Big shock here - MSNBC's Rachel Maddow agrees with the White House, which is the Fox News Channel is not really a news organization.

Sarcasm aside, on her Oct. 23 MSNBC program, Maddow attempted to justify the Obama administration's tack over recent months with Fox News. She laid out a series of events over the past few days that indicated an escalation of the feud between Fox News and the White House, specifically an effort to exclude Fox News from the White House pool.

"Well yesterday the White House said that Fox would not be among the networks invited to interview Ken Feinberg in one of these round-robin pool interviews and the other networks came to Fox's defense," Maddow reported. "They said they would bow out of interviewing Mr. Feinberg's themselves unless Fox was included, so Fox was included."

When Glenn Beck reports that a top-level White House advisor has endorsed communism, accused 'white polluters' of poisoning minority communities, called his political opponents a**holes, and believes an American president was complicit in the slaughter of innocent civilians, Beck must have a hidden agenda. When the mainstream media fails to report these facts, it's all an honest mistake.

Or so one might gather from listening to CNN contributor and Washington Post columnist Howard Kurtz. Kurtz continues to waffle between a cynical take on Glenn Beck's outing of Van Jones as a truther conspiracy theorist, and an apologetic approach to the mainstream media's virtual silence on the story until after Jones's resignation.

The Times's Managing Editor Jill Abramson offered a number of excuses for the lack of Van Jones coverage last weekend, chiefly that the paper's Washington Bureau was short-staffed. This did not stop the Times from sending two reporters to Boston for the weekend to cover the non-story of Joseph Kennedy II's Senate run (which he later said would not happen).

What a difference two weeks make.

On August 30, CNN's Howard Kurtz accused Glenn Beck of attacking former green jobs czar Van Jones in retaliation for the advertising boycott the Jones-founded group Color of Change had organized against the Fox News host.

Now that Jones has been forced to resign as a result of numerous allegations uncovered and/or reported by Beck, Kurtz is wondering why most other news outlets totally ignored this story.

To refresh your memory, here's what Kurtz said about Beck on "Reliable Sources" two weeks ago (video embedded below the fold):

Ana Marie Cox, until the end of last year the Washington editor for Time magazine's Web site, concluded her Friday night (September 4) fill-in gig as host of MSNBC's Rachel Maddow Show -- where she was hardly shy about conveying her liberal views as she spent much of the hour ridiculing conservatives -- by pulling open her jacket to display how underneath she was wearing a vintage “I'm Ready for Teddy Kennedy '76” T-shirt. (For the historically-challenged, Kennedy did not run in 1976.)

Now a weekend host for the left-wing Air America radio network, Cox explained: “It's a tribute, of sorts, to the fallen liberal lion.” A blogger for The Daily Beast, where the title for her last post was “God Loves Obama,” she quickly added that Kennedy was not her first apparel choice: “I actually was looking for a Wellstone shirt. If anyone can find a Wellstone shirt, very interested in it, classic.”

When four members of the media, only one of them decidely right-leaning, agree on something, viewers should pay heed: blaming conservative talk show hosts whenever someone goes on an unprovoked shooting spree is wrong.

Such was the unanimous conclusion reached on Sunday's "Reliable Sources" when host Howard Kurtz and his guests -- Mark Halperin of Time magazine, Ana Marie Cox of Air America Radio, and Jim Geraghty of National Review -- got together to discuss the predictable reaction to Wednesday's killings at the Holocaust Museum Memorial.

Most surprisingly, even the uber-liberal Cox concurred:

I do think it is irresponsible to make that a very like hard connection. I have to totally disagree with Rachel [Maddow] and Keith [Olbermann] on this. I think that that was going a little bit too far to compare him to Rush Limbaugh.

Imagine that. What follows is an embedded video of this surprising segment (relevant section at 12:00) along with a partial transcript:

There she goes again, revealing more than intended.

Hardly a broadcast of her MSNBC cable show passes without Rachel Maddow earnestly claiming to have invited a Republican guest, only to be told, thanks no thanks.

But based on Maddow's remarks on her show this past Friday evening, those claims come across as dubious -- given Maddow's censorious rationale for selecting guests. Or more accurately, those possessing the temerity to disagree with her politics.

Maddow had this to say during a discussion with Ana Marie Cox about what they perceive as more vocal criticism of Obama from Republicans who do not hold elected office (click here for audio) --

MSNBC prides itself as being the place for politics, the seemingly clever marketing slogan could be used to describe the network as the place where hosts try to use dirty humor about important political events.

David Shuster, filling in for MSNBC loose-cannon Keith Olbermann on his April 13 broadcast, and his writers probably thought they were pretty clever when they pieced an item denigrating the tax protests by using the sexual term "teabagging."  Urbandictionary.com, cited multiple times by one MSNBC guest, describes it as when a man places his testicles "onto someone's face, or into their mouth."

"For most Americans, Wednesday, April 15th will be Tax Day," Shuster said as he began a soliloquy with about a dozen separate oral sex puns. "But in our fourth story tonight: It's going to be teabagging day for the right-wing and they're going nuts for it. Thousands of them whipped out the festivities early this past weekend, and while the parties are officially toothless, the teabaggers are full-throated about their goals.

Yes -- "perhaps." Hard to believe there are people who harbor doubts about this. Not so shocking to learn they dwell on the left side of the aisle.

Former "Wonkette" blogger Ana Marie Cox, a contributor to Time magazine and The Daily Beast, appeared on Rachel Maddow's MSNBC show last night to discuss, among other things, a Los Angeles Times story about Bush cabinet members receiving talking points on accomplishments they can cite from the 43rd president's tumultuous tenure.

Two of the achievements cited are that Bush has "kept the American people safe" since 9/11 and the president's work to curb AIDS in Africa. Maddow and Cox take it from here --

There really are no words, though I suppose we'll manage to find some.  Wonkette, which bills itself as "the DC Gossip," and is the creation of Ana Marie Cox, now gone on to bigger things at Time, has this photograph up of Trig Palin, dressed for Halloween as an elephant and being held in the loving embrace of one of his sisters. [H/t Damian at Conservathink.]

Wonkette appends its comment, suggesting—and there really is no way to sugar coat it—that given the choice Trig would rather have been aborted:

If you don't have immediate primary results, there is always resorting to cheap shots. On Time's Swampland blog, Ana Marie Cox dipped back into the Limbaugh-druggie jokes:

Conventional wisdom -- and, who knows, maybe it's the truth -- has it that a close night tonight for McCain will be due to talk radio. Fine. But does a not-as-good-as-it-should-be* result for McCain necessarily bode well for Mitt Romney? I couldn't help but notice the way the nets have been slugging the story: [Graphic from CNN on Limbaugh vs. McCain]

Because, you know, Limbaugh's not the one that's running. I'm sure he could beat McCain -- at least in ratings, and maybe in an election if R's opinions on drug use change dramatically -- but Romney is the one that needs to.

Time online editor Ana Marie Cox apparently believes a dated quip by Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney should be considered a "macaca moment." During a Florida event on Monday, Romney, joking with a group of young people, quoted a rather lame song by the Baha Men. After asking who had a camera, he blurted, "Who let the dogs out? Who? Who?"

Now, most people would simply smile or appreciate Romney's friendly, if somewhat dorky, sense of humor. Cox, however, at Time's "Swampland" blog, wondered, "Shouldn't it be a 'macaca moment'? I suspect he's not being pilloried for it because the moment [sic] less offensive than it is cringe-inducing..." She also described the candidate's comments, which occurred at a Martin Luther King day event, as "jive talking." (Hat tip to Hot Air, who also remembered that Cox previously went after Romney for not taking proper care of the family dog.) Is Time's online editor simply looking for a scandal, any scandal, to hit Mitt Romney with?  

UPDATE: Video here.

Ana Marie Cox: not just a snarky ex-blogger turned Time editor anymore -- now a theologian who has pronounced Mitt Romney not a Christian.

The former Wonkette is all over MSNBC today. Early today on "Morning Joe," Cox cattily swiped at Katie Couric, surmising that the CBS Evening News anchor was traveling to the Middle East because she needed rugs. She has since claimed to have intended no slight to Katie or Middle Easterners. Right. Screencap from MJ after the break.

This evening, Cox appeared on "Countdown" to discuss the Larry Craig matter with Olbermann. Talk turned to the way Mitt Romney (R-Mass.) has dealt with the situation. The Idaho senator had served as Romney's co-chairman in the Senate. Romney was quick to disassociate Craig from his campaign, and Tuesday referred to Craig's behavior as "disgusting

Update 15:34 (see bottom of post): Cox explains her rug joke.

I had great expectations when Ana Marie Cox turned up on the "Morning Joe" panel, confident the tart-tongued former Wonkette would produce plenty of grist for our NB mill. But over the course of the week, Cox has been disappointingly subdued, leaving it to the congenial Tamron Hall to produce our headlines. Perhaps Ana Marie's new gig at staid "Time" magazine has caused her to hide her acerbic light under a barrel.

But the strain of being restrained was maybe too much for Ana Marie, for she began this morning's show with a catty swipe at Katie Couric.

Host Joe Scarborough began the opening chit-chat by noting that CBS Evening News anchor Couric has announced her plans to visit Iraq and Syria. That's when Ana Marie pounced.

JOE SCARBOROUGH: So Katie's going off to the war zone. Did you read that? Katie Couric.

ANA MARIE COX: Needs some rugs, maybe. I don't know.

R-e-o-o-w-w-w!

View video here.

Here's another item for the "Bush Won't Win Praise in the Media By Going Soft on Gitmo" file.

It was posted on Friday, pre-presidential colonoscopy (hence the snark about the Cheney administration), but I just came across it today.

In "Bush's Anti-Torture Executive Order! Uhm, Not So Fast," Time.com Washington editor Ana Marie Cox laments that the new Bush administration interrogation directives for Gitmo detainees will still allow sleep deprivation (emphasis mine):