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[Heather noted this earlier, but it deserves its own post. -- ed.]

While the other cable-news networks ran President Obama's conversation yesterday with House Republicans in its entirety, Fox News cut in midway -- particularly as it was becoming startlingly clear that Obama was making eminent sense and scoring Republicans for the phony "solutions" they keep throwing up to counter his health-care proposals.

Best of all, Fox's Trace Gallagher immediately leapt in with a popular GOP talking point -- namely, that Obama was "lecturing" the congressmen:

Gallagher: The President at times being a little bit combative, and supporting -- I mean, he did acknowledge a couple of mistakes along the way, but much like he did in the State of the Union, has very much held firm to the beliefs in what his administration has done.

I want to bring in the host of Special Report, Bret Baier, he's with us now. He has watched along with us. And the Republicans, before they went into this session had said, you know, we don't want to be lectured by the president. There was a little bit of lecturing there, and the president was a little bit combative at times.

Baier: Yeah, a little bit of that, Trace, but I also thought there was a decent, good give and take on the specifics.

Just remember: All the partisanship at Fox is on their "opinion" shows. Their news shows always play it straight and objective. Or, ah, fair and balanced.

Right.

Amanda Terkel at Think Progress points out that Fox then turned to Rep. Peter King, who then slagged Obama, for the duration of the event. She has screen shots of the other networks during that same time period.

Even with cognitive dissonance this striking, they still think they've got a right to withhold civil rights from a whole segment of the population:

Maggie Gallagher's disdain for Marriage Equality New York board president Cathy Marino-Thomas was palpable. The feeling, we're guessing, was mutual. The two shared the stage at Hofstra University's “Day of Dialogue," and even outside the confines of a 30-second spot, Gallagher was still trafficking in misinformation. And eye rolls.

We do appreciate the debate over whether our "intolerance" for bigotry is, by definition, hate — of the very same variety we call out and despise daily on this website. That's Gallagher's position: By labeling Prop 8 supporters as advocates of hatred, we're being intolerant ourselves, showing no respect for a difference in viewpoints.

But what Maggie does not, and may never understand is the difference between agreeing to disagree, and actively endorsing discrimination against an entire group of people. For that, we cannot be tolerant. [..]

But here's the soundbite we're holding on to, as Maggie addresses Marino-Thomas: "[Your marriage] may be better, but it's not a marriage. … It's probably better than my marriage to hear you talk about it. I wouldn't talk about my marriage in such glowing terms."

It's so sad that someone who cannot speak well of their own marriage feels it's their right to fight to keep others from having that legal union.

On a related note, it's not a serious move so much as a political statement, but here in California, someone has decided to fight a real threat to the sanctity of marriage: the ability to divorce:

California Secretary of State Debra Bowen today authorized the backer of an initiative that would ban divorce to begin collecting signatures to put the proposed constitutional amendment before voters.

John Marcotte now has until March 22, 2010, to collect 694,354 signatures of registered voters in order to get the measure on the ballot next year. The proposal would change the California Constitution to "eliminate the ability of married couples to get divorced in California."[..]:

ELIMINATES THE LAW ALLOWING MARRIED COUPLES TO DIVORCE. INITIATIVE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT. Changes the California Constitution to eliminate the ability of married couples to get divorced in California. Preserves the ability of married couples to seek an annulment. Summary of estimate by Legislative Analyst and Director of Finance of fiscal impact on state and local government: Savings to the state of up to hundreds of millions of dollars annually for support of the court system due to the elimination of divorce proceedings.

While I obviously don't want my rights taken away (not that I'm planning on divorcing my husband, mind you. He's stuck with me.), I do appreciate the sentiment behind it. My gay uncle's marriage does not harm my marriage, threatens no one else's relationship and it's a ludicrous argument to claim it does. However, the ease in which we may end marriages (one-third of all first marriages end within 10 years, according to the CDC) certainly does. If these wingnuts want to hold up marriage as the foundation of society, then put up or shut up.

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Part 1: Yesterday Keith Lewis, co-executive director of the Miss California USA pageant, was furious over NOM's use of Prejean, and attacked them throughout his presser. The pageant also helped pay for her new body. What would Jesus say?

He also said that she breached her contract by being involved with the special interest group. He already had to use the runner-up to fill some of her duties because she's being used as a pawn by the anti-gay lobby, but it's a choice she's quite happy with, I assume. I imagine they'll keep the money flowing to her.

Lewis said that 42% of NOM's fundraising cash made its way to Gallagher personally and that NOM exploited Prejean to put her contract at risk. Prejean also lied about the saucy pictures to them, but judging by her released statements, she is a perfect conservative.

"I am a Christian, and I am a model. Models pose for pictures, including lingerie and swimwear photos. Recently, photos taken of me as a teenager have been released surreptitiously to a tabloid website that openly mocks me for my Christian faith. "I am not perfect, and I will never claim to be. But these attacks on me and others who speak in defense of traditional marriage are intolerant and offensive. While we may not agree on every issue, we should show respect for others' opinions and not try to silence them through vicious and mean-spirited attacks."

You see, we're all trying to silence her. Typical conservative talking points. She'll fit right in at her new digs until they lose interest in her.

Part 2: Donald Trump says he got all of them in a room and worked it out and she keeps her crown. He put the hammer down it looks like. She was crying and saying nobody should be silenced, (ugh) and how her grandfather fought in WWII. She said she wasn't an activist only a person of beliefs. Working with NOM makes her an activist, doesn't it? She says she won't speak out against Gay Marriage anymore. I guess that was the trade off she made. She also says that some of the pictures were photo-shopped, but the one released today was the photographer releasing some that weren't made public. She forgives everybody including P. Hilton and the Donald said Hilton was just doing his thing even if he scored her very low.

Keith Lewis said he's putting it behind him. They just weren't all on the same page. One question was asked about her involvement with NOM and she said she's not working for them. A question was asked in the beginning about NOM, but that wasn't answered. David Shuster said it was a ridiculous presser with the Donald. I wrote Part 1 yesterday. Prejean being involved in NOM kinda caught my interest so that's why I made the video from the Lewis presser.

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Trace Gallagher, the co-host of FNC's The Live Desk on Fox News got a little excited at the prospect that Arlen Specter's defection might give President Obama that 60th vote -- which could mean that he can pass his key policies! Like he won the election or something!

Gallagher completely lost his objectivity as a news host and told us how he really felt:

Gallagher: Brit, over the past 24 hours I have read countless articles about the doom of the GOP, but might it be the reverse? I mean if you think about this, if you have 60 votes, right? You can't really blame the other guy, if you don't have 60 votes you can always say it's their fault, but if you have 60 it's kind of your game.

Hume: Well, that's true Chase, but in the near term it certainly doesn't help the Republicans as they try to resist the enactment of much of the Obama agenda, which they consider something of a radical agenda, and Specter's presence as a Democrat now will change all that. Remember this, Trace, Specter has been welcomed into the Democratic Party by its leaders in Washington. It is not entirely clear, however, that the Democratic voters of Pennsylvania, who remember Specter as a Republican who did many things that they did not like, will be so welcoming.

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So, look for Specter to very much be, most of the time, the 60th vote. And while the results in the end of the policies enacted will tell the tale of which party benefits from all this, in the near term at least it certainly does help the Democrats.

Gallagher: So what you're saying in essence -- the president has wide popularity now and the American people are willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, so if Specter really does as you say serve as the 60th vote, are we about to see the Obama agenda, for lack of a better phrase, crammed down out throat?

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Here's Rudy telling everybody what a hero he was on 9/11.

Giuliani: I was at ground zero as often, if not more, than most of the workers ... I was there working with them. I was exposed to exactly the same things they were exposed to. So in that sense, I'm one of them," Giuliani told reporters in Cincinnati Thursday. 

He's since backtracked, but when you see him say this...well...Giuliani knew exactly what he was doing. Playing his America's Mayor" character. His response was actually quite disturbing too.

"The way I said it, I probably could have said it better, but what I was trying to say was, I was there quite a bit, there are people that were there more than me, people that were [there] less than me. There were people there less than me, people on my staff, who already have had serious health consequences and they weren't there as often as I was," Giuliani said, "but I wasn't trying to suggest a competition of any kind, which is the way it come across. And I think I could have said it better. You know, what I was saying was 'I'm there with you.'"

Giuliani reiterated Friday that he, too, may get sick from the time he spent at Ground Zero following the attacks...

He fed Stu Bykofsky's new BFF---conservative host Mike Gallagher this defense.  A friend who I grew up with in NY was a fireman at ground zero---actually working there for a long time. He still has a bad cough even after he retired two years ago.

This post by Austin at Jesus General falls very much in line with my question of the conservative fear of The Other from yesterday.

On January 31st, Amanda Marcotte wrote about how conservative pundit Mike Gallagher actually admitted that terrorism would be a good thing for Republican political ambitions:

Seeing Jane Fonda Saturday was enough to make me wish the unthinkable: it will take another terror attack on American soil in order to render these left-leaning crazies irrelevant again. Remember how quiet they were after 9/11? No one dared take them seriously. It was the United States against the terrorist world, just like it should be.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt said that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself - but I think he might have been wrong. I think that we should also perhaps fear, or at least be very wary of, those in our society who would use our fears for their own political agendas. Mike Gallagher's comments are not an isolated instance of political insanity - similar thoughts have been expressed to varying degrees by a number of conservatives and Republicans over the past few years. There are many who look fondly on the 9/11 attacks because they provided an excuse to push through domestic and international policies they had long advocated, but could not successfully impose on others because there wasn't enough fear in American society to help.

Gallagher is another one of those Glenn Beck type right wing radio talk show hosts. He was on FOX over the weekend and actually had the nerve to tell us that Iraq is going swimmingly. These people will say anything.

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Gallagher: The only way to beat terrorism is to win the hearts and minds of those who embrace the kind of democracy that we've been able to instill in Iraq. That's why the war on terror has been so great in Iraq.

"There is a civil war in Iraq... In the last two months more than 6,000 Iraqis have been killed. It is averaging more than a hundred a day being killed in Iraq. We need to make sure there is a debate on this," said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat...read on

Iraq's morgues are overflowing and 100 civilians a day are killed in communal violence, but official statistics tell only part of the story of a slide into civil war -- for the rest, just listen to ordinary Iraqis...read on

Trace Gallagher on FOX's Studio B, called him "Usama Bin Laden," matching the FOX facts below. Maybe this is one of the reasons we haven't captured public enemy #1. They don't even know his name.

Update: I haven't seen "Usama" used in any type of debate on TV before and I do watch a lot, but some comments have said the translation is accurate. I stand corrected.

I just spoke with Tracy from the Booman Tribune down in Crawford and she gave me a quick overview of what is going on there right now. Tracy drove down and has been there for three days. Here's a profile of Tracy on BT. She was just interviewed for TIME.

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She also talked about Mike Gallagher's " We Don't Care" protest bus tour that was highlighted by this Kos Diary. He showed up for all of thirty minutes.

(Update)-Hunter's Diary has more: "So Gallagher is having a counterprotest in Crawford, TX. against her, tonight. He's calling it the "Pro-America Bus Trip". Since, you know, Cindy Sheehan is presumably "Anti-America"."

Chickenhawks Have An Army, Too: Chickenhawks of the nation, I give you "Gallagher's Army."

Capitol Buzz alerts us to a little more "man on dog" Rick.

World O' Crap reviews Mike "second string" Gallagher and Man on Dog's latest book releases.

Lawrence O'Donnell has an: Update on Rove : If what I have reported is not true, if Karl Rove is not Matt Cooper’s source, Rove could prove that instantly by telling us what he told the grand jury. Nothing prevents him from doing that, except a good lawyer who is trying to keep him out of jail.

Needlenose: Plame fireworks: Rove under suspicion... and why is Judith Miller *really* going to jail?