CNN's Jim Acosta Calls Out Trump For Only Taking Questions From Conservatives: "The Fix Is In"

From the February 15 edition of CNN's Inside Politics:








JIM ACOSTA: I think one other thing we want to comment on very quickly, Wolf, just because you mentioned this a few moments ago. Yes, the two questions that were asked or called upon from the president in this news conference went to the Christian Broadcasting Network, which is obviously owned by Pat Robertson, the televangelist down in Virginia. It's a very conservative broadcasting network, and Townhall.com which is a very conservative news website. And so in the last three news conferences, Wolf, all of the questions to the American news media have been handled by conservative press. And I think, Wolf, there's no other way to describe it but the fix is in. This White House, this president, does not want to answer questions, critical questions, about his associates, his aides' contacts with the Russians during the course of that campaign just as his national security advisor is being run out of this White House on a rail. And so, I think that this only, they may think that this is being cute or they think this is strategic in terms of trying to shield the president from questions. but those questions can only be shielded for so long Wolf.

WOLF BLITZER:Two questions from American journalists this time from Townhall Media and the Christian Broadcasting Network. Two questions from Israeli journalists. John King, if he was treated so unfairly, Michael Flynn, in this process and he’s such a good man, why did the president fire him?

JOHN KING (HOST): Well, it would be nice, it would be nice, if the conservative outlets the president is calling on would ask him tough questions, and they would actually, instead of trying to curry favor with this president, they might do him a fare by letting him answer these questions, because until he answers these questions, this story is not going away.

[…]

JIM ACOSTA: I think one other thing we want to comment on very quickly, Wolf, just because you mentioned this a few moments ago. Yes, the two questions that were asked or called upon from the president in this news conference went to the Christian Broadcasting Network, which is obviously owned by Pat Robertson, the televangelist down in Virginia. It's a very conservative broadcasting network, and Townhall.com which is a very conservative news website. And so in the last three news conferences, Wolf, all of the questions to the American news media have been handled by conservative press. And I think, Wolf, there's no other way to describe it but the fix is in. This White House, this president, does not want to answer questions, critical questions, about his associates, his aides' contacts with the Russians during the course of that campaign just as his national security advisor is being run out of this White House on a rail. And so, I think that this only, they may think that this is being cute or they think this is strategic in terms of trying to shield the president from questions. but those questions can only be shielded for so long Wolf.

10 Headlines From The Federalist Papers Project, Which The White House Just Invited Into The Daily Briefing

TYLER CHERRY/Media Matters for America

The Federalist Papers Project is a hyperpartisan right-wing website that traffics in clickbait headlines, racist content, and misleading stories. And one of its authors just got to ask a question at the White House press briefing.

Jason Stevens, author at The Federalist Papers Project, asked a question via Skype to White House press secretary Sean Spicer on February 14 about regulatory reform. The Federalist Papers Project has, until now, not had a seat in the White House press briefing room.

The hyperpartisan right-wing website regularly pushes outlandish articles that border on fake news. Similar to websites known as fake news purveyors that share a combination of fake news and other types of content -- like real news or misleading information -- the Federalist Papers Project publishes its stories with exaggerated clickbait headlines, out-of-context quotes, and racist themes.

In addition to the various Federalist Papers Project stories that have been rated as half-true, or “mixture,” statements by fact-checking site Snopes.com, here are some other problematic headlines that the site has published:

Throughout the election, now-President Donald Trump and his associates frequently peddled lies and pushed fake news stories and conspiracy theories, and they were in regular contact with conspiracy websiteInfoWars. Since his inauguration, Trump and his cadre of aides have continued parroting fake news stories. The Gateway Pundit, a website that regularly publishes false stories and conspiracy theories, has also been given a press briefing credential, and InfoWars’ Alex Jones claims that he has been offered White House credentials.

Will Benghazi Facts Penetrate The Right-Wing Bubble?

JEREMY HOLDEN/media Matters

Here we go again.

One year after creating a fact-free bubble in the run up to the last election, media conservatives are once again denying reality, this time in service of reanimating the Benghazi hoax that ensnared news organizations throughout 2012, denying authoritative evidence that should finally put an end to the hoax.

An exhaustive New York Times investigation into the 2012 terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, published on December 28, discredited the key elements of the right-wing campaign to politicize the attack -- a desperate attempt to bring down the Obama administration and sink a possible presidential run by Hillary Clinton.

Significantly, the Times definitively debunked the myth that al Qaeda played a central role in planning the attack.

Daily Beast contributor Eli Lake, who has been a key validator of the Benghazi hoax, pushed back against the Times, insisting that al Qaeda was responsible for the attack. Contrary to what the Times reported, Lake claimed, "evidence has emerged in the last year that does show the participation of militias and fighters with known ties to al Qaeda." Lake specifically cited comments made by Congressmen Mike Rogers (R-MI) and Adam Schiff (D-CA).

Lake's insistence that al Qaeda was responsible for the attack is in line with Fox News' response to the Times report. Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer, a Fox News contributor often portrayed as legitimate voice in the national media, accused the Times of covering for Democrats with its report.

This denial of reality is reminiscent of the way the right retreated to a bubble throughout the 2012 election, and poses a real threat to Americans' understanding of international terrorism.

The relentless campaign to insist that al Qaeda was responsible for the terrorist attacks in Benghazi misinforms the public understanding of that terrorist group and the role that local extremist groups play in international relations. In responding to critics of its reporting, the Times editorial board explained:

Americans are often careless with the term "Al Qaeda," which strictly speaking means the core extremist group, founded by Osama bin Laden, that is based in Pakistan and bent on global jihad.

Republicans, Democrats and others often conflate purely local extremist groups, or regional affiliates, with Al Qaeda's international network. That prevents understanding the motivations of each group, making each seem like a direct, immediate threat to the United States and thus confusing decision-making.

As The New Yorker's Amy Davidson noted, a failure to acknowledge the complexities of extremist groups could lead to tragic real-world results:

Not every angry Muslim, not even every angry Sunni Muslim, is part of Al Qaeda. Using the name so generically and broadly is a deliberate decision not to understand who our enemies are, or to care--if they don't like us, they are Al Qaeda, and we can stop listening.

And how, then, are we supposed to know who our friends are? Insisting that any Muslim who attacks us is Al Qaeda also means that, when we are standing around handing out guns to strangers--something we do a little too often--we'll assume that those who don't strike us as Al Qaeda types won't attack us.

Why The GOP's Attempt To Rebrand On Women's Issues Is Doomed

HANNAH GROCH-BEGLEY

GOP candidates are training to better talk about women and women's issues following the disastrous 2012 elections -- but this new rebranding effort will be difficult, given conservative media's toxic rhetoric on women.

Politico reported on December 5 that the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) is meeting with congressional Republicans and their aides to "teach them what to say -- or not to say -- on the trail, especially when their boss is running against a woman":

While GOP party leaders have talked repeatedly of trying to "rebrand" the party after the 2012 election losses, the latest effort shows they're not entirely confident the job is done.

So they're getting out in front of the next campaign season, heading off gaffes before they're ever uttered and risk repeating the 2012 season, when a handful of comments let Democrats paint the entire Republican Party as anti-woman.

Akin dropped the phrase "legitimate rape" during the 2012 Missouri Senate race, costing himself a good shot at winning his own race and touching off Democratic charges of a GOP "War on Women" that dogged Republicans in campaigns across the country.

This new phase in the GOP's attempt to rebrand the party comes months after the Republican National Committee's (RNC) March 18 post-mortem of the 2012 election, which warned the party was "increasingly marginalizing itself" by alienating women, Hispanics, African Americans, and younger voters.

As Media Matters noted at the time, the rebranding effort always faced a significant obstacle: conservative media. Right-wing talk radio hosts like Rush Limbaugh played a significant role in popularizing the very brand of Republican politics the party leadership now understands is toxic -- and they are unlikely to change their rhetoric on women just because the RNC and NRCC suggest it.

After all, Limbaugh is the man who launched 46 personal attacks on Sandra Fluke in 2012, including calling her a "slut" and a "prostitute" for testifying in favor of affordable contraception, and little has changed since then. Just in the month of November, Limbaugh compared filibuster reform in the Senate to "allow[ing] women to be raped"; suggested that women in the military synchronize their menstrual cycles so they'd be "ready to be banshees"; read from a misogynistic parody site mocking marital rape; claimed ads promoting Obamacare's coverage of birth control told young women "if you like being a prostitute, then have at it"; and claimed Democrats are turning women "into nothing but abortion machines."

Limbaugh is not alone. Wall Street Journal editor James Taranto has mocked efforts to combat the immense problem of sexual assault in the military, and claimed "female sexual freedom" led to a "war on men." Fox News' Bill O'Reilly attempted to tie the "War on Christmas" to "unfettered abortion." Conservative blogger and Fox contributor Erick Erickson has called Texas Gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis "abortion Barbie" and attempted to smear her campaign by suggesting she was mentally unfit for office. And a Fox Business host recently asked if there is "something about the female brain that is a deterrent" to women working as tech executives.

That's just a few of the most recent examples. The list goes on.

If the NRCC is concerned about Republicans being labeled "anti-women," Todd Akin and his "legitimate rape" comments are perhaps the least of their concerns. Conservative media's daily drumbeat of demeaning attacks on women could do more damage to the party's efforts than any single gaffe.

After all, the GOP rebranding effort also included a call for greater Latino outreach, to which conservative media responded with increased anti-immigrant demagoguery and a full-throated effort to destroy immigration reform. At the moment, it seems the conservative media is successfully thwarting the Republican "rebrand" -- leaving the GOP right back where they were in November 2012. 

Right-Wing Media Pick Up Health Insurance "Cancellation" Story NBC Has Walked Back

THOMAS BISHOP/Media Matters For America:

Right-wing media picked up a misleading NBC News report that claimed President Obama knew millions of Americans would receive "cancellation" letters terminating their health insurance -- a report NBC News later clarified by explaining many of the policies would be "replaced" and not canceled.

In an October 28 NBC News report, senior investigative reporter Lisa Myers claimed that "50 to 75 percent" of individual health insurance consumers "can expect to receive a 'cancellation' letter or the equivalent over the next year" because their existing policies do not meet Affordable Care Act standards. Right-wing media have used similar language to claim "thousands of people across the country receiving cancellation notices from their insurers."  In a New York Post column, National Review's Rich Lowry claimed "hundreds of thousands of people in states around the country are now receiving notices that their insurance is getting canceled." Fox News' Charles Krauthammer described the issues with the discontinued policies as "almost a parody of the definition of a liberal."

However, on the October 29 edition of MSNBC's The Daily Rundown, host Chuck Todd challenged Myers' description of policy letters sent to insurance consumers as policy replacements, not cancellation. Myers agreed:

TODD: NBC's senior investigative correspondent, Lisa Myers, joins me now. OK, Lisa, so the White House is arguing that somehow what's going on, number one, the letters that people are getting are not cancellation notices, that they're notices to say your policy no longer meets standards, here's a new policy, but for some people it's coming with a premium hike. Is that right? 

MYERS: That's correct. Some of them actually use the word cancellation, others use the word termination or saying it's being replaced. But in both cases what you have are individuals who are not able to keep the policies they had, even if they want to. 

Myers was also forced to concede that insurance companies, not the Obama administration, determine whether an individual's policy would be "grandfathered" in and not changed under ACA.

This information is not new. It was widely reported in 2010 that the Obama administration acknowledged that "40 to 67 percent" of customers would likely not be "grandfathered" in if insurance policies were significantly changed by insurance companies. And as Wonkblog's Sarah Kliff has pointed out, insurance companies are required by law to tell customers whose policies are discontinued about other options the company offers. 

The Myth Of The $634 Million Obamacare Website

 ERIC BOEHLERT/Media Matters For America:

When he announced hearings this week into the troubled launch and implementation of President Obama's health care reform, Rep. David Camp (R-MI), Chairman of the House Committee on Ways and Means, demanded to know why "after spending over $600 million" the online health care exchange portal, healthcare.gov, doesn't work properly.

In light of the site's systemic failures, that bulging nine-figure price tag ($634 million, to be exact) has produced endless guffaws within the conservative media, where the figure has been adopted as evidence of a policy debacle.  

"Who pays $634 million and has three years and screws it up that bad?" asked Fox News' Sean Hannity on October 18. Added Rush Limbaugh: "That website, by the way, the original projected cost: $93 million. The end cost: $643 million.  I kid you not."

Wow, $550 million in cost overruns for healthcare.gov since 2010 when the health care reform law was passed?

That's false.

The life of the $600 million figure appears to be the latest example of how misinformation is fermented within the right-wing media and then adopted as quasi-policy by the Republican Party. After all, Rep. Camp is holding a hearing specifically to determine why the government's $600 million health care website doesn't work, even though the site didn't cost $600 million.

The eye-popping $634 million figure was first trumpeted in a piece by Andrew Couts at Digital Trends on October 8. It pointed out that the Montreal-based company awarded the contract to build healthcare.gov, CGI Federal, had received $634 million in government contracts related to health care. (Digital Trends lateramended the article and lowered the figure to "more than $500 million" that was allegedly spent "to build the digital equivalent of a rock.")

Stunned by the bloated figure, Couts noted "Twitter, created in 2006, managed to get by with only $360.17 million in total funding until a $400 million boost in 2011. Instagram ginned up just $57.5 million in funding before Facebook bought it for (a staggering) $1 billion last year."

Conservative commentators loved the report and quickly referred to it as fact.

"As for cash, it appears that HHS spent over $600 million for the online system -- more than it took to get Facebook started," wrote John Sununu in a Boston Globe column, while the Washington Times reported, "The administration hasn't said how much these efforts will cost; estimates indicate the website already has cost taxpayers more than $600 million."

Even ABC News pushed the report, noting "The administration has not provided a final cost of the website, although some estimates place it between $500 million to $600 million."

But the accounting employed by Digital Trends raised some eyebrows even within the conservative media. National Review Online contributor Greg Pollowitz tweeted that the CGI contracts Digital Trends pointed to included work that the firm had done for the U.S. government years before health care reform was actually passed into law.

Glenn Beck's site, The Blaze, also debunked the number. "While the federal website to signup for Obamacare was riddled with errors and had a rocky rollout, it didn't cost $634 million to build," wrote Liz Klimas. Citing an official inside GCI, The Blaze reported the $634 figure "includes all of the company's contracts for a Health and Human Services Department program over the last seven years."

Independently, the Sunlight Foundation estimated it cost $70 million to build the much-maligned website, not $634 million. (Officially, CGI was awarded a $93 million contract for the healthcare.gov job.)

And today in his Fact Checker column in the Washington Post, Glenn Kessler looked at the question of the healthcare.gov cost and concluded, "A conservative figure would be $70 million. A more modest figure would be $125 million to $150 million." Kessler noted that the cost for the entire health care project beyond the website would be "at least $350 million."  

Despite those red flags, the bloated figure has been widely embraced as factual within the conservative press. 

As for the Twitter and Instragram comparisons, they don't make much sense in terms of what those hugely popular and relatively simple social media sites do (swap updates and photos) as compared to what healthcare.gov is supposed to do. Noted Kurt Eichenwald at Vanity Fair regarding healthcare.gov:  "The site is one of the most complicated Web-based undertakings ever envisioned not only by the federal government but possibly by any Internet product provider."

Meanwhile, the $600 million misinformation has created some odd contradictions within the conservative media, where it is still regularly touted. For instance, on October 9, a report posted on Foxnews.com referred to healthcare.gov as the "$93M ObamaCare website."  Yet day after day, Fox hosts such as Hannity, Dana Perino, and Andrea Tantaros ridicule the "$600 million" the government allegedly spent to build its health care exchange website.

And then there's Blaze news anchor Amy Holmes who appeared on CNN on October 21 to discuss the health care controversy. She  said that "the website got over $600 million to be able to be set up." Strange, right? On October 10, The Blaze debunked the "rumor" that healthcare.gov cost $600 million to build. Then eleven days later The Blaze's Holmes told a CNN audience that healthcare.gov cost $600 million to build.

Sifting through the vast range of cost estimates for healthcare.gov, the Washington Post's Kessler suggested, "readers should be wary of many cost estimates uttered by lawmakers." That also holds true for estimates uttered by conservative commentators.

Right-Wing Media Go Wild For Sen. Cruz's Fake Filibuster

MIKE BURNS, COLEMAN LOWNDES, & SAMANTHA WYATT/Media Matters For America:

Following a 21 hour fake filibuster by Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), right-wing media figures were quick to praise the effort as "genius." Fox host Sean Hannity opened his September 25 show, Hannity, with an over-the-top montage of Sen. Cruz's filibuster alongside images of Gadsden flags, American flags, trains, and Americans getting their hair cut, while conservative radio host Bill Cunningham compared Cruz to Davy Crockett, James Bowie, and John Wayne:

A Right-Wing Media Star Is Born: Vladimir Putin

ERIC BOEHLERT/Media Matters For America:

Casting a wide net and always willing to promote whoever will mount attacks against President Obama, conservative commentators have recently reached out all the way to Moscow to embrace their latest champion, Russian president Vladimir Putin. The more he criticizes Obama for wanting to mount military strikes against the Syrian government for gassing its own citizens, the more Putin's comments are cheered by conservatives here.

The newfound affection is downright bizarre considering Russia, and the former Soviet Union, has for decades been the epicenter of right wing suspicion and hostility; the proverbial Evil Empire. And in terms of the current debate regarding Syria, Putin is isolating himself from the international community. As USA Today noted this week, "Russian President Vladimir Putin's strident defense of a Syrian regime that has killed tens of thousands of its people in a civil war that has divided him from many world powers viewing Syria as a humanitarian disaster that demands intervention."

Putin's an outlier with very little international leverage or power. But because he's publicly opposing Obama he's treated as a right-wing folk hero in America. That's how deep the hatred for Obama runs in today's conservative media circles.

Note that late last moth, just hours before Obama addressed the nation regarding Syria, Matt Drudge bizarrelytweeted that "Putin is the leader of the free world."

Putin is the leader of the free world...

-- MATT DRUDGE (@DRUDGE) August 31, 2013

More recently, the Putin admiration society has been on full display all across the right-wing media landscape. On his radio show, Rush Limbaugh also seemed to side with Putin:

Now, you know, Vladimir Putin is saying that Obama and Kerry are lying.  And I don't know about you, but I find myself to be in a really curious situation.  Who do I believe, Vladimir Putin or Barack Obama and John Kerry?

Limbaugh appeared to be impressed by the fact Russia had compiled a 100-page report blaming Syrian rebels for the chemical weapons attack, not Russia's longtime ally, President Bashar al-Assad. Limbaugh told his listeners: "Now, I don't know about you, but what does it feel like to have to agree with a former KGB agent?"

Meanwhile on Fox News, hard-right military analyst Ralph Peters was in full Putin swoon mode yesterday, insisting that "the world is on Vladimir Putin's side about Syria." According to Peters: "He's a thug, but he's defending the Christians and the other minorities in Syria."

More:

I don't like Putin, but I respect that guy. He is tough. He delivers what he says he'll deliver. He knows his people. He presents himself as a real He-Man....But he lives up to it! Our president talks tough, but in the clinch he's gutless.

Putin, the right wing's anti-Obama.

The Putin admiration has been growing for weeks now. In August, when the leader helped cracked down on gays in Russia by banning the positive depiction of homosexuality as well as the adoption of Russian children by any foreign couples from countries with marriage equality, the American conservative mediacheered the former KGB agent as a righteous champion.

Syndicated columnist Patrick Buchanan toasted Putin's move and praised him for trying to restore Russia's "moral compass" by implementing anti-gay policies. (Limbaugh had previously praised Putin's stance on gay adoption, conceding it was "ironic" for him to be agreeing with a Russian leader.)

At this rate, if Putin ever gets tired of running Russia he can always sign on as a Fox News contributor.

Syria And The Conservative Anti-Obama Reflex

SIMON MALOY/Media Matters For America

Over at Salon, Joan Walsh despairs at the possibility that an honest, productive debate over the need to intervene militarily in Syria will fall victim to the "familiar dysfunctional ditch of Republicans abandoning their historic values to sabotage Obama, and Democrats putting the need to support their beleaguered president ahead of their need to craft a new national security policy." She's talking primarily about the debate in Congress, now that President Obama is seeking legislative approval for the use of force, but there's also a great, big, gas-baggy media conversation to be had. And judging by the initial reaction to Obama's push to secure Congressional authorization, the conservative reflex to abandon principle and oppose Obama is already taking hold.

Writing in the Wall Street Journal this morning, Kimberley Strassel whacks Obama for putting the Syria question before Congress, calling his "crude calculus" overtly political and asking: "When did a U.S. commander in chief last so cynically play politics with American credibility?" Per Strassel's reckoning, if Obama is going to intervene, he should own it:

Now trapped by his own declaration, Mr. Obama is reverting to the same strategy he has used in countless domestic brawls -- that is, to lay responsibility for any action, or failure of action, on Congress. The decision was made easier by the fact that Congress itself was demanding a say.

That proved too tempting for a president whose crude calculus is that Congress can now rescue him however it votes. Should Congress oppose authorizing action against Syria, he can lay America's failure to honor his promises on the legislative branch. Obama aides insist that even if Congress votes no, the president may still act -- though they would say that. The idea that Mr. Obama, having lacked the will to act on his own, would proceed in the face of congressional opposition is near-fantasy.

Now let's jump all the way back to March 2011, shortly after President Obama ordered military intervention in Libya. At the time, Strassel was incensed that Obama would order the use of force without consulting Congress, calling it bad policy and bad politics:

President Barack Obama is going on a week into military action in Libya. If he doesn't start explaining how and why, he's going to be fighting a rearguard action in Congress.

Commanders in chief are rightly accorded broad power to unilaterally order American military force. The smart ones understand they need to garner public and congressional support. Congress's backing is particularly crucial, given that body's own authority to play havoc with a military undertaking. In today's partisan political environment, presidential wooing is even more important.

[...]

This is what comes from waging war through the United Nations. The White House was determined not to move on Libya unless it could hide behind a U.N. resolution. The best that multinational body could muster was a vague and confused resolution backing efforts to stop Gadhafi from slaughtering civilians. That resolution, Mr. Obama's rationale for action, is now his constraint. To answer Congress's questions would require thinking and resolving beyond the U.N. remit. He's unwilling to do so.

The president seems instead to be hoping he can quickly hand this off to some other leader of the free world, and move on. But a failure in Libya will only bring more congressional questions. Better to define an actual U.S. strategy -- one that can succeed -- while Congress is still willing to listen.

You can argue that the circumstances surrounding Libya and Syria are different -- because they are -- but Strassel didn't leave a whole lot of wiggle room. Back when Obama didn't include Congress before ordering military action, she said Congressional consultation was the smart, prudent thing to do because the president needs political cover. Now that Obama is including Congress in the decision to initiate hostilities, she's calling it bad politics and trashing Obama for seeking political cover. The only consistency between Strassel's two positions is that they're anti-Obama.

The same reflex has also seized Fox News' senior judicial analyst Andrew Napolitano, who railed against the "terrible" War Powers Act when Obama was weighing unilateral action in Libya, but argued that it's "mystifying legally" that Obama would consult Congress on Syria when the War Powers Act allows him to act unilaterally.

It's difficult to have a serious, informed debate about the necessity of military action when influential right-leaning pundits are haphazardly jettisoning principle and contradicting themselves simply to be in opposition to a political figure they dislike.

Noise Machine Fumes As Its Hillary Clinton Caricature Collapses

ERIC BOEHLERT/Media Matters For America:

Reacting this week to the news that NBC had announced it's going to produce a four-hour, primetime miniseries dramatizing the political life of Hillary Clinton, Rush Limbaugh dismissed the simmering controversysurrounding the programming decision. Announcing that he was bored of talking about the Clintons, Limbaugh then spent a good chunk of his first hour on Monday's show discussing the Clintons.

Limbaugh insisted the former First Couple amuse him and he mocked the premise of the NBC miniseries; that there's widespread interest in Hillary's life story. The talker insisted that outside of Democratic circles the Clintons are viewed as "jokes."

Indeed, the NBC press release unleashed all kinds of bitter right-wing commentary about Hillary Clinton and the alleged biases that will be in play in the production. (How dare NBC cast a beautiful actress, Diane Lane, to portray Hillary??) The attacks were laced with angry demandsthat as part of the miniseries, NBC devote all kinds of time exploring the numerous "scandals" that have allegedly plagued Hillary's career, and especially the 2012 terrorist attack on the U.S. diplomatic outposts in Benghazi.

"NBC and the Hillary 2016 Bandwagon: Will Miniseries 'Forget' About Benghazi?," a Fox Nation headline demanded to know. The same question was asked endlessly online. 

Based on 11 months worth of robotic and increasingly fantastic allegations about Benghazi, the Fox crew seems to actually believe that Clinton was part of a nefarious White House plot to let Americans die last September in an effort to secure President's Obama's re-election.

There are any number of ethical questions raised by NBC Entertainment producing a miniseries while NBC News continues to cover the production's topic. None of those questions have to do with whether the final product fails to cover "Cattle Futures-gate."

The indignant denunciations of NBC illustrate just how detached from reality the conservative press has become in terms of how it views Hillary Clinton, and the assumptions conservatives make about her image in America and around the world. (i.e. She's a joke.) Lashing out at NBC, one right-wing blogger claimed the network was "delusional" to think anyone cares about Hillary's life story.

The right-wing media have invested years (decades?) trying to define Hillary Clinton in the most ugly and mean-spirited way possible, and don't seem to understand the futility of their ways.

Fox News, Rush Limbaugh and others really have dedicated incalculable hours trying to permanently brand the former First Lady as an angry, power-hungry hag whose political career has been a colossal failure. And with the allegation of a Benghazi "cover-up," they've tried to portray the former Secretary of State as having American blood on her hands.

That's the caricature of Hillary that the right wing holds near and dear and tries desperately to pretend that everyone else does, too. But the announcement from NBC suggests that portrait of Hillary as a political monster is not widely shared.

The programming decision to make the series, whatever the final product looks like (and certainly similar past productions have come in for widespread criticism), implies that Hillary's fame and stature transcends politics. Rather than seen as a shrew, Hillary is viewed as a figure compelling enough to attract the interest of a major TV audience.

In other words, conservatives are losing control of Hillary's image and with the NBC miniseries they fear losing even more. Outside of the radical confines of Fox News and other right-wing hot spots where she's universally viewed negatively, Clinton enjoys widespread respect. And as speculation mounts about Clinton's presidential aspirations for 2016, that failure to define her is only going to fuel even more resentment.

We certainly got a peek of that this week.

Actually, we've been getting a preview of that resentment for months now. Recall the behavior of the Clinton Crazies late last year when the State Department announced Hillary had suffered a concussion after becoming ill and fainting. The health scare was greeted with open guffaws on Fox News and elsewhere as her dedicated foes laughed it up about how the Secretary of State had faked her concussion in order to get out of testifying before Congress about Benghazi. (Who does that?!)

Here was the parody produced by Bill Kristol's Weekly Standard, making fun of Clinton's concussion:

Weeks later when doctors revealed they had found a potentially life-threatening blood clot in Hillary brain, the right-wing laughter died down a bit. Nonetheless, the sorry episode revealed not only a lack of common decency, but also the warped prism through which the conservative press views Clinton - as a national punch line.

So of course her obsessed critics objected to the NBC announcement. Via the American Thinker blog [emphasis added]:

In "Unfaithful," Diane Lane played an adulterous wife whose jealous husband, Richard Gere,bludgeoned her lover Olivier Martinez to death with a snow globe, which is what many Americans feel like doing to themselves when Chillary Hillary starts talking.

See? "Many Americans" want to kill themselves when the former First Lady starts talking.

In truth, according to recent polling data, Hillary Clinton remains among the most popular political figures in the country. And when pitted against prominent Republicans in hypothetical presidential match-ups for 2016,Clinton wins easily.

That's likely among the reasons NBC green-lighted the Hillary movie: She remains a political and cultural star, and one who is possibly still ascending to new, historic heights.

And that's likely why her critics are so upset this week.

For Zimmerman Trial, A Right-Wing Race To The Bottom

ERIC BOEHLERT/Media Matters For America

With final arguments underway in the trial of George Zimmerman, who is accused of killing unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin last year, most observers might focus on the central question of whether the neighborhood watch volunteer was guilty of murder, or whether he acted in self-defense the night Martin died. They might also ask why it took prosecutors six weeks to charge Zimmerman with any crime, even though he admitted to killing the youth.

But from the crooked perspective of the far-right media, the trial represents something far more insidious than justice on display. Unfolding beneath the sinister specter of President Obama's pugnacious interference, the Zimmerman hearing is being denounced as a Soviet-style show trial, by Lou Dobbs on his July 9 program, anda hoax in which the defendant is the real victim.

It's the defendant who faces a perilous future even if found not guilty we're told; a defendant who's being persecuted by "the race industry." And it's a trial that allegedly operates under the ominous threat of "riots" if Zimmerman is found not guilty.

In other words, the trial, and the irresponsible right-wing commentary surrounding it, represents the latest example of how the conservative press remains incapable of dealing honestly with issues that the nation grapples with, and especially any issue that involves race when an African-American (Democrat) sits in the White House.

Instead, the right-wing media once again gleefully stirs the cauldron of racial animosity. Uninterested in letting justice unfold in the courtroom, the far right mob has been obsessed with making Obama a central player in the saga. A Breitbart writer this week condemned the president for his "direct insertion" into the story, referring to the time, 16 months ago, when Obama answered a single question about the Martin controversy. Obama's quote was supposedly part of a larger, menacing White House plot "to gin up charges of racism" surrounding the case, according to the site.

Given that level of obsession, it's no surprise the right-wing press manufactured a story this week that allowed them to cast Obama as an essential villain in the Zimmerman controversy. Pointing to a report that confirmed the Department of Justice's Community Relations Service unit (CRS) had been dispatched last year to Sanford Florida, the scene of the Martin killing, most of the right-wing noise machine trumpeted the revelation as proof that Obama's Department of Justice was guilty of staging "anti-Zimmerman" rallies.

All of that, of course, was completely false.

The CRS employs peacemakers who work with civic and religious leaders when tensions flare up within communities. Its presence in Sanford was hardly proof that the Obama administration had taken sides in the case. And none of it was even news. As Media Matters noted, both the Miami Herald and the Orlando Sentinel wrote about CRS's presence in Sanford last year and detailed its efforts to successfully facilitate peaceful protests.

In other words, the Department of Justice under Obama did its job and helped keep the peace in Sanford at a time when community tensions were running high. Therefore Obama is guilty of fueling racial tensions in Florida? Of "instigating race riots," as Limbaugh put it. (For the record, there were no "race riots" last year in connection with the Martin controversy.)

It's classic Obama Derangement Syndrome, in which the president's professional opponents contort reality to place him at the center of every possible controversy, even murder trials, and cast him as an all-powerful thug. It's a hypnotic force that overrules common sense.

Note this opening sentence from a recent Breitbart News item, which suggested danger was lurking in Florida:

On Wednesday, Sanford Chief of Police Cecil Smith told Breitbart News exclusively that there is "nothing out there" suggesting civil unrest will take place in the city following the George Zimmerman verdict.

So after getting a quote from the head of Sanford police confirming there's no indication there will be civil unrest following the Zimmerman verdict, Breitbart then hyped a story about how officials are bracing for civil unrest following the Zimmerman verdict.

Talk about remaining committed to a race-baiting narrative.

This week Breitbart also trumpeted a piece headlined: "Broward County Sheriff's Office Prepares Zimmerman Verdict Riot Plan," claiming Florida law enforcement "released a video calling on the public not to riot."

But that wasn't the case.

The youth-oriented public service video released by police made no mention of fending off a "riot." It simply discouraged individuals from expressing anger through an act of violence. ("Raise Your Voice, Not Your Hands.") Getting angry and getting arrested does not constitute rioting. So why the right-wing echo chamber obsession about looming riots? On this show Monday night, Bill O'Reilly couldn't stop talking about the threat.

And note how O'Reilly couched most of his trial coverage.

From the Washington Post's Erik Wemple, who contrasted O'Reilly's complaint that the only reason the trial was getting so much attention was that  "it's a light-skinned Hispanic against a black kid," as compared with the coverage on The O'Reilly Factor [emphasis added]:

Last night, O'Reilly delivered an editorial monologue on the George Zimmerman case; then he discussed it with commentators Kimberly Guilfoyle and Lis Wiehl; then he sat down with another guest, Jacques DeGraff, and talked about it. Much of the discussion concerned race.

On Monday night, O'Reilly discussed the racial aspects of the case with LeVar Burton. In another segment on the same show, he discussed the case with Juan Williams and Mary Katharine Ham. Much of the discussion concerned race.

Last Wednesday night, O'Reilly convened a panel with Wiehl and Guilfoyle on the trial.

Last Tuesday night, O'Reilly blasted actor Jamie Foxx's Trayvon Martin T-shirt in a segment with Alan Colmes and Monica Crowley. That was all about race. 

But in terms of unfiltered race baiting, nobody has matched Rush Limbaugh's invective about the Zimmerman case, and the talker's obsession with portraying Obama as a driving force in the story. Latching onto the phony spin surrounding CRS, Limbaugh accused the president of "promoting racial strife" so that the "rest of us can get a taste of" slavery.

The confirmation that the right-wing media's loudest voice was using the murder of a young, unarmed black teenager to suggest America's first black president was trying to fuel racial tension so white Americans could "get a taste" of what the crushing pain and humiliation of slavery felt like, really does defy common sense and civility, ever for a confused hate merchant like Limbaugh.

With the Zimmerman trial, Rush Limbaugh had once again won the race to the bottom.