On CNN’s “Reliable Sources” Sunday morning, requisite rightwing guest Laura Ingraham proved again, like too many de riguerre rightwing guests on these types of shows, that she’s not the sharpest pencil in the drawer. (And Frank Rich’s accompanying cartoon (right) for his brilliant, as always, Sunday NYT column, “It Takes a Potemkin Village,” illustrates the approach of the shoot-from-the-hip-never-worry-about-facts-just-make-’em-fit rightwing and Bushco zealots to every issue.) Host Howie Kurtz led with the story that “with Americans dying in Iraq virtually every day and Iraqis preparing for a crucial new round of elections, the Bush administration seems to be blaming the messenger [the media],” quoting Rummy and W:

DONALD RUMSFELD, U.S. SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: We’ve arrived at a strange in this country, where the worst about America and our military seems to so quickly be taken as truth by the press and reported and spread around the world, often with little context and little scrutiny, let alone correction or accountability after the fact. […]


GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This is quiet, steady progress. It doesn’t always make the headlines in the evening news, but it’s real and it’s important. And it is unmistakable to those who see it close-up.


After a couple minutes of discussion, the conversation turned to the danger that journalists face in Iraq:

CLARENCE PAGE, COLUMNIST, “CHICAGO TRIBUNE”: Exactly … I’ve got good friends who have been over there, some who are there now. And what strikes me is how, having gone several times — and Pam can speak to this — having been over there several times since major fighting … how much worse things have gotten, as far as they’re concerned from their point of view.


And I think that’s striking, that these are not soft kids here. These are journalists risking their lives to work every day. And they are also seeing that enough progress has not been made. So I think it cuts both ways.


INGRAHAM: But they’re inside Baghdad, Clarence. They’re not going around the country, as some reporters are and bloggers are, going around the country reporting on the Internet about stories that reporters from our mainstream news organizations, they’re not getting these stories because they’re not leaving the Green Zone too often.


PAMELA HESS, PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT, UPI: That’s completely wrong.


INGRAHAM: OK, well — OK.


HESS: Reporters don’t live in the Green Zone. There’s one media house that’s inside the Green Zone. Reporters are living in Baghdad, so can we just put that one to rest?


KURTZ: All right. But let me ask you this: Are administration officials exacerbating…


INGRAHAM: I meant Baghdad. You’re right. Sorry about that.


(CROSSTALK)


INGRAHAM: I’m talking about the dangerous area in Baghdad.


KURTZ: The most heavily guarded, obviously, period — place.


PAGE: We, by the way, have one journalist who’s been kidnapped…


INGRAHAM: Right.


PAGE: … and another one who almost got blown up a couple of weeks ago. So they are where the action is.

(Full transcript)


Ingraham just kept backing down, down, down … Beautiful! That’s what happens when these goons are confronted by journalists like Pam Hess and Clarence Page.


Every one of you can supply countless examples of other such lies by the phony rightwing journalists, and we’ve got sites like Media Matters, Fox Newshoundsand Raw Story that track their lies. But it’s a special pleasure when a journalist confronts one of them face-to-face, and calls them on their lies on the spot.

Still, the insane patter goes on. Here are some samples courtesy of Media Matters:


  • Michael Reagan: “Howard Dean should be arrested for treason and either hung or put in a hole until the war’s over.”


  • Limbaugh repeated NewsMax.com’s false claim that McCain “admitted that torture worked on him.”


  • Bill O’Reilly on his show, The Factor, gave a jacket to guest Howrd Stern, but warned “I’m not having this on some lesbian somewhere.”


I find it hard to believe that millions of Americans are hearing this c-r-a-p every day, or that a lot of them believe it. Oh, for the days of the Fairness Doctrine. (We’d still have to put up with the rightwing goons, but at least we’d get a shot at a rebuttal.)


I grabbed both of the above images from Ingraham’s site. Isn’t it ironic that she too offers “HOLIDAY” gifts? I tell you … not only do we have to watch these goons for the lies they tell, but for not sticking together on SAVING CHRISTMAS. Come on, ‘wingers. Show a little unity, will ya?


Update [2005-12-12 13:36:13 by susanhu]: Linked by Atrios.