It's easy to get wrapped up in your own cynicism, to hear the impassioned calls to curtail the talk radio bomb-throwing and Fox News scare-mongering that for years have provided the background noise to our national discourse, and be utterly and justifiably unsurprised when the volume is instead turned up. Or you can feel frustrated for harboring the hope that if any good could possibly be leached from a horrific act of violence it would perhaps be that the pundits and partisans might tone it down a bit, and then seeing that hope dashed by the immediate resumption of scathing vitriol.

I can confess to experiencing both of these contradictory emotions in the past week. But after watching President Obama's speech at the memorial service in Tucson and seeing the right-wing reaction to it, it has become clear that calls for changing the tone of our political discourse invariably fail because they place the responsibility on the same hyperpartisan actors who are paid quite well to debase it.

And let's not fool ourselves with the forced symmetry of "both sides do it," which is all too often employed in the media's overriding quest for "balance" at the expense of accuracy. On Monday, the New Yorker's George Packer observed:

In fact, there is no balance -- none whatsoever. Only one side has made the rhetoric of armed revolt against an oppressive tyranny the guiding spirit of its grassroots movement and its midterm campaign. Only one side routinely invokes the Second Amendment as a form of swagger and intimidation, not-so-coyly conflating rights with threats. Only one side's activists bring guns to democratic political gatherings. Only one side has a popular national TV host who uses his platform to indoctrinate viewers in the conviction that the President is an alien, totalitarian menace to the country. Only one side fills the AM waves with rage and incendiary falsehoods. Only one side has an iconic leader, with a devoted grassroots following, who can't stop using violent imagery and dividing her countrymen into us and them, real and fake. Any sentient American knows which side that is; to argue otherwise is disingenuous.

Consider, briefly, Rush Limbaugh, who can make a legitimate claim to being the most influential pundit in America. In response to the pleas for civility that arose in the aftermath of the shooting, Limbaugh went on a deliberate crusade to make AM radio as ugly as possible. He said the alleged shooter has the support of the Democratic Party, intimated that the health care reform bill was intended to foment violence of the sort we saw in Arizona, brashly declared "we don't need to heal," and attacked the president for delivering hopeful news about Rep. Giffords' recovery.

Sentiments such as these are ineffably crass and are antithetical to calls for "more civility" -- but what else should we expect from Rush Limbaugh? As if to reaffirm that his existence is dedicated to poisoning public dialogue, he even revisited this week one of his low watermarks from years past, defending his attacks on Michael J. Fox's struggle with Parkinson's Disease.

So no, we can not expect right-wing pundits to police their own rhetoric. But if the punditry won't change on its own, what's to be done? The hope lies instead in drawing contrasts and hopefully, by doing so, changing how people come to view political dialogue.

A good example can be found in the right's longstanding efforts to impugn President Obama's patriotism. The idea of "American exceptionalism" has been used as a cudgel against the president since before his election, and it's had some effect -- a poll from late 2009 found that 26 percent of Americans (including 48 percent of Republicans) did not believe that Obama "loves America." The issue of Obama's patriotic bona fides has promised to be the major talking point of the 2012 Republican presidential primary. Before this week, it was commonplace for conservative pundits and politicians to blithely assert Obama's anti-American leanings and not face any scrutiny for the allegation.

But the shock of Saturday's shootings left America looking to the president for guidance, and his speech urged the country to find solace in the greatness of American strength and decency. That message made the churlish attacks on Obama's patriotism look even pettier and more divorced from reality than they already are. The desperate, false attacks on Obama's speech from his determinedly partisan detractors were aggressively debunked by the mainstream press and even denounced by right-wing bloggers. It was one of those rare moments in politics in which reality scored a crushing defeat over caricature.

That's where the power to affect positive change in the discourse lies. This week America saw the overheated rhetoric of the right for what it is: misleading, incendiary, and false. But the conservative media aren't going to pack up their chalkboards and golden microphones anytime soon, so it's up to the mainstream press to continue being as aggressive in challenging those distortions as the right is in promulgating them.

Of course, it's entirely likely that this moment of clarity will remain just that -- a moment. And it's certainly not encouraging that the media have, to date, been as (if not more) likely to adopt false right-wing narratives as debunk them. But that's no reason to give up hope, and it's certainly no reason to stop telling the truth.

That Fox News helps Republicans get their message across to their conservative base -- long documented and publicly acknowledged by Republican officials -- is nothing new. But what's unprecedented is the level of influence one news organization can exert on a party's presidential primary, and the rest of the media's coverage of that primary, by simple fact of who is on its payroll.

Fox News employs five Republicans considering runs for the GOP nomination: Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum and John Bolton. All five regularly appear on the network through exclusive contracts and all five have used their employment to position themselves for their respective possible runs.

Take the cases of Rick Santorum and John Bolton -- two potential candidates who have so little chance of winning the nomination that Fox didn't even include them in their twelve challenger profiles.

Both would largely be out of the public spotlight if not for their Fox News contracts, yet Santorum -- who lost his Senate seat to Bob Casey (D-PA) by 17 points in 2006 -- has appeared on the Fox programs America's Nightly Scoreboard (twice), America's Newsroom (twice), The Willis Report (twice), America Live, On the Record (twice) and Varney & Company (twice, as a "special guest") in the past two weeks.

During the same time, Bolton has appeared as a foreign policy and national security expert on America's News HQ (where he has a regular slot), Follow The Money, America's Newsroom (twice), America Live, Fox & Friends, Hannity, On the Record, and Varney & Company (as a "special guest"!).

On the other side of the spectrum is Sarah Palin, who has little trouble attracting attention. But as her TLC program and public comments indicate, Palin prefers a certain type of attention in which she can tightly control the messaging. It's no wonder then that her media appearances have mostly come within the friendly confines of Fox News, where she can pass on debunked theories and pal around with conservative opinion makers like Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck.

After leaving public office in disgrace, Newt Gingrich signed his "first television deal since leaving Congress" with Fox News in 1999. Since then, Fox News has treated him like royalty during his attempted rehabilitation. Gingrich has hosted Fox News Specials on college costs, religion, international gangs and bird flu (yes, bird flu). On one day in 2009, Fox dispatched a reporter to provide round-the-clock coverage to a Gingrich-convened "Jobs Summit." Last year, during a typical softball interview, a Fox "straight news" program directed viewers to Gingrich's GOP tour and website.

Mike Huckabee is the only Fox candidate with a regularly scheduled show, the weekend talker Huckabee. Huckabee's show has always been closely tied to his political machine: the show was first announced in a statement posted on his political action committee and, according to the New York Post (via Nexis), "not, as is customary, from the network."

Since then, Huckabee has unsurprisingly used his program to position himself for a potential political run. The former Arkansas governor has used Fox News' airwaves to grow his PAC and email lists directly (he touted the address of an email catcher website run by his PAC) and indirectly, through regular solicitations to give "feedback" to MikeHuckabee.com, which conveniently links to his PAC and an email signup page. Huckabee has also used his program's guest list as an extension of his PAC.

But why wouldn't Huckabee run? Again, Fox News' influence comes into play.

In November 2009, Huckabee remarked on Fox News Sunday that if he doesn't run for president, it's because "this Fox gig I got right now" is "really, really wonderful." Last month, conservative columnist Jonah Goldberg wrote that there's "growing buzz" that Huckabee "may not run because he's got a big new contract with Fox News in the works" (a Huckabee aide responded that there were no Fox talks). Financial considerations could also come into play for Palin, who reportedly makes $1 million a year with Fox News.

According to Politico, Fox "indicated that once any of the candidates declares for the presidency he or she will have to sever the deal with the network." ABC's George Stephanopoulos noted that the Fox candidates may actually delay their announcements to reap the benefits of the Fox cocoon for as long as possible. Reporter Claire Shipman replied that Fox's "very healthy platform" allows the Fox candidates to keep visible without spending money early.

The potential delay of their "official" announcements means that the Fox candidates can also compile staff and resources while still cashing a paycheck.

Huckabee, Palin and Gingrich have Fox-promoted groups ready to convert to campaign mode if each chooses to run. Santorum has already hired a staff member (for his PAC) in the important primary state of New Hampshire and, according to the New Hampshire Union Leader, is "expected to formally" announce "in the spring." And Bolton is reportedly "very serious about a presidential bid and has begun to speak with potential staff."

During this non-"official" period, the Fox candidates can also cite their Fox contract as a reason to decline appearances on other news organizations who may offer a tougher environment than Fox (a low bar). Indeed, Politico reported that "C-SPAN Political Editor Steve Scully said that when C-SPAN tried to have Palin on for an interview, he was told he had to first get Fox's permission -- which the network, citing her contract, ultimately denied. Producers at NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN and MSNBC all report similar experiences."

Fox's 2012 situation has a parallel in something that happened in the 2010 midterms with former Fox News host and contributor John Kasich.

After leaving Congress in 2001, Kasich openly considered running for higher public office and joined Fox News to keep himself in public view. A former Kasich pollster told the Columbus Dispatch in 2002 that Kasich was "leaving himself in a position so that if something happens, he is as well-situated as somebody else."

On March 27, 2008, the Dispatch reported that Kasich announced "he is paving the way now for a gubernatorial bid" and quoted Kasich stating: "I'm going to go forward even more aggressively, and we're going to continue to ramp it up (for a gubernatorial run)." But Fox News didn't take him off the air -- presumably because he still hadn't "officially" announced his candidacy -- and by the time he formally announced his bid on June 1, 2009, Kasich had logged more than 100 Fox News segments as a guest host or contributor.

In a column last November, Condi vs. Hillary: The Next Great Presidential Race author Dick Morris wrote that the "GOP primaries of 12 will be held on Fox News. ... we will see all the candidates on Fox News. Not just in debates, but in frequent appearances on the opinion and news shows on the network." For once, it seems Morris is right.

There are typical ego-driven competitions between on-air personalities, and an increasingly public divide at the network over dangerously unhinged host Glenn Beck.

But there is one divide that -- contrary to the insistence of Fox News executives -- simply does not exist: the one between its "news" and "opinion" shows.

Last year, The New York Times reported, "Fox argues that its news hours -- 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. and 6 to 8 p.m. on weekdays -- are objective," and quoted Michael Clemente, the channel's senior vice president for news, as saying: "The average consumer certainly knows the difference between the A section of the newspaper and the editorial page."

This is apparently an argument that works only on the very gullible, and on advertisers who want to pretend that by confining their ad buys to the channel's "news hours" they are not financially supporting very damaging conservative lies and smears.

How telling it will be to see who attempts to maintain this charade, now that Media Matters has published internal emails from Fox News Washington managing editor Bill Sammon to his news staff directing them to call into question indisputable scientific facts in Fox's climate change reporting, and eschew "public option" for variations of "government option" in Fox's health care reform reporting, echoing advice from a prominent Republican pollster on how to help turn the public against reform.

The recently-released emails confirm what sources told Media Matters months ago: Pressure on Fox News journalists to "distort" straight reporting comes right from the top.

In October, one source with knowledge of the situation explained: "[There is] more pressure from Sammon to slant news to the right or to tell people how to report news, doing it in a more brutish way. A lot of the reporters are conservative and are glad to pick up news. But there is a point at which it is no longer reporting, but distorting things. ... [I]f you come in to say, 'ignore points of view and ignore facts,' then you are straying away from being a legitimate news reporter."

The problem, of course, is not just that the reporting on Fox News is wildly dishonest -- after all, a supermarket tabloid can be wildly dishonest, too -- it's that the lies and smears on Fox News have very real policy implications.

For example, following the release of Sammon's email ordering his news staff to cast doubt on climate science, Zoe Tcholak-Antitch, vice-president of the Carbon Disclosure Project, told Media Matters: "It is very disturbing to hear of this e-mail because it just goes further to sow seeds of doubt among the American population then makes it more difficult for the politicians to stand up for any type of legislation on climate change if they want to get elected."

Tcholak-Antitch added: "It obviously does have an impact on the American public. We are facing an issue that needs to be dealt with in a timely fashion. The danger is that this delays action. While it exists, it delays action and it hinders politicians from passing laws and regulations that will help a clean energy economy and create jobs for American people."

The irony is that News Corp. -- Fox News' parent company and (the blind eye it turns towards Fox notwithstanding) a recognized corporate leader in raising climate change awareness -- cites Tcholak-Antitch's Carbon Disclosure Project as an expert resource on the issue.

New York Congressman John Hall -- a Democratic member of the House global warming committee -- called Sammon's email "regrettable" and warned about the effects this sort of "slanted" coverage has on legislation:

The window of time we have left for action to prevent the worst case scenario may still be closing. ... We can't afford to waste two years if the changes are already happening. It is really important that the public gets educated. I do think Congress responds to public pressure. If the public is being misinformed, we have very little chance of reversing the trend.

Similarly, after Media Matters released Sammon's "government option" email, health care reform advocate Health Care for America Now issued a statement saying: "At a time when right-wing extremists were trying to make the case that the health care reform bill was a government takeover plot, Fox News incorporated politically charged language into its day-to-day reporting to mislead its audience into thinking the public option was something that it wasn't."

Indeed, the Pulitzer Prize-winning PolitiFact announced this week that its "Lie of the Year" is the false claim that the health care reform law is "a government takeover of health care." And yet, Fox News' "objective" reporters were ordered to play directly into that damaging narrative.

To be sure, many advertisers have taken a step in the right direction by refusing to support some of Fox News' deplorable "opinion" and "entertainment" shows -- after all, who wants to drag a hard-earned (and valuable) brand identity through the mud by associating it with people who call the president racist, or repeatedly claim "all terrorists are Muslim," or promote anti-Semites, or engage in bizarre conspiracy theories?

In fact, just this week, Omaha Steaks pulled its ads from Beck's show, joining a growing list of over 100 advertisers that have done the same.

But while that may mean that Fox is forced to air "Foundation for a Better Life" commercials -- courtesy of conservative Philip Anschutz -- five times in a row during Beck's show, it doesn't stop advertisers from subsidizing the lies on dozens of other Fox programs.

When asked several months ago about the Beck advertising boycott, Rupert Murdoch claimed, "We have not lost any business at all; some [advertisers] may have moved to other programs," but "it has not affected the total revenues or the profits."

Last year, Paul Rittenberg, a Fox advertising executive, made the same point to the Times. The Beck boycott "caus[ed] headaches" for Rittenberg's team, the Times reported, but "he said Fox 'hasn't lost a dime' because the ads were moved to different hours" -- presumably hours filled with so-called "objective" news reports that skittish advertisers thought were safely non-controversial.

A year ago, these advertisers may have been able to take false comfort in the Fox News canard that there exists any sort of division between Fox news and Fox opinion programming, but with the release of the Sammon emails, how long will they keep kidding themselves?

The DREAM Act, which opens paths to citizenship for undocumented minors, has already passed the House, but still awaits Senate action. It's still unclear whether the votes are there for passage. DADT repeal was included in a defense authorization bill that failed to break through a Republican filibuster on what the New York Times editorial board called "[o]ne of the most shameful days in the modern history of the Senate."

Proponents of these bills are letting their passion show. Rep. Luis Gutiérrez (D-IL), who has been pushing the DREAM Act and comprehensive immigration reform for years, sees parallels between those causes and the civil rights movement of the 1960s, and has suggested there will be modern protests in the spirit of those led by Martin Luther King. Speaking on the Senate floor in favor of repealing DADT, which would allow gay service members to serve openly, Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) choked up as he told the story of one of his USO tours and the warm reception he received after mocking the discriminatory policy.

Standing in the way of the legislative push for justice and equality is a conservative movement that bases its opposition on falsehoods and no longer cares to mask its racially divisive rhetoric. The dog whistles are being traded in for sousaphones.

Many in the conservative media are trying to block the DREAM Act by driving a wedge between Hispanics and white Americans. That, at least, is how Glenn Beck is doing it. "If you are white, or you're an American citizen, or a white American citizen, you are pretty much toast," Beck observed, as he joked with a caller who sarcastically suggested he would need to pretend to be an "illegal alien" in order to qualify for in-state tuition for his MBA program. Rush Limbaugh theorized that the legislation was Sen. Harry Reid's (D-NV) way of "thanking Hispanics for stealing the election for him."

Elsewhere in the right-wing press, pundits are asking whether a bill aimed at assisting Hispanics will be a "nightmare for hard-working Americans," calling the bill "shamnesty," and raising the specter of criminality, calling it "reckless illegal alien amnesty" and that "incentivizes illegality." Fox News contributor Mike Gallagher even compared the beneficiaries of the bill to bank robbers.

This is a reflection of what the American Prospect's Adam Serwer pegged as "the widely held conservative view that minorities and whites in America are in a zero-sum competition for scarce resources." Essentially, if the government does something to benefit minorities, it must be at the expense of white people. It's not true, of course, but that's not the point -- it's all about capitalizing on racial resentment.

While we're on the topic of racial resentment, let's talk Pigford. The Pigford settlement will award $1.15 billion to African American farmers who were unfairly denied loans by the Department of Agriculture in the 1980s and 1990s. The farmers were found to have been discriminated against and are being compensated financially. But because the settlement involves federal money being paid to African Americans, the right-wing is calling it "reparations."

Actually, a policy need not exclusively benefit African Americans to earn the "reparations" tag. It only needs to be associated with Obama. Just look at the reprehensible behavior of Rush Limbaugh, for whom every Obama-endorsed policy -- whether it be health care reform, expanded unemployment benefits, or his "entire economic program" -- is some form of "reparations."

But it doesn't matter that the farmers were discriminated against. It doesn't matter that Pigford legislation has enjoyed bipartisan support going back to the days of Speaker Newt Gingrich. What matters is the perception -- both utterly false and politically potent -- that America's first black president is implementing some form of punitive racial justice, to the benefit of African Americans and at the expense of whites.

Meanwhile, the fight over Don't Ask, Don't Tell has entered the realm of the surreal. Don't Ask, Don't Tell persists despite the fact that the American public is overwhelmingly against the policy, and a major Pentagon report concluded that repealing DADT "would present only a low risk to the armed forces' ability to carry out their missions." And though the measure remains in place after Thursday's vote, a standalone bill to repeal it was introduced today. You'd be hard-pressed to find a less popular policy, or one recognized to be more ineffective.

Regardless, the right-wing media are defending DADT, going so far as to lie about the Pentagon's review of the policy and falsely accuse the Department of Defense of purposefully acting against the wishes of active-duty soldiers. On Fox News, the push for repeal was mentioned in a segment asking whether the "media [has] a gay agenda." Tucker Carlson thinks DADT repeal is just a "stupid issue," and the Fox News morning hosts find the claim that people are being discharged based on their sexual orientation quite risible.

The right's arguments against DADT repeal are part of a gay-bashing undercurrent that also leads them to blame the WikiLeaks scandal on gays and promoted "research" into how "homosexual behavior is harmful."

There's an insidiousness to all this that goes beyond the ugliness on display, and to understand it you have to go back to last July, right after Glenn Beck accused the "racist" President Obama of harboring "a deep-seated hatred for white people." At the time, NBC News' First Read responded to Beck's rant by noting that "[t]here was a time when outrageous rants like this would actually cost the ranters their jobs. But not anymore; if anything, it's now encouraged."

In the last two years, the racially divisive rhetoric coming out of the conservative media has grown more and more explicit. We now almost expect right-wing pundits to just come out and say that Obama is acting contrary to the interests of white people. When it happens, it's barely noticed by the rest of the media.

While that doesn't bode well for the future of journalism, it's even more destructive for the minority groups that find themselves the targets of these attacks. The promise of America is that the rights of the minority and the rights of the majority are one and the same. The right-wing media's destructive and discriminatory rhetoric is meant to ensure that that equality is never realized.

After all, for years Fox hosts and personalities have attacked anyone dabbling in 9-11 conspiracy theories as "Anti-American," "hurtful," "mentally ill," "idiots" that deserve to be "fired immediately."

By Fox News standards, you don't even have to personally espouse trutherism in order to be attacked. As evidenced by the network's attacks on Park51 Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf because he supposedly "Pals Around With Truthers," if you used to work with someone who later became a truther, you are a fair target for criticism (even if you yourself have emphatically stated that 9-11 was carried out by extremist Muslims.)

Before we discuss Fox News' astounding non-response to Napolitano's comments, it's important to point out that he is not just a random Fox contributor who pops up for occasional analysis -- Napolitano is undoubtedly a rising star at the network.

After several years as an analyst at Fox News, Napolitano was handed a weekend show earlier this year at the Fox News Junior Varsity team, more commonly known as Fox Business. His show -- which was exclusive to FoxNews.com before being bumped up to FBN -- was recently moved to the prime 8pm weekday slot on the network. Napolitano also continues to regularly appear on Fox News to provide input on a wide range of issues.

He has been the recipient of effusive praise from some of Fox's most prominent on-air personalities as well. When Justice David Souter announced he was retiring from the Supreme Court in 2009, Fox & Friends host Steve Doocy joked that he "would like to officially nominate" Napolitano for the position.

Earlier this year, Glenn Beck called Napolitano "one of the sharpest men I know" and told him that "if I were God of the Universe, you'd be my Supreme Court justice."

In a case of remarkably poor timing, the morning after Napolitano's appearance on Jones' radio show -- but before his offensive comments had come to light -- Beck announced on his radio show that Napolitano "used to" piss him off when Beck was "naïve and foolish" in 2002. Beck said that Napolitano has actually "turned out to be right on almost everything," is "one of the most decent men" he knows, and that if Beck "ever had to go to battle" and "needed people behind" him, Napolitano would be "one of the first" people Beck would call.

Beck apparently thinks so highly of Napolitano that he frequently lets Napolitano serve as his guest host when he takes days off.

While Beck reveres Napolitano, he absolutely loathes anyone even tangentially associated with the 9-11 Truth movement. Last year, Beck repeatedly attacked former White House adviser Van Jones after his name appeared on a 9-11 Truth petition (Jones has stated that he believes Al-Qaeda caused the attacks and that he was lied to about the petition, which was "something that I never saw and never signed onto"). Beck also called for an "investigation" of Imam Rauf over the fact that his former colleague eventually became a truther.

On the March 22, 2007, edition of his CNN Headline News program (accessed via Nexis), Beck spent a large portion of his show debunking 9-11 conspiracy theories with Michael Shermer of Skeptic magazine and James Meigs, the editor-in-chief of Popular Mechanics.

During the show, Beck called 9-11 conspiracy theorists "nut jobs," "idiots," "dangerous," "anarchists," "the kind of group that a Timothy McVeigh would come from," and "exactly the kind of people who want to rock this nation's foundation, tear us apart and plant the seeds of dissatisfaction in all of us." Teasing the segment, he said "could these nut jobs also pose a very real threat? You'd better believe it."

Well, what does Beck think of the fact that "one of the sharpest" men he knows -- the man he hands the keys of his show over to when he is on vacation -- has revealed himself as a dangerous nut job idiot who could pose a very real threat?

It's anyone's guess, because Beck hasn't said a word about it. (In Beck's defense, he has been busy this week making things up about the food safety bill. And net neutrality. And health care reform. And the Federal Reserve. And the Smithsonian. And Wikipedia. But I digress.)

Beck's cowardly silence about Napolitano is in keeping with the rest of his network. Despite criticism from 9-11 victims' families and even numerous conservatives, both Fox News and Napolitano have refused to address the controversy on-air or off.

And, for the record, Napolitano's promotion of 9-11 conspiracy theories on Jones' show was no accident -- he previously made similar remarks on a Tennessee radio show in May.

During a February 2009 appearance on Fox & Friends, Red Eye host Greg Gutfeld ranted against 9-11 conspiracy theorists and said, "People are too scared to confront 9-11 conspiracies because it's like the crazy guy on the subway. You don't want to make eye contact. But sooner or later you've gotta make eye contact and tell that guy to get lost." Apparently, when the "crazy guy on the subway" is actually your coworker, at no point do you have to "tell that guy to get lost."

As always, it seems like there is almost nothing a Fox employee can do to warrant getting reprimanded by the network. This entire episode confirms once and for all that loyalty to Fox News trumps all.

And, this being Fox News, Napolitano's trutherism was not the network's only foray into promoting conspiracy theories this week.

On Monday's edition of Fox & Friends, the crew hosted former Republican congressman and current NewsMax columnist John LeBoutillier to promote his book, The Obama Identity. During the segment, LeBoutillier pushed the idea that Obama was actually born in Kenya, without any forceful rebuttal by hosts Steve Doocy or Brian Kilmeade. Both LeBoutillier and the Fox & Friends crew tried to suggest that his "fiction" book may actually have basis in reality. The chyron during the segment was "Fact or Fiction? 'Obama Identity' a fictional tale of reality."

So what is this "fictional tale of reality" about? Well, it promotes numerous conspiracy theories about Obama, and, in the words of Media Matters' Oliver Willis, it not only reads like it was written "in the language of a hormonal teenager," but also apparently features President Obama's foreskin as a major plot device.

And who is John LeBoutillier? Well, before his current occupation as a professional peddler of insane and discredited conspiracy theories about President Obama, LeBoutillier spent the 90s pushing outlandish conspiracies about then-President Clinton and his family -- including suggesting Clinton killed Deputy White House Counsel Vince Foster and had an account "in the Cayman Islands, which is a refuge for drug money."

As we documented, Fox's promotion of LeBoutillier's book and Napolitano's trutherism are in character for the network, which has increasingly become a welcoming place for conspiracy theorists.

Earlier this week, discussing Napolitano, Hot Air's Allahpundit asked, "Precisely how many of these people does Fox have on staff? Am I going to open a newspaper tomorrow and find out that Megyn Kelly or Julie Banderas thinks the Pentagon was hit by a missile?" Based on the network's steadfast refusal to comment on the story, it's impossible to answer that question -- to the serious detriment of people at Fox who care about their credibility.

What does it say about Fox hosts like Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, Glenn Beck, Greta Van Susteren and Mike Huckabee -- many of whom have repeatedly and explicitly condemned truthers in the past -- that they are unwilling to speak out now that their coworker has revealed himself as one?

Are Fox's "news" anchors -- people like Chris Wallace, Bret Baier, and Megyn Kelly -- okay with the fact that their bosses refuse to condemn someone who promotes 9-11 conspiracy theories?

And how about Fox personalities like Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, Dick Morris, Michelle Malkin, and Laura Ingraham? Are they comfortable being employed by a network that refuses to condemn a truther employee and hosts people like John LeBoutillier to suggest the president was born in Kenya?

Based on their (apparently now discarded) standards, the entire Fox staff's association with a truther like Napolitano should make them a ripe target for criticism.

Is there anyone at Fox whose fealty to the network is outweighed by standards of decency?

Anyone?

This weekly wrap-up was compiled by Ben Dimiero, a research fellow at Media Matters for America.

For months, accounts of internal tension over Beck have been leaking out of Fox News. Back in March, media critic Howard Kurtz -- then with The Washington Post -- reported that "there is a deep split within Fox between those -- led by Chairman Roger Ailes -- who are supportive, and many journalists who are worried about the prospect that Beck is becoming the face of the network. ... Beck has become a constant topic of conversation among Fox journalists, some of whom say they believe he uses distorted or inflammatory rhetoric that undermines their credibility."

In an October New York Times Magazine profile of Beck, Mark Leibovich -- who noted the "[o]ff-the-record sniping shoots in both directions" and could be related to upcoming contract negotiations -- reported: "But the friction is evident in many areas." In addition to reporting -- like Kurtz -- that some Fox News journalists felt Beck's inflammatory rhetoric undermined the network, Leibovich introduced a new twist: Ailes' support for Beck may have been flagging.

Ailes, Leibovich wrote, "has generally been supportive of Beck," but he's also "complained about Beck's hawking his non-Fox ventures too much on his Fox show" and has been "vocal around the network about how Beck does not fully appreciate the degree to which Fox News has made him the sensation he has become in recent months."

With his ratings in a slump, advertisers dropping like flies, and the reported sniping from Ailes, it seemed possible that Beck's influence at Fox might wane.

Then Rupert Murdoch stepped in.

When asked at the News Corp. annual shareholders meeting later that month about Ailes' reported frustration with Beck's use of Fox News airwaves to promote his own brand and interests, Murdoch dismissed such concerns, saying, "I don't know whether you watch Fox News, but Mr. Beck is the least of our stars who take liberties in promoting their interests."

And Murdoch was unfazed when asked at the meeting about reports that nearly 300 advertisers are boycotting Glenn Beck, responding, "That's not true. ... Maybe four or five who have been moved over to Mr. O'Reilly's program. No one has taken any money off the channel."

But perhaps most surprising was Murdoch's unprompted praise for Beck in a November interview in his native Australia, which was paired with some trash-talking aimed at Fox News ratings giant Bill O'Reilly. O'Reilly's "easy" treatment of now-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in an interview was "disgraceful," Murdoch said. He then lavished Beck with praise:

There's a guy on Fox who started on CNN called Glenn Beck.

He is a little bit of an actor, he looks in the camera all the time. He's very genuine, extremely well-read libertarian, doesn't make any secret of it. He says don't trust the government, don't trust me, just trust yourselves.

He's hit a nerve. Millions -- millions -- watch him at five in the afternoon!

Never mind that these days, O'Reilly regularly pulls in well over a million more viewers in his 8 p.m. slot than Beck does in his 5 p.m. slot. Or that advertisers -- by Murdoch's own admission -- have moved from Beck's program to O'Reilly's. Beck is the one Murdoch brags about.

Is Murdoch out of touch with what is happening at his own network? Is his defense and praise of Beck an accident? That seems unlikely, given that he views the network as the jewel of his empire. When asked earlier this week by Fox Business' Liz Claman what News Corp.'s best growth market is, Murdoch said, "Our best growth engine right now is in this country." When Claman pressed for specifics, Murdoch immediately responded, "Fox Business. Fox News. Seriously."

He later noted "other cable channels" -- though not by name -- and gave "Fox Broadcasting Company" a shout-out, but it's clear that he believes financial future of News Corp. as a whole is tied closely to the financial future of Fox News.

Murdoch has quite consciously pushed Beck to the forefront at Fox News, and with him the type of paranoid, incendiary rhetoric and wild inaccuracies with which some Fox journalists are growing increasingly uncomfortable.

With a directive straight from the top of News Corp., Roger Ailes quickly fell back into line as Beck's key backer at Fox News.

Ailes came roaring back to Beck's defense this week in an interview with Kurtz after prominent Jewish leaders and Holocaust survivors condemned Beck's three-day attack on financier and philanthropist George Soros.

In the special series -- which ran from November 9th to 11th and was heavily promoted by Fox News -- Beck falsely accused Soros of being a Holocaust collaborator and repeatedly attacked Soros with anti-Semitic stereotypes, referring to him as a "puppet master" and accusing him of controlling the media, the political process, and the global economy.

Kurtz, now with The Daily Beast, reported that Ailes offered a "spirited defense" of Beck in the wake of his recent attacks on Soros, and that Ailes had even reached out to the Anti-Defamation League -- one of the groups that condemned Beck's "puppet master" series -- to smooth things over.

In fact, according to Kurtz's interview, Ailes' only real gripe with Beck seems to be that Beck criticizes Republicans too much. Ailes told Kurtz: "Beck trashes Republicans every night. I've said to him, 'Where the hell are you going to get your audience if you keep this up? You're trashing everyone.'"

Kurtz added: "There's one criticism that Ailes doesn't want to hear. He admonished the staff after unnamed Fox journalists told me they are worried that the divisive Beck is becoming the face of the network. 'Yeah, shut up,' says Ailes. 'You're getting a paycheck. Go on the team or get off the team. Don't run around here badmouthing a colleague.'"

Indeed, Murdoch and Ailes have made their game plan for Fox News increasingly clear with their constant Beck boosterism. And ironically, Ailes' analysis of Jon Stewart in his interview with Kurtz seems to best apply to Fox News and Ailes himself:

"If it wasn't polarized, he couldn't make a living." ... "He loves polarization. He depends on it. If liberals and conservatives are all getting along, how good would that show be? It'd be a bomb.'"

Afterward, Fox News reportedly told the Times that a disclosure should have been made, and a network source claimed management was "stunned" by the way the interview was handled.

Yet on matters weightier than baseball, Fox News has consistently shown it has little interest in asking its on-air talent to disclose their financial interests in the topics they discuss.

Earlier this week, the Wall Street Journal noted that Glenn Beck has been doing "live-read" advertisements on his radio program -- which is not produced by Fox News -- for FreedomWorks. On Fox News, Glenn Beck prominently featured the organization and its president in an October a major subcontractor on the F-22.

During the health care debate, Fox News contributor Newt Gingrich she is a "Vice President with Sloane and Company where she specializes in crisis communications, healthcare, and public affairs clients." (The firm's website does not specifically state which clients Tantaros works with.)

The disclosure problem extends to Fox News guests. In March, America Live's Megyn Kelly hosted a "fair and balanced" debate that featured Chris Wilson, who trashed health care reform and was identified as a "GOP pollster and strategist." At no point did Kelly point out that Wilson polls for companies that would be affected by the health care bill he criticized. Fox News also failed to disclose the conflicting interests of anti-healthcare reform interviewees Frank Donatelli, Mary Grealy, and former Sen.-turned Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America lobbyist John Breaux (D-LA).

And there can be no conversation about conflict-of-interest problems without mentioning Fox News contributor Dick Morris. In at least two Beck-like schemes, Morris has received financial payments from GOP-aligned groups advertising on his email newsletter, and then repeatedly promoted and fundraised for those two groups on Fox News without disclosing the payments.

Fox News was "stunned" about Jeter and Carlson, but is apparently unconcerned about Morris. In 2008, questions were raised about Morris promoting the National Republican Trust PAC, which has paid him at least $24,000. Fox News offered no response to a reporter's inquiry, instead deferring questions to Morris.

Unfortunately, while Fox News may have some of the most prominent conflict-of-interest disclosure problems on television, concern shouldn't be limited just to them. Media Matters has regularly called out non-Fox News outlets for similar failures, and the Times article noting the Fox & Friends conflict also reported on disclosure failures by NBC's Today.

In February, The Nation found that since 2007, "at least seventy-five registered lobbyists, public relations representatives and corporate officials -- people paid by companies and trade groups to manage their public image and promote their financial and political interests -- have appeared on MSNBC, Fox News, CNN, CNBC and Fox Business Network with no disclosure of the corporate interests that had paid them."

And while we're still about 14 months from the first votes being cast in the 2012 elections, we're nonetheless going to get a protracted and dramatic look at the selection process for the Republican nomination. All we have to do is switch on Fox News.

The Murdoch network currently has on its payroll no fewer than four right-wingers whose names consistently pop up in discussions of President Obama's putative GOP challengers: Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, and Mike Huckabee. Fox also frequently hosts former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton, whose name has been tossed around as a dark-horse candidate. As the election cycle coverage heats up, Fox will be forced to make some awkward choices in how it covers the campaigns of their colleagues.

And the trouble has already begun.

While not a candidate himself, Fox News' Karl Rove will be a key player in the 2012 GOP primaries, largely through his Wall Street-funded Republican piggy bank, American Crossroads. One can speculate as to which candidate he prefers, but one doesn't have to guess who he doesn't want to challenge Obama -- Fox News' Sarah Palin.

The feud between these two has been simmering since Palin injected herself into the Republican primaries of various Senate campaigns and helped Tea Party candidates snatch nominations from more electable Republicans, only to see them lose in the general election (see: Sharron Angle and, if trends hold, Joe Miller.)

But no candidate better represented the Rove-Palin rift than Delaware's Christine O'Donnell, who secured the nomination on the strength of Palin's endorsement and then bombed in the general. Not long after O'Donnell was minted as the nominee, Rove said (on Fox) that she did not "evince the characteristics of rectitude and truthfulness" and that the race had become unwinnable. Those remarks earned him a keel hauling from the right-wing media. Palin, for her part, said (also on Fox) that everyone who thought O'Donnell couldn't win needed to "buck up" and put aside their "egos."

As the Senate looked more and more like it would stay in Democratic hands, Rove and Palin quit fighting through proxies and just started bashing each other. Last week, the U.K. Telegraph reported that Rove trashed Palin's new reality TV program and "said it was unlikely that voters would regard someone starring in a reality show as presidential material." The article also quoted Rove saying Palin lacks "a certain level of gravitas."

Palin, as we all know, thrives on victimhood and will never fail to respond to any criticism, no matter how slight or imagined. She fired back at Rove (again on Fox News) by suggesting he is "threatened" and "paranoid." She also compared herself to Ronald Reagan, though he was a TV star before he was politician, not the other way around. A couple of days later (on Fox News) she lobbed a nonspecific attack at "these Neanderthals, these goofballs, these nitwits" who were attacking her in the press.

Rove is, of course, not without allies in this fight. His former Bush administration colleagues -- like speechwriter Michael Gerson and, reportedly, W. himself -- don't think much of Palin as a candidate. He also has the support of Fox News colleague Mort Kondracke, who blamed Palin for the Republican failure to capture the Senate and called her "a joke even within her own party." His problem is that Palin also has allies -- namely, the louder corners of the right-wing media. Having already earned their wrath over his O'Donnell criticism, Rove apologized to Palin (once again, on Fox News), saying he "didn't mean any offense" in criticizing her reality program.

Palin also has the tea party firmly in her corner, and Rove has to respect that. Even though several of her anointed Senate candidates were wiped out on Tuesday, the fact that they were even in a position to lose is a testament to Palin's political clout. And so Rove has to thread the needle of making Palin an unacceptable choice for the nomination while not alienating her powerful base of support. So he attacks Christine O'Donnell, and then apologizes. He attacks Palin, and then apologizes.

In the middle of all this is Fox News. The network was going to be a battleground for the nomination regardless, given that they essentially operate as a shadow RNC and willingly offer their airwaves to Republican candidates looking to do a little fundraising. And they've already launched a series of candidate profiles called "12 in '12." But having numerous potential candidates on their payroll complicates things even further.

Palin's being coy about her presidential prospects, but the millions of dollars Fox News pays her (and the Alaska-based studio they built for her) will undoubtedly prove useful should she choose to toss in her hat. Rove isn't running, but he nonetheless will have a dog in the fight and financial interests wrapped up in the race, and Fox is paying him for -- ahem -- "independent" political analysis.

And then there's Huckabee, who ingratiates himself to potential voters and key GOP officials with each episode of his Fox News program. One can never tell whether Newt Gingrich's threats to run for president are genuine or just a ploy to sell books, and if Santorum runs he'll have some interesting hurdles to clear, but having a paid platform to get their messages out certainly doesn't hurt. Just this week Santorum gushed about how great it is that Republicans have Fox News to "get a message out."

There are interests conflicting all over the place, and what we're seeing now with Palin and Rove is a situation where political figures are appearing on a news channel to attack one another and defend their interests, and being paid for it by that same news channel. When you mix that in with parent company News Corp.'s newfound willingness to openly donate huge sums of cash to partisan GOP outfits, you have an ethical morass that borders on comical.

Fox's past response to their (many) ethical lapses has been to pretend that nothing's wrong. But this is a bigger breach of journalistic ethics than anything they've done before, and whether they can continue to play dumb remains to be seen.

But one thing's for sure: The road to the 2012 Republican presidential nomination runs right through Fox News.

However, in endeavoring to explain how the GOP has seemingly managed to reverse its political fortunes in such a short amount of time, media outlets would be remiss not to mention one of the most important factors. In fact, we don't need to wait for Tuesday's results to pinpoint perhaps the most significant development in the country's political landscape over the past two years.

One of the two major political parties in the country is run by a "news" network.

Since President Obama's inauguration, Fox News has transformed from simply the mouthpiece and oppo research shop of the Republican Party into its headquarters. For the GOP, Fox fundraises, campaigns, gives strategic advice, picks candidates (and then provides them a comfortable platform to reach millions of voters, free of charge), throws and promotes rallies, gets out the vote, and, perhaps most importantly, sets the narrative.

They do all of this while continuing their time-honored tradition of tearing down liberal initiatives and politicians with shameless smears, lies, misrepresentations, and fabricated stories. But before we get to Fox's massive influence over the coming elections, some back-story is necessary.

Less than two months after Obama's inauguration, Fox News senior vice president Bill Shine gave an interview with NPR about how the network's ratings were soaring at the time. During the interview, Shine noted that some people were "rooting for [Fox] to go away" after the election, but "[w]ith this particular group of people in power right now and the honeymoon they've had from other members of the media, does it make it a little bit easier for us to be the voice of opposition on some issues?"

Fox's programming has effectively answered Shine's rhetorical question with a forceful "yes."

Williams' firing comes weeks after CNN canned Rick Sanchez for remarks about Jon Stewart and Jews in the media. In both cases, news organizations made personnel moves in response to perceived violations of their editorial standards.

Yet when it comes to cable ratings leader Fox News, it's hard to tell whether any editorial standards exist, and what - if anything - would get you reprimanded by the network.

Unlike other media outlets, Fox News has a pattern of failing to seriously discipline employees for on-air transgressions. And in positioning itself as an alternative to traditional news media, that's probably how Fox News likes it.

Take the case of Fox News contributor Liz Trotta. During a May 2008 segment on the Democratic presidential primaries, Trotta actually remarked that she wished somebody would "knock off" both Osama Bin Laden and then-candidate Barack Obama:

TROTTA: The vast right-wing conspiracy blame has been undermined by her [Clinton's] evasions, by her outright lies, if I may say, by her pandering, by her race-baiting, and now we have what some are reading as a suggestion that somebody knock off Osama - Obama - well, both if we could.

It bears repeating what Trotta did - she expressed her hope that someone assassinates Obama. The next day, Trotta appeared on Fox News to do damage control, telling Bill Hemmer that she is "so sorry about what happened yesterday and the lame attempt at humor. I fell all over myself, making it appear that I wished Barack Obama harm or any other candidate."

The fallout? Nothing, apparently. Trotta is still a Fox News contributor, and appears in a weekly segment offering commentary.

More recently, Fox & Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade made the clearly false claim - twice - that "all terrorists" are Muslim. Following outrage over his remarks, Bill Shine, Fox News' senior vice president of looking the other way, said Kilmeade would "clarify" his comments and claimed that Kilmeade actually meant to say that "all terrorists" involved in the 9-11 attacks were Muslim. Of course, this explanation was completely bogus, as Kilmeade referenced non-9-11 targets when he made the same comment on his Fox News Radio program later that day.

This wasn't the first time Kilmeade has gotten in trouble for remarks on race and religion. Kilmeade issued an apology over his remark that "we keep marrying other species and other ethnics and ... the Swedes have pure genes, because they marry other Swedes." Kilmeade has also repeatedly made inflammatory remarks about Islam and Muslims.

Additionally, Kilmeade's Fox & Friends program was forced to retract the false assertion that Obama "was educated in a madrassa" - one part of the web of internet conspiracy theories claiming Obama is a secret Muslim with a fake birth certificate. In May 2008, Fox & Friends was forced to issue an apology after it repeated as fact an online parody news report of a school prank that included fabricated quotes.

And during a July 2008 show, Fox & Friends altered photos of New York Times reporters they disliked -- the journalists' teeth had been yellowed, their facial features exaggerated, and one journalist's hair was moved further back on his head.

The fallout? The hosts of Fox & Friends, Kilmeade included, are still standing. In response to the Times incident, Fox News' vice president of shrugging, John Moody, reportedly "said the incident will not result in any official standards adjustments." Why? "Moody told the assembled press that the morning program is 'an entertainment show that does some news.'"

Media Matters documented this week that Fox News has a payola problem. Contributor Dick Morris again used his position as a Fox News "political analyst" to tout and solicit donations for the Republican-aligned group Americans for New Leadership weeks after they began paying him thousands of dollars. During his appearances, Morris did not disclose that he was receiving money from the group. To the contrary, Morris lied that he's been working for the Republican Party "without compensation."

Morris has also suggested that violence against government officials could be justified. In early 2009, during a long conspiracy theory about a "super-national authority" that will oversee U.S. financial institutions, Morris asserted that President Obama's policies are "internationalist" and that "[t]hose crazies in Montana who say, 'We're going to kill ATF agents because the U.N.'s going to take over' -- well, they're beginning to have a case."

The fallout? Morris is one of the most frequent on-air commentators on Fox News.

Fox News strategic analyst Ralph Peters once asserted of Pfc. Bowe Bergdahl, who was captured by the Taliban in June 2009 and appeared in Taliban propaganda videos: "[W]e know this private is a liar; we're not sure if he's a deserter." Peters added that if he is a deserter, "the Taliban can save us a lot of legal hassles and legal bills." NBC's Jim Miklaszewski subsequently reported that the Pentagon said Peters' comments "could endanger" the captured soldier.

Peters still appears regularly on Fox News.

Fox News contributors Doug Schoen and Frank Luntz, meanwhile, have touted and defended the work of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce - without mentioning that the GOP-aligned group is their client.

Such behavior extends to Fox's "straight news" division. In February 2009, anchor Jon Scott essentially committed on-air plagiarism by trying to pass off a GOP press release as his own research (typo and all). When Scott was caught, he apologized - for the typo.

While students might have faced a suspension or expulsion, Scott suffered no apparent consequences -- to the contrary, he ironically hosts Fox News' media ethics program.

And we haven't even gotten to Glenn Beck. While over 100 advertisers have reportedly abandoned Beck's Fox News program, Fox News has stuck with Beck despite his history of violent rhetoric, bizarre conspiracy theories and promotion of anti-Semites. Rupert Murdoch even agreed with Beck's statement that Obama is a "racist," causing MSNBC.com's First Read blog to write about Beck, "What's most amazing about this episode is that what Beck said isn't a fireable or even a SUSPENDABLE offense by his bosses. There was a time when outrageous rants like this would actually cost the ranters their jobs. But not anymore; if anything, it's now encouraged."

Fox News has made noise about having editorial standards. Last year, it promised to implement a "zero tolerance" policy regarding errors - then appeared to throw the policy overboard when subsequent errors were found.

In another telling incident, Fox News executives yanked Sean Hannity from trying to tape his show at a Cincinnati Tea Party event which charged admission and had "all proceeds" benefiting the organization. Fox News execs were reportedly "furious," but The Los Angeles Times noted that "it does not appear that [their concerns] have resulted in any serious disciplinary measures taken against any staffers involved" and a spokesperson told the Times and NY Magazine that it wouldn't discuss the matter any further.

Since April's tea party incident, Hannity has used his program as a non-stop fundraising and promotion tool for favored Republican candidates like Ohio's John Kasich and New York's John Gomez, among others.

For those keeping score about what won't result in serious disciplinary action when working at Fox News: wishing for Obama's assassination; appearing to legitimize physical threats against soldiers and law enforcement officers; failing to disclose that you're touting your business clients; trying to financially enrich conservative organizations and candidates; plagiarism of a partisan source; and fundraising on-air for a conservative group without disclosing that they've paid you thousands of dollars.

Why the lack of standards? Perhaps it's that Fox News has long defined itself by being the opposite of their competition.

The "mainstream media," according to Fox News, is purportedly liberal. Fox's programming, therefore, has to be stacked with conservative hosts and commentators to "balance" out the competition. And other news organizations, apparently, are too focused on restrictions and standards. On Fox News, they don't care about you making "mistakes."

"Here you have an ability to do stuff, and then they can always rein you in," Kilmeade told the Los Angeles Times in October 2008. "But I know I'm not going to get reprimanded."

"When we make a mistake reading the news headlines, whereas at a [broadcast] network you'd probably get fired, instead, we're like, 'Eh, we screwed up,' " Fox & Friends' Gretchen Carlson similarly told the Times. "And I think that's disarming."

Asked to explain the reasoning behind the contributions, Murdoch said they were made "in the interest of the country and of all the shareholders ... that there be a fair amount of change in Washington."

According to Murdoch, the donations, while "unusual," had "nothing to do with the editorial policies" of News Corp.'s media properties. He also brushed off his widely reported comment that News Corp.'s donation to the RGA was a result of his friendship with former Fox News employee and current GOP gubernatorial candidate John Kasich, calling it a "throwaway line."

However, Sir Rod Eddington, chairman of the audit committee, did tell a representative from the Nathan Cummings Foundation -- which sent a letter to the board of directors earlier this week calling for full disclosure of News Corp.'s political contributions -- that the foundation's proposal would be reviewed and that News Corp. would "act expeditiously."

Whether or not a disclosure policy is actually implemented, Murdoch made one thing clear: Shareholders will not select recipients of donations. If shareholders disagreed with directors' decisions, Murdoch said, "you have the right to vote us off the board."

Fox News: "simply unstoppable"

Murdoch may not agree with everything that's said on Fox News or know who exactly is advertising on Beck these days, but there is one thing he does know: Fox News is "simply unstoppable."

In his letter to shareholders this year, Murdoch wrote: "The Cable Network Programming segment was again our biggest growth driver. In 2010, operating income increased 37% over the prior year to a record $2.3 billion. All major networks showed impressive growth and, in the U.S., the FOX News Channel is simply unstoppable. FNC led the increase in affiliate revenue growth and outperformed CNN, MSNBC and CNBC combined in total viewers, for both prime time and total day categories."

In 2010, Fox News' revenues increased 23 percent from 2009.

Now, admittedly, 2009 was a rough year for News Corp. Overall, the company's revenues decreased 8 percent, and according to Murdoch, it was "among the most challenging in our Company's 56-year history."

Yet there was a bright spot. In 2009, Fox News' revenues increased 26 percent from 2008.

In 2008, Fox News' revenues increased 21 percent from 2007.

In 2007, Fox News' revenues increased 19 percent from 2006.

In 2006, Fox News' revenues increased 13 percent from 2005.

In 2005, Fox News' revenues increased 20 percent from 2004.

You get the picture. Rupert Murdoch is cashing in big on hate and lies.

Beck's big Chamber bailout

This week, Fox News host Glenn Beck joined News Corp. as a major backer of the Chamber of Commerce: Beck's call for donations to the Chamber on the October 14 edition of his radio show earned him on-air praise from the group's top brass and drove so much traffic to the Chamber's contribution website that it crashed.

Apparently an adherent of the view that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend," so-called populist warrior Beck implored his audience to fork over their hard-earned cash to corporate darling Chamber of Commerce, "just because the Obama administration hates them."

(The White House's request that the Chamber disclose its anonymous campaign donors evidently qualifies as "hating" them.)

"I don't agree with everything the Chamber does," Beck said, citing the Chamber's pro-immigration reform position, but that hardly hampered his newfound solidarity.

Any reservations anti-TARP, anti-stimulus Beck may have had about the pro-TARP, pro-stimulus Chamber were tossed aside. Declaring the Chamber "our parents, our grandparents -- they are us," Beck ponied up $10,000 and told his listeners, "I would like to make this the biggest fundraising day in the Chamber's history."

Bruce Josten, the Chamber's executive vice president for government affairs, even went on Beck's show that day to thank Beck personally for his efforts. "Glenn, just so you know, as a result of you," Josten said, "[our website has had] the single highest contribution we've ever received for an entire day, and that's just for the first hour."

Indeed, a Chamber official later told Politico: "I don't have exact numbers, because money is continuing to pour in. It even crashed our servers. The phones blew up today -- people were calling all day long. Bottom line: Today was the single largest day of online fundraising that we have ever had in the history of the Chamber."

Rupert Murdoch's other speech

Murdoch gave another speech in New York this week. Two days before he spoke to News Corp. shareholders, he stood before the Anti-Defamation League and said: "Today it seems that the most virulent strains" of anti-Semitism "come from the left."

There was no acknowledgment that his own Fox News personalities have a history of promoting anti-Semitic sources and mainstreaming people who have associations with anti-Semitic groups.

Last week, we pointed out that "[o]ver the past few months, several anti-Semitic authors and theories have popped up in Glenn Beck's TV and radio monologues, and Beck's audience of millions is, unwittingly or not, being exposed to some of the most hateful rhetoric of the last century."

And according to the Anti-Defamation League, Beck historian and frequent Glenn Beck guest David Barton has spoken at events hosted by the Christian Identity movement, which "asserts that Jews are 'the synagogue of Satan'; that Blacks and other people of color are subhuman; and that northern European whites and their American descendants are the 'chosen people' of scriptural prophesy."

That's Murdoch's Fox News: simply unstoppable.

And, of course, whenever Fox News is in trouble, you can pretty well guarantee that Glenn Beck will be at the center of it. Beck was the subject of a New York Times Magazine profile last week which reported that his peculiar on-air behavior and relentless hucksterism have started to rankle his slightly less disreputable colleagues. Foremost among them is Fox News president Roger Ailes, who has apparently grown weary of the fact that Beck uses Fox's airwaves to promote his own, non-Fox ventures and line his own pockets. (You can understand why Ailes would be upset -- after all, Beck has reportedly cost the network millions of dollars in ad revenue.)

Meanwhile, Fox News' "journalists" have apparently decided to make Beck the scapegoat for the network's steadily eroding credibility. The Times reported that several of them "complained that Beck's antics are embarrassing Fox, that his inflammatory rhetoric makes it difficult for the network to present itself as a legitimate news outlet" -- a humorous complaint, given that Fox News' "journalists" are just as capable of legitimacy-killing antics.

But everyone knows that Beck was and is a troublemaker. Less well-known was Fox News' apparently longstanding problem with gender discrimination. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed suit against the network for penalizing reporter Catherine Herridge because she once complained about gender and age discrimination at the network. This followed the 2006 lawsuit against a Fox VP who "used obscene terms to describe women and their body parts," and Bill O'Reilly's reported games of falafel phone tag. Regarding the Herridge affair, a Fox spokesperson responded in the network's typically measured fashion by blaming the whole thing on President Obama.

Then there's Karl Rove, whose presence at Fox News has never really screamed "ethical." He's one of the raft of former Bush officials who landed at Fox News as their administration slowly crumbled and limped out of office, and the network really wanted us to believe that he -- the most infamous Republican political operative since Lee Atwater -- was an independent election analyst. But then Rove formed American Crossroads, a sort of shadow RNC that works doggedly to elect Republicans and is funded almost exclusively by a handful of Texas billionaires, and any pretense of ethics or good journalistic practice was washed away.

And -- wouldn't you know it? -- Democratic politicians and independent campaign finance groups are calling for the IRS to audit American Crossroads, suspecting that the non-profit group might be misusing their tax-exempt status. In response to this development, Fox News called on Dana Perino, Rove's one-time Bush administration colleague and current Fox News colleague, to defend her buddy Karl and his pet political project, labeling the calls for investigation "politically motivated" and "political interference that is inappropriate, possibly unlawful."

Tending to your own house is difficult enough, but cleaning up your friends' messes at the same time is a real feat, and Fox gave it their best shot in a week full of Republican candidates struggling with controversy. First up was California Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman, who was alleged to have knowingly employed an undocumented immigrant. Fox has both an ideological and financial stake in Whitman -- remember, News Corp. gave $1 million to the Republican Governors' Association -- so they went to bat for their candidate, reporting that she is the "victim of a last-minute smear campaign" and "dirty tricks." Fox News' Megyn Kelly dismissed the controversy by saying "there is no case here," and Sean Hannity went so far as to praise Whitman for her "complete and due diligence."

No sooner had they finished attempting to rehab Whitman's image than another GOPer was embroiled in something of a brouhaha, this time New York gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino, who threatened New York Post reporter Frederic Dicker during a heated confrontation. This was a real doozy, and not just because Fox rushed to Paladino's defense. To boost Paladino, they had to lob some intramural attacks at Dicker -- the Post is a fellow Murdoch-owned media outlet. Gretchen Carlson of Fox & Friends said that "it almost seemed like" Dicker "was working for" Paladino's opponent, Andrew Cuomo. David Asman wondered aloud if "Americans are going to be cheering the politicians taking on the journalist."

Meanwhile, Paladino sat down for interviews with three separate Fox News hosts to defend himself and try to defuse the issue. Hannity, one of the lucky interviewers, said of Paladino: "I love his confrontational style. He's refreshingly honest."

All this raises some interesting questions. Is there anything a Republican candidate can do that will cause Fox News to abandon them? Is there anything that Fox News can do that will impel the network to apologize or -- at the very least -- not lash out wildly at critics? Are there any standards at all? Any lines that can't be crossed?

The answer seems more and more to be "no," and that's as depressing as it is remarkable.

Shine on, you crazy D'Souza

There's no real reason anyone should be talking about Dinesh D'Souza's latest book, The Roots of Obama's Rage. All things being equal, the book shouldn't even exist; one would like to think that no publisher worth their salt would consider for a moment publishing such a virulently nativist collection of lies.

But, of course, all things aren't equal. In fact, things have become pretty absurd, and as a consequence D'Souza's book is a hot topic of conversation. The reason that this ridiculous person was able to publish such a ridiculous book is that there's an entire ridiculous publishing house committed to cranking out right-wing garbage of this stripe. The reason that ridiculous book sells is because there's an entire ridiculous right-wing infrastructure of book clubs and magazines that buy copies in bulk and resell them at drastically reduced rates. The ridiculous author of this ridiculous book is able to communicate with broad swaths of America because there's an entire ridiculous cable network that will put him on TV without so much as a hint of criticism.

It's tempting to look at this and brush it off. After all, it's just another example of the right-wing subculture telling each other what they want to hear and reveling in epistemic closure's comforting, suffocating embrace.

But then D'Souza popped up in The Washington Post.

The Post cleared space on their op-ed page for a guy who argues, in all seriousness, that the first black president of the United States is on a quest to drain the country's economic and military power in order to fulfill the ambitions of the "anti-colonial" father he met only once as a young child. This was after Forbes had to publish corrections to the article D'Souza wrote for them and dispatch a post-publication fact-checker.

So why did they run it? Here's editorial page editor Fred Hiatt defending the move: "D'Souza's theory has sparked a great deal of commentary, from potential presidential candidates as well as from commentators on our own pages." The "potential presidential candidate" is Newt Gingrich, who loved D'Souza's theory; and the Post commentators are Eugene Robinson, Richard Cohen, and Jonathan Capehart, all of whom called Gingrich a lunatic for promoting D'Souza. Hiatt's argument is essentially: "People are talking about it -- who cares if it's right?"

It's this sort of passive attitude towards factual accuracy that allows fringe hacks like D'Souza to break into the mainstream. The Post has an obligation to keep their readers informed, not to reprint the intellectually fraudulent trash Newt Gingrich finds interesting.

This weekly wrap-up was compiled by Simon Maloy, a research fellow at Media Matters for America.

Every so often, the News Corp. CEO is questioned about Fox News' programming. His responses reveal that he either does not watch his own network and is therefore clueless about his flagship news property, or he instead chooses to play dumb about his network's role in poisoning the national discourse.

Yesterday, while testifying before a House subcommittee hearing, Murdoch spoke in favor of comprehensive immigration reform. Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) expressed support for Murdoch's proposal, but noted that she was "oftentimes stunned" by the anti-immigrant rhetoric on Fox News. Murdoch responded by saying that "we are home to all views on Fox," and that "we are not anti-immigrant on Fox News."

Of course, Fox News is a hotbed of anti-immigrant rhetoric. Not only do hosts and guests regularly distort the threat posed by illegal immigration and fight against rights already held by immigrants, but their coverage of the issue sometimes veers into thinly-veiled "white people are under attack!" xenophobia.

For example, in May of 2007, Bill O'Reilly, Fox News' top-rated host, fearmongered that the "unintended consequences" of immigration reform was that it would make America less white. On an April, 2006, edition of his syndicated radio show, O'Reilly suggested that the "hidden agenda" of the immigrant rights movement was to bring about the "browning of America." In 2006, former Fox host John Gibson exhorted white viewers to do "your duty" and "make more babies" in response to population growth by minorities.

Though Murdoch proudly proclaimed that Fox is "home to all views" on immigration, this welcoming mentality apparently includes mainstreaming anti-immigrant groups like the American Immigration Control Foundation, which has been classified as a "hate group" by the Anti-Defamation League.

And while Murdoch mocked the idea of "expelling 11 or 12 million people" as "nonsense," Fox host David Asman - while filling in for Neil Cavuto in April of 2006 - suggested that it may have been "the perfect time to round up" illegal immigrants and "ship them out."

To top it all off, Fox News has recently begun hosting disgraced former CNN host Lou Dobbs to repeatedly mislead on immigration issues, despite his long history of making incendiary and false claims about the topic.

But they "are not anti-immigrant on Fox." Right.

Murdoch's obliviousness - feigned or not - when it comes to Fox News' coverage of immigration follows a clear pattern.

On the subject of climate change, Murdoch has aligned himself with the vast majority of climate scientists and stated unequivocally that "climate change poses clear, catastrophic threats."

In 2007, Murdoch announced an initiative to make News Corp. carbon neutral in an attempt to "set an example" and inspire their "audiences" to fight climate change. While News Corp.'s initiative is commendable, its potential benefits and ability to "set an example" are undermined by Fox News' ongoing war on climate science and climate scientists. Fox hosts and personalities regularly mock climate change and any efforts to combat it.

A perfect example of how Fox News fails to "set an example" came during Earth Day this year. Rather than spend the day promoting environmentalism and conservation, Fox & Friends marked the occasion by rehashing smears of climate scientists with noted climatologist L. Brent Bozell.

Murdoch was right when he said that the carbon footprint of News Corp.'s audience is "10,000 times bigger than" the company's, which is why the benefits of his company's attempt to become carbon neutral pale in comparison to the damage done by the network's ongoing war on climate science. In fact, Murdoch's admission that he agrees with the "99 percent of scientists" on climate change makes him part of the "climate change cult," according to Fox News contributor Michelle Malkin.

Murdoch has also frequently promoted the phony distinction between Fox's news and opinion programming. Last year, Murdoch implied that Your World with Neil Cavuto and Fox & Friends (among others) are Fox shows that don't traffic in "commentary." This was false at the time - Fox News executives have included those shows as part of its "opinion" lineup -- and has become even more so as the network has continued its trip down the rabbit hole.

Neil Cavuto is the network's Senior Vice President of Business News, which, according to Fox, means he "oversees all business coverage for FNC" and "directs content and business news coverage for the FOX Business Network." If we are supposed to view Cavuto as some sort of business journalist, then he likely holds the distinction of being the only business journalist in the country with his own "Campaign Platform."

This week, Cavuto unveiled his "2010 Campaign Platform," which consisted of right-wing proposals like "No Tax Hikes On Anyone For Any Reason" and "A 10 Percent Across-The-Board Cut In Every Gov't Program." In addition to having a "Campaign Platform," Cavuto regularly promotes falsehoods that benefit the GOP and Tea Party at the expense of progressives and Democrats.

Murdoch's confusion about Fox & Friends' programming may be slightly more understandable. After all, Steve Doocy and Co. put on a show for their boss when he visited earlier this year, significantly toning down their usual rhetoric about immigration during his appearance, only to return to their usual antics as soon as he left the show.

Of course, the idea that Fox & Friends does not do "commentary" is a farce. Not only does the show spend three hours every morning misinforming their viewers about a wide range of issues, they have recently become the de facto launching pad for GOP general election campaigns.

Which brings us to Murdoch's most infamous "see no evil" moment. In April, Media Matters VP Ari Rabin-Havt questioned Murdoch about Fox's promotion of the Tea Party. Murdoch responded that Fox News shouldn't be "supporting the Tea Party or any other party." He added, "I'd like to investigate what you are saying before I condemn anyone." Almost six months later, we're still waiting to hear back.

As we detailed at the time, Fox's promotion of the Tea Party was beyond question - the network had aggressively encouraged viewers to attend tea parties, and even hosted several "FNC Tax Day Tea Parties" starring leading Fox personalities like Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck.

In the intervening months, Fox's Tea Party boosterism has continued unabated. Notably, in the past few weeks, Fox has gone all-in supporting Delaware Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell. In addition to giving her a safe haven from being inconvenienced by exposure to actual journalism, numerous hosts on the network have misleadingly claimed that her opponent has labeled himself a "bearded Marxist."

And what about that "other party" -- the GOP -- that Fox News shouldn't be "supporting," according to their boss? Well, in addition to lavishing coverage on the GOP's legislative agenda, Fox News hosts and personalities have raised millions of dollars for the GOP, supported GOP candidates with almost uniformly positive coverage, and, as always, spent every day smearing Democrats and progressives with blatant falsehoods.

In April, we argued that Fox News had basically become an arm of the GOP. It seems we may have had that backwards. At this point, the GOP is basically just an arm of Fox News.

As we detailed in a report this week, Fox News employs no less than five potential 2012 GOP presidential candidates. The Fox candidates have appeared on the network at least 269 times, appearances a GOP strategist reportedly called an "in-kind contribution."

Murdoch's network actually goes beyond just giving "in-kind contributions" to the GOP. Recently, they've discarded that relative subtlety and started spending boatloads of money in the hopes of helping to elect GOP candidates this fall.

Earlier this summer, News. Corp donated an unprecedented $1 million to the Republican Governors Association with the express purpose of supporting the "RGA's pro-business agenda." Last night, Politico's Ben Smith reported that News. Corp also donated $1 million to the GOP-aligned Chamber of Commerce. The Chamber has reportedly devoted millions of dollars this cycle to running political ads on behalf of Republican Senate candidates.

Fox News' political activism is becoming more and more brazen. Unfortunately the network is enabled by the rest of the media's reluctance to call them out on their behavior. At this point, it is clear that the CEO of News. Corp has no plans to act responsibly, so it is up to the press to hold Fox News accountable.

Fox News makes a mockery of the idea of journalism, and it's time for media outlets that actually care about the craft to speak out and say so.

This weekly wrap-up was compiled by Ben Dimiero, a research fellow at Media Matters for America.

I'm talking, of course, about Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman and the 2009 special election for New York's 23rd Congressional district. Early polling in the race showed moderate Republican candidate Dede Scozzafava with a comfortable lead over Hoffman and Democrat Bill Owens, before the still-nascent tea party machinery lined up behind Hoffman and Palin lent him her imprimatur. As more Republicans defected from their party's candidate to back Hoffman, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich held fast, endorsing Scozzafava and explaining that it was a question of winning: "If your interest is taking power back from the Left, and your interest is winning the necessary elections, then there are times when you have to put together a coalition that has disagreement within it." As a reward for his tent-building efforts, Gingrich was excoriated by right-wing bloggers, who said he had lost all credibility and didn't support true conservatism. (He's since made amends by attacking President Obama's "Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior.")

In the end, Scozzafava dropped out of the race and the seat that had once been considered hers went instead to Bill Owens, who defeated Hoffman 48-46 percent. After the election, Rush Limbaugh endorsed the view of RedState.com blogger Erick Erickson, saying: "It would have been great if Hoffman won, but the real victory was making sure that a Republican-in-name-only did not win."

Fast forward one year to the Delaware Republican Senate primary and, though the races aren't completely identical, it starts to feel like déjà vu all over again. Republican Christine O'Donnell, who got thumped by Joe Biden in Delaware's 2008 Senate race, decided to give it another shot in 2010 and for a long time languished far behind Rep. Mike Castle in the Republican primary race. That, of course, changed very rapidly when Sarah Palin decided that O'Donnell was one of her "Mama Grizzlies" and the tea party dumped a pile of cash in her lap. Right-wing bloggers quickly aligned with Queen Bee Palin and ripped into Castle, hysterically claiming that he had voted to impeach George W. Bush. The same series of events played out: polling showed O'Donnell overtaking Castle late in the game, and when the dust settled, O'Donnell emerged as the unlikely Republican candidate.

And as nasty as the race between Castle and O'Donnell was, the internecine warfare between conservative bloggers and journalists over the race was incomparably vicious. The Weekly Standard, Powerline, Mark Levin, and other bloggers got into a massive twist regarding the Standard's long-form takedown of O'Donnell. Here's a sampling from the back-and-forth: "I think you're an ass," "a disgrace," "mouthpieces for the Republican establishment," "lazy and unfair," "smear tactics against O'Donnell," "elitist and arrogant attitude," "jackass," "what an idiot."

But no figure better represents the O'Donnell-inspired clash between ideology and electability than Karl Rove, who appeared on Fox News' Hannity the night of O'Donnell's win to attack her "checkered background" adding: "It does conservatives little good to support candidates who, at the end of the day, while they may be conservative in their public statements, do not evince the characteristics of rectitude and truthfulness and sincerity and character that the voters are looking for." The right-wing reaction was swift and brutal. Michelle Malkin said Rove was "an effete sore loser." Dan Riehl called for Fox News to "suspend and investigate" Rove. Erickson said Rove was "in full meltdown," while Levin accused the former Bush adviser of declaring "war against the Tea Party movement and conservatives." Rove, after initially defending his stance, folded like a lawn chair during a particularly aggrieved Fox News appearance, insisting that he endorsed O'Donnell and was going to help her.

As for the growing consensus that O'Donnell's primary victory has torpedoed the GOP's once-excellent chances of capturing the Senate seat (polls show Democrat Chris Coons trailed Castle by about 10 points, but leads O'Donnell by double-digits), conservatives again fell back to winning-isn't-everything justifications. "If we lose it, fine. It's better to have a genuine Marxist in the US Senate rather than a phony, pretend conservative who's gonna vote often like a Marxist and just confuse everybody and water down the entire identification of what a conservative or what a Republican is," said Rush, whose attitude was enthusiastically cheered by Erickson.

So what can be drawn from these two scenarios? One is led to the unavoidable conclusion that the right-wing media's commitment to ideological purity transcends not just partisan loyalty, but logic and common sense. They want "real" conservatives in power, but when the "real" conservative politicians they support lose to Democrats, they convince themselves not only that this doesn't matter, but that it's a good thing. They want Republicans to control Congress, and they're willing to sacrifice as many Republicans in Congress as is necessary to achieve that goal.

A network of their very own

Christine O'Donnell's rise to electoral prominence has also helped to reveal just how integral Fox News has become in modern Republican politics.

The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press released a survey this week detailing Americans' news-gathering habits. Of particular note was their partisan breakdown of cable news audiences over the past decade. In 2000, 18 percent of Republicans and 18 percent of Democrats said they regularly get their news from Fox. In 2010, the percentage of Democratic regular viewers has dipped to 15, while regular Republican viewers skyrocketed to 40 percent. Moreover, 41 percent of Republicans believe "all or most" of what Fox News says. It is the network of and for the GOP. Kevin Drum observed: "As Fox has steadily amped up its conservative branding, conservatives have decided that's all they want to hear. The echo chamber must be getting pretty deafening over there."

But this transcends mere epistemic closure. Fox News' viewers aren't just looking for pro-conservative bromides and limited-government chalkboard diagrams -- they're looking for candidates. And Fox News is also meeting that demand. Christine O'Donnell's rapid rise was due in part to the big assist she got from Fox News -- and not just from Sarah Palin, but from their entire stable of conservative hosts and contributors. But don't take my word for it. O'Donnell made sure to thank her FNC cheering squad in her victory speech, from Palin to the Beck-created 9-12 movement to the Tea Party Express, which benefits hugely from Fox News' generous attention. Like all newly-minted Republican candidates, her first post-primary stop was with the sycophantic crew of Fox & Friends.

And if O'Donnell follows Sarah Palin's advice -- and why wouldn't she? -- Fox will continue to play an integral role in her campaign. "Speak through Fox News," counseled Palin during an appearance on The O'Reilly Factor, who explained that her vice-presidential run should serve as a cautionary tale against dealing with the legitimate media, who will occasionally do things like ask non-softball questions and point out when you've said something crazy. Fox News will let O'Donnell get her message out and make an end-run around the media's uncomfortable questions (as well as provide a ready-made venue for some quickie fund-raising).

And when you consider that the network boasts among its contributors people like Karl Rove, who heads a multi-million-dollar "shadow RNC" tasked with electing Republicans, and Dick Morris, who works diligently to elect any Republican willing to pay his exorbitant consulting fees, one can't escape the realization that Fox News has moved beyond simply cheerleading for Republicans. Right now, the network is one of the most important cogs in the national Republican electoral machine.