100 Days of Right Wing Propaganda

I was toying with the idea of marking Obama's 100th day with a list of all of the right wing smears against him over the same period. I quickly realized that this would be a bit too ambitious of a project to fit within the few minutes per day I have to devote to blogging. Fortunately, Media Matters has done the job for me. Be sure to check their website for comprehensive info on how the right wing has behaved since January 20.

I started watching this video and quickly thought that it would become monotonous. But then I realized something. If you relied on Fox as your news source, this is a small sample of what you would have heard day in and day out for the past 100 days. This is an amazing example of propaganda at work.

Specter Jumps Ship

Pay Per View Waterboarding, Part 2

It's been almost a week and after volunteering to be waterboarded for charity, Sean Hannity still hasn't set a date. Keith Olbermann kept the pressure on Hannity during Monday's show and then went on to say, "I don't think he has the courage to even respond to this, let alone do it."

Do I expect Hannity to actually go through with his promise and submit to waterboarding? Absolutely not. He's just one of the many talentless hacks who get paid to push right wing propaganda to anyone dumb enough to listen.

But I think we need to keep the pressure on here. I really believe that Hannity should be waterboarded (since he's the one who volunteered and he gets paid to tell us that he doesn't believe it is torture) and that it should be done on national television for all eyes to see. Let Americans see for themselves exactly what happens when someone is waterboarded and then we can decide once and for all if it is indeed torture or just "enhanced interrogation".

Who knows? Maybe we'll watch it and say, "that's waterboarding? What's the big deal?" This could be a great opportunity for the right wing to show that they are right about something. Come on, Sean. Do it for your country. Do it for your party. Do it for your owner's ratings. Be a man. Just do it.

Fox "news" Caught Making Shit Up Again

From Daily Kos:
Media Matters has caught another Fox fabrication.

This time, Fox News 'reporter' Wendell Goler repeatedly aired a video clip in which President Obama seems to declare his support for imposing a "European-style" universal health care system on the United States. Goler used the clip to support Republican attacks on the President's spending policies and his supposedly "European" priorities.

The problem is, President Obama never said any such thing. The clip Goler used was from a March 26 online town hall event, and President Obama was paraphrasing a written question submitted by the audience. In his answer, the President said that while he does support universal health care, he doesn't support imposing a European or Canadian system on the United States.

"I actually want a universal health care system; that is our goal...whether we do it exactly the way European countries do or Canada does is a different question, because there are a variety of ways to get to universal health care coverage... I don't think the best way to fix our health care system is to suddenly completely scrap what everybody is accustomed to and the vast majority of people already have. Rather, what I think we should do is to build on the system that we have and fill some of these gaps."

Despite the plain meaning of President Obama's words, Fox and Goler took them completely out of context to support the President's Republican critics.

It wasn't an accident -- Fox aired at least three different versions of Goler's hit piece. Watch the video, starting with what President Obama actually said.

Pay Per View Waterboarding

So Sean Hannity doesn't believe that waterboarding is torture. No, instead it is "advanced interrogation". Shut the fuck up. Tell that to the Japanese soldiers who were executed for waterboarding American soldiers during WWII. The dumbass goes so far as to say that he would agree to be waterboarded.

I say we jump all over this one. This is a great idea. Let's take these idiot blowhards, who make a living off of keeping the ignorant Fox "news" viewers scared and stupid, and allow them to be waterboarded on live television for the world to see. It will be educational and it will be profitable.

Keith Olbermann has offered Hannity $1000 per second that he lasts while being waterboarded. With the money going to the troops or families of the troops or something. Let's step it up a notch. Let's get as many people as possible to donate dollars per second. Imagine the good we could do while waterboarding Sean Hannity. It would be great.

But let's not stop there. Let's get Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft, Rove. Hell, there's no end to the number of people we could line up to be waterboarded for charity. Let's turn it into a series of pay per view events. Every Friday night, a different piece of shit gets waterboarded on live TV. We could use the proceeds to pay down the national debt that the Bush Administration created. It's win-win every way you look at it. And I just know they would all agree to do it because they are true patriots and they love their country so much that they're willing to do anything for it.

Plus, it's not torture. These people have told us over and over again, it's NOT torture. It would just be good old fashioned fun. I mean, how bad could it be? They know we're not really going to let them drown, right? And even if it goes too far, we'll have a doctor available to try to revive them. What do you say?

We might also end up with the unintended consequence (if this method of "advanced interrogation" works the way they pretend it does) of actually getting these pathological liar sociopaths to actually tell the truth about everything they've lied about for the past eight years.

Come on wheelers and dealers. Let's make this happen. For America.

Defending the Indefensible, Part 2

From The Daily Kos:
Over the past couple of days, Karl Rove and Fox News have offered a new argument in defense of the Bush administration’s torture policies.

Now, they say, waterboarding Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) yielded intelligence that led to the disruption of an al Qaeda plot to attack the tallest building in Los Angeles, the Library Tower (which both Bush and Rove called the Liberty Tower, for some reason). There’s just one problem with Rove’s new story: it couldn’t possibly be true.

As Timothy Noah pointed out in Slate, the Los Angeles attack was foiled in February of 2002. KSM was not captured until March of 2003, however — more than a year later.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that timeline is impossible. Perhaps appropriately, then, here’s a video of George W. Bush — in his own words — proving that Karl Rove and Fox News are lying about torture.

Defending the Indefensible

There is a great moment in this video where Paul Begala literally leaves Ari Fleischer speechless when he says, "We, our country executed Japanese soldiers who water-boarded American POWs. We executed them for the same crime that we are now committing ourselves. How do you defend that?" Ari eventually regains his voice and goes into his usual, tired old blah blah blah about how it isn't his buddy Duh's fault and trying to make everything political. Not everything is political, Ari. Sometimes it's just a question of right or wrong.

Ari reminds me of the joke about how everything said by Rudy Giuliani is nothing more than a noun, a verb, and 9/11. That's how Fleischer is every time I see him on TV. He refuses to admit ANY wrongdoing by the Republican party regardless of how big or small and he tries to turn everything around and point fingers at Democrats every chance he gets. It's tired, stale and a bit pathetic.