For all their excitement over the subject of liberal bias in the media, the Right wing plaintiffs can never ever find a single prominent mainstream news host who comes anywhere near the same level of obvious partisanship that your average Fox News personality does, never mind the more eregregious ones.

And if you look at conservative hosts on other networks, like say Lou Dobbs on CNN or Joe Scarborough on MSNBC, none of them are nearly as bad as Fox News types either. Dobbs and Scarborough get plenty of shit wrong, and often buy in to stupid media gotchas of the week, but I never get the sense they take their dialogue straight from an RNC talking point memo. Even Tucker Carlson, who is happy to snidely deride liberals and Democrats displays more independence.

I do have a couple contrary points to make, that are hopeful signs the other media outlets are done treating fox like journalistic peers:

1) CNN actually investigated the Obama/Muslim school thing, and rebutted it in style.

2) Olbermann has taken to calling Fox "Fox Noise Channel" or "Fox Nothing Channel" and repeatedly calls them out for being nothing more than an FNC propaganda arm. He equates them to Limbaugh and calls them "water carriers" using Limbaugh's own frank admission after the November elections against them. He also refers to Roger Ailes' admission of trying to steer the US agenda.

To those who think all of this is obvious and why go over it again, I guarantee you there are people who don't think it is obvious and wouldn't admit Fox news even has a "conservative lean" never mind being a wholly owned subsidiary of the Republican party. And not so long ago, say in 2003/2004, those who accused Fox of bias were often smeared as conspiracy theorists or paranoid leftists. The meme of Fox as a propaganda arm took several years to reach widespread acceptance, and we mustn't stop now that victory is in sight.

I suggest readers interested in more check out newshounds.us, a blog that focuses on Fox. I used to read it regularly, and when they started, their premise was anything but universally accepted, even on the left.

So, thanks Glenn for driving another nail in Fox's coffin. This vampire continues to rise again every night so far, but maybe one day we'll succeed in burying them. But for now, they still manage to suck a little blood, and are worth fighting.

The people who watch Fox News and listen to Rush and Savage and all those other assholes are simply stupid and ignorant.

If you watch Fox News, and it's not your job to do so, you are a fucking moron. Period.

This helps me to weed out the traitors early so I don't have to spend my time talking to them to formulate my opinion. Fox News is actually a time saver in this respect.

I believe there was a study recently that found out that those who use Fox News as their primary source of information were 60-something percent more likely to get the major facts of a story incorrect than if they watched any other network.

Don't waste your time on Fox News or the people that watch it.....unless you like sexual predators and a guy named Jerry who likes to call himself Geraldo.

I expect our resident contrarians will quickly complain that Olbermann is just as "partisan" as Hume or any Fox anchor you can name.

First: No, he's not. If anyone wants to make this point, please find Olbermann quotes of equivalent partisanship and evident falsehood as what Hume is quoted by Glenn as saying. I guarantee you cannot.

Second: Even if he was, he's one host on the lowest rated channel, which employs Tucker Carlson and Joe Scarborough, a well known GOP partisan and a Republican congressman of the class of 94 respectively. Let's not kid ourselves, one supposed "liberal" host would not turn MSNBC into a left-wing equivalent of Fox News. Has a former Democratic politician ever been employed as a news anchor by any channel? Paul Begalia and James Carville used to both balance against Carlson on Crossfire - did either of them get offered a show? I bet Novak would get a show before either of them.

Just imagine the uproar which would ensue if Democrats unleashed a coordinated attack on a particular Republican leader, and the same weekend, one of the network news anchors or a reporter from CNN not only participated in those attacks, but went even further than the most extremist and aggressive Democrat.

Start an uproar about this. Why not? Such an incredible, lying smear deserves at least the Dan Rather treatment, and for a much more substantive reason.

Brit Hume's son, Sandy, was a respected journalist for The Hill who committed suicide with a rifle in 1998, after being arrested for a DUI and first trying to hang himself in jail. Hume had always tilted to the right, but it was when his son killed himself he became a devout Xian and far more amenable to the extremes in the GOP. I say this not to excuse Hume's degraded performance as a journalist, but to point out that once he was an excellent reporter who simply tilted right, which is not a crime. While with ABC News in 1991, Hume won an Emmy for his coverage of the Gulf War.

I've defended Cindy Sheehan's excesses (like lovin' on Hugo Chavez) on the basis of what grief can do to a parent, and I think the same somewhat holds for Hume -- not that this means Fox should give him a platform, but then he's still better than O'Reilly, Gibson or Hannity.

Further, not all filth all the time comes from the right. Air America once said something about Hume and his son that was perfectly disgusting (url at end). To their credit, when Think Progress has discussed Hume, they have deleted similar type comments in their comments section.

http://www.themediareport.com/seder.htm

what Hume does or doesn't spew -- with regard to Murtha's proposals or anything else -- it is what the Dems are going to do about it, if anything.

Glenn's note denouncing Hume's "journalistic credibility" is on target, but... who really grants him any such credibility? How can anyone regard him as anything but a propagandist, at least since he became the big-headed anchor at FOX?

His performances are all the same, all vicious assaults on Democrats, all fawning support of Republicans, particularly Bush as Autocrat, and they never waver, ever. He is a propagandist for the regime. That's not serious journalism, but it is a valued characteristic in the power-games of DC.

Who exactly is treating Hume as a real journalist and news anchor any more, rather than as a propagandist for the Bushevik regime? His colleagues on FOX? With its declining ratings? The rigid "30%" (and falling) that only watches FOX "News"? I don't see Hume cited anywhere outside the closed world of wing-nuts. His opining isn't even that highly regarded within wingnutopia, because he is so often so sour and contemptuous on the one hand and merely regurgitates spin and talking points on the other. There's nothing original in what he says.

On the othe hand, the assault on Murtha is very widespread, and it will only increase in venom and volume as his proposal is more widely known and understood. To my eye, it is a highly rational and comprehensive proposal (but we'll continue to hear that "Democrats have no plan!" no matter) to -- yes -- hamstring the White House's continued pursuit of More War. This concept -- of interfering with the Autocrat's War Making in any way -- is red meat to the howling mob of War Mongers, and their response is always the same: a concerted and furious smear campaign against the individuals/groups trying to interfere. These campaigns have almost always succeeded in part because there has been no preparation, no anticipation, and no coherent response to them. Will there be one now?

That's the issue.

Glenn showed clearly that he is capable of slapping down one of the highest profile neo-cons, Frank Gaffney, exposing him as a fraud and a liar (at the very least). Doing the same to Hume makes sense to me, though the opportunity to do it in confrontation on the air is unlikely.

But who will stand up for Murtha's carefully thought out proposal?