Posted 3:40 PM by Scoobie Davis

I'd Rather Be Crazed Than Be Colmes
Quick tutorial on the Fox News propaganda machine's view of Democrats and progressives: The Fox News gang (and, for that matter, the rest of the Republican Noise Machine) believe that there is no libel so vile that it can't be used against Democrats. However, if a Democrat punches back, even if the Democrat is accurate in his criticism of the right, then said Democrat is "mentally ill, "crazed," "unhinged," and a threat to democracy. However, if said Democrat acts like a good Fox News Democrat, then everything is okay.

The recent interview of former president Clinton is a case in point. When Fox News operative Chris Wallace tried to nail Clinton and Clinton held his ground and set Wallace straight, the response from Fox was predictable: they called Clinton's response "crazed" and closed their ranks behind Wallace--referring to Clinton's justifying indignant response to Wallace's baiting, "a 'complete meltdown,' an 'angry explosion,' a 'volcanic reaction,' and a 'tirade.'" Also, Fox News edited the interview to make Clinton look bad. Typical fucking Fox News.

This isn't the first time or the last Democrat this has happened to. For example, for a while, Sean Hannity's main talking point was that Howard Dean was "unhinged." Could it be partly because Dean appeared on Fox News and made a monkey out of Hannity--even mentioning Robert Greenwald's film Outfoxed on the air? Watch the video:

The Hannity & Colmes show had a surrealistic segment when paragon of sanity, Ann Coulter was invited on the show to discuss Al Gore's mental health. Also, Hannity claimed that Al Franken was insane because of a time in which Hannity confronted Franken in the Fox News green room in the 1990's (the truth about the incident can be found in chapter 14 of Franken's Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right(read the entire book in case you haven't done so). Apparently, mental illness is a exclusively found on the left; when I confronted Hannity about Pat Robertson's bigotry and lunatic conspiracy theories (such as those found in Roberton's The New World Order), Hannity's response was that I was a bigoted liar.

O'Reilly is also big on attacking the mental health of critics. When I confronted O'Reilly about Roger Ailes' documented hatemongering, the response was that I was "a nut." I also remember listening to O'Reilly on his radio show taking the same tack as Hannity about Al Franken being mentally ill. O'Reilly's example of a sane progressive? Alan Colmes (note: when you look up the word "wimp" on the urban dictionary site, "Alan Colmes" pops up as a synonym).

UPDATE: After I posted this, I noticed that the Orcinus Blog, Sara Robinson had posted some thoughts about the media's reaction to Clinton. Check it out.