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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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I found this little exchange odd. I can't remember Chris Wallace arguing with Brit Hume and his all star panel over a topic and see him try to torpedo Brit's opinion. I posted the video on this yesterday. McCain is saying that Romney talked about timetable withdrawals in the Iraq war on ABC News and Romney's saying he didn't.

Download | play Download | play (h/t billw)

Hume: ...and I think that for McCain to claim that is dishonest. Not straigh talk.

Wallace: Is that anymore dishonest than Mitt Romney saying that McCain is not na expert on the economy?

Hume: Well, McCain did in fact say that.

Hume: Well, Romney did in fact talk about time tables. (sighs in frustration)

Wallace: So what? I'm just saying that it's a campaign

Hume: Part of our jobs as journalists is to state things with clarity and words matter.

Wallace: I don't think either of them said it with much clarity.

Hume was actually lecturing Wallace on journalistic ethics and then seemed force to back track.

Download | play Download | play (h/t Heather)

Mike Huckabee's populist rhetoric, which is scoring big with voters, has the punditocracy on FOXNews in a tizzy. How can you scorn Democrats for missing the boat if the leading candidate in your party is talking about the little guy too? Brit Hume issues the warning shot across the bow to Huckabee:

This is a party that if you’re going to be a populist, you better be for a lot of things that say, Ronald Reagan was for. You better be in favor of a lot of the…you don’t want to be a candidate associated with possible tax increases, policies that would require increased regulation and so on down the line. You can’t…I don’t think the anti-corporate message…it isn’t even selling very well in the Democratic party and I certainly don’t think it’s going to sell in the Republican party.

This is egregious even by FOX standards. Some diligent detective work by dKos diarist Democrashield has revealed that someone at FOX has been editing the Wikipedia pages of Brit Hume, Shepherd Smith, and Keith Olbermann (and most likely many others), removing substantially information provided by Media Matters. Check out Democrashield's fantastic sleuthing below...

dKos:

Someone at Fox News has been spending a good amount of time on Wikipedia recently.

In fact, you can view all of their edits here.

The IP listed is 12.167.224.228. According to Whois,

Search results for: 12.167.224.228

AT&T WorldNet Services ATT (NET-12-0-0-0-1)

12.0.0.0 - 12.255.255.255

FOX NEWS CHANNEL FOX-NEWS73-224-224M (NET-12-167-224-224-1)

12.167.224.224 - 12.167.224.255 Read more..

During the second GOP debate, Fox News' Brit Hume sets up a hypothetical situation where three terrorist attacks occur at shopping malls in major cities. A fourth attack is thwarted and that would-be attacker, who we know has information about an impending, larger attack is captured and taken to Guantanamo Bay. The candidates are asked if they believe Torture Enhanced Interrogation Techniques, including waterboarding, should be used to get information from the detainee.

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McCain - No on Torture Enhanced Interrogation Techniques

Giuliani - Yes on Torture Enhanced Interrogation Techniques

Romney - Yes on Torture Enhanced Interrogation Techniques and while you're at it, Double Guantanamo! (loud applause from audience)

TV Newser:

The network is working with the Nevada Democratic Party and the Western Majority Project to host the debate, "which is expected to attract the top Democratic contenders for President," the press release says. It will air live on FNC and FNR on Aug. 14 in Reno.

One question: WHY?!?!?!?! Why on Earth would Democratic candidates agree to go on a channel that admits they are the propaganda wing for the White House? This really IS letting the other side frame the debate.

Can you imagine what kinds of questions Obama, Clinton, Edwards and the others would have to field? Who will they get to moderate: Sean Hannity or Brit Hume?

Following up my post about Malkin's black eye on the AP witch hunt, Glenn Greenwald echos my sentiments exactly:

These right-wing bloggers love to piously masquerade around as "media watchdogs," keeping a watchful eye on the "MSM" and compelling them to adhere to facts. But they are nothing of the sort. Nobody is less interested in media accuracy than they are. Correcting media mistakes is so plainly not their agenda. They are nothing more than hyper-partisan hysterics who jump on any innuendo or rumor or whispered suspicion as long as it promotes their rigid ideological views and political loyalties and hatreds. They have a long, shameful and really quite pitiful history of incidents filled with ones like this Jamil Hussein debacle, including...read on

Bob Geiger writes about it also---along with the Nitpicker---David Neiwert---AlterNet ---Sadly, No! Jesus General Booman Tribune Firedoglake Lindsay Beyerstein and Oliver Willis

Daily Kos:

That they are always wrong is a feature, not a bug. This is my favorite:

Michelle Malkin going on Fox News the night of the midterm elections to announce that blogger Dan Riehl has "called the race for George Allen," prompting a smirking, condescending Brit Hume to observe -- correctly -- that when you have a blog, you can say whatever you want, and that it doesn't matter if you're right or wrong. Hume didn't know how insightful that observation was, or how perfectly chosen was the receipient of his observation.

Nice one Michelle. Dan Riehl calls it for "Macaca Allen. I couldn't stop laughing when I read that.

Update: AP executive editor rips into bloggers who have now endangered Jamil Hussein's life.

Good morning! I am guest blogging here this week so that some of the regular crew can get a break. It's the least a Buddhist can do.

Today is the observance of the annual cease fire on the war on Christmas. In celebration, people wallow waist deep in shredded gift wrap and prepare the armistice feast.

Seems to me Our Side -- representing religious liberty, diversity, and tolerance -- gained some ground this year. This past week Jonathan Tilove of Newhouse News Service noted that our new Congress will be the most religiously diverse in history. For the first time, Jews will outnumber Episcopalians. For the first time, Congress will include one Muslim and two Buddhists.

HOO-yah.

Most remarkably, six new members of Congress -- all Democrats, naturally -- are religiously unaffiliated. Whoa. I don't know who they are, but I salute the voters who sent these six to Washington without giving a bleep about their religion.

I want to give a big Christmas morning shout out to our atheist and agnostic brothers and sisters, who must face this day with a certain degree of, um, ambivalence. You are not alone. Well, maybe you are alone, physically, or not, but be assured there are many others in the same nonreligious boat, even if they've had to keep their heads down in recent years. Someday an atheist will win a congressional election. You and I may not live to see it, but I have faith that it will happen. In the meantime, Sam Harris explains Ten Myths and Ten Truths About Atheism. You might also enjoy reading about The Brit Who Avoids Christmas.

For those looking for a little drop of spirituality in the ocean of commercialism, I recommend "The Peaceful Crusader " by Thomas Cahill in today's New York Times. Cahill remembers the great bodhisattva Francis of Assisi, who joined the Fifth Crusade to be a peacemaker between Christians and Muslims. He failed. But, writes Cahill, "his failure is still capable of bearing new fruit." Cahill continues,

Islamic society and Christian society have been generally bad neighbors now for nearly 14 centuries, eager to misunderstand each other, often borrowing culturally and intellectually from each other without ever bestowing proper credit. But as Sir Jonathan Sacks, chief rabbi of the British Commonwealth, has written, almost as if he was thinking of Kamil and Francis, “Those who are confident of their faith are not threatened but enlarged by the different faiths of others. ... There are, surely, many ways of arriving at this generosity of spirit and each faith may need to find its own.” We stand in desperate need of contemporary figures like Kamil and Francis of Assisi to create an innovative dialogue. To build a future better than our past, we need, as Rabbi Sacks has put it, “the confidence to recognize the irreducible, glorious dignity of difference.”

I say Amen to that. And Merry Christmas.

I'm watching Brit Hume coach Bush in an "interview"...Don't laugh...I know...that's a funny one, anyway...I wonder how that interview would turn out if Michael Ware was asking the questions....sigh...

Hmmm, so a right wing blog is paid by McCain and doesn't tell anyone. Not only that, but he attacks Kos, who did fully disclose when he was paid. I wonder what Hewitt, Kaus and Malkin will say. Maybe, O'Reilly will do one of his "Most Ridiculous Items of the Day" segments on it. Kinda sounds like it should be included on Brit Hume's "Grapevine Report," since Hume likes to feature right wing blogs...