Now Faux News is attacking...The Huffington Post?

If you're not watching Fox & Friends right now, you're not going to be believe this: Sean Hannity is doing his best to channel the recent insane ramblings of Bill O'Reilly--but this time about the Huffington Post. Not content to beat its stick on the hornet's nest that is DailyKos, Fox apparently believes it's an intelligent move to rouse the entire progressive netroots into a virtual storm of frenzy by attempting to discredit every last one of our popular hangouts. Apparently, the recent loss of Lowe's as an advertiser hasn't scared them off: it seems they want to start up broader war on the blogs in order, I suppose, to drive away more of their advertisers. You would think that the same people who started an attack on Iraq after failing to finish the job in Afghanistan would know better by now--but then, intelligence and learning from one's mistakes was never a wingnut forte.

And the tactics they're using on HuffPo? The same patently laughable ones they're using on DailyKos.

After a red herring attack on Arianna for her use of private jets (and before another "expose" on Hillary Clinton and Vince Foster), Hannity put Arianna Huffington on his "Hot Seat". He took, like O'Reilly, one dumb comment made on the site by one commenter wishing for Darth Cheney's mechanical heart to stop, in order to attempt to impugn the entire HuffPo site. He then went on to attack Arianna for not stepping in to remove the offending the post. Arianna responded by saying, quite intelligently, that Cheney has made a lot of enemies in this country and shouldn't be suprised--and that if she had seen the offending post, she would have asked that it be removed.

Of course, the same hypocrisy that plagues Bill O'Reilly unsurprisingly afflicts Hannity as well: just a quick look over at Sean Hannity's own forums brings up the following gems, which remain blissfully undeleted by our valiant paragon of moderated political discourse:

A poster with a secret-service emulating avatar asking whether Obama isn't a terrorist plant:

Did The Terrorist Plant Obama?

Do you believe that Barak Obama is a sleeper working for al Qaeda?

If not, why not?

Another post calling Democrats the "Party of Genocide":

About time to expose Liberalism for what it is. The willful acceptance of mass murder and the complete lack of willingness to take action. Even now, Democrats in Congress are working furiously to engineer another mass murder by pulling out of Iraq and letting the region spiral into chaos.

Quote:
Almost all the large-scale genocides of the past century have occurred during Democratic administrations...

Or a post that says that those who wish to take action on the Climate Crisis are members of a death cult, talking about deaths from hot European summers:

People dying of heat aids the AGW religious cause. I'm sure liberals everywhere look on the dead with pride in their courage to die for the cause.

The list goes on and on--just go to Hannity's site to see the copious amounts of hate that goes unmoderated and undeleted. The morans at Fox News are so hubristic that they don't even think to scrub their own websites in advance of making such idiotic attacks on progressive sites with far higher traffic.

More important, however, is the implications of this move: Fox News, having gotten a taste of war with DailyKos, apparently wants to broaden that war to include the entire progressive blogosphere. So far, they're bringing knives to a gunfight.

If the prospect of war between the entire progressive blogosphere and Fox News makes you as giddy and excited as it makes me, head over to join the army of volunteers at Fox Attacks to pressure Fox News' local advertisers and show these one-note morans what we're capable of.

Rahm Emanuel Tells Dems to Stay Off Colbert; Silent on Fox Debate (no joke)

If this doesn't prove the idiocy of DLC Democrats like Rahm Emanuel, nothing will: Emanuel is telling Dems to stay off of the Colbert Report.

Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.), the Democratic Caucus chairman, has told new Democratic members of Congress to steer clear of Stephen Colbert, or at least his satirical Comedy Central program, “The Colbert Report.”

“He said don’t do it ... it’s a risk and it’s probably safer not to do it,” said Rep. Steve Cohen. But the freshman lawmaker from Tennessee taped a segment that last week was featured in the 32nd installment of the “Better Know a District” series. Colbert asked Cohen whether he was a black woman. He isn’t.

And what career-ending, risky offenses is Emanuel referencing?

Eyes (but thankfully, not heads) roll in Emanuel’s office when other freshmen stumble, such as the time Rep. John Yarmuth (D-Ky.) got into a debate about the merits of throwing kittens into a wood-chipper, or when Rep. Zack Space (D-Ohio) explained that he is not his predecessor, convicted felon Bob Ney (R).

Yes, moves like this could seriously jeopardize Democratic majorities! The voters really care about what misstatements candidates might make on one of the most popular comedy shows on television. I bow before the political astuteness of Mr. Emanuel. May I be graced with 1/10th his wisdom and copious political acumen.

And what other bits of advice does Mr. Emanuel have for Democrats?

One freshman who has been on the receiving end of Emanuel’s “tough love” is Rep. Steve Kagen (Wis.), who boasted to a group of anti-war activists that he had dressed down President Bush’s top political adviser, Karl Rove, during a White House reception. The administration denied the story.

But Emanuel threw a fit. Kagen’s staff was hauled into the Democratic Caucus’s office for lessons on how to handle the media, Democratic sources said.

Rep. Nancy Boyda (D-Kan.) said, “It took [Emanuel] three weeks to come down off of the ceiling” after she refused to accept the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s (DCCC) assistance in her bid to win reelection in 2008.
Boyda said Emanuel would “worry until November 4, 2008, but he says it in a very caring, grandmotherly way.”

So let's see here. Emanuel has advised Dems to
1) not appear on Colbert lest they, too, receive the mojo of the Colbert Effect;
2) not dress down Karl Rove--or even dare to pretend to dress down Karl Rove (goodness knows, even if you don't have a spine, don't even appear to act like you had a spine);
3) not refuse the spineless "assistance" of campaign consultants like Bob Shrum.

I swear to the god of your choice--Emanuel must be the biggest concern troll in the Democratic Party at this point. He spends so much time telling Democrats what not to do--for their own sake, of course--that it would be nice to see him tell Democrats what to actually stand up and do for a change.

Actually, I don't want to see what Emanuel tells Democrats to do: according to Matt Stoller, Emanuel is apparently busy as a bee using his power to "train" our congresspeople in the mystical DLC arts:

From what I understand from talking to a few progressives on the Hill, the freshmen in Congress are being extensively 'trained' by Rahm Emanuel (news, bio, voting record)'s DLC band of consultants and pollsters, which is one reason they've been silent. Carol Shea-Porter is an exception, and notice how she was shut out of the DCCC's front line program. Also notice how our only real specific policy concern to protect our own ability to organize - net neutrality - just isn't really on the legislative radar right now (though this could change).

But what is most galling about Emanuel's advice to stay off of Colbert? His absolute silence about the Nevada Fox Noise debate. Seriously--do a search on Google for any keywords related to Emanuel, Fox, Fox News, Nevada or Debate: not a word. Nada. Zilch. It's a fairly good guess, though, that like most of his DLC pals, he fully supported Dems appearing on a program whose sole intent is their humiliation and defeat.

Honestly--How bizarro does your world have to be, and what kind of fantasy bubble must you be living in, for your advice as a leading Democrat to the Democratic faithful is go on Fox, but stay off of Colbert? What kind of total short-sighted idiocy is that?

I don't know, but I want no piece of it. And I hope with fervor that our elected Dems want no piece of it, either.