Guest blogged by Ernest A. Canning

“A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes.” - Mark Twain

"All that is needed for the forces of evil to triumph is for enough good men to do nothing." -Edmund Burke

In a society increasingly dominated by dictatorial and corrupt corporate wealth and power, a collection of community organizations, The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), steps forward to become the voice of the most vulnerable of our citizens --- the poor and lower-middle class. It is a national coalition which not only strives to insure that these otherwise atomized and powerless masses retain and exercise their equal right to vote, but a caring organization which seeks a living wage for all citizens; that tries to protect them from predatory lenders and phony foreclosure assistance scams.

At a time when the heartless and uncaring Bush/Cheney cabal left thousands of our fellow citizens to sink or swim in a toxic soup of petrochemicals, flood waters and decaying bodies, ACORN, according to the Congressional Research Service [PDF], stepped forward to assist "in the clean-up of 1,850 homes and" organized "10,000 hurricane survivors into the ACORN Katrina Survivors Association."

So it comes as no surprise that ACORN has become the target of a years-long relentless right-wing assault, most recently spearheaded by the likes of accused federal felon James O'Keefe and his serial dissembling employer and publisher, Andrew Breitbart. Neither is it a surprise that the phony pimp's video hit pieces emerged on Rupert Murdoch's own Fox "News" Channel, which Robert Greenwald so forcefully demonstrated was but the propaganda arm of the GOP in Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism.

It is, however, slightly more surprising, and certainly most noteworthy, that now that they've been exposed as hoaxes, even Murdoch's own New York Post was forced to describe the doctored tapes as a "'heavily edited' splice job that only made it appear as though the organization's workers were advising a pimp and prostitute on how to get a mortgage...[with] many of the seemingly crime-encouraging answers...taken out of context so as to appear more sinister."

What is truly disturbing, however, is that this concocted tale would be unquestioningly accepted as legitimate by the corporate media and by Congress, which, in their rush to mollify the noisy hard-right, displayed a profound ignorance of basic concepts of fundamental fairness and due process of law.

ACORN was prematurely and inappropriately tried and convicted in the press and in Congress, without so much as a single hearing, vis a vis a grotesque and shameful word-of-mouth propaganda lynch job unseen since the days of Joseph McCarthy, the disgraced, right-wing demagogue who misused his powerful perch in the U.S. Senate to smear "loyal Americans as disloyal" and who falsely "charged that the government was being undermined from within"...

Earlier this week, the Brooklyn D.A. concluded a five-month investigation of the Brooklyn ACORN videos, finding "no criminality." Following the release of the findings, Rupert Murdoch's own New York Post, of all places, reported it this way:

Using similar language, the New York Daily News reported a law enforcement source as noting: "They edited the tape to meet their agenda."

The New York Times, the so-called "paper of record," while reporting that the DA found no criminality, offered no such coverage of the DA's office explaining that the videos were deceptively and misleading edited and promoted as if they revealed something they actually didn't. The language used by Times reporter Andy Newman even appears to defy the paper's own Public Editor Clark Hoyt's recommendation --- as he shared it with me via email personally --- to "avoid language that says or suggests that O'Keefe was dressed as a pimp when he captured the ACORN employees on camera." (More specific details on that in my post from yesterday.)

In the meantime, as the Times continues to fail, last night Stephen Colbert mocked the entire ACORN "pimp" hoax as we've been revealing it over the last several weeks and, along with it, James O'Keefe, Andrew Breitbart, Fox "News" --- and, yes, indirectly, the New York Times --- by sharing his own "exclusive," damning, and heavily-edited video interview...

Related: Yesterday ACORN launched a campaign to fight back and "Demand Accountability" from the Times and the other media outlets that have grotesquely misreported this story and have still failed to correct their damagingly inaccurate coverage. More on that campaign and how you can add your voice to it, right here...

If you watched the two separate nights over which Bill O'Reilly cut up his O'Reilly Factor interview with Jon Stewart on Fox "News" this week, as we did, you probably found that both nights fell surprisingly flat, given that Stewart, at least, usually offers a reason to make these things "must watch" moments.

Well, there's a reason it fell flat, as noted by Gawker today, O'Reilly cut out most of the best stuff...

Gawker's selection of some of the best video that never made air --- along with descriptions of how some of them were cleverly gutted before making it onto air --- is posted right here.

Now they've got the "must watch" stuff. Really. And all of it, far more entertaining and interesting and challenging than what actually made it onto O'Reilly's air. Go figure.

[Updated twice below. Once with Hannity's "apology" and then with Stewart's response to it.]

The Daily Show still offers just about the best news coverage on cable...

UPDATE: Media Matters documents how Hannity's phony video is only "the tip of Fox News' video-doctoring iceberg"...

UPDATE, 7:48pm PT: Having no choice but to cop to it, Hannity admits getting busted, though claims it was "an inadvertent mistake". How one can inadvertently go fetch footage from two months ago, and "inadvertently" edit it into a report on an event that took place earlier on the same day is not entirely clear.

He failed to explain to his viewers the context in which the "incorrect video" actually was shown. Neither did he run Stewart's report from last night explaining clearly how Hannity had attempted to fool them. So, as usual, Hannity's viewers remain largely both in the dark and misinformed.

Here's the transcript and the video of Hannity's statement, which came at the very end of his show tonight, about an hour ago...

How queer. With 75,000 protesters --- about the same number that turned out for the "gigantic" Teabagger rally on 9/12 in D.C. --- turning out last Sunday in D.C. to rally for equal protection under the law for all Americans (yes, even gay ones), Fox "News," and all the others, seem to have forgotten to send out anybody to cover it.

No outrage from you teabaggers about that? Glenn Beck? Really? Nothing? Hmm. Video courtesy of RAW STORY...

"The nightmare that is our health care system." - Jan. '08 for CNN
"The best health care system in the world." - Aug. '09 for Fox "News"

Why The Daily Show must be the one to reveal this stuff on broadcast television remains far beyond our pay grade. We're just glad that someone does....

But what's becoming more and more clear is that Beck seems to be taking a page from the Ann Coulter playbook: Say something outrageous, no matter how factually deficient, whether you believe it or not, in order to help rile the easily riled Republicanist/Fox "News" base, piss off everyone else, garner media attention to yourself, make millions of dollars in the bargain, largely off the losers you're exploiting and lying to in the first place.

Worked well for Coulter, still is, seems to be working very well for Beck now too. (Also for Sarah Palin, though there's some question whether she's smart enough to realize that's what she's doing. Beck, however, knows damn well what he's doing, and knows damn well that he's an unapologetic liar and opportunist, playing the Fox "News" base for the gullible suckers and chumps that they are. Doesn't care.)

In case you missed this, it's an amazing admission, and should be a part of every debate about government-run healthcare --- tossed in the face of every wingnut who says government can't run anything, much less healthcare. And yet, we allow the government to run the healthcare system for our troops, who, Bill Kristol admits in this interview, deserve "first class health care," while "the rest of us can go out and buy insurance."

The uncomfortable inference, for Kristol, is that government-run healthcare is as good, if not better than, that available to private citizens. To make it worse, Kristol is booed when he argues that's the way it should be. Whoops...

Thank you again, Jon Stewart. No wonder the country finds you (in TIME's online poll anyway), "America's Most Trusted Newscaster."

The video above, featuring just a part of their healthcare discussion, is courtesy of RAW STORY. Stewart's complete interview with Kristol, which was trimmed down for length before airing last night, follows in full below...

And on a "lighter" note, Colbert takes a look at the report that AG Eric Holder is "on the verge of" appointing a prosecutor to look into Bush/Cheney torture, and the media's dismal coverage (hello NBC's Chuck Todd!), contending that carrying out the Rule of Law against politicians --- apparently only Republican ones --- should be avoided, because politicians would debate about it on television...

We missed last night's Daily Show, but thanks to the alert Megan Carpentier at Jezebel, we see that BRAD BLOG commenter "Roger" was quoted in reply to Sen. Linsdey Graham (R-SC)'s ingenious use of anonymous Internet slams on Sonia Sotomayor to attack her during her Senate oversight hearings this week...

Well done, Roger! Good anonymous name-calling! We couldn't be prouder.

No. He's not crazy at all. Glenn Beck pours metaphorical "gasoline" on "himself," his viewers, and his imagined newly-tyrannical America, and his own, and his viewers', rapidly accelerating, self-perpetuated sense of victim-hood. When he/they eventually --- and it shouldn't be long at this rate --- actually light the match and blow themselves/us up, feel free to point back to this item, when we're told "who could have predicted it?"...

Beck's daily hour on governmentally subsidized cable TV, and three hours daily on our publicly owned radio waves, is a tremendously responsible use government welfare, and reflects brilliantly on our Founding Fathers' guarantee to one single industry --- and one single industry only (the press) --- in our U.S. Constitution.

That's a very responsible use of that singular Constitutional dispensation, Glenn. Keep up the bad work.

BTW, in case you missed it on Wednesday, Jon Stewart --- an actually responsible steward of public largess --- spoke directly and brilliantly to the crazies like Beck and Hannity and O'Reilly and Levin and Bachmann et al, by informing them (since they don't seem to know): "I think you might be confusing tyranny with losing...that's not tyranny, that's democracy"...

That video --- actually worth watching and taking notes --- follows below...

Perhaps one of the funniest bits ever on Colbert. If you didn't see it last night --- or Glenn Beck's multiple, recent insane breakdowns on the Fox "News" Channel --- this video is a "Must Watch"! (Video courtesy RAW STORY)...

This was the most remarkable, and enlightening conversation I've seen on television in lord knows how long. Probably since Stewart's last landmark take-down of corporate broadcast media failure in 2004. The conversation here with CNBC's Jim Cramer --- unprecedented over three segments of last night's The Daily Show --- was simply remarkable.

Please take the time to watch this in full, and wonder again why it is that it's a "comic" on a satirical news show who has become America's most out-spoken, most articulate leader on these crucial issues of survival for our nation...

My take-way, though it was never spoken to directly, is that business news and business journalism --- right now more than ever --- must be about real reporting, and real accountability on behalf of the people, as opposed to simply cheerleading on behalf of the business community, as it has been for so long now

Stewart is also owed a great thanks here, in that I believe this may be (or should be) a landmark moment in discussion of this issue. Just as his remarkable October 2004 take-down of Tucker Carlson and Paul Begala on CNN's Crossfire (taken out of our misery shortly thereafter), essentially for the same reason --- using valuable broadcast time to perpetuate blood-sport and/or cheerleading, instead of actual news reporting in the public's interest --- I hope his no-holds-barred conversation with Cramer will lead to a similar re-thinking of the role of broadcast business journalism.

Stewart's similarly stunning October 15th, 2004 appearance on CNN's Crossfire is re-posted below for your convenience, the video, and highlights from the text transcript were originally posted here...

From last night's Colbert Report:

Colbert's probing look at the whacked-out world of the whacked-out Beck, as now proudly featured on everyone's favorite whacked-out cable "news" channel, courtesy of RAW STORY...

Because I can use this now as much as you likely can...On Thursday night, The Daily Show's John Oliver slammed the GOP "ACORN Voter Fraud" phonies and the entire, obnoxious (and I believe very ill-advised) "community organizer" insult. Hope you'll enjoy it as much as I did! For the record, our special coverage page on the GOP's "ACORN 'Voter Fraud' Hoax" is right here...

Said David Alan Grier at the end of Comedy Central's Chocolate News this week, after being shown a touch-screen voting machine which tries to talk him out of voting for Barack Obama, tells him that he's Muslim, and then registers the vote for John McCain anyway: "For all you Barack Obama supporters out there, if you see a machine like this, beat it like it stole something. Cause it almost did. Your vote."

Not that we'd ever advocate the way Grier resolves the problem. (Though we admit it was quite satisfying to watch. Like pornography for election integrity geeks. 2 mins...)