Even Faux News said that Obama won

For the record, I detest these "instant analysis" polls given by the networks immediately after any presidential debate. One, because I think it's the "instant gratification" that the networks constantly crave, and two, I doesn't allow people to actually sit down and ponder what they heard from all the candidates. With little time to think, mics are thrust into their faces, and they are forced to give an answer. We're not talking about a football game here, we're talking about a presidential election, and who will lead us for the next four years.

Having said all of that, they do have a bit of value - it's a quick way to see which way the political winds are blowing after an hour and a half of hot air spewing by the candidates. And last night, Obama was the winner, even on Faux News. That should be pretty telling.

Crooks & Liars has the transcript:

Frank Luntz: Early in the debate these people thought McCain was doing better, by the end of the debate Obama seemed to finish better. Brit.

Brit Hume: Question -- you said that none of the people came in there for Obama, may I take it that that's because they were undecided or because they were for McCain?

Luntz: No, they were undecided, we got 23 undecided voters. Brit, I chewed them out to make sure they were undecided. Did anyone switch your position tonight? We have one person... four people. Who did you go to?

Undecided voter #1: I lean more toward Obama.

Undecided voter #2: Obama.

Undecided voter #3: Obama.

Undecided voter #4: Obama.

Luntz: This is a good night for Barack Obama.

A good night for Obama indeed. It must really suck to be working at Fox News right now. Awww - too bad.

Oh, the humanity - cna Foxx Peeple Spel?

No matter how you slice it, this one's funny. Okay, I realize we all make mistakes, but during a segment on education, Fox's people can't even spell the word on an on-screen graphic.

Serves our State TV right. Morons.

Ooo! - Laura Ingraham gets testy

Hat tip to Crooks & Liars for finding this one on the Web.

It's of conservative personality Laura Ingraham trying to rein in her frustration during the early days of her ill-fated show on Faux News Channel, Just In With Laura Ingraham. Okay, I'll admit, it's only mildly amusing, and nothing compared to Bill O'Reilly's now infamous, "We'll do it live!" expletive-laden temper tantrum. And I guess I have to give her credit for "Jesus God in Heaven!" line - I know I would have been much more, ahem, "colorful."

Anyway, just guessing, but perhaps this is why her show on Fox lasted about as long as The Half Hour News Hour the blue M&Ms at Rush Limbaugh's house.

Anything about Ingraham grabs my attention because of her past misdeeds, specifically urging her largely Republican listeners to clog a Democratic Party hotline during the '04 election, which was set up for voters to voice complaints about voter suppression and irregularities. This is also the same Ingraham who regularly boasts about having "gone to Iraq," which consisted of about seven days in the comfy confines of the Green Zone and being spoon-fed reports from the military about how great things were. I guess that's her definition of "progress" in that godforsaken country. (Yet another example of how our "free press" has failed us - real, genuine reporting from Iraq that isn't spun to death by the Pentagon is a rare animal indeed; we hear, read and see what they want us to, and little more, at least from the American press.)

Anyway, much, much more in a bit - I'm gathering up plenty of video and articles from the past few days - I've got plenty on my mind. Back in a bit.

Wanted: GOP demagogues; 4 month temp. position, pays well

So this is the kind of rabid, revolting talk that Americans are going to be subjected to for the next 4 1/2 months - fear mongering at its worst about a would-be Obama administration. What a surprise.

Here are a few despicable examples of the many that have been broadcast over the airwaves in recent weeks. Listen to the video clip above as conservative talk show host Hugh Hewitt leaves no demagogic stone unturned when talking about an Obama victory in regard to the USC/Ohio State game on Sept. 13. (Too bad the game isn't on Sept. 11 - that would have been too perfect.) An excerpt:

And none of the USC people will give up their tickets to me. I'd pay fair price. They — they know Ohio State's gonna slaughter the Trojans. They know that they're gonna slaughter the Trojans, and therefore they do not want me there at the bloodbath, since it's probably the last football game we'll ever get to see before the United States gets blown up by the Islamists under Obama. I — I would like to see Ohio State slaughter USC. This is what I'm living for right now.

And they said that Jerry Falwell is dead.

But wait, there's more.

John Gibson of Faux News fame recently entertained former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton on his radio show. Wild comedy ensued when the two began fear mongering discussing a possible (probable) Obama Presidency. Take a listen to this claptrap...

GIBSON: The Obama team is going back to some of the old complaints about the war and the war on terror... that the left has been articulating for a long time now, and not really coming up with anything new.

BOLTON: Yeah I think honestly that's an optimistic view of it, that it will simply be a replay of the Clinton administration. It will simply have more embassy bombings, more bombings of our warships like the Cole, more World Trade Center attacks. That would be the best outcome from that perspective.

Does Bolton have any credibility at all? Did he ever as our ambassador to the UN? Many who look at his record would probably strongly conclude that he has none. My favorite Bolton bon mot - speaking about the UN in 1994, he is purported to have said, "There is no such thing as the United Nations. There is only the international community, which can only be led by the only remaining superpower, which is the United States. [...] The Secretariat building in New York has 38 stories. If you lost ten stories today, it wouldn't make a bit of difference."

Quite naturally, Bush nominated him to be our UN ambassador. And Bush wonders why he couldn't get Bolton confirmed in the Senate. In fact, Bush had to use a recess appointment to get him to the UN in the first place. That one ranks right up there with appointing Michael Brown as head of FEMA, a man who had as much experience at handling natural disasters as I do.

Someone needs to give Bolton a little history lesson...

• The September 11 attacks happened on Bush's watch

• The 1993 WTC attack happened a mere 36 days after President Clinton took office

• The attack on the USS Cole happened on Oct. 12, 2000, and the FBI's final report was issued on Jan. 19, 2001. Just imagine those headlines from the right-wingnuts in the media had Clinton responded in the waning hours of his presidency: Bill Clinton retaliates for Cole attack to deflect attention from presidential pardons!!! would have screamed Faux News, etc.

• The embassy bombings? Yes, they happened on President Clinton's watch, and when the U.S. military retaliated on Aug. 20, 1998, Repubes in Congress, who were busy impeaching him for a blow job, cried that he was trying to deflect attention away from the Lewinsky witch hunt scandal.

I'm not absolving President Clinton of all blame for the terrorism that rocked U.S. locations around the world in his second term (and the first WTC attack early in his first), but to blame him for these attacks is absurd, and in the case of 9-11, utterly laughable.

The myth that Clinton did nothing to combat terrorism in the 1990s has been thoroughly debunked, so I'm not going to waste a whole lot of time on it here. All I'll add is that it's been refuted by people who were there, such as Richard Clarke and George Tenet.

My point is that trying to blame Clinton for every bad terrorist attack is absurd, but we've seen these plays called by Republicans before, most recently before the 2006 election. Let's hope they keep trotting out this cliché time and again before November. I don't think a majority of voters could possibly be naïve enough to believe it.