporting this story. The news is less than two hours old and I have already heard reporters on CNN, Fox and MSNBC asking about the impact on Hillary Clinton’s campaign.

Why would this have any impact on Hillary Clinton’s campaign? It is unrelated to policy matters. It is not something she could have known. There is no connection to her whatsoever other than the fact that Spitzer had endorsed her.

Well, I haven’t heard anyone ask John McCain about whether he has the support of Sen. Larry “Wide Stance” Craig (R-ID). And Sen. David Vitter (R-LA), an admitted patron of Washington’s DC Madam, endorsed McCain just yesterday. Neither Craig nor Vitter have resigned their seats in the Senate.

I also have to wonder if Dick Morris, a frequent guest on Bill O’Reilly’s program, and the subject of his own prostitution scandal, will appear on the Factor tonight to discuss the Spitzer affair. While he obviously would have no moral authority to criticize Spitzer, he could at least speak from experience. Knowing Morris and O’Reilly, they would probably not even bother to disclose it.

Here’s your homework for today: Anyone who reads or hears a reporter ask Clinton about Spitzer should demand that they also ask McCain about Vitter.