Look, it's not as though we didn't already know that Fox News ambush specialist Jesse Watters is a major-league wanker. I mean, c'mon: Stalking bloggers on their vacations? Really?

But this takes the cake.

Priscilla at Newshounds digs up a clip from last week's O'Reilly Factor on Fox in which Watters shows off his right-wing brand of humor [hint: Mallard Fillmore is funnier] with clips he brought back from the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, where he obviously was stalking the hallways in search of liberal celebrities to harass.

But his key clip moment in Charlotte came when he decided to harass the mayor of Boston, Thomas Menino, about Menino's opposition to allowing a Chick-fil-A in Boston because of its owners' anti-gay politics -- linking it, a la Tony Perkins, to the attempted shootings at the Family Research Council offices in Washington.

Here's how Watters put it:

“Do you feel bad about the fact that you've created all this controversy that this crazed gunman went up and shot up this conservative outfit.”

Just roll that one around and enjoy the delicious, though bizarre, hypocrisy of it all.

First of all, as Priscilla observes:

Mayor Menino did not engage in incendiary rhetoric which would have, in any way, motivated the shooter. He said that he would block the chicken franchise, Chick fil-A from coming to Boston because he objected to what he felt were intolerant views against gays by the president of Chick fil-A. It does not appear that Menino ever mentioned the Family Research Council.

Nor, might we add, is there even a whiff of evidence that the FRC shooter was inspired to act by anything that Mayor Menino said. Nothing, except the conjecture of right-wing jackasses like Jesse Watters and Bill O'Reilly.

Now let's compare and contrast that to a case in which someone actually was murdered: the assassination of Dr. George Tiller. And in that case, there is a mountain of evidence connecting the incendiary eliminationist rhetoric of Bill O'Reilly, fueled by the grotesquely afactual "reporting" of Jesse Watters, to that killing.

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Susie Sampson went to the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte for the Tea Party Report and found, of course, plenty of evil liberals to interview, including John Kerry. But of far greater import, of course, were the Tea Partiers who showed up outside the convention to protest the evil Democratic Party, especially for its embrace of gay marriage. Notably, one of these was Victoria Jackson, the onetime SNL cast member who has since become one of the nuttiest of the wingnuts.

Best line: "If I was 12 and my hormones kicked in and I was told all of these options, I would be very confused."

President Obama's acceptance speech to the DNC last night was bound to be a disappointment in a lot of ways, because the buildup (especially Michelle Obama's speech, followed by Bill Clinton's) was so sensational that he had almost no chance of pulling off anything that could be spectacular. After all, we've gotten accustomed to his presence these past four years; there's little he can do now to surprise us.

Naturally, this left the Jennifer Rubins of the world gloating, as though the GOP's tawdry affair in Tampa stood up to any kind of comparison to the past week in Charlotte, enough to give Republicans like Rubin comfort. As though.

There were a lot of different reactions, making the speech something of a Rohrschach test: Kevin Drum thought the president phoned it in. Ed Kilgore thought it set just the right tone, especially for its intended audience:

The only thing I’m really confident about is that the “enthusiasm gap” we’ve been told about the entire cycle may have largely dissipated. The Democratic Convention did about as good a job as anyone could reasonably expect in highlighting both positive and negative reasons for Democrats turning out to vote. And the Democrats in the hall responded powerfully. The hatefulness they (or at least those living in battleground states) are about to see pouring from every television screen once the 504(c)(4) and Super-PAC ads let the pursestrings rip will likely reinforce that enthusiasm, regardless of their effect on the tiny band of swing voters they are aimed at.

Thereisnospoon at Hullabaloo thought likewise:

The President had a singular task tonight: take a message of hope and change, and adapt it to the reality of the struggling economy. Attack Romney while looking presidential, not punching down, and remaining statesmanlike. Show empathy without showing weakness.

And I think he accomplished those goals very well, in one of the most progressive speeches I've heard him give. It wasn't the greatest speech he's ever delivered, but that's because the message is hard and doesn't lend itself to the most soaring rhetoric.

He made it clear that the American people (and, I would argue, the citizens of the world) are in a project together, and that we can only succeed in that project if we have faith in it and in one another, without "othering" groups or allowing selfish cynicism to take hold. That's a daring message for a U.S. president.

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There isn't much to say about Gabrielle Giffords' appearance last night to lead the Democratic National Convention in the Pledge of Allegiance. The moment speaks for itself.

From the Arizona Republic:

n what brought delegates to their feet and tears to eyes, former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords made a brief appearance Thursday that will likely rank as one of the Democratic National Convention's most memorable moments.

Nearly two years after she was shot by a would-be assassin at a constituent event, she slowly walked to the middle of the stage, and recited the Pledge of Allegiance. Then she flashed a broad smile to the cheering delegates.

Giffords, accompanied by Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, waved and blew kisses to the audience to chants of "Gabby! Gabby! Gabby!"

Giffords' speech skills were strong as she lead the congregation in the pledge. One arm remained weak at her side.

Giffords, 42, was shot in the head the morning of Jan. 8, 2011, one of 13 people injured when gunfire erupted at a "Congress on Your Corner" event outside a Safeway grocery store near Tucson. Six people died.

This was the second time since the shooting that Giffords has recited the Pledge of Allegiance in public.

On the first anniversary of the shooting, Giffords, was a surprise guest at a candlelight vigil in Tucson, where she used her left hand to lift her right hand to her heart before leading a crowd of about 3,500 people in the pledge. It was her first public appearance since the near-fatal assassination attempt.

Then, she emphasized the final words: "Indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

Her words were clear, deliberate and cheered by the crowd.

Once upon a time -- back when I worked in newsrooms and edited wire copy for a living -- the Associated Press was more or less the standard for button-down, straight-down-the-middle news reportage and analysis. If anything, it erred on the bland and centrist "he-said/she said," side. But it never displayed anything remotely like a bias.

That's all changed in recent years, of course -- as we recently saw in AP's egregiously unethical reportage on Dr. Tiller, which is really only an extension of a trend toward replicating the propagandaesque nature of Fox News we've seen increasingly at AP in recent years.

But I think they were all topped, as Aviva Shen at ThinkProgress reports, by their analysis of Bill Clinton's speech that dismisses Clinton's point about the truthfulness of the Romney campaign (or lack thereof) by bringing up Monica Lewinsky -- just like any good talking head at Fox might.

As Shen observes, most media critics who delved Clinton's facts found that he was entirely accurate:

Though he frequently departed from the script, the former president correctly cited the statistics on Obama’s job growth, decreasing health costs since 2010, and the stimulus tax cuts for 95 percent of Americans.

But the anonymous analyst for the AP found a hatful of dubious "facts" to contest anyway -- and then proceeded to pull out a regurgitated series of grotesquely distorted right-wing talking points that could have been penned by Karl Rove himself.

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Watch the president's speech -- and the accompanying DNC speeches -- live here. Then talk amongst yourselves!

I know everyone was entranced by Bill Clinton's speech last night, as well they should have been. The man has more charisma in his pinkie than the biggest rock star has in their entire body. And there's no question he laid out the most compelling case possible for re-electing President Obama. But the really important speech last night in terms of raw substance, by far, was Elizabeth Warren's 15 minutes.

Because Warren made clear, even more than Clinton, what really is at stake in this election. It's down to a simple choice for Americans: Do they want democracy, or do they want oligarchy, rule by the rich? It's really that simple, that stark, and that significant.

Here's Warren last night:

I’m here tonight to talk about hard-working people: people who get up early, stay up late, cook dinner and help out with homework; people who can be counted on to help their kids, their parents, their neighbors, and the lady down the street whose car broke down; people who work their hearts out but are up against a hard truth--the game is rigged against them.

... People feel like the system is rigged against them. And here’s the painful part: they’re right. The system is rigged. Look around. Oil companies guzzle down billions in subsidies. Billionaires pay lower tax rates than their secretaries. Wall Street CEOs--the same ones who wrecked our economy and destroyed millions of jobs--still strut around Congress, no shame, demanding favors, and acting like we should thank them.

Anyone here have a problem with that? Well I do.

... The Republican vision is clear: “I’ve got mine, the rest of you are on your own.” Republicans say they don’t believe in government. Sure they do. They believe in government to help themselves and their powerful friends. After all, Mitt Romney’s the guy who said corporations are people.

No, Governor Romney, corporations are not people. People have hearts, they have kids, they get jobs, they get sick, they cry, they dance. They live, they love, and they die. And that matters. That matters because we don’t run this country for corporations, we run it for people. And that’s why we need Barack Obama.

As D-Day puts it:

That’s simply a far more honest portrayal of the America we actually live in than anyone usually articulates on stage at a national political convention. She told the story in broad strokes, the story people feel in their core, the story that anyone paying attention since the Great Recession knows. We’re not a fairy-tale land where everyone can grow up and be whatever they want. We’re not a land of social mobility and equality of opportunity. We’re in an economy that’s unraveled pretty badly, and over a 30-year period, that has cut off those avenues for mobility, and now has become a favor factory for the rich and powerful. People may not want to hear this; but they know it.

How good was Michelle Obama's speech? All you need to know is that as soon as Michelle delivered a wonderful speech Tuesday night, Greta's first question out of the gate to Xavier Becerra wasn't about how she performed. No way. It was: Why had the Dems removed the word 'God' from the party platform? Seriously.

Greta: California Congressman Becerra is the vice chair of the Democratic Caucus, he joins us. Congressman, nice to see you and tell me sir tonight looking at the Republican, errr Democratic Platform that you have you no longer have the word God in the platform. Why?

Becerra: Well, I think you heard the word God every other sentence here tonight whether it was in English or even Spanish so I think what you can say clearly to the American people is that we're looking to move forward, understanding we need the help of the Lord to make this happen in the right way for all Americans especially the middle class.

Greta: But why is it removed from the platform? I'm really curious because in 2000 there were four mentions, 2008 there were seven mentions of God, errr, in 2004 there were seven, 2008, one, and it's just sort of curious. Was it an oversight or was it taken out purposefully this time?

Is "the word 'God'" going to be the next "war on" project for FOX News? It certainly sounds like it. And I'm sure Hannity will follow up on this very loudly while Pat Robertson and Co. fleece millions from their flock over this fake war. Here comes the Fox Nation headline: 'Are the Democrats waging a war on God?'

They always focus on Jungian archetypes to start wars with, so I guess God fills a niche for them. Greta finally tells Xavier that Michelle Obama's speech was indeed powerful, but then quickly cuts back to her issue with the party platform.

Karoli writes up a review on the new party platform here if you haven't read it yet.

Megyn Kelly began the Fox News pundit round up by speaking in a very depressed and monotone voice, saying how wonderful Michelle was. The other three stooges -- Brit Hume, Chris Wallace, and Charles Krauthammer -- downplayed Michele's speech and pivoted to projecting a pro-government/reliance slant to her words, leaving only Kristen Powers, who brings her pro-life Democratic views as the lone wolf on this panel representing the left.

(h/t to Heather from our Video Cafe section)

It's no surprise that the Democrats at the 2012 National Convention are loudly supporting women's rights, as they usually do, since conservatives have upped the ante against their health care and their bodies. What I find highly illuminating is how the Villagers inside the Beltway are perceiving it.

We talk about the Village a lot here. You all recall Digby's definition:

It's shorthand for the permanent DC ruling class who have managed to convince themselves that they are simple, puritanical, bourgeois burghers and farmers, even though they are actually celebrity millionaires influencing the most powerful government on earth.

It's about their phoniness, their pretense of speaking for "average Americans" when it's clear they haven't the vaguest clue even about the average Americans who work in their local Starbucks or drive their cabs. (Think Tim Russert, good old boy from Buffalo, lately of Nantucket.) It's about their intolerable sanctimony and hypocritical provincialism, pretending to be shocked about things they all do, creating social rules for others which they themselves ignore.

The village is really "the village" an ersatz small town like something you'd see in Disneyland. And to those who argue that Versailles is the far better metaphor, I would just say that it isVersailles --- a very particular part:

A Picturesque Little Village
Part of the grounds near the Trianon were chosen by Marie-Antoinette as the site of a lakeside village, a crucial feature of picturesque landscape gardens then so fashionable among Europe's aristocracy. In 1783, Richard Mique built this amusement village where the queen played at being a shepherdess.

In 1784, Marie-Antoinette had a farm built, where she installed a farming couple from the Touraine region, along with their two children. They were charged with supplying the queen with eggs, butter, cream and cheese, for which they disposed of cows, goats, farmyard animals.

The Village is a metaphor for the faux "middle class values" that the wealthy, insular, privileged, hypocritical political celebrities (and their hangers-on and wannabes) present to the nation. (And no John, I'm not talking about you. DFHs are definitely not welcome ;)

OK, now we can proceed. Ever since the Tea Party teavangelists took over the GOP in 2009-10, they have masqueraded as champions against government spending and fanatics about federal deficits, but hiding in plain sight has been what they really are about: they are above all else anti-choice maniacs, religious-right fanatics bent on imposing God's will on women's wombs. It took until the final hour of Obama's health-care fight for their true purpose to surface; at that point their surrogates tried to slip in the most anti-woman abortion restrictions this country has seen since Roe v. Wade ended the days of back-alley abortions. And for a reason only the Villagers know (much like Mormon secret ordinances), they are not bothered one iota by this behavior. But if the Democratic party starts pushing back against their assault, well then it's too much for them to handle.

Here's The Politico :

The roster of 2012 Democratic convention speakers offers a snapshot not only of Obama campaign priorities this year, but of some of the party’s key constituencies in the Obama era.

Here’s a guide to what the list of speakers reveals about the Democratic Party:
Uncompromising support for abortion rights

The party platform and the list of convention speakers – which includes NARAL Pro-choice America’s Nancy Keenan, Planned Parenthood Action Fund’s Cecile Richards, birth control activist Sandra Fluke and some of the strongest abortion rights supporters in Congress – makes clear the Democratic Party is now as uncompromising as the GOP on the issue of abortion rights.

It’s not just the heavy presence of abortion rights supporters and the absence of abortion opponents on stage that proves it. Just look at the evolution of the party platform over the past three conventions. The language respecting “the individual conscience of each American on this difficult issue” and that “we welcome all our members to participate at every level of our party” vanished in 2004. The language about making abortions “rare” disappeared in 2008.

The Democratic Party now, in its 2012 platform, “strongly and unequivocally supports Roe v. Wade and a woman’s right to make decisions regarding her pregnancy” and will “oppose any and all efforts to weaken or undermine that right.”

Digby:

The bastards!

If this is actually the case, I say Huzzah! Being willing to "compromise" with people who refuse is the biggest suckers game in town. And abortion rights was the earliest battlefield for the GOP scorched earth strategy. At the time everyone felt that it was just a bunch of whiny beeyotches complaining about the icky and that in order to win we needed to find "common ground." It was one big Sistahood Soljah.

If they've finally learned that this is a very real, fundamental clash of values and worldview, by God it's about time.

Here's Harold and Kumar, hosting today's coverage of the Democratic National Convention. You can watch it live here.

Talk amongst yourselves! What's catching your attention at this year's convention?