"Saturday Night Live" in its recent installment took shots at the Fox News Channel for what it saw as an amazingly one-sided, anti-Obama take on Tuesday's election results.

The skit began with an off-screen announcer declaring, "You're watching Fox News, continuous coverage of the 2009 election -- end of an era."

On screen at that moment was a picture of President Obama above a graphic which read, "End Of An Era."

Actress Kristin Wiig, doing a marvelous impersonation of Greta Van Susteren, then hosted a discussion on the election results which included one-sided opinions from actors impersonating Glenn Beck, Brit Hume, Karl Rove, Shepard Smith, Joe Trippi, and Juan Williams.

The group was ecstatic over what happened in New Jersey and Virginia, but chose not to discuss Democrat Bill Owens victory in New York's 23rd Congressional district (video embedded below the fold h/t Story Balloon):

After another round of attacks from the White House, this time from higher levels of the Obama administration, Brit Hume, a senior political analyst for Fox News, went to bat for his network.

On the Oct. 19 broadcast of Fox News Channel's "Special Report with Bret Baier," Hume gave his best effort to rationalize why White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and Obama Senior Advisor David Axelrod used two Sunday morning news show appearances to beat up on the highly rated news channel. According to Hume, it was because they disapproved of the stories his channel broke over the last few months.

"It is a little hard to discern a strategy behind the White House campaign of criticism of Fox News unless it's simply this - an attempt to quarantine Fox and thereby discourage other media outlets from following up stories did originate here," Hume said. "The White House is clearly stung by the revelations about former aid Van Jones. He turned out to have harbored views that were out there where the buses don't run and he was forced to resign. And the White House could not much have cared for the hidden camera expose of ACORN - an organization with which the president had a past association and one whose voter registration drives have benefited the Democratic Party."

It's obvious the Obama administration has a low regard for Fox News as a media outlet - whether it has been President Barack Obama hinting at what he has thought about Fox News, the administration passing over Fox News in a recent round of Sunday morning interviews or as White House communications director Anita Dunn recently has done - just declare open season on the network.

However Brit Hume, now a senior political analyst for Fox News and regarded as a veteran figure at the news organization, took the White House head on. In his "Brit Hume Commentary" segment on Fox News Channel's Oct. 12 "Special Report with Bret Baier," Hume, pointed out this "feud" the Obama administration has decided to elevate is a bad idea.

"Every president ends up disgusted with the news media in general and with certain individuals or outlets in particular, but there is an old adage often attributed to Mark Twain that advises against picking fights with people who buy ink by the barrel," Hume said. "He is speaking of the big media of his day, which were newspapers."

"This president who travels the world apologizing for his country couldn't quite apologize for himself."

So said Brit Hume on the most recent installment of "Fox News Sunday" as the panel discussed Barack Obama's handling of the Henry Louis Gates affair.

Adding insult to injury, there was virtual unanimity that the President erred in this matter, and erred badly (video embedded below the fold with partial transcript):

Columnist Charles Krauthammer noted on FNC's Special Report that while “there wasn't exactly aggressiveness on the part of the press with a couple of exceptions” during the afternoon presidential press conference, “it looked as if the stupor that the press has been in for the last six months is lifting slightly.” Krauthammer quipped: “I say that as a psychiatrist who has a lot of experience in watching these things.”

Earlier in the program, Brit Hume declared “the head over heals phase of the honeymoon with the press is over” and he speculated: “I think the reporters down there were tired of being criticized for being soft on Obama.”

As Media Research Center VP for Research and Publications Brent Baker reported two days ago, the roundtable for ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday took up the media’s favoritism toward President Obama. Host George Stephanopoulos marveled at “how obsessed the President and the White House are with Fox News,” prompting columnist George Will to observe that’s because “it’s the discordant note in an otherwise harmonious chorus.”

On Monday's The O'Reilly Factor, Bill O'Reilly asked FNC senior political analyst Brit Hume if "Obama is handling the dissent that he finds at Fox any differently than other presidents handle dissent?" Hume responded by acknowledging that:

Keith Olbermann, who in March scolded Fox News's Brit Hume for admitting that he often used information provided by the Media Research Center in his "Special Report" program, has once again channeled material taken directly from the far-left, George Soros funded, Clinton front-group Media Matters for America.

Even better, the story was actually precipitated by an article read on the air Friday afternoon during -- wait for it!!! -- Rush Limbaugh's radio show.

But before we get there, embedded below the fold is the video and partial transcript from Friday evening's "Countdown" on MSNBC:

The swine flu story has captured the news cycle for three days and counting now and that's perpetuating the hysteria, according to Fox News Channel's Brit Hume. 

Hume appeared on the FNC's "The Live Desk with Trace Gallagher" April 27 and blasted the media in general for hyping the swine flu story 24/7.

"I realize it's been a slow weekend in terms of news," Hume said. "The president went out and played golf on Sunday. The White House reporters don't have much to work with today, so they're trying to get a piece of this swine flu story, which you know, all the cable news channels are agog about, bug-eyed about. But so far, it doesn't amount to much in the United States of America."

Moments ago C-SPAN ended a showing of the MRC's Thursday night gala featuring the DisHonors Awards and the William F. Buckley Jr. Award for Media Excellence which was presented to, and accepted by, Brit Hume.

It will re-run tonight (Saturday) at 11:09 PM EDT (10:09 PM CDT, 9:09 PM CDT and 8:09 PM PDT), when they will carry just under two hours of our show.

Sorry for the lack of advance notice. Usually when C-SPAN covers our event it is not shown until months later, so this took me by surprise -- and as of Friday night C-SPAN's schedule for Saturday night was blank. I just happened to flip by C-SPAN a few minutes ago and saw it.

MSNBC host Keith Olbermann, who has a history of using distorted or even factually inaccurate information -- much of which he gets from far-left sources like Media Matters for America and Think Progress -- on Friday's Countdown show accused FNC's Brit Hume of making a "dumbfounding" admission that "he was fed a buffet of daily talking points" by the "lunatic fringe, right wing" Media Research Center, which the MSNBC host identified as a Web site "run by the perpetually angry Brent Bozell." During the show's "Worst Person in the World" segment, after designating Hume with the second place distinction, Olbermann also claimed that Hume's "admission" was "as startling as if he had confessed to making up the news out of whole cloth or reading it off a ouija board." Olbermann was referring to Hume’s Thursday speech at the MRC’s annual Dishonors Awards gala, as the former FNC anchor accepted the "William F. Buckley Jr. Award for Media Excellence."

And during a discussion with left-wing Family Guy producer Seth MacFarlane about a number of off-color comments made by several conservative public figures during the week, the two characterized Joe the Plumber's stage entrance at the MRC event as "gay," with MacFarlane cracking that "they're the people who are supposed to be opposed to homosexuality," and that "that‘s kind of an oddly gay entrance, wasn't it? 'God Bless the USA' and that welting, wistful tone." Olbermann played along, adding that "the guy looks like he just jumped off the Brawny towel thing."

The Media Research Center's annual “DisHonors Awards,” held Thursday night, furnished MSNBC's Keith Olbermann with comments to ridicule, but his rants exposed his own hypocrisy. As Brit Hume accepted our “William F. Buckley Jr. Award for Media Excellence” he thanked the MRC for providing information he could use, leading Olbermann to denounce Hume at the top of Friday's Countdown: “Brit Hume's dumbfounding admission. He was fed a buffet of daily talking points by an ultra-conservative media site and quote 'we certainly made tremendous use of it.'”

As if Olbermann doesn't graze a “buffet of daily talking points” from an “ultra-liberal media site.” The headline over a post earlier in the day on Media Matters' “County Fair” blog: “Accepting Buckley award, Fox's Hume thanked Media Research Center 'for the tremendous amount of material' they 'provided me for so many years when I was anchoring Special Report.'” Unlike Olbermann, however, Hume almost always credited the MRC so viewers were informed of his source.

Before subsequently reading the Hume quote verbatim as transcribed by Media Matters, Olbermann charged “Brit Hume admits that for years he's been reading daily talking points, from a lunatic-fringe right wing Web site, on the news” and that Hume “made an admission at a DC dinner last night as startling as if he had confessed to making up the news out of whole cloth or reading it off a ouija board.”

Last night Fox New Channel's Brit Hume became the third recipient of the Media Research Center's William F. Buckley Jr. Award for Media Excellence.

MRC President Brent Bozell heralded Hume as "a pioneer of sorts, a journalist who recognized how the lock-step liberalism of his colleagues was damaging the profession he loved."

"Recently, a top ABC correspondent told me that letting Brit Hume leave that network was the biggest mistake it ever made," Bozell added.

You can watch Hume's acceptance speech embedded at right.  Below is a transcript of Hume's acceptance speech:

We hope Chris Matthews isn't too jealous of Bill Weir. Conquering fierce competition, the ABC reporter pulled out a victory last night in the "Obamagasm Award" at the MRC's DisHonors Awards. [audio available here]

Media Research Center President and NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell chatted about the ceremony this morning on "Fox & Friends."

JULIET HUDDY, co-host: There's something called the Obamagasm Award. Who won that and explain the significance of that award?

BRENT BOZELL, MRC President: Well, the Obamagasm Award is given to that reporter who has swooned the most, and I mean there are all manner of descriptors --

BRIAN KILMEADE, co-host: Tough category here!

BOZELL: for the media's coverage.

STEVE DOOCY, co-host: Exactly right. Brent, we've got the clip, let's look at Bill Weir of ABC.

"Fox News Sunday" featured a fabulous interview with Presidents George H. W. and George W. Bush today demonstrating that regardless of their political leaning, these are two fine gentlemen who deeply love their country and have the utmost respect for the office they held.

What was particularly fascinating was how they both had nothing but positive things to say about president-elect Barack Obama, as well as his cabinet picks, and that they refused to say anything negative about him.

In fact, if you forward to minute 3:00 of the video embedded below the fold, you'll witness an absolutely marvelous discussion about why they believe former presidents should keep their opposing views of the current executive to themselves, as well as what they think of administration leakers and those that write tell-all books for financial gain (partial transcript follows as well):

At the same time NBC's Brian Williams and Andrea Mitchell were drinking and snacking at a D.C. event hosted by Fox News honoring Brit Hume’s career on Thursday night, Keith Olbermann was busy insulting and demeaning him.

Olbermann couldn’t stand the idea that anyone would claim that the New Deal failed to end the Depression: "Also, did you know everybody now agrees the New Deal failed, everybody. Apparently, Brit Hume held a vote. It was unanimous, FDR sucked, ahead in Worst Persons." Hume came in third in that night's Worst Person in the World contest:

The bronze to Brit Hume of Fox Noise, now in the rewriting history department over there. "Everybody agrees, I think, on both sides of the spectrum now that the New Deal failed. The debate is over why it failed." Sure. Everybody, except the most recent Nobel Prize laureate in economics, Paul Krugman, who just wrote that the New Deal`s long term achievements remain the bedrock of our nation`s economic stability, and except for probably a majority of economists, economic professors. But Brit Hume agrees with Brit Hume. That will show that damn Roosevelt.

The roundtable on Monday night's Special Report with Brit Hume on FNC was not kind to the New York Times's hit piece on Sunday's front page that blamed President Bush and only Bush for the mortgage meltdown, ignoring the Democrats in Congress who protected the irresponsible push for more "affordable housing" by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (as Times Watch noted yesterday).

Nina Easton, Washington bureau chief of Fortune magazine, pronounced herself "flabbergasted when I read this story, flabbergasted....You cannot write a story about affordable housing policies and blame it on George Bush instead of the Democrats. I mean, it’s just, it’s outrageous."

From the Monday night Special Report with Brit Hume:

In short items Thursday night, ABC anchor Charles Gibson and FNC anchor Brit Hume both noted how House Democrats voted to replace Congressman John Dingell of Michigan -- as Chairman of the Committee on Energy and Commerce -- with Congressman Henry Waxman, but only Hume identified Waxman as a liberal: “Waxman is a strong liberal and environmental advocate.” Gibson left out any ideological tag as he echoed Hume's environmental “advocate” language in benignly describing the Californian, who now chairs the Government Reform Committee, as “a strong advocate of environmental issues.”

ABC News wasn't so reticent about labeling former Republican Congressman Dan Burton who, after the GOP's 1995 takeover of the House assumed the chairmanship of the same committee Waxman now leads (Government Reform). In a story on the April 10, 1994 edition of the long-defunct prime time ABC News magazine show Day One, reporter John McKenzie marginalized Burton as “an ultraconservative Republican from suburban Indianapolis” who “is a favorite of the far right.”

Waxman, who represents Beverly Hills, Malibu and much of coastal Los Angeles County, is certainly a favorite of the far-left.

On Wednesday’s “Special Report,” Fox News anchor Brit Hume cited CMI’s new study, “A Study in Character Assassanation: How the TV Networks Have Portrayed Sarah Palin as Dunce or Demon.”