Fox's O'Reilly Can't Apparently Use Footage From His Own Network: Chuckie Schumer "Doesn't Care" About the "Fairness Doctrine"?

Fox's Griff Jenkin's played "chase the politicians" on Capitol Hill Thursday for Bill O'Reilly. As much fun as it was to watch Chuck Schumer speedwalking down a Washington corridor, there was more information available. Why does O'Reilly tell only part of the story? Are we too dense to pay attention long enough?

On Thursday's O'Reilly Factor, the "No-Spin master" did another half story on an issue. I'm becoming more convinced than ever, that either Bill thinks his viewers have the attention spans of gnats, or he has one of the worst research teams in the media business, who don't even seem to know how to use the internet.

In any case, the half story this evening regarded the Conservative Speech Suppression (aka "Fairness") Doctrine. He sent reporter Griff Jenkins, to Capitol Hill to do one of those amusing deer-caught-in-the-headlights segments where a reporter chases politicians or other miscreants with a bright light and tries to stick a microphone in their faces whilst they proceed to look like the speedwalker in the banned Mr. T Snickers commercial.

Griff's mission was to question lawmakers about their position on the Doctrine. During Mr. Bill's "Talking Points Memo" the audience was treated to the surgically frozen smile of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

The second lawmaker to be questioned, and to his credit, the only one of the three who actually stood still, was New Mexico Senator Ted Bingham.

Sen. Schumer of New York, was the third "contestant" and the one which most reminded me of the speedwalker. It's just too bad Griff hadn't brought along the tank, the Snickers, or, Mr. T.

Ok, let's just pause a second an enjoy the visual on that one. [Pausing....visualizing....] Who among us wouldn't love to watch Mr. T machine gun Chuckie Schumer with Snickers bars?

I can't embed the O'Reilly video here, but "Talking Points" is the default listing that comes up on the O'Reilly portion of the Fox site. Click the title for the November 20 "Talking Points Memo" 'Will Fairness Doctrine be reimposed?'

Of course the "Fairness" Doctrine is an important issue and the comments and reaction to reporters' questions on the issue are interesting and informative viewing.

But, as has become obvious to me, and perhaps I'm just slow-witted or too willing to give the benefit of the doubt, it seems that Bill O'Reilly only tells part of most important stories.

Towards the end of his "Memo" O'Reilly commented that he spoke with Schumer sometime after Grif attempted to speak with him on Thursday afternoon, and Schumer said he "didn't care about the issue, nor should he". O'Reilly labeled this response as "a ruse".

According to Merriam-Webster online:
ruse (noun): a wily subterfuge

Is anyone else tired of tap-dancing? Mr. Schumer's statements to Bill were neither a "subterfuge" nor "wily".

Let us call things what they actually are. When a feathered, beaked creature quacks, we call it a duck. When someone says something that is not true, we call it a lie.

And Chuckie Schumer did lie. On November 4, Election Day, on Foxs News Channel, Schumer equated talk radio with pornography. Perhaps after the imbecility of those comments, the estimable Mr. Schumer decided he'd better stop "caring" about the Fairness Doctrine, really quickly. He is right about one thing (kind of like a broken clock, it is accidentally right twice day) he shouldn't care.

As if the pornography analogy were not enough, Chuckie has additional reason to continue to distance himself from the issue. Apparently he's taking heat from people. I mean real people, not just people with pointy heads and huge egos.

On Monday, November 17, Mark Levin received a call to his radio show from a woman named Carla, from Brooklyn, New York.

[You can listen to the Monday Mark Levin show by clicking HERE. The conversation with Carla occurs about 48 minutes into the broadcast (as long as that version doesn't contain commercials, like the Podcast).]

Here is a transcript of the conversation:

Carla: Hi. I am so glad to talk to you and I'm also kind of nervous because I don't want to end up like Joe the Plumber. Um, I had, an, let's just say, an altercation with Charlie Schumer in the airport, at La Guardia, on Saturday night, that was pretty extensive and kind of -

Mark: Well, wait a minute, by "altercation" you mean a discussion.

Carla: Well, yeah, a heated discussion, about the Fairness Doctrine. I was deplaning, he was ahead of me, there was a fawning Democrat chick, who came over to him, and was like all over him and I had heard what he had said on, I think it was Fox News, on Election Day, I had heard his comments, about uh, about talk radio, and about the Fairness Doctrine which really repulsed me. So, I saw him there and he had this big smile on his face.

And I just said to him, "Don't you dare try to take my talk radio away from me."

And he said to me, "I'm not trying to take your talk radio away from you, but we can't allow people to be nasty and rude and, and say things that aren't true."

And I said, "Are you kidding me? That's what our democracy is about. Our democracy is messy." I said, "Our democracy is about being able to be nasty and rude and sarcastic, and wrong when we want, and say opinions that may be wrong when we want. That's what makes us different than Europe."

And he, he just started lashing out at me. He told me how ignorant I was. And that they were not going to permit -

Mark: Wait a minute, wait a minute. So in other words, so in other words, he was shrill, and rude, and vile.

Carla: Well, he was obnoxious and shrill, and it was attacking my intelligence and uh, and my I.Q., [Mark: Gee whiz.] and I was dumb. And I told him that there was a very good country that believed in his philosophy and it was called Red China and it sounded like he was talking right out of, uh, Mao's Red Book, and that that was not what our country was about and that our democracy was unique in that we allowed our discourse to be messy. And that we allowed our discourse to be wrong when it's wrong. And that's the nature of democracy.

Mark: Well, let me tell you something. You're a patriot, uh, I wish more people would engage like you; politely but firmly, confronting the Left. Uh, and you're not stupid, he's a moron. And let me tell you Carla, what, what's really upsetting Schumer. You know what it is, Carla?

Carla: No. I didn't notice anything upsetting him, he looked pretty smug.

Mark: It's me. Because he doesn't like me, my mocking him. I know it gets under his skin because he thinks he's greater and better than the rest of us. That's why I mock all of them, to knock them down two or three notches. But when he says, "shrill" and all of that, he's talking about me. Because he doesn't like me 'cause I'm in his face, because I've challenged him, because I've urged him to come on this show, because I know he's coward. But he's a menace, he's a menace to this country, he's a menace to this society, he's a menace to the judiciary. I think he should call a hearing. I think he should invite me and a couple of the others, we'll come up there, and I'd be more than happy to testify under oath, assuming of course, that he would swear in, too, so he could be punished under penalty of perjury. I'd be more than happy to do that, Schmuckie. I'd be more than happy to educate you about the First Amendment, political speech, and if you don't like it, it's none of your damn business. I'd be happy to educate you, Schmuckie. What do you think of that, you dope?

And Carla, you're I.Q. is twice of his. So you're I.Q.'s about 140.

Carla: Yeah, well, I told him. I said I will fight to the death, for my, for my talk radio, for anyone else, to be obnoxious, to be as loud and as nasty as they want. Because -

Mark: But is he not the most obnoxious member of the Senate?

Carla: Of course, of course he is. But I said the point of our democracy is that we don't censor our tones, we don't control our tones.

Mark: Well, of course, of course, you're right. And you're extremely intelligent. But he wants to do by brute government force what the Constitution doesn't allow him to do. You see, the Founding Fathers had dealt with people like Chuck Schumer; they'd dealt with people who would punish people dared to say things they didn't believe in. They tried to squelch dissent, they tried to squelch free speech and that's why, when they, when they passed the Bill of Rights, the very first one included the right to free speech, uh, and they would be appalled by Chuck Schumer. But Chuck Schumer doesn't give a damn. He's a power hungry menace. Thank you, Carla, God Bless You, and good job. You take care.

So, Bill O'Reilly devotes a "Talking Points Memo" to the topic, featuring Sen. Schumer, who had very recently (Nov. 4) made an ass out of himself on the issue. O'Reilly who works for the same network on which Schumer made his ridiculous statements, doesn't play the tape. That's getting your point across effectively, that's following up. It's about as effective coverage of the issue as O'Reilly's was of Obama.

But there was additional information available regarding New Mexico's Sen. Bingham. Although he was polite and forthright enough to stand still, to not play duck and cover, he is on record elsewhere, letting everyone know exactly where he stands on the issue of the Fairness Doctrine, with more detail and more in-depth information than the twenty seconds Griff spent with him.

In late October, Bingham was interviewed on New Mexico radio station, KKOB, on this issue. You can read more about this HERE and listen to an audio clip of it.

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BLOGGERS: "Gird Your Loins" and Guard Your Data. Change.gov Scrubbing is a Red Flag

The Washington Times' story yesterday regarding how the Change.gov website was "scrubbed" sometime over the weekend is a red flag to all those who wish to see truth preserved.

The Times reported that the Obama agenda previously listed there, largely copied over from the Obama campaign site, has been replaced with vague statements.

As many bloggers, and even some reporters know; this is not the first time information has evaporated from the internet regarding Barack Obama. In fact, the scrubbing of unflattering and questionable data intensified in the last months of the campaign. Any question regarding whether this practice would be routine during an Obama Presidency, have now been answered.

Bloggers need to be cognizant of this fact and act accordingly since there are few news outlets who will not plead amnesia in the future should an issue arise referencing documented information that has disappeared.

Further, it's obvious that President-elect Barack Obama's penchant for saying, "I've consistently said...." or "this has always been my position..." or "I've always said...." or "I have said so repeatedly...." would be a lot easier to back up if there is no proof of prior statements or contrary information available.

The Obama campaign, transition team staff, and coming administration have had a great deal of help in "protecting" information. Besides things disappearing off the 'net, there have been things that have "disappeared", difficult to access, withheld, or even altered in the "terrestrial" world. There are several incidents of which bloggers are likely aware that include the removal of the "Obama Youth" video from Youtube which was only re-posted because some shrewd blogger had permanently downloaded it and put it back up on the site. Besides that video on Youtube, there have been reports of disappearing Jeremiah Wright videos and NBC's aggressively monitoring and immediately demanding videos including any NBC footage be pulled, such as Barney Frank's appearance on CNBC in July of this year when he stated that Fannie Mae was a sound investment. This video was the basis for the Bill O'Reilly ambush of Frank in October.

Besides the video pulls, there are a number of people who were disturbed by a trend on the Real Clear Politics site, wherein negative Obama reader articles would mysteriously disappear and the user accounts deleted. It's unclear at this date whether that issue was ever resolved. All inquiries to the webmaster, even by prominent blogger Roger Gardner of Radarsite, went unanswered.

There are some scrubbing incidents which I personally discovered in the last six to eight weeks of the campaign, primarily involving ACORN. On October 10, I had a post regarding Barack Obama having been a member of the legal team that sued Citibank in Chicago for allegedly "red-lining". I assert that this is yet another Obama connection to ACORN. The two plaintiffs were likely referred to Obama's firm by that group. These kinds of suits, which bullied banks to grant unprofitable and non-viable mortgages to people in areas with historically high rates of default, contributed to the "Sub-prime mortgage meltdown". Citibank ultimately settled that suit.

In researching ACORN, I found a site called Tax Exempt World, where a large amount of data on tax exempt entities is available to the public. Some of the information is available for free, some for a fee. On October 9 amd 10, when I was doing this research, I pulled up an ACORN detail page on Tax Exempt World, using this link:



Trouble is, the page didn't look exactly like it does now. There was further detail below the the Google ads, stating where ACORN's funds were held, which was an account in the British Virgin Islands. Below is an image I prepared showing where the information existed on the page as of October 10, but disappeared within about a week, when I went back to look more carefully:



Certainly it's easy to make an assertion like I've just done without any back up. Besides the fact that I had no real reason for doing so, I referenced the fact in my article, intending to go back and do further research:

"Further, the tax-exempt database I linked for the ACORN address above displays that ACORN keeps its money in an offshore bank account in the Virgin Islands, which I find just plain odd."

Perhaps the Tax Exempt site had a glitch and was displaying information that was meant for the paid part of their service only. Of course that is a possibility, but considering that it was not the only web page that disappeared, was scrubbed, or was significantly edited that I used when researching for my post, I find it awfully suspicious.

It doesn't look like I linked to the ACORN home page within the article, but I quoted from it. Several days later, when I went back to do some more research on their site, I kept getting the following result:


This went on for several days, and then mysteriously, the site reappeared and had clearly been scrubbed and edited. The edits included a rabid defense of the organization. In visiting the site today, one can find the full-fledged effort continues the self-defense measures. Today's front page has a big button featured entitled "Fight Back: The Truth About ACORN".

Perhaps this disappearance and re-emergence of a site is just another coincidence, but I don't think so.

More recently, I was researching the issue of Barack Obama's connection to Sal Alinksy's theories and the book Rules for Radicals. I discovered the following page:


This was apparently from an online version of the book After Alinksy: Community Organizing in Illinois, which had been published by the University of Illinois at Springfield. Obama had written an essay entitled "Why Organize? Problems and Progress in the Inner City" at an earlier time. This essay was later included as a chapter in After Alinksy. Some enterprising person had the foresight to apparently copy the page source code and loaded the page back up to the web. It's a good thing, because if one clicks on the link "The Complete book After Alinksy home page" on the above page, this is what comes up:


Since all of the other links on the reloaded page are connected to the University's site and those work, it is hard to believe that this, too is another coincidence or something created out of whole cloth. One thing is definitely true, the book does exist. The ISBN number is valid. The book is listed for sale on Amazon, although it is obviously in very short supply; the current price is $150+.

Some may ask, "what's the big deal about the removal of the book from the University site"? In some respects, it's not that big of a deal. While the article may make my skin crawl because I understand the subtext and it's implications, it is not particularly radical, per se. But apparently someone was bothered by the notion that the information existed on the University's site. It would not be flattering to have any clear connections between Alinksy doctrine and Barack Obama. Despite many radical leftist's denials, Alinksy is nothing but a Marxist radical, his tactics were not "peaceful" as some leftist pinheads on TV have said or many radical "community organizing groups" worshipping at Alinksy's feet state in their "About Us" pages. His goal was revolution of American society; revolution to a Marxist state.

Despite the obvious implications of Obama granting permission to include his essay in a book about Alinksy, his other connections to the Alinksy philosophy, and what all of it means for an Obama, there is something more bothersome about the information being pulled off the Univeristy site.

It's the Orwellian aspect of it all, of course. How can history be so easily re-written in what is supposed to be an open society? Who is doing all of this scrubbing, editing, and pulling? One could obviously make suppositions all day long about how the University of Illinois fits into all of this, considering the many tentacles of connections to Barack Obama there. At the very least, there are apparently a lot of people and organizations in our country who are very protective of President-elect Obama and whose ethics are questionable, to say the least.

Regardless of who is "scrubbing", editing, and pulling, and why, the moral of the story is obvious: bloggers and others doing research need to protect the information they discover and they need to do so NOW. How many among us have had fleeting thoughts of going back over links, etc., discovered throughout the election, and doing something about downloading or taking a screenshot, but have as of yet to do so? I know for a while now, I've been intermittently capturing and downloading, but I haven't done it consistently or gone back over things I'd found in the past.

It seems important going forward that we all adopt these practices as a normal part of the way we do things.

In pondering the best ways to preserve information, I recall the controversy that occurred over the ages of the members of the Chinese Women's Gymnastics team. I recall a blog post by an author who is also an investigator. He employed the use of a cache search and turned up a Chinese government report that revealed discrepancies about the girls' ages. The government had pulled the report off the net, leaving its discovery open only to those skilled in cache searches.

Certainly there are many others out there much savvier than myself. I've got some learning to do about this; I briefly tried this out on some of the links for pages I mentioned having disappeared, but clearly, I don't know what I'm doing yet, or they are just gone. For those who might be reading this who are good at cache searching, I would ask you to leave comments to instruct the rest of us how it is best done.

For now, I can share what I'm going to be looking at myself:

Google Guide about Cached Pages
(the Google guide itself, which I've not "stumbled upon" before looks like it might have some handy information to generally improve searching techniques)

Search Engine Showdown
Includes a listing of many free services that archive pages from the web. Google is there, of course, but many others that may include information that Google doesn't have.

One of those listed, "Way Back Machine", doesn't carry the archives for at least six months after the fact. However, since none of the others have worked for me so far and may not ever, I will wait patiently and try Way Back Machine for some of these pages.

Very likely many have already thought out how to archive data and have the tools handy to do so. Maybe you've done it or are doing it already. Although I'm admittedly new to blogging, I'm not new to the internet. Of course, I've experienced some dead links here and there over the years when going back to an old bookmark, but the number of things vanishing lately seems to have a creepy Orwellian bent. I wonder if that's true for many others. Am I just naive?

In any case, in the event that anyone coming across this post is either also new to blogging or new to preserving the information they've found, I'm going to go list the steps I plan to use. If you have suggestions for improving upon my list, I invite any and all suggestions. (Unless, of course, your suggestion is for me to go suck an egg because I'm archiving information on Barack Obama. If so, please don't bother. It will just be deleted, anyway.)

So, here are the steps I'm personally going to take:
1) Spend some time everyday for the next few days reviewing past posts for web page references and video files that are only linked at this point. If they seem likely candidates for removal, I'm going to archive them using steps I'll go through below.

Youtube videos:
Download permanently using Youtube Downloader. In addition to handy downloading, this program also converts videos for use on multiple platforms like Ipods, Windows Media Player, etc.

Web pages and graphics:
Take screenshots of sites using MWSnap. This is much more flexible than simply using the "print screen" function in Windows.
Depending upon the perceived importance of the website or page, save the page source by going to the "View" menu at the top of the browser and pasting into notepad, saving as html.

Of course, this data could really rack up in size fairly quickly. So there are storage needs to consider. Maybe it's time to invest in another external hard drive or a big pack of CDs.

2) I will be noting the importance of information I find going forward and take the above steps on ongoing basis as necessary.

Like I said, others more experienced in these matters than myself are very welcome to leave suggested improvements.

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BREAKING: Two Omaha, Nebraska Students Suspended for "Inappropriate Remarks" About Barack Obama & Secret Service Investigates Another for a "Threat"

Apparently, the efforts to silence dissent against President-elect Barack Obama have already begun. And it looks like he can count on the youth, if not so much as he would have liked, at the ballot box, in policing their peers.

Lincoln, Nebraska, radio station 1400 KLIN reported this morning that two Omaha high school students have been suspended for making "inappropriate remarks" about Mr. Obama that "had racial and religious 'undertones'".

A search for a more in-depth report on the incident finds an Omaha World Herald story which reveals that the incident that occurred Wednesday is not the only one in which action was taken against an area high schooler.

In Bellevue, Nebraska, police and the Secret Service were called by a high school student who had received a text message from a fellow student that the recipient deemed "threatening". Apparently, the two students were arguing about the outcome of the election. No action was taken, as the threat was not deemed "credible", although it was labeled as "inappropriate".

These incidents should disturb us all. Of course, racial epithets and threatening language should not be tolerated in a civilized society. But, in the case of the suspended students, the words "inappropriate" and "undertones" were used. I find that, unfortunately, not surprising, but very outrageous. How many people, for the last eight years, made more than "inappropriate" remarks with actually violent "overtones" against President George W. Bush? How many calls were made to the Secret Service, how many students suspended? Apparently it's ok to disapparage, ridicule, and slander a white Christian guy, and that's about it.

What I find most disconcerting is that the first incident, which resulted in the suspensions, was not reported by the classroom teacher, it was reported by students who left the class and contacted the administration. And the administration took it seriously.

Perhaps the reporting students will be the first to sign up for President-elect Obama's National Civilian "Security" force.

Homeschooling, anyone?

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Hey Brit Hume: How about trying to put a CONSERVATIVE on your "All Star Panel?"

Fox News Channel is part of the mainstream media.

Pathetically, unless you want to spend an entire broadcast yelling at the pinheaded, kool-aid drinking anchor, its the only available news network. It is better than most other networks because there are some real conservatives available by way of some guests and Sean Hannity, but let's not fool ourselves. It's becoming more "mainstream" (mainstream = out of touch) by the minute.

In some ways, its no surprise; there's little investigative journalism anywhere in the news business these days, and cable news spends too much of its time myopically covering and recycling the same small handful of stories. Fox has always had somewhat of a tabloid-type flavor to it, especially during non-primetime hours. Ever turned the channel on from about 9AM - 5PM (central)? Besides Neil Cavuto's Your World (including when delightful fill-in Stuart Varney makes an appearance) and the occasional Megyn Kelly smackdown, you can see as much footage of overturned semis on I-90 near Atlantic, Iowa, as you can handle. It doesn't help the network's "cred" rating, in my opinion, that every woman on the network besides Julie Banderas must have her colorist on speed-dial to touch up those roots.

Even in primetime, the situation is sketchy. Mr. Mountain-sized Ego, otherwise known as Bill O'Reilly, prides himself on being one of the toughest interviewers on television. Poppycock. If ranting, turning red, and pointing fingers at the camera and screaming, "Coward!" at Barney Frank passes for "toughness" then I'm a monkey's uncle. (And that can't be; I'm a woman.) Instead of playing the miles of footage of Barney Frank attacking regulators of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and confronting him, loopy statement by loopy statement, Mr. Ego pitched a fit.

What was worse than that was O'Reilly's coverage and interview of Barack Obama. Who does his research? Skipping over the birth certificate question (which is a diversion), the "he's a Muslim" dead-end, where was the coverage of everything else? He said, "I don't have a problem with Mr. Obama." Super. Then, the night before the election, he and regular contributor, Dennis Miller, giggled their way through a conversation that was essentially about how ridiculous it was that Barack Obama was about to be elected. Joe Wurlzebacher revealed more for us about Barack Obama with one question than Bill O'Reilly did in twenty minutes. Yeah, he's real tough.

The biggest problem, I have, though, is with Brit Hume's daily show, Special Report, and his overall coverage of Election 2008. He is managing editor of his own show, so he must have some input into the members of his illustrious "All-Star panel". The same tired parade of people is rotated and recylced for all election coverage, which Hume anchors. Nary a real conservative in the bunch. There have been random appearances of Bill Sammon, formerly of the Wall Street Journal, and now deputy managing editor at Fox News, and he's a straight shooter, but that's about it.

First of all, would someone please, please poke Mr. Hume with a stick? For at least six months, he's been nearly napping his way through his on-air time. Sometimes when the camera moves onto him after coming out of commericial break, especially on longer nights during the primaries and debates, his mouth is literally, hanging open. Someone hand the man a napkin, he needs to wipe the drool off the corner of his mouth. He's gone into retirement a little too early.

Regulars on Humes glittering panel include Juan Williams, of NPR, who committed random acts of actually rational analysis of Mr. Obama's troubling background, during the primary season, but nearly burst into tears the night Obama gave his convention speech in front of those Grecian columns in Denver.

NPR is not under-represented on Hume's panel; there's also the penetrating Mora Liason. About a week and a half before the election, the esteemed panel was discussing the wisdom of the McCain campaign beating the "William Ayers" drum. Liason actually stated, "Ayers was just someone who lived in Obama's neighborhood and their kids went to school together." Nary a word from Hume or anyone on the panel to correct her. The statement was a virtual copy of the answer David Axelrod floated after the question of the extent of Obama's association with Ayers first surfaced during the primaries. There's at least a twenty year age difference between the Obama and Ayers children, and the relationship between the two has proved to be very extensive, reaching back at least to 1995, possibly 1987, when their wives worked at the same law firm in Chicago. Obviously, all of these "stars" are just filling air time, not actually have real, informed discourse on real issues that affect real people.

Other regulars include Mort Kondracke of Roll Call, Bill Kristol and Fred Barnes, Executive Editor of the Weekly Standard, Nina Easton of Fortune, and syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer.

Nina Easton was widely quoted on Fox during "Bailout Fest 2008", including in a David Asman piece that attempted to carefully dissect the entire debacle. It was one of the best pieces of journalism on the subject, truly, but trotting out Easton, who repeated her favorite phrase everywhere possible, "The people on Main Street don't want to bailout the 'Wall Street Fat Cats'" was insulting to our intelligence. It didn't help that Asmen introduced the clip of the wise Easton by saying, "Many Americans just don't understand." Easton was able to work in her take on the bailout on several occasions during her turn on Hume's "panel". But that wasn't her only gem. My personal favorite was her statement during a discussion of the media's bias in favor of Obama. I wish I could remember her exact words, but she literally looked perplexed when her turn came and said that she didn't think it would really effect the outcome of the election.

Krauthammer and Kristol are definately the most thoughtful of the bunch. One hears decent insight from them on occasion. Unfortunately, like the overwhelming majority of pundits, they are looking at the world through their permanently fixed inside-the-beltway prisms. The most ridiculous moments are when they are asked what the American people, or the electorate specifically, are "feeling" about a particular policy or event.

The most egregious offender attending Hume's tea parties is Fred Barnes. If one didn't know better, one would often think Mr. Barnes was the editor of a liberal publication. Listening to him talk makes me want to reach through the TV and punch him right between the eyes.
On Thursday, during the august panel's pontification on intepreting the outcome of the Presidential race, Mr. Barnes informed Republicans that they must recognize that they have to change their strategies moving forward; essentially, they must move to the left.

But this was the second night in a row that "conservative" editor Barnes had made that kind of statement. And this is just another in a long line of the same kind. As a "conservative" he wasn't too bothered about the Bailout bill. At least Bill Kristol was clear that it was going to be a bad piece of legislation.

Perhaps I shouldn't pick on Mr. Barnes quite so much. He's probably taking the brunt of my frustration on the whole issue of perhaps well-intentioned "conservatives" in Washington who have not clue one as to how the majority of American people "feel", do not do any real homework, do not call eachother out when one of them spews falsehoods, and observe "crisis"' situations in the same bored, lofty voices as they would commenting on the weather.

The whole panel needs to be scrapped, along with its moderator. There isn't one, real tough-but- fair questioner on all of news after 3:00Pm (central). If Fox wanted real probing questions, and real diversity of real opinion, they would put Neil Cavuto or Stuart Varney in Hume's time slot. The "All Star" panel should be turned into the "All America Panel" and have one articulate pundit from each side of the aisle, and rotate through a group of articulate, "average citizens", two at a time, one from each side of the aisle, each night.

I'd start with Joe the Plumber on the conservative side. A conversation among that kind of group would prove far more interesting than the elitist pap that's served up by the "All Star panel" everynight.

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Rep. Michelle Bachmann on What the Rahm Emmanuel Appointment Means: "It Looks Like The Sopranos"

Minnesota Representative Michelle Bachmann spoke to Mark Levin on his radio show Wednesday afternoon, after winning a second term in Tuesday's elections.

Mark asked Congresswoman Bachmann for her opinion on Rahm Emanuel being appointed Barack Obama's Chief of Staff:

Mark Levin: You've dealt with this scoundrel, my word, not yours, Rahm Emanuel, he's going to be chief of staff to Milhouse, Barack Milhouse Obama. Now the issue here is, he's a very nasty guy who plays really knuckle politics. This doesn't look like "change" and "hope". Does it to you?

Rep. Bachmann: Well, it looks like The Sopranos. I mean that's kind of what we're looking at. This is knuckle Chicago politics. And that's what's going to be in the White House now. I mean, we have been, Conservative Republicans have felt the brunt of Rahm Emanuel, this election cycle, last election cycle. It's unlike anything anyone has ever seen or heard. And now it's going to come forth out of the White House.

[crosstalk]

Mark Levin: Does this guy, does this guy reach across the aisle, does he ever reach across the aisle? I don't see it.

Rep. Bachmann: No, it's called shame and humiliate your opponent. That's what it is; it's shame and humiliation.

Mark Levin: So what kind of signal does this send to Republicans in Congress?

Rep. Bachmann: I think what it says is, people are not going to be running for office as Conservative Republicans unless they really mean it and feel it. To go through the kind of brutal lashings that the Democrats are going to be holding out for future office holders, um, you'd really have to think twice, just about your position, your reputation. I'm a mom of five, I had twenty-three foster kids and I worked professionally as a federal tax lawyer, and we've started our own business. And to go through something like this, where, really for eighteen days, your name is mud, your ruined, your reputation is destroyed.

And for what? I believe in freedom, I believe in this country. Believe in what you're trying to talk about everyday on your show, I mean, I'm a huge fan of you, Mark. And you've got, you've got normal people who want to run for office, 'cause they just love this country, and want the next generation to enjoy freedom. And let the world have a haven to repair to for freedom. And this is what we're up against.

Because it literally what is now the choice between socialism and those who still believe in the initial foundational principles of freedom. I'm never going to let go of those principles. I don't care how hard they beat me and humiliate me. I am never letting go of those principles, because I do think they are going to be under assaalt and this is Day 1 of the assault of socialism. But we need strong-minded leadership in D.C. to take these people on.

Mark Levin: Well you are a very, very strong person. We admire you enormously. And as you need to come on, you let us know. You need to do one favor for me, will you make me one promise?

Rep. Bachmann: What?

Mark Levin: Don't go on "MSLSD"* anymore.

Rep. Bachmann: That you don't have to worry about, my dear. You absolutely don't have to worry about that.

We lost some great colleagues last night. I mean true freedom fighters. Tom Feeney, Tim Walbert, Marilyn Musgrave, Steve Shaba, Thelma Drake. We lost true freedom fighters. We hung onto some; Scott Garrett, whose a real hero of mine. So it was brutal and it was bloody, but for those of us who made it through the smoke, it's because of the generous involvement of your listeners.

And I'm not going there just to put my head under the radar screen. I'm going there because we have to fight. Because if we don't fight, there is no alternative. That's what you told us when you spoke to us. We're it, we're all that's left. And if we don't fight, the only alternative is, is full-bore rampant socialism. You'll hear from me, you'll hear from Scott Garrett, you'll hear from my colleagues. We're going to go down swinging, we're not going to let them just roll over us. We're going to go down swinging. We're going to let the public know, from the front lines, what we see and hear everyday.

Mark Levin: Well, you are, you make us all proud. My buddy, Scott Garrett, thank God he won, too. And, uh, Congresswoman, God Bless you, and go get 'em.

Rep. Bachmann: We're going to do it. And thanks a million to your listeners, thank you for making this happen, thank you.

*If you want to know more about what's being referred to at this point in the conversation, read this post.

Rep. Bachmann is not painting a stilted picture of Rahm Emanuel. He once said, "Republicans can go f*%$ themselves." But then again, according to a Chicago Tribune reporter who followed him throughout the 2006 Mid-term election cycle, Emanuel's sentences are laced with profanity and he "extends his middle finger with some regularity". The Tribune reporter, Naftali Bendavid, was only allowed to report in detail on Emanuel and his tactics after the elections. It's a long, detailed piece, and while it provides insight into just how Emanuel master-minded Republican defeat, it blasts to shreds the flimsy hopes anyone has of the "new kind of politics" promised by Barack Obama during his campaign. The full story can be read by clicking here.

Constant use of profanity and "flipping the bird", while endearing qualities in any White House Chief of Staff, are not the sole talents Mr. Emanuel possesses. He is also, apparently, very entertaining when wielding a steak knife. A practially crowing article in the Huffington Post appeared today entitled "Rahm Emanuel: Knife Figher, A Look Back", details how Emanuel vented his frustration at "enemies" at an after-election dinner with fellow campaign workers. After screaming out a name, Emanuel apparently "stabbed" the table with his steak knife, screaming "Dead!"

We can all only wait to see who will be the next delightful appointment to the coming Obama administration.

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