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It is more than a little bit rich to consider that Tucker Carlson's Daily Caller is attacking Media Matters for America for some weird allegation of coordination with the White House. In case you weren't aware, the Daily Caller exists because Foster Friess, Rick Santorum's billionaire, has tossed millions into the venture. I'm certain he doesn't expect anything in return for that investment, right? I'm equally certain that they're not skewing their Republican primary coverage in favor of Rick Santorum. Right?

Here's the content of the attack against Media Matters. Carlson's outfit alleges that there is direct coordination of messages between the White House and outside media, and he has unsourced quotes and a private memo to prove it! And because they view Media Matters' head David Brock as paranoid, these things should somehow prove the need to strip them of their tax-exempt status. Of course, this is part of a larger campaign that has been ongoing since July of last year to try to strip Media Matters of their tax-exempt status.

Via The Politico:

The top editors at the Daily Caller have come out with the first in a series of articles about the liberal media watchdog Media Matters For America, and in doing so they have suggested that MSNBC and reporters from the Washington Post, POLITICO, the Huffington Post and elsewhere have served as dumping grounds or willing surrogates for MMFA's research.

But in making this allegation, Carlson, the founder and editor-in-chief of the Daily Caller, and Vince Coglianese, the senior online editor, do not cite specific examples to back up that allegation. And reached by phone this morning, Carlson suggested that he did not need to cite specific examples because the charges against the reporters were being made by staffers at MMFA, not by the Daily Caller.

"The charge is not our charge," Carlson explained. "The charge is being made by employees at Media Matters, who would know. This is not an editorial, it is reporting that we did out of which came the claim that we wrote in the story. I can't add to what they've already told us."

Pardon me here. Media Matters publishes its research for anyone to use. Isn't it likely that liberals would be most likely to use it? I certainly make sure to stop by their site and check because it's a lot easier than actually watching that junk 24/7, after all. This seems to me to be a non-story turned into a story in order to allow Megyn to renew Fox News' call to revoke Media Matters' tax-exempt status, which of course they do in the course of this interview, at about 6:50 or so:

KELLY: I don't know. Is there something you think needs to be done as a result of all of this? About Media Matters. I mean, are they-- in terms of tax dollars, in terms of just public awareness, or is it just a group that has an outlook like a lot of groups that have an outlook, and is entitled to that point of view?

COGLIANESE: Well, we believe that they deserve scrutiny. I mean, as a journalistic organization we believe that Media Matters deserves to be shown the light of day and let the people judge for themselves. Now you bring up the issue of tax exemption. They are a tax-exempt organization, a 501(c)(3).

Their proximity to the White House, their ability to coerce media, and really their efforts to destroy Fox News -- and by the way, that's not just like throwing out a term, they really do want to destroy this network -- really does raise questions.

Can an organization that claims tax-exempt status go after a media organization, a journalistic organization like Fox News and try and destroy its business? They went so far as to try to destroy Ford Motor Company's business in their efforts to take down Lou Dobbs on CNN.

This is an influential organization that's claiming tax-exempt status and it deserves scrutiny.

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Watching Fox News is always a bit of a funhouse mirror, like going down Alice's rabbit hole and sitting down for a sip at the Mad Hatter's Tea Party.

Last night, Sean Hannity and Brent Bozell of the right-wing propaganda outfit Media Research Center were all aghast at a boneheaded segment on Dylan Ratigan's MSNBC show featuring Ted Rall talking about the value of armed revolution to bring about change in America:

Hannity: They're unhinged. The Anointed One is elected, and the anchors would thrill up and down their legs and up every part of their body. Now all of a sudden conservatives win, because there's a repudiation of Obama and his liberal agenda, and now the suggestion of a revolution.

Bozell: Sean, now remember, we're the haters. Just hold that thought for a second. This is what his guest actually said on the show. He said, "The government, the corporations and the extreme right are prepared to coalesce into an axis of evil. Are we going to fight back. Will you do whatever it takes, including taking up arms?" This is a man who is a guest on this MSNBC show -- and utter silence from the hypocritical left, that they have that kind of person on there, but yet we are the haters.

Sean, I've asked this question a million times: Would you last -- if you had that kind of a guest on, that your show wouldn't be over before Roger Ailes fired you?

Hannity: Probably.

Bozell: Correct?

Hannity: There's a double standard. We all know this. I mean, it's transparent.

Bozell: The double standard is, Fox doesn't do that. You all would never allow on your show as your guest someone advocating violence in America.

Well, I dunno about guests, but what about Sean Hannity himself?

You may recall, as John and I explained in Over the Cliff, that it was Hannity who came unhinged immediately after the 2008 election of "the Anointed One" and began making suggestions of a revolution:

Hannity had made plain his intentions even before the inauguration. At his Web site, he began organizing in December what he called “the conservative underground” and asking people to “join the resistance” to the Obama administration. At the site’s discussion forum, one of his regulars posted an online poll asking respondents to answer: “What kind of revolution appeals most to you?” The possible answers: "A. Military Coup. B. Armed Rebellion. C. War for Secession."

Here's a screen grab:

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[Via Political Carnival.]

Then, shortly after the inauguration of Obama, we got this:

The whole segment, as you'll see, almost explicitly urges an armed revolution to preserve "the tree of liberty". As Ellen at NewsHounds noted:

Hannity concluded by saying, “This administration has plucked the tree of liberty bare. It took more than 200 years but it now looks like we are headed back to where we started.” Meaning revolution? Hannity never said one way or the other.

He didn't need to; his meaning was clear enough.

More recently, he practically encouraged violence against liberals with some classic eliminationist humor:

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There's no blithering un-self-awareness quite like right-wing blithering un-self-awareness.

Especially when Bill O'Reilly's part of the program, as he was during The O'Reilly Factor last night. He opened with a scathing attack on the New York Times for its own scathing cartoon.

Somewhat hilariously, O'Reilly speculates wildly about the effects of the release of the photos of prisoners being tortured, saying it's "beyond question" that American servicemen and women abroad will be harmed because their publication will foment so much resentment -- even though, of course, he can produce no evidence to support that speculation at all.

Nonetheless, it's enough for O'Reilly to call the cartoon an "atrocity" and "garbage" and accuse the Times of "pushing a hateful, far-left agenda," while the heads of the Times, NBC, and other "far left" outfits are "doing an enormous amount of damage to this country" and are "haters."

Then he invites on Karl Rove to talk about that NYT cartoon, and Karl happily obliges by making the subsequent attack on NYT publisher Arthur Sulzberger as vicious and personal as he can:

O'Reilly: What did you think when you saw that cartoon in the New York Times yesterday of the Statue of Liberty with a whip? What did you think of that?

Rove: I thought Pinch Sulzberger was right to worry about why he had to sell his building and his stock is in the toilet, and I'm glad it is.

O'Reilly: But weren't you offended as an American? I mean, that is just the lowest!

Rove: Look look look, I'm from Texas! I've met this little Pinch Sulzberger. He is an elitist, effete snob, who thinks he knows better than the rest of America and has views that are distinctly outside the mainstream of what America's all about.

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Bill O'Reilly's hatred of NBC really has no limits. Including the most crass hypocrisy.

Last night on his Fox News show, O'Reilly featured some audio from Jesse Watters' invasion of the GE shareholders meeting -- which he described as a "stockholders' revolt."

Though there was some applause for Watters' histrionics (gee, now there's a surprise; right-wingers at a shareholders meeting), there was no actual "stockholders revolt." Just Jesse, doin' his shameless-partisan-attack-hack schtick.

But what was actually noteworthy about the segment was its overarching theme, as in the announced topic: "Will General Electric get paid for supporting President Obama?"

It concludes with this capper:

O'Reilly: Now think about this, ladies and gentlemen: A failing corporation, General Electric, might reap billions of dollars if the feds OK the carbon deal. By the way, GE is already getting taxpayer bailout money for its financial unit. So it's not a stretch to assume [GE CEO Jeffrey] Immelt would want to help President Obama as much as possible.

Now, we've asked Mr. Immelt a number of times to appear here on the Factor, but he will not, and that's why we sent Jesse out to see him.

This is obviously a major story -- when a powerful corporation which controls a major part of the American media may be using its power and the airwaves to influence politics in order to make money from government contracts. That kind of corruption would make Watergate look small. We hope it is not true.

This funny, coming from the lead personality at a network owned by Rupert Murdoch, who has essentially carved out his niche in America by helping to promote Republicans, who turned about and enabled him to make billions of dollars in this country by rewriting the longstanding rules of ownership. This was first noticed back in 1995, and continued for as long as Republicans held Congress and the White House.

I just love that chryon: "When a major company uses its power to influence politics and make money, it's a big story."

Really. An Bill O'Reilly has been around politics how long now?

And this wasn't a "big story" when Rupert Murdoch did it?

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Glenn Beck, on his Fox show this afernoon, did a really lovely encomium to Beverly Eckert, the 9/11 widow who was a victim of that horrible plane crash outside Buffalo yesterday. In fact, like most Beck productions, it was downright maudlin. But we had to applaud certain sentiments, such as when he lauded Eckert for her post-9/11 activism:

Beck: After the attacks, she became a vocal activist for families of 9/11 victims. She pushed for the 9/11 Commission. She demanded answers from the government, and helped win the passage of the Intelligence Reform law.

And of course, Beck looked very, very sincere delivering this.

How sincere was he?

Here's Glenn Beck on his radio show back in 2005:

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Beck: You know, it took me about a year to start hating the 9/11 victims' families. It took me about a year. Um, and I had such compassion for them and I really, you know, I wanted to help them, and I was behind -- let's give them money, let's get them started, and all of this stuff. And I really didn't -- all the 3,000 victims' families, I don't hate all of them, I hate about, probably about ten of them. But when I see 9/11 victim family, you know, on television, or whatever, I'm just like, 'Oh, shut up.' I'm so sick of them. Because they're always complaining. And we did our best for them. And again, it's only about ten.

After that, of course, he went on to talk about how much he hated the Hurricane Katrina victims.

But America, look into his eyes! You can see how sincere he is!

Watertiger notices that the Preznit had himself a drinky-poo at this weekend's Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation gathering in Lima. It's described in this AFP report too:

Even teetotalling US President George W. Bush, who famously quit drinking at 40, was spotted apparently sipping a pisco sour during the summit on Saturday.

It was unclear whether he actually drank any, or whether it was an alcohol-free version.

The White House rebuffed questions about the matter.

Libby Spencer at The Reaction observes that this isn't the first time in recent months that Bush has appeared have been drinking.

Of course, the whole "Bush as a teetotaler" story always had the appearance of being more propaganda than reality. Jane has written convincingly that Bush evinces the classic symptoms of the "dry drunk". But I've always wondered, honestly, just how dry he's really been these eight years.

Certainly the wreckage he's leaving behind isn't the mark of someone in full command of his faculties. But that may be another story.

John Amato:

And since the National Enquirer is now considered a legitimate news source by right wingers after Edwards, how can they refute this 2005 report that said Laura was very upset over it and planned to monitor him.

Bush, who said he quit drinking the morning after his 40th birthday, has started boozing amid the Katrina catastrophe.

Family sources have told how the 59-year-old president was caught by First Lady Laura downing a shot of booze at their family ranch in Crawford, Texas, when he learned of the hurricane disaster.

His worried wife yelled at him: "Stop, George."

Following the shocking incident, disclosed here for the first time, Laura privately warned her husband against "falling off the wagon" and vowed to travel with him more often so that she can keep an eye on Dubya, the sources add