The corporate media has been doing their best lately to draw false equivalencies in their coverage of the recent spike in right wing violence in America. Grasping at any little straw, pundits like MSNBC's Pat Buchanan have even gone so far as to use the Rodney King riots to show how "the left is just as bad." Now, Newsbusters has taken things a notch lower:

Liberals in the media have been busy parading around Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center to bash the right. As befits his organization's MO, Potok, pictured right in a file photo, has done the best he can to link recently-arrested militia members to the Tea Party movement and conservatism generally.

Potok's job may have just gotten a bit harder, and the liberal media may need to find another way to discredit their political opponents. It turns out most of the militiamen were active voters, and at least one was a registered Democrat. Party registrations for the rest are not yet known.

Jacob J. Ward, 33, of Huron, Ohio, voted as a Democrat in the 2004 and 2008 primary elections. He also voted in 10 other elections since 2000. Party affiliation in Ohio is determined by which party's ballot they requested in the most recent primary election.

This amazingly bad article mercifully ends with this belly laugher:

Well that should put to rest the notion that these people were somehow affiliated with or influenced by mainstream conservatives.

Well, there you go. One of these nuts was a registered Democrat so the entire group is actually a bunch of flaming LIBS! No right wing influence here, no siree! Give me a f*&king break!

Hmmm...wasn't some big celebrity entertainer urging his Republican fans to switch parties so they could vote in Democratic primaries back in 2008? Oh yeah, that was Rush Limbaugh. Even if Ward wasn't doing Limbaugh's bidding, and was, at one time, an actual Democrat, his membership in the Hutaree tells me that his real politics had moved hard to the right.

Shuster asked the right question of Rep. Blackburn and predictably the attacks followed. (Newsbusters) Whenever someone leaks info to right wing blogs---red flags should go up. Via Blue Texan:

Shuster's apology [re: Marsha Blackburn] may have been premature. The tiny hamlet of Bon Aqua, Tenn., is where Bohannon lived in the months immediately prior to entering the Army. The Census Bureau places his home in Blackburn's 7th Congressional District.

Media Bistro asks a good question:

Why did MSNBC rush Shuster to apologize? And, more importantly, who made him do so? Or did Shuster and MSNBC just not have the info (or didn't do the research) that Scripps dug up?

We know that Scooter Libby isn't around anymore to call NBC and complain to the Russert's of the world---so who is the new contact from the WH that's putting the heat on?

UPDATE: Oye:

FishbowlDC hears that MSNBC General Manager Dan Abrams asked David Shuster to apologize for Wednesday's Rep. Marsha Blackburn incident and even wrote the bulk of Shuster's on-air apology...read on

I have to credit Mike Stark for really helping speak for Spocko, who is understandably leery of exposing himself to any more attacks from the right (and before any right-winger scoff at the possibility, let me remind you of this)

Mike agreed to a "gentleman's debate" with Noel Sheppard of Newsbusters on the subject of Spocko's campaign against the hate speech on KSFO. I use quotes because I'm not as charitable as Mike was with the loaded nature of some of Noel's questions. However, as many of you commenters can attest, a true debate, devoid of ad hominems and insults, with a right winger on issues is a rare thing and something for which they both should be congratulated.

Read the Noel's questions and Mike's answers here.

Did I tell you Some fool would distort Franken's humor

This was a very easy prediction to make. Media Research Center, you know Brent Bozell's group has started a new website aimed at exposing liberal bias. All comedians beware or NewsBusters will get you. The "Eggman" Drudge, links to them as if Franken made the the remark in a serious debate. I should have figured Drudge and Bozell would be the culprits. The headline says: AL FRANKEN SAYS ROVE, LIBBY, BUSH FACE EXECUTION... Drudge should have learned how futile he was when he tried to smear Chris Rock.

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[H/t Heather]

I'm not very excited about covering this Supreme Court nomination process, but I will point out Republican demagoguery over it.

The gerbil-esque Republican senator from Alabam, Jeff Sessions, had quite an opening on Monday. He viciously attacked Elena Kagan on all counts and went so far as to say she was a traitor to the troops -- and it was all considered OK, because conservatives can never go too far.

SEN. JEFF SESSIONS: Ms. Kagan has less real legal experience of any nominee in at least 50 years, and it's not just that the nominee has not been a judge. She has barely practiced law, and not with the intensity and duration from which I think a real legal understanding occurs.

Her actions punished the military, and demeaned our soldiers as they were courageously fighting for our country in two wars overseas. Ms. Kagan has associated herself with well-known activist judges who have used their power to re-define the meaning of words of our Constitution and laws in ways that, not surprisingly, have the result of advancing that judge's preferred social policies and agendas.

Tweety blasted Sessions pretty well, which offended the tortured souls at Newsbusters, but this is about Sessions. Sending our troops to countries that didn't attack us and then watching the body counts rise on all sides of the conflicts doesn't faze Sessions. See, they could all be home or on some nice and cozy military base instead of dealing with the heat and the IED's of Iraq and Afghanistan, building democracy from the ground up, brick by brick, body by body, person by person. It's a task not all soldiers embrace wholeheartedly.

Think Progress also catches Sessions with a Harriet Miers crush:

On CNN’s American Morning, many of Sessions’ arguments were effectively demonstrated to be disingenuous by host John Roberts. Arguing that Kagan has “serious problems,” Sessions complained that Kagan has praised former Israeli Supreme Court President Aharon Barak. But Roberts noted that Justice Antonin Scalia had also praised Barak.

Sessions then attacked Kagan for not having a depth of experience, but Roberts noted that Sessions had praised Bush nominee Harriet Miers, who also did not have judicial experience. Roberts said, “Just a second ago, you pointed to Harriet Miers’ White House experience as a qualifying factor, but you point to Elena Kagan’s White House experience as a potential disqualifying factor.”

Harriet Miers was an awesome pick for Bush. Jeff Sessions said so. Doesn't that qualify him for much bigger things in conservative-land. In movement conservatism, dumbing down government agencies and the people that work there is paramount. With Sessions, they've found somebody who operates at the bottom level of the not good for government chart. Or rather, he's their kind of guy.