Matt Ortega

FOX News ran a segment yesterday about the electoral vote initiative brought forth by a group of lawyers that have, in the past, represented the California Republican Party. (California Republicans deny any involvement.) The ploy is an obvious power grab by elements of the right-wing and state Democrats have already mobilized against it. (Sign the Courage Campaign’s petition here.)

Eric Kleefield reports for TPM Cafe’s Election Central:

We are never told anything more about who these men are, who they work for, or what their partisan activities might be — all we’re told is that the guy for this initiative is “pro-reform” and the man opposed to it is “anti-reform.”

As it turns out, “pro-reform” Kevin Eckery is a Republican consultant and the spokesman for Californians for Equal Representation, the astro-turf group offering the initiative. And “anti-reform” Ari Swiller is a Democratic fundraiser.

FOX News is a complete joke of a “news organization.” Their brand of yellow journalism would even make William Randolph Hearst blush.

The conservative knockoff version of the incredibly popular The Daily Show with Jon Stewart was canceled by the FOX News Channel with the final episode to appear on September 16.

Think Progress’ Satyam Khanna summed up the embarrassingly poor reviews the show, The Half Hour News Hour, received since it first aired.

The reviews for the program were consistently dismal. Its very first review, from the Orlando Sentinel, decried the “[l]aughter, of an awfully canned variety, greets all the gags. Nothing happening on screen justifies these outbursts. … If we’re lucky, we’ll never hear of this dreadful show again.” “Sometimes the humor is so heavy-handed that it seems almost like self-parody,” said the New York Times. “The 1/2 Hour News Hour is slow torture all by itself,” said the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Conservatives failed to emulate the humor of Jon Stewart and team. Stewart and company skewer the traditional press and politicians of both parties in ways that was not only humorous but also made a serious, truthful point. There is nothing funny for Bush administration’s enablers to go on and defend their failed policies.

Maybe conservatives will figure out the same, old and tired gags just aren’t funny? … I doubt it. It is hard for a political movement so determined to live decades in the past to learn anything new.

The new chapter in the FOX Attacks series by Robert Greenwald’s Brave New Films, the production company that did Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism and Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers, shows how FOX News Channel personalities attack liberal bloggers.

Rick Perlstein, writing for the Campaign for America’s Future, jumps into the fray.