[h/t Media Matters]

I'm not sure what part of the Goldwater rule faux shrink and Fox News commentator Keith Ablow doesn't understand, but if he can't even get this right, why should anyone trust his analysis?

The Goldwater rule is part of the ethical standards imposed on mental health professionals which constrain them from offering a diagnosis of people who they have not interviewed personally. Ablow can argue that he's dancing around this by speaking in general terms, but it's pretty obvious to me that his terms are anything but general.

First, he pronounces President Obama's push for gun control in the wake of the Newtown tragedy as a "hijack" of the issue in order to advance his "personal desire for gun control."

Ablow then goes on to say that the real problem is "untreated mental illness." While this may be part of the problem, it is not the only problem. Not at all. In fact, there is an assumption that Adam Lanza was mentally ill, but no evidence of that has been put forth, partly because of HIPAA limitations, but also possibly because he was not mentally ill at all. It's irresponsible to place all of the blame on the shoulders of the mentally ill, untreated or otherwise.

Aside from that, let's remember who dismantled mental health services in this country. It wasn't Obama, it was Reagan, and he did a great job of seeing to it they were not part of our shared collective responsibility. President Obama, on the other hand, made sure the Affordable Care Act included mental health treatment as part of the basic requirements all insurance policies must offer. But God forbid Ablow would acknowledge that when it's just simpler to lay it at the feet of the mentally ill.

You'd think a true conservative might be a little concerned about the idea of a national database of people with mental illness. What illnesses will be included? ADHD? Depression? Insomnia? If someone gets treated for PTSD, will they be included? Half the nation would qualify for that.

Keith Ablow, like his pal Glenn Beck, cannot resist drawing a large, grand conspiratorial picture around every single thing this president says or does. After Lou Dobbs sets up the question with the statement that President Obama is defined by having only one solution to every problem (government), Ablow happily complies, saying, "His solution runs psychologically in the direction of disempowering the individual every single time." When questioned by Dobbs about why that would be, Ablow drops the diagnosis, Goldwater rule or no Goldwater rule.

Claiming "the autonomy of others did him no favors as a kid when he was abandoned again and again," Ablow goes on to say that this abandonment led Obama to believe "the collective needs to be empowered and all the better if [Obama is] the center of the collective and the most powerful person."

In other words, all this talk of gun control has nothing to do with the rights of children and innocent individuals to live their lives without having them cut short by some lunatic with an assault rifle. No, really, it's just about how Barack Obama's mother left him with her parents in Hawaii while she earned a living and a PhD.

Perhaps Fox Business should stick to business and leave personal motive analysis to professionals.

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I swear to you that David of VideoCafe is one of only a good dozen or so viewers of Fox Business channel at any given point in time. Clearly, profit is not the motivating factor, because there's no way they're making any money on this snoozer of a channel.

But it's always good for a laugh or two on just how ignorant the host can be. Case in point: when you want to mock the global climate change debate (because only wimpy liberals care about the planet, doncha know?) it's probably best not to have Bill Nye the Science Guy on, because he's gonna bring (gasp!) scientific facts to the table, and as host Charles Payne points out, that's just confusing their viewers.

David Neiwert covered it originally when Eric Bolling went ghetto describing a White House visit by the President of Gabon. I, of course, am not one of the two dozen regular viewers of Fox Business Channel, so I missed it, which is probably a good thing for the switchboard operators at Fox Business.

But like me, Whoopi Goldberg heard it after the fact and decided to let Eric Bolling know just what she thought of his attempt to be street. Surprise, surprise, even Elizabeth Hasselbeck thought it went over the line. Will she remember that the next time she's on Fox?

For what it's worth, this is hardly Eric Bolling's first time being openly racist. Media Matters (who has to be at least 2-3 of the two dozen viewers Fox Business Channel enjoys) has documented Bolling's previous racist statements, but hell, why stop there?

Bolling's History Of Other Inflammatory Rhetoric And Smears

Bolling Habitually Scapegoats And Stokes Fear Of Muslims

Bolling Has Promoted Numerous Conspiracy Theories

Bolling Has Demonized Immigrants

Bolling Has Made Numerous False Claims About Energy And Repeatedly Shilled For More Oil Drilling

Bolling Regularly Mocks, Denies Climate Change

Bolling Has A Long Track Record Of False Claims About The Economy And Taxes

"Crush Collective Bargaining": Bolling Targets Labor Unions

Bolling Has Made False Claims Regarding Obama And Foreign Policy

Bolling Hyped Debunked ACORN Videos, Attacked ACORN

Gah! I admit that I've never watched Fox Business Channel, even though my cable company carries it. Based on this clip of their "after-the-market-closes" show, Happy Hour, I see I've made a wise choice. What kind of surreal experience is this? Bar set, complete with a bartender and business men with their brewskis in the background, host Rebecca Gomez looking like she's ready to hook up and whose only research before interviewing Naomi Klein appears to be skimming the reviews of The Shock Doctrine on Amazon, and to top it off, guest host Eric Bolling admits to not only being an oil trader, but never looking at the book? That's respect, I'll tell you, for the collective intelligence of their viewers as well as Naomi.

Still, with all the obstacles Fox Business Channel places in the way of having an intelligent discussion, Klein still gets in some great points that leave the embarassingly ill-informed Fox hosts with little to do but sputter inanities like "Naomi, do you like capitalism?"

Klein: This is just a classic example of what I mean by ‘disaster capitalism,' which is using a real disaster, a real crisis, or a shock-like the oil shock-to push through policies that you can't get through in normal circumstances. So here you have a shock, you have a real oil crisis. People are in pain, they want solutions. And you got the President, the "Extortionist-in-Chief" whose job is actually to solve the problems, but instead he holds the country hostage. And he says, "Listen, unless you give me ANWR, you'll never drive again."
Gomez: Wait a minute, so this is, just so I've set it up correctly, this is so you're saying that the President's taking advantage of this crisis...
Klein: Exactly...
Gomez: ...to get into ANWR.
Klein: ...to push the wish list of the oil and gas industries. These are not real solutions. People need real solutions. They're presenting this as if it's a short-term solution and you guys know full well that it's a long...if it's any...going to have any kind of impact on gas prices, it's in the long run. But people are so desperate for solutions that they're willing to buy anything.
Bolling: Listen, I have to take the other side of this...
Klein: You're kidding!
Bolling: ...I've been talking a long time about the actual...you know, it's really only about a year to 5 to 6 years to pull some oil out of the water in the outer continental shelf now.
Klein: A year? You need to build the rig!
Bolling: No, no, listen, they're already built. All you have to do is move it.
Klein: I'm hearing different things.
Gomez: He's an oil trader though, Naomi, he may know!

Gah!

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A sparkling list of hackery marks Friday's Worst Person in The World for Countdown. The bronze goes to Republican presidential contender Rudy Giuliani for letting his 9/11 Tourettes outbursts reach the point of caricature. Perennial list sitter Bill O'Reilly gets the silver for being too stupid to know the difference between the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence as well as having the bad taste to be proud of said stupidity. And finally, the gold goes to the richly deserved Roger Ailes for his revolutionary FOX Business Channel, who has only averaged 6,300 viewers during the day and 15,000 during prime time.