Month: September 2013

Glenn Beck Takes A Commanding Lead In The Incoherence Olympics

Posted by on September 15, 2013 at 5:02 pm. 8 Comments :

To anyone who has been paying attention, Glenn Beck has never been one to put much emphasis on making sense when he delivers his hate-filled diatribes. Much more important to Beck is his focus on twisting unrelated sentence fragments into jumbles of conspiratorial nightmares that lead to the imminent extinction of all mankind.

Glenn Beck

Last Friday Beck applied the full force of his dementia to cast President Obama as a foreign entity who “doesn’t know who Americans are.” But his spiel was so disjointed and incomprehensible it has to be heard to be believed.



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Let’s break it down. Beck starts out just mumbling without even completing his psycho thoughts.

There is a great desire…..[He never tells us what the desire is]
And this is why I think this president has missed the opportunity…..{He never reveals the nature of the opportunity]
Because he doesn’t know who Americans are. Just like he doesn’t really…..[Really what? Who knows? He doesn’t say]
He’s not a sports fan. He didn’t grow up here…..[And that’s relevant why?]
And that’s not a slam on him or anything else…..[Gee, I wonder what would be a slam]
He didn’t grow up here. He wasn’t immersed in the culture.

This would be a good time to point out that Obama did indeed grow up in America. While he spent four years in Indonesia between the ages of six and ten, the rest of the time was all in the good old U.S. of A. Plus, he was an avid sports fan and participant. But the wild allegation that Obama’s alleged foreignness is connected to a phony aversion to sports falls apart in Beck’s very next sentence when he say “I grew up here. I’m not a sports fan.” So Beck’s theory is that Obama is not a sports fan because he didn’t grow up here, even though he (Beck) did grow up here but is not himself a sports fan. What on earth is his point?

Beck goes on to fling rhetorical feces at Obama that make no sense and have no basis in reality:

“But I am a fan of the history of the country. I grew up here. And I was lucky enough to grow up in a family that appreciated the heritage of the United States of America. He didn’t. He grew up in a family that hated the United States of America and he has been surrounded by people who hate the United States of America. That’s not a slam on him, that’s a fact. It’s just a fact. So you wouldn’t expect him to be anything else.

“This country gave him the opportunity to go from a guy who grew up in Asia, surrounded by people who hated the country, to become the President of the United States. Now, I do contend that he didn’t earn that. I do contend that he was selected – that he was chosen by the Soroses of the world. That he didn’t earn that. He gave a good speech that I don’t know if he even wrote. He was a good speaker. He was somebody that everybody knew that you’ll get away with murder because he’s likeable and he’s black.”

That’s the whole ball of wax right there: he’s black. That’s what irks Beck and his cadre of racist, Teabagging cretins. Beck projects his own hatred on Obama and dispenses loopy theories about a man who so detests a country that he spends his life in the service of it and succeeds in rising to lead it. Beck permits himself to believe that George Soros has magical and omnipotent powers that enable him to chose American heads of state, which begs the question, why doesn’t he just do that all the time?

As usual, Beck can’t answer any of these questions. And his brain-dead followers will never even think of them. At this point, Beck’s dementia is so advanced that all we can do is sit back and be entertained – at least until he suffers a complete meltdown and explodes in a fiery ball of fear-dripping, Messianic goo. Let’s just hope he doesn’t take any innocent folks with him.

Attorneys For The Estate Of Andrew Breitbart Threatened With Contempt Of Court In The Shirley Sherrod Matter

Posted by on September 15, 2013 at 1:00 pm. 5 Comments :

Andrew BreitbartEven in death Andrew Breitbart manages to be a major league dickwad.

Last week attorneys representing his estate, in a case where he was being sued for libel by former USDA employee Shirley Sherrod, failed to answer the court’s questions regarding the estate’s finances. When the lawyers couldn’t even tell the judge whether or not Breitbart had a will when he died, the judge became skeptical and threatened to charge them with contempt of court.

U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon said he was mystified that Breitbart’s attorneys from Katten Muchin did not know whether or not Breitbart died intestate and said he feared that the firm and Breitbart’s estate — or whatever entity may be in ownership of the late blogger’s assets — were being evasive and uncooperative in the case.

“This court expects a law firm of the stature of Katten Muchin to not be a party to games like this, at least as the court sees it,” Judge Leon said.

Back in 2010, Breitbart posted a video of Sherrod on his web site that falsely portrayed her as engaging in racially biased behavior in her duties as a government employee. The unedited video shows that, in fact, she was telling a story about something that had occurred twenty years earlier, before she worked for the government, and actually had a message of equality and tolerance. Nevertheless, Breitbart refused to apologize or retract his defamatory articles.

Sherrod sued Breitbart, who evaded accountability by dying. And now his lawyers are continuing his legacy of shameful deceit by dodging the court’s legitimate inquiries into his finances. The boneheads that assumed control of Breitbart’s web sites have cemented their reputation for bombastic dishonesty and tabloid-like perversions of journalism to an extent that might even have embarrassed Breitbart. But they cannot continue to avoid the legal scrutiny in this case, and will eventually have to pay for their disgraceful smear campaign against Sherrod.

NewsBusters Asks: Is Bank Robber Wearing An Obama Mask Racist?

Posted by on September 15, 2013 at 11:43 am. 11 Comments :

For those not familiar with NewsBusters, it fancies itself as a conservative media watchdog whose mission is “Exposing and Combating Liberal Media Bias.” It is a subsidiary of the uber-rightist Media Research Center. And it is also one of the most prolific apologists for radical right-wingers and racists like Ann Coulter and Pat Buchanan.

Last week they outdid themselves by posting an absurd item about a bank robber in New Hampshire who wore a mask of President Obama during the robbery. NewsBuster’s Noel Sheppard made the Olympian leap from that incident to the Missouri rodeo last month when a rodeo clown wearing a similar mask went on a racially offensive rant.

NewsBusters
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This is a perfect demonstration of how clueless right-wingers are about their own racist tendencies. Sheppard clearly has no idea how offensive it is to perform an allegedly comical routine before hundreds of spectators that calls for grievous harm to befall the president of the United States. His organization ran numerous columns defending the rodeo buffoonery, just as racists of a previous era defended black-face performances.

However, where Sheppard really steps off the plank is when he attempts to draw a comparison between an obnoxious and insulting rodeo act and the criminal behavior of a bank robber. Sheppard seems to think the media has some responsibility to analyze the mind of the criminal for racial insensitivity. The problem is that Sheppard is apparently too stupid to grasp that the crook wasn’t making any kind of a political statement. He was merely trying to conceal his identity (in a spectacularly dumb way). Contrast that with the rodeo clown’s routine that openly baited the crowd to cheer for the President getting gored by a bull.

So what does a bank robber wearing an Obama mask have to do with a brazenly offensive performance by an entertainer? You’ll have to ask Noel Sheppard, because no one in their right mind could possibly connect those dots.

American Exceptionalism = American Supremacy

Posted by on September 13, 2013 at 1:04 pm. 4 Comments :

There has been a mini-furor swirling around part of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s op-ed in the New York Times. It was mostly a fairly tame composition that called for reflection and diplomacy. However that didn’t stop right-wing blowhards from waxing apoplectic, seemingly outraged that Putin had the audacity to express himself publicly. And the height of his hubris, in the view of conservative thought-nannies, was his criticism of that stale symbol of superiority, American Exceptionalism.

Putin: It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation. There are big countries and small countries, rich and poor, those with long democratic traditions and those still finding their way to democracy. Their policies differ, too. We are all different, but when we ask for the Lord’s blessings, we must not forget that God created us equal.

How can the theo-con rightists take issue with that? By doing so they abandon principles they ordinarily regard as core to their philosophy. Neither their spiritual idols nor their nearly spiritual fixation on the “Founders” can live harmoniously with the concept of exceptionalism. What would Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence and its assertion that “all men are created equal,” have to say about this?

The truth is that American Exceptionalism is another way of saying American Supremacy. The campaign for such a concept is as repulsive as Hitler’s doctrine of a Master Race. The notion that one group of people, on the basis of their nationality, are better than others, is as odious as one group asserting superiority on the basis of skin color. The original meaning of the phrase had more to do with defining Americans as an “exception to the rule.” It was modern bigots who perverted it into an expression of overarching greatness.

Fox News

Not surprisingly, Fox News is leading the parade for American Supremacy, as they have done for years. This morning, Fox & Friends aired a segment that touched on Putin’s remarks (The segment was also featured as the lead story on the Fact-Free Fox Nation web site). But Fox legal analyst Peter Johnson, Jr., and host Steve Doocy were barely coherent as they slid over to a more general discussion of a Syrian intervention and how Putin’s commentary makes it more likely:

Johnson: What’s happening, and I don’t know if Mr. Putin wants to do it or not, but he’s provoking a lot of Americans into a position that maybe, maybe they should be in agreement with the President’s decision to strike Syria. […] If they keep it up, then they will push America to the brink of a Syrian attack. I don’t know if that’s the intended consequence or not, but that will be the effect.

If you had trouble making sense of that, you’re not alone. Johnson has somehow formed the opinion that Putin might want the U.S. to attack Syria. How he comes to that conclusion is puzzling, to say the least, and is nowhere in his comments. Putin, of course, has no incentive to support a strike on Syria and, in fact, has been vociferously against it. Indeed, his opposition was the central theme of the New York Times op-ed that Johnson and Doocy were discussing:

Putin: The potential strike by the United States against Syria, despite strong opposition from many countries and major political and religious leaders, including the pope, will result in more innocent victims and escalation, potentially spreading the conflict far beyond Syria’s borders. A strike would increase violence and unleash a new wave of terrorism. […] Syria is not witnessing a battle for democracy, but an armed conflict between government and opposition in a multireligious country. There are few champions of democracy in Syria.

The one thing Putin left out of that passage was that amongst the many countries having a strong opposition to a strike is the United States. Polls show the American people want no part of another conflict in the Middle East. Putin’s words might just as easily come out of the mouths of Republicans like Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, and any random Tea Party pundit. And to top it off, lefties like Sen. Bernie Sanders, Rep. Alan Grayson, and MoveOn.org are just as adamantly opposed.

To recap, before President Obama had responded to Syria’s chemical weapons attack, Fox and the right complained that he wasn’t doing anything. After Obama threatened to punish Assad with military force, Fox and the right complained that he was overstepping his role and violating the Constitution. When Obama announced that he would seek congressional approval for a strike, Fox and the right called him weak and vacillating. After the threat produced a new diplomatic course that would rid Syria of its Chemical weapons, Fox and the right accused Obama of following in Putin’s footsteps. In the end, a diplomatic solution that avoids military force, the outcome preferred by Fox and the right, is now achievable through the joint efforts of Obama and Putin. Therefore, obviously, Fox and the right have come out against it and are castigating both presidents for having succeeded in averting a new war.

Warning: Any attempt to find any logic or cognitive consistency in any of the above summation could result in a severe brain hemorrhage, loss of consciousness, and permanent cerebral disability.

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Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
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Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Poor Have It Way Too Good

Posted by on September 12, 2013 at 12:11 pm. 14 Comments :

When Fox News isn’t bitching about how President Obama has fouled up the economy and caused severe hardship for the American people, they switch over to their completely contrary view that there isn’t really any hardship and that the poor in America are luxuriating in a virtual paradise.

Fox Nation

To hear Fox News tell it, the real problem with America is that the greedy poor have too much and the long-suffering rich have too little. Consequently, the poor should lose benefits that assist them with trivialities like food, housing and education, while the rich should get more tax cuts, subsidies, and relief from regulations that protect everyone’s air, water, and safety.

That’s the position taken today on Fox’s community web site, and truth mangling, Fox Nation. Their article on the state of Americans living in poverty suggests that being poor is like a pleasure cruise with all the amenities included. Their source is an article on CNSNews, a subsidiary of the uber-rightist Media Research Center. The article cites data from a 2011 census report showing that most households living below the poverty live have non-essential extravagances like phones and refrigerators. The presence of these opulent goods is evidence that poor people are enjoying prosperity at the expense of the hard-trodden wealthy.

A deeper look at the details of this alleged abundance reveals that, in most cases, appliances like refrigerators, stoves, washers, dryers, and air conditioners, come with apartment living and are owned by the landlords, not the tenants. Cell phones and microwaves are inexpensive items that hardly connote wealth. Yet the Fox Nationalists begrudge low-income working people for having access to things like televisions that they might have bought years ago, before the Bush meltdown.

This is typical of the Fox mindset. They regularly report this same fallacy with minor updates. Last April they hosted Robert Rector, a Heritage Foundation analyst, who whined to the addled-brained Fox & Friends crew that the poor “have no hardship whatsoever,” and that poverty measurements are just “an advertising tool for expanding the welfare state and for spreading the wealth by pretending there’s a massive amount of hardship that really doesn’t occur anymore in our society.” Well, I feel better already.

Rector has been spewing that nonsense for more than a decade, and Fox has been helping him to promote it. They generally leave out pertinent facts such as that the people they are disparaging are not the recipients of welfare who they routinely characterize as moochers. They are working people who are struggling to provide for themselves and their families in the face of adversity. And Fox ignores the obvious when they assume that just because you reside in an apartment that has a stove and a laundry room, that you also have enough money to buy groceries, clothes, medicine, and other necessities.

This is a perfect representation of the insensitivity of selfish elitists in the media and the GOP (Greedy One Percent) who recently removed food stamps from a draft of the Farm Bill, but retained the hundreds of millions of dollars that goes to wealthy agribusiness interests. In their world the rich are always unfairly put upon, and the poor are lazy scam artists. It’s a perverse and twisted version of reality that keeps good people down.

Fox News Hypes Roger Ailes’ Asinine Syria Strategy

Posted by on September 11, 2013 at 11:05 am. 2 Comments :

The ever-shifting attitudes on the crisis in Syria by Fox News have already seen the network condemn President Obama for proposing that the White House take unilateral action against Syria, then complaining when the President brought Congress into the decision-making. They blasted Russian president Vladimir Putin for his alliance with Assad, then hailed him as deserving of a Nobel Peace Prize.

The only distinction between any of their positions and their subsequent contrary positions was where they thought Obama stood at the time. It’s as predictable as night following day. If Obama is for it, Fox fires on all cylinders to convince their gullible audience that there is something terribly wrong with it.

Fox News - Eric Bolling
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But Fox doesn’t always take an entirely negative approach. Sometimes they see a positive path to promote their kneejerk anti-Obamaism. Eric Bolling, co-host of Fox’s The Five, saw just such a path yesterday to advance a truly harebrained idea that was floated by Fox’s CEO, Roger Ailes. Bolling pretended that he just happened to be reading a sycophantic Ailes biography that was published a year ago (what took him so long), and discovered a passage that pertained to the current state of affairs in Syria. In a couple of rather vacant paragraphs, Bolling saw something so profound that he proclaimed that he was “about to blow your mind.” He then recited from the hallowed text of the book…

“Putin is angry. He thinks the United States doesn’t take him seriously or treat Russia as a major player. Okay, fine, that’s how he feels. If I were president, I’d get in a room with him and say, ‘Look at the slaughter going on in Syria. You can stop it. Do it, and I’ll see to it that you can get all the credit. I’ll tell the world it was you who saved the innocent children of Syria from slaughter. You’ll be an international hero. You’ll go down in history.’ Hell, Putin would go to bed thinking, ‘That’s not a bad offer.’

There will still be plenty of other issues I’d have with Russia. But instead of looking for one huge deal that settles everything, you take a piece of the problem and solve it. Give an incentive for good behavior. Show the other guy his self-interest. Everybody has an ego. Everybody needs dignity. And what does it cost? You get what you want you give up nothing.”

Let’s break this down. Ailes essentially proposed that Obama suggest to Putin that he should do something that he already knows he can do, and that he can do without any help from Obama. Then Obama is supposed to magnanimously offer to let Putin take credit what he (Putin) actually did. It’s a little like saying “Hey Roger. Why don’t you donate $10,000 to the Red Cross and, if you do, I’ll let you have all the credit.”

The proposal by Ailes is so devoid of substance that it can hardly be construed as a proposal at all. What’s more, it is ludicrous to think that Putin would have been interested in taking credit for leaning on Assad when Putin was allied with Assad’s efforts to defeat the rebels trying to depose him. Had Obama suggested that Putin tell Assad to retreat in the battle to preserve his rule, Putin would have gone to bed thinking “What a putz.”

Ailes seems to have no conception that “good behavior” is a subjective term and that it means something very different to Putin and Assad than it does to Ailes or Obama. It was the use of chemical weapons that upended the playing field and jolted Putin’s perspective to one that might find common ground with Obama and the rest of the civilized world. But that happened last month, not last year, and absent that, Putin would have laughed off any attempt to come between him and his pal Assad.

Eric Bolling has demonstrated that he is just as clueless as Ailes. His recitation of this dimwitted plan is nothing more than brown-nosing his boss and wasting air time to engage in rank self-congratulatory blather. Bolling has never distinguished himself as much of thinker, but this transparent act of vanity really drives home the point that he is incapable of original thought or coherent analysis. And that’s probably a good sign that he has a fair degree of job security at Fox News.

REAL Fox News Headline: Putin Is The One Who Really Deserves That Nobel Peace Prize

Posted by on September 10, 2013 at 4:31 pm. 20 Comments :

Uh oh. It appears that while we were distracted by all of the world-class stupidity that Fox News disseminates on a daily basis, we missed a stunning transferal of control of the network from Rupert Murdoch’s Patriopathic zealots to some clandestine cabal of communist, Russian subversives. How else would you explain this: “Putin Is The One Who Really Deserves That Nobel Peace Prize.”

Fox News

That is the headline of an op-ed on the Fox News web site by Fox’s military analyst K.T. McFarland (that’s Fox News, not the notoriously lie-riddled Fox Nation, as one might expect). Fox News is now taking the position that Vladimir Putin is a beacon of world harmony and togetherness, and deserving of recognition by a prestigious international organization.

Remember, we are talking about the same Putin who has been the most reliable partner to hostile regimes around the world including Syria, Iran, Venezuela, Somalia, Ukraine, Cuba, Uzbekistan, etc. The same Putin who has reinstated some of the most draconian and repressive policies since the fall of the Soviet Union. That’s the Putin who Fox News thinks deserves a Nobel Peace prize.

The inspiration for this tribute to Putin sprung from the recent proposal that Syria turn over its chemical weapons to an international body for destruction. Fox News has been applauding the Russians for two days, and now their admiration has produced this fawning praise:

“In one of the most deft diplomatic maneuvers of all time, Russia’s President Putin has saved the world from near-certain disaster. He did so without the egoistical but incompetent American president, or his earnest but clueless Secretary of State, even realizing they had been offered a way out of the mess they’d created.”

So Putin has “saved the world” with a feat of historic diplomacy, despite the incompetence of American leadership. How patriotic. We all owe our lives to Putin, even though the idea originated from United States Secretary of State, John Kerry, and was discussed by Putin and President Obama at last week’s G20 summit. And many analysts believe that the proposal would have gone nowhere without a credible threat of military force.

These facts have not dissuaded Fox News from its newly formed love affair with the communist nation that it ordinarily regards as the world’s greatest source of evil. Well, scratch that – the greatest source of evil, as far as Fox News is concerned, is President Obama. That explains how they can cozy up to their once sworn enemy from behind the Red Curtain. Fox hates Obama more than they love bashing commies. So if they can embrace something from the Russians in a way that reflects badly on Obama, they will jump at it.

This psychological defect was also exhibited last month when unnamed and uncredentialed Russian climate change deniers predicted a new mini-ice age. Fox News heralded the phony findings without providing any information as to the source, other than that it was from Russia. Since when did Fox News blindly accept anything that came out of Russia. But since it contradicted Obama’s position on climate change, Fox dove in feet first.

However, today’s big wet kiss for Russia goes much farther. This is not just articulating an agreement with some Russian individuals about a particular issue. This is a full-throated declaration of devotion for Russia’s dictatorial leader. And it isn’t just a single slobbering op-ed. Several of Fox’s stars chimed in, including Martha MacCallum, Tucker Carlson, and Charles Krauthammer, all contributing to the orgy of Russia-lust.

Just imagine the cacophony of outrage that would have ensued from Fox had even the lowliest Obama administration intern uttered a slightly complimentary phrase about Russia. Fox, and the rest of the right-wing media circus, would have trumpeted the shocking revelation as proof that Obama was intent on crushing America and delivering it to her enemies. But no such shock will be expressed over these statements that are overtly adulatory toward Putin, the leader of the Evil Empire. But that’s just typical of how hypocritical and dishonest Fox News is. If Satan rose up from the pits of Hell and criticized Obama, Fox News would hail Satan as a profound political analyst – and probably give him a show in primetime.

Addendum: Right-wingers never thought Obama should have been awarded the Nobel Peace prize in the first place. In fact, they argued at the time that he should refuse to accept it. Glenn Beck went even further to hilariously suggest that it be given to the Tea Party instead. These anti-American extremists are actually offended when the country is honored, and they prefer instead to honor bigots, secessionists, and even Russian dictators.

Comical Weapon: Sarah Palin/Fox News Cling To ‘Death Panel’ Lies

Posted by on September 10, 2013 at 11:20 am. 2 Comments :

You have to give Sarah Palin credit for perseverance. It was four years ago that Palin invented the notion that the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare) contained an ominous provision for something she called “Death Panels.” At the time she was referring to a section of the bill that provided reimbursement for end-of-life counseling, a service that enabled people to discuss with their doctors the measures they would want taken in the event they were gravely ill and unable articulate their wishes. Palin’s “Pants-on-Fire” mutilation of that simple and useful proposal was designated as the “Lie of the Year” by PolitiFact. And yet, she continues to peddle the same turd-o-licious deceit in a new video (below) aimed at raising money for her struggling Super PAC. And, as usual, she can count on the truth manglers at Fox Nation to help her to promote these time-worn fallacies.

Fox Nation - Sarah Palin

Palin introduces her video with a particularly offensive conflation of her death panel lie and the current crisis in Syria: “Enough of this foreign fiasco distraction. Get back to work. It is time to bomb Obamacare.” Not only is she revisiting her weary untruths, she is resorting to terrorist rhetoric. Her desire to “bomb” ObamaCare, in this context, both belittles the horror of actual bombings by the Assad regime, at the same time as it creates images of the destroyed lives (both medically and financially) of the people who would suffer without access to the medical services that ObamaCare provides. Palin, and her Tea Party, cohorts couldn’t care less about the well-being of Americans who are unable to purchase insurance from greedy corporations who exclude anyone with costly illnesses or preexisting conditions. Just as she couldn’t care less about the victims of atrocities in Syria.

It’s pretty funny, however, that most of the video recounts all of the criticism heaped on her for her desperate and obvious falsehoods. There are clips of President Obama, Keith Olbermann, Ed Schultz, Joe Biden, and Fox’s Bob Beckel, all pointing out that she was full of Grade-A Crapola. Then, in an attempt to claim that she was right all along, she spins her original claim about end-of-life counseling to one addressing the ACA’s Independent Payment Advisory Board. This, of course, is another lie because the IPAB is just a process to maintain high standards and low cost for medical reimbursements. The section of the ACA that refers to the IPAB says explicitly that “The proposal shall not include any recommendation to ration health care.” And then Palin has the gall to close her video by saying “Why wasn’t there just more honesty through this whole process.” Why indeed, Sarah?

This video is nothing more than a transparent and self-serving effort to fill the coffers of her PAC. She makes no attempt to validate her spurious allegations, although she does include dog-whistle imagery designed to make her dimwitted disciples salivate, such as a series of posters labeling Obama a socialist. It’s the same old tired smear tactics that contributed to her electoral defeat in 2008. But after failing at reality television, films, books, etc., she has nothing left but to fall back on the schemes that once helped her to fleece the far-right fools who make up her fan base.

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Police Questioning George Zimmerman For Alleged Threat With Gun

Posted by on September 9, 2013 at 1:13 pm. 6 Comments :

How predictable was this? Since George Zimmerman was acquitted of charges connected to the death of Trayvon Martin, he has been involved in three encounters with the police. The latest one includes allegations that he threatened his wife and her father with a gun:

“Lake Mary (FL) police say they were called around 2:30 p.m. to the Sprucewood Road home of Shellie Zimmerman’s parents, David and Machelle Dean. According to Lake Mary Police Chief Steve Bracknell, Shellie Zimmerman called 911 claiming George Zimmerman had a gun and was making threats.”

Zimmerman’s wife, Shellie, recently filed for divorce. While neither party has commented publicly regarding today’s incident, it would not be much of a stretch to entertain the notion that the divorce proceedings and an armed threat might be connected. Zimmerman’s temperament is justifiably questionable after having killed an unarmed teenager in a scuffle that produced a couple of minor scratches, but which Zimmerman characterized as life threatening.

There is, of course, the possibility that this is all a publicity stunt to promote Zimmerman’s new Fox News program “Stand Your Ground.”

Fox News - George Zimmerman

When the jury’s verdict was delivered, many observers regarded it as a miscarriage of justice. However, there are probably few fair-minded people who would be surprised that Zimmerman’s post-verdict behavior has been wrought with legal controversy. He got off scot-free after shooting and killing an innocent kid. But that did not change his demeanor or his predilection for violence. This latest incident is a warning that this man is a powder keg, and should be closely monitored and prohibited from carrying a weapon of any kind.

Fox News Bloodlust: Crusading For A Pro-War President

Posted by on September 8, 2013 at 11:36 am. 2 Comments :

Fox News radio host, John Gibson, embarked on a disturbingly hawkish fit of war mongering that was re-published today on the Fox News community web site, and Festival of Lies, Fox Nation. Gibson displayed his unabashed affinity for mortal combat with a screed that questioned whether an anti-war president should be trusted with war.

Fox Nation

The utter stupidity of that question was the basis for a rant that would only make sense to a confirmed sociopath. Gibson’s self-righteous indignation stemmed from a few sentence fragments that he extracted from President Obama’s press conference on the mess in Syria. Gibson was terribly upset that Obama said that “I was elected to end wars not start them,” and that “I’m not itching for military action,” and that “I’ve spent the last four years trying to reduce our reliance on military action.”

Hellfire and Damnation! It’s an abominable outrage, is what it is. Imagine that, a Commander-in-Chief who expresses a reluctance to unreservedly bomb the crap out of some uppity foreigners. Gibson wonders whether the President’s reluctance will result in a use of force that is hesitant, weak, and confused – which is an outright insult to America’s soldiers. He goes on to say that…

“The President’s resolve to stop the world’s worst actors from using the world’s worst weapons requires that he is willing, even ‘itching’, to act. His stated reluctance to act, his core mission to end wars not start them, stands in the way of taking his resolve seriously.”

Gibson is hankering for a president who is “itching” to start a war. And if that isn’t ludicrous enough, he offers as an example the cowboy antics of a former president, asking whether Obama “has enough George W. Bush in him to decisively use military force.” Apparently Gibson defines decisive as a determination to thrust the country into a decade-long quagmire that produced no benefit and didn’t even bring to justice the terrorist who was supposedly the instigation of it all. Obama, on the other hand, led the nation when Osama Bin Laden was killed, along with dozens of other top Al-Qaeda operatives. It’s pretty safe to say that the ghosts of those terrorist leaders do not doubt Obama’s resolve.

But even setting aside the failures and lies of the Bush administration’s conduct of war, Gibson has presented an utterly falsified version of recent history. Bush’s press secretary, Ari Fleischer, spoke about Bush’s pre-Iraq hesitancy saying “Nobody, but nobody, is more reluctant to go to war than President Bush….He does not want to lead the nation to war.” Bush himself said that “I don’t like war. War is the last choice a president should make, not the first.”

Do these admissions that Bush was not “itching” to go to war mean that his management of the military would be weak and confused, and that he should not be trusted? We will never know Gibson’s opinion of that because he will never address it. Nor will anyone else at Fox News.

However, an accurate historical account would note that, despite Bush’s pronouncements, he was, in fact, quite anxious to attack Iraq, even before 9/11. So the argument could be made that it was his craving for war that was a foretelling of the eventual disaster to which he subjected America and the world. Sincere reluctance would more likely result in a conscientious and well thought out plan.

So Gibson not only gets the history wrong, but his misrepresentation reflects a brutal, gung-ho attitude toward launching a deadly and dangerous conflagration in the notoriously unstable Middle East. Gibson advocates for expanding the mission of any Syrian strike to include eliminating Assad, but he fails to address what would be left after the fall.

This is the sort of hungering for war that characterizes right-wing, neo-cons. Interestingly, many on the right have abandoned their traditional hawkishness because they still hate Obama more than they love killing Muslims. But Fox News has generously provided Gibson this platform to lead a cheering squad for another conflict in the region. It’s a wholly ineffective and illogical effort, but that won’t make any difference to Fox’s audience who aren’t capable of, or interested in, doing the sort of research that proves Gibson is an idiot.

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