Brent Bozell's blog

The Republican presidential contest is picking up steam. Obama is consistently polling under 50 percent. This one's a toss-up, and in the thick of it is the Fox News Channel. It's not just their role in hosting and vetting the candidates. It's their role as the chief villain in the eyes of liberal Democrats struggling to push their version of the "truth" about Obama. 

Jon Stewart rhetorically asked Chris Wallace about Fox on "Fox News Sunday, because he thought he knew the answer: "Who are the most consistently misinformed media viewers? The most consistently misinformed? Fox, Fox viewers, consistently, every poll."

The mass-marketing of profanity just won’t stop. Now’s it topping the best-selling book list – in children’s picture books. You might have heard by now that there’s a “subversive” little bedtime book for adults. It should not be read to children. It’s called “Go the F— to Sleep.”

Anyone who’s ever been up at 2 in the morning with a baby or toddler knows exactly the feeling that is being exploited here. “Total genius,” says the blurb on the front cover. Genius it is not. Anybody could have written this book in 90 minutes, tops. It’s just having the “bright idea” of a naughty nighty-night book that might make the get-quick-rich schemers jealous.

More than any other Republican presidential prospect, Sarah Palin draws white-hot journalistic loathing. She’s too red-state, too gun-toting, too religious, and too unwilling to abort a disabled “fetus.” Even so, filmmaker Steve Bannon remains deeply optimistic his forthcoming Palin documentary “The Undefeated” will sway the media to see Palin in a different light.

Bannon, a former Goldman Sachs banker turned filmmaker, told National Review’s Kathryn Lopez that once he and his producing partner delved into Palin’s life story, “we decided that not just the American people but even the mainstream media were both fair and decent -- that when presented with something that represented a completely different point of view they would be at least open to considering it.”

Traditional organizations like the Boy Scouts of America have long been under siege by atheists and pro-gay lobbyists who insist they shouldn’t have the freedom of association to maintain their God-fearing identity. But you think that’s maddening? How about the ultimate cultural flip-flop of a gay softball league going to federal court to insist that bisexual or heterosexual players can’t play ball with them?

In Seattle, Reagan-appointed U.S. District Judge John Coughenour ruled that a group called the North American Gay Amateur Athletic Alliance has a First Amendment right to limit the number of bisexual or heterosexual players.

It's so ironic that in the very midst of the Anthony Weiner Twitter scandal, television's most shameless channel, MTV, is working overtime to make any notion of sexual restraint obsolete. This year's MTV Movie Awards aerobically established a new low.

Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis are starring in the upcoming summer comedy "Friends with Benefits," yet another movie exploring the "dream life" of casual and very cold sex. As they introduced the award for Best Male Performance, Timberlake and Kunis grabbed each other's private parts on national TV.

Born blocks from the NBC soundstage in 1984 to parents in the entertainment industry, Ben Shapiro is a natural choice to write a book about Hollywood. For his new book "Primetime Propaganda," Shapiro has studied decades of television content and interviewed a bevy of powerful Hollywood producers to document the degree to which they have created a political and cultural revolution of permissive leftism.

The project gets off to a harsh start. In his introduction, Shapiro attacks "traditional" TV critics on the cultural right for being "worse than useless," suggesting some unnamed conservatives are insisting TV should not be watched. “When conservatives treat television as the Golden Calf, they leave no choice but to lay low the unbelievers -- and most of us continue to continue occasionally glancing at the offending cow."

One part of the liberal media’s Obama re-election effort is well under way: trying to destroy the reputation of Fox News and its president, Roger Ailes. Two long new magazine “exposes” have attempted to demonize Ailes and his allegedly brain-dead minions as the antithesis of good journalism.

The funnier one came from Rolling Stone magazine, which ran the title “How Roger Ailes Built the Fox News Fear Factory.” How little does this rag understand good journalism? It took only a few lines before staff writer/fantasist Tim Dickinson fell on his face. After painting a picture of employees loyally cheering the boss at a holiday party, Dickinson entertained comparisons to...Mao Zedong.

When Barack Obama replaced George Bush, there was unbridled joy among the elites. The days of "cowboy diplomacy" were over! Finally, we had a president who was a careful multi-lateralist, who wouldn't rudely impose his will, but would instead work with allies to build consensus.

But that's not what Obama delivered with Israel last week, is it? Obama went to the State Department and insisted Israel needed to stop its "unsustainable" policy toward the Palestinians and "boldly" retreat behind pre-1967 borders. A stunned Benjamin Netanyahu responded as any ally would if so roundly betrayed. He publicly – correctly – denounced Obama’s policy prescription.

Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic magazine (and website) posted an item on May 20 headlined: "Dear Mr. Netanyahu, Please Don't Speak to My President That Way." Netanyahu, he wrote, threw a "hissy fit." That pretty much encapsulated the American media’s reaction. "Cowboy diplomacy" is just fine from time to time – if the man in the saddle is Obama.

As much as CNN likes to tell the public and advertisers that it’s squarely in the sensible center between the partisan attacks of MSNBC and Fox News, the reality says otherwise. Even if CNN has no Screaming Schultzes or Crazy Larry O’Donnell types, it’s still firmly in the Democratic sphere of influence.

On his show “In The Arena” on May 12, CNN host Eliot Spitzer recounted how a story in The New York Times “brought a smile to my face. It said the president of the United States calls you for wisdom and advice about issues around the world. So first, when he calls you, what does he say? Hi, Barack calling for Fareed? What does he do?”

His guest Zakaria replied, “Mostly it's been face-to-face meetings. You know, usually organized by Tom Donilon, the national security adviser,” and it’s been a “very thoughtful conversation.” (That certainly compliments both sides of the chat.) Spitzer then added “I’m not going to ask you what you have said to the president but it makes my heart warm that the president is calling you for wisdom and advice.”

The Obamas want credit for bringing American culture to the White House. When they decided to celebrate poetry at the White House on May 10, it was really not a surprise they would try to make it socially "relevant" by inviting a rap music "artist" to unload some rhymes.

The rapper goes by the name "Common" (real name: Lonnie Rashid Lynn Jr.). He is celebrated by many on the left as a "socially conscious" street poet. But that's not the way it was seen by cops in New Jersey. ABC reporter Jake Tapper blogged that Dave Jones, president of the New Jersey State Trooper Fraternal Association, was contacted by the White House about trooper objections. Obama officials claimed they had never heard of Joanne Chesimard (who renamed herself Assata Shakur), a woman Common celebrated in "song."

As much as liberals complain about conservative “misinformation”and incivility, they never seem to find it on channels like MSNBC, and we know there are small bands of liberals that wander over there. While many were watching the first GOP presidential debate on May 5, Ed Schultz invited on left-wing bomb-thrower (and 2010 congressional-seat loser) Alan Grayson to heap mud on George W. Bush.

Schultz asked if Bush failed to accept Obama’s invitation to Ground Zero out of personal pique. Grayson replied through a smirk, “I suspect that President Bush might've been passed-out drunk for the last three or four days, so I’m not sure he made any conscious decision at all.” Schultz found that acceptable. “Great to have you with us tonight,” he said to Grayson at interview’s end. “Thank you for your take.”

That wasn’t a “take.” It was a typical smear.

It’s inevitable that the joy and national unity over the killing of that monster bin Laden would cool. Already we’re debating the journalistic and political ramifications. On Wednesday, President Obama told CBS he wouldn’t “spike the football” by releasing photos proving Osama is dead. 

I agree with the President, as much as that pains my friend Sean Hannity and other conservatives (and non-conservatives like Juan Williams). Some argue that it will put to rest any conspiracy theories that this is but a hoax. No it won’t. Let’s go back to the American killing of Saddam Hussein’s sons Uday and Qusay in 2003. To deal with the paranoia and disbelief of Iraqis, the military allowed access to the bodies...after they did facial reconstructions to make the sons look more like they did before their faces were shot off. Guess what? None of that helped with many Iraqis, who continued to express skepticism. The failure of the Hussein sons to reappear (and now Osama) should be proof for the doubters, not so for fanatics. Before he had birthers; now we’ll have deathers.

America can display a strange sexist standard on child sexual abuse. When an adult woman assaults a teenaged boy, Hollywood laughs this off as a teen dream come true. The topic was great fodder for ‘90s teen shows like “Dawson’s Creek” with not a drop of judgment inserted, proving that when Hollywood pleads it’s only “reflecting reality,” it’s really only reflecting its own reality.

Mary Kay LeTourneau started assaulting her student Vili Fuulaau when he was 12 and she was 33. When they married ten years later – and after she served seven years in jail -- the nuptials were celebrated on air by "Entertainment Tonight." The couple remains shameless. They've repeatedly hosted a "Hot for Teacher Night" at a Seattle nightclub.

Today, MTV panders to its teen audience with this same "hot for teacher" fantasy. Recently, their scuzzy British teen soap "Skins" repeatedly hinted that the young female teachers were carrying around barely submerged desires for the teenaged boys. Now the second season of MTV's teen comedy "The Hard Times of R.J. Berger" has centered an entire episode on a female teacher and a boy having loud sexual intercourse in a janitor's closet.

In the Bush years, poll results that showed the American people losing confidence in their president were featured routinely on the front page of major newspapers like The Washington Post. But when the Post discovers Obama’s ratings collapsing, you need a search party to find where inside the paper they’re buried.

On April 26, the Post offered three stories on polls, each with bad news for Obama. The only one mentioned on the front page (in the very bottom right-hand corner) was a Post/ABC poll showing “rising gas prices are leading Americans to drive less, and hurting the president’s popularity.” Then the reader would have to travel to page A-12.

“Hurting” is an understatement. Only 39 percent of those who called gas prices a “serious financial hardship” approve of Obama’s performance as president. Among independents who found hardship, 67 percent disapprove of Obama. Ouch.

For the Christian faithful, the week between Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday is sacred. It’s a time of reflection and prayer and fasting. It is Holy Week. It deserves the strongest respect.

But our secular media culture does not bend a knee – or even shut a mouth. Instead, Holy Week means it is time to grab the spotlight with the most indulgent forms of spiritual irreverence and mockery. Start with the infantile Lady Gaga. She released a new single titled "Judas."

Her primary lyrical "thought," if you can call it that, is "I'm just a holy fool, oh baby he's so cruel / But I'm still in love with Judas, baby." She says "Jesus is my virtue," but "Judas is the demon that I cling to."

Many years ago, at a mutual friend’s wedding, I was chatting with John Von Kannon, fundraiser extraordinaire for the Heritage Foundation. We were discussing the importance of his work since I was performing a similar (but far less successful) task for another political group. “Robert E. Lee deserves all the credit he’s gotten,” Von Kannon explained, “but without his supply wagons he’d have accomplished nothing.” The point is salient: in the world of politics it is the generals who make the headlines, but it is the organizers, naturally overshadowed, who make it all possible.

It is commonly accepted that without the National Review magazine and Bill Buckley there would have been no Ronald Reagan. Let the history books be amended to state that without the functional organization of its publisher,  National Review would never had survived.

I knew William A. Rusher – “Bill” to his friends, “WAR” in his National Review memoranda – pretty much my entire life. I have memories of him visiting at my parents’ home in Chevy Chase, Maryland during the Goldwater years. When I entered the public policy arena in 1979 he was a mainstay: publisher of the movement’s flagship magazine; television debater; columnist; author; mentor.

Conservatives who really wanted to see at least a spending “haircut” for NPR or public broadcasting in the underwhelming budget deal for 2011 might have suggested at least some symbolic victory for conservatives. Here it is: Fire David Brooks as the alleged conservative or Republican “counterpoint” on PBS and NPR on Friday nights. We could hire Donald Trump to announce it from the boardroom.

Or keep him, but banish forever, for once and for all, the notion that he is a man of the Right.

After President Obama’s budget speech at George Washington University, Brooks wrote a column for The New York Times declaring: “It doesn't take a genius to see that Obama is very likely to be re-elected.” Republicans may try to reform entitlements, but “voters, even Republican voters, reject this.” Obama “hit the political sweet spot with his speech this week. He made a sincere call to reduce debt, which will please independents, but he did not specify any tough choices.”

The ominous threat of a government shutdown dominated the news last week. The media weren’t wrong to cover it as a dramatic debate, but all of the hype and horror looked a little bizarre by the weekend – like wide-eyed, screaming hurricane warnings on the Weather Channel followed by a sunny calm.

When the deal was struck, the TV pundits quickly moved on to how there were sharper, harsher battles ahead over much larger chunks of federal spending. That’s true. But in hindsight, the entire shutdown fight looks by comparison like a war over who was splitting the pizza delivery bill....tip. The $38 billion in spending cuts is a bit of an achievement when Obama didn’t want to cut anything – but it’s still the drop in the proverbial $3.7 trillion bucket.

Instead of fighting over who’s the “winner” in this small skirmish, let’s just focus on a few obnoxious shutdown spins.

As the network TV barons peruse through a menu of pilots for new fall shows, some just jump out of the pile. Some Tinseltown pundits have already pegged it as “likely” that NBC will pick up a show for fall called “The Playboy Club.” Just like it sounds, the show is based in Hugh Hefner’s original Playboy Club in Chicago in swinging 1963. If that doesn’t sound porn-friendly enough, the pilot’s producers at 20th Century Fox TV required all actors on the show to sign a nudity clause – virtually unheard of in broadcast television.

"Nudity” in this contract is defined as well, nudity. But that’s not what grabs attention. This is: “Nudity as defined above and/or simulated sex acts may be required in connection with player's services in the pilot and/or series," the clause reads, according to Variety. Actors may now be required to be naked on NBC.

Despite this new low, Variety was told there was no nudity in the pilot, and producers didn’t plan any such thing for NBC. But apparently, the broadcast version would provide temptation for the titillated to buy the DVD for the “extras.” (And if there will be no nudity, why a nudity clause?)

The news leaked out Monday that Katie Couric is stepping down from her failed experiment as the anchor of the “CBS Evening News.” People inside the news business greeted the news as shocking. But what’s shocking is that Couric didn’t get the boot years ago. CBS’s ratings cratered while she earned $15 million annually.

Couric was once projected as the Great White Female Hope after Dan Rather’s involuntary retirement in 2005. His numbers in his last week had dropped to a last place 8.1 million nightly audience. But what did Couric deliver?