I think Hillary Clinton’s performance on The O’Reilly Factor last night should put to rest the whining and crying we’ve heard from a few marginal Leftists.  These critics seem to believe that a Democrat’s face on Fox is tantamount to treason. But in truth, these appearances allow them to hone their message, hit their positions and reach out to the kind of voters that the Democratic nominee will need in places such as Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.  It doesn’t appeal to the sensibilities of the Netroots, but the Netroots is indeed tiny, divided and often irrelevant.  The loudest person in the room isn’t necessarily the wisest, and Senator Cinton did herself well with last night’s appearance.

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Josh Marshall:

As we get deeper into the campaign, I do not have a problem with excluding candidates who are not generating any substantial public support. Gravel, I think, was an example of that in the Democratic debates. But I think the Paulbots have a pretty good case for outrage with Ron Paul’s exclusion from the upcoming Republican debate in New Hampshire.

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Please watch this video at Hot Air.

And people wonder why American politics are as divided as they are? And people wonder why the American political debate is as poluted as it is?

Fox and Dennis Miller should be ashamed of themselves.

What a sad state of affairs.

Oops:

Fox News Channel apologized on-air Tuesday for running tape of a different congressman while reporting Monday on the indictment of Rep. William J. Jefferson on bribery charges.

The network ran footage of House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers of Michigan instead of Jefferson. Both congressmen are black.

Fox blamed the mistake on a 22-year-old production assistant hurriedly grabbing a wrong videotape. Fox’s Washington bureau chief, Brian Wilson, said he was mortified by the error.

Who. Cares. They’re both black. Blacks all look the same to me. I bet that 90% of the viewers didn’t even notice. The other 10% of viewers were… black.

No, seriously: This is, as far as I can tell, not the first time that something like this happens at Fox. I suggest they look into that. Not only is it quite insulting to the victim, in this case Conyers, but it also look very unprofessional.

That’s the headline at the New York Times:

Four years ago, the leaders of the Congressional Black Caucus began looking for a television outlet to co-sponsor and broadcast a presidential debate to address the concerns of minority voters.

Only one news channel made an acceptable proposal, and an unlikely channel at that: Fox News, in what some Democrats viewed as an effort to associate itself with a group that could help it make good on its claim of presenting “fair and balanced” news coverage.

But now that relationship is being shaken by the decision of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, and former Senator John Edwards of North Carolina to shun the debate, a move that has exposed fault lines among two major constituencies of the Democratic Party. While the withdrawal by the candidates frustrated members of the black caucus, it mollified liberals who had objected to the involvement of Fox News, whose programming includes some of the most conservative and pro-Republican commentary on the air.

So, what is the divide? Who want to participate and who do not? Well, lets start with the Democratic candidates who do want to participate in the debate at Fox: Joe Biden and…

That’s it. Joe Biden is the only Democratic candidate who has explicitly said that he will not withdraw from the debate. All the other candidates have either said that they will not appear on Fox, or have remained silent about the matter.

That’s going to be a great debate: “what do you think of this… let me see, Senator Biden?” “Well, here is what I think…” “Do you agree with that Senator Biden? “I think that my distinguished colleague said it marvelously, I agree completely. What a candidate!“

Oops. Now that’s not nice: Fox’s Gibson called Iraqis “knuckle-dragging savages from the 10th century.” If it is Gibson’s goal to enforce the idea that quite some, if not most, Republicans / conservatives are bigots / racists, he could not possibly be doing a better job.

Dan Riehl argues that Gibson was not calling the Iraqi people savages, only the terrorist who do the killing. I disagree, at least partially:

But, and that’s a mistake, I agree that was a mistake, but who is doing this killing? Give me a break. These are Iraqis killing each other. So what did we do? If you’re saying it’s our fault that we unmasked them as knuckle-dragging savages from the 10th century — fine! I’ll take credit. But thanks — but thanks for the observation.

One could interprete Gibson’s words like Riehl does, but the interpretation that Gibson calls all Iraqis nappy-headed ho’sknuckle-dragging savages from the 10th century is a valid interpretation as well.

Now, I call terrorists ’savages’ quite often as well. Why? Because they are. They are mentally living in the 10th or 12th century, with/ using today’s weapons. However, one must be careful to distinguish the average Iraqi, from the terrorists: the far, far majority of Iraqis are no savages by any means. They love their children, they love their parents, they love their wives / husbands, all they want is to live in peace and to provide for their families…

More at The Reaction.

Is Rachel Marsden a conservababe and TV star in the making? Quite possibly yes. Salon’s Rebecca Traister gives some insight into Marsden’s “colorful past”.

I don’t necessarily dislike ‘colorful’, but too much colors are blinding.

The Las Vegas Review-Journal published an editorial blasting the left-wing of the Democratic party over the way many ‘liberals’ reacted to the news that the Democratic party had organized a debate to be broadcasted by… Fox.

But liberals’ aversion to Fox News has finally gone over the top. The Nevada Democratic Party had agreed to let the right-tilting network co-sponsor, of all things, an August debate in Reno between Democratic presidential candidates. Party officials were serious about drawing national attention to the state’s January presidential caucus, the country’s second in the 2008 nominating process. What better way for the party to reach conservative and “values” voters who might consider changing allegiances?
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Melinda Henneberger reports for the Huffington Post, that “the Nevada Democratic Party today backed out of a FOX News-sponsored presidential debate after Fox President Roger Ailes’s recent remarks jokingly comparing Democratic Senator Barack Obama to al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden.”

The so-called ‘netroots’ called on the Dems to boycott Fox and are celebrating the decision made by the Nevada Democratic party and congratulating each other with their ’success’. Ron Beasley agrees with Kos, Bowers, et al.

Hot Air, takes a slightly different position, same goes for Macsmind. Not surprisingly of course.

Macsmind has a good point: Fox is doing just fine without the Democratic party. On the other hand, he argues that although Fox does not need the Democrats, the Democrats do need Fox. I disagree with that (as does Ron Beasley): Fox is a ‘conservative’ network, those who watch it will, in 90% of the cases, vote Republican. A debate between Democrats (on Fox) isn’t likely to change anything.