I'm a Man! An Anchor-MAN!

Juan Williams hard at work in the Fox Research Library

First off, is that a cute kid or what?

The attached was an open letter from me to Juan Williams asking him to confront the liar on his right with that liar's own words. I posted it up a couple of months ago at Kos’ estimable establishment, and I bring it over here for a several reasons:

• The facts still remain the facts. Brit “Evil Gumby sans Botox” Hume did most definitely lie. He has been an unabashed a pimp for the Bush family for decades, but in this case he not only used his position to “Strongarm Williams” the Preznit’s agenda, but he fucking well lied to do it.
• Hume will ever be Wormwood’s own press flak, but Juan Williams continues to dine out on his “Liberal” credentials, and Fox continues to pick up the tab. Williams speaks for no one but himself and his masters and IMHO the Quislings and the kapos that continue to pretend to side with us always need to be loudly called to account for their sins.
• Like a gift from some Rodney Dangerfield God, Social Security is still a dead horse that the Preznit will not allow his loyal orcs to stop beating. He’s thrown his mother, small children and filing cabinets at us, and the American public still wants him to STFU already. So OK, a lie is a lie is a lie, true enough, but this one is still very much attached to a story with momentum.
• To demonstrate it is possible for driftglass to go on for whole paragraphs at a time without so much as suggesting that Moderates and Accommodationists should use various farm implements to gratify themselves sexually. Repeatedly. Anally. Then die.
• This was and is no small matter. It was thoroughly tracked and covered. It was all over Kos, MediaMatters, Atrio, et al. And from the MSM, not a whisper. Not a peep. Not a discouraging word.
• If any of you lovely people would like to send this letter along to Mr. Williams, letting him know that we still await an answer, that'd be cool. If, however, you know Mr. Williams or can contact him, or happen upon him in a public venue, or he’s got a speaking gig...

Dear Mr. Williams,
This weekend you will again be on the air in front of millions of Americans, and will be sitting 15 feet away from Mr. Brit Hume. Mr. Hume has said some remarkably hateful and stupid things in his long and ugly career as Loyal Bush Family Retainer, but Sunday , February 13th represented a new low even for him.

Comparing the likes of "Manwhore" Jeff Gannon with a distinguished, award-winning journalist such as Ms. Helen Thomas and the legendary Mark Twain shows a level of sneering contempt on Mr. Hume's part for both the truth and the public interest he is supposed to serve that leaves me feeling physically ill. Because Ms. Thomas is "liberal" and Gannon is "conservative", we are apparently supposed to ignore all of the many, rancid facts of this case that are actually relevant, including the sad irony that Ms. Thomas has been effectively gagged and forced to sit in the back, while the Administration has given pride of place to a male-prostitute-cum-fake-journalist. The Twain rationale is equally squalid: that since Mark Twain was a reporter (among other things) who wrote under a nom de plume, and so is Gannon, we should all just shut up and forget the actual facts.

It is painfully obvious that Fox News has given up any pretext of objectivity, but you, Mr. Williams, give these sock-puppets the veneer of credibility. The presence of you & Ms. Liasson on the panel every Sunday allow them maintain the fiction that "Fair & Balanced" is something other than an international punch-line. By acting as the ineffectually whining token minority/liberal, you stooge for your enemies, Mr. Williams, and you harm your friends.

So far, what Mr. Hume has said about Gannon-gate are matters of his opinion. They are despicable and ludicrous opinions, obviously intended to smokescreen the Administration's misdeeds (And when exactly did that become a journalist's job, Mr. Williams?) but they are opinions nonetheless. However as I am sure you know, Mr. Hume has also recently lied about Social Security. Not opined: Lied.

Mr. Hume cut-and-pasted quotes from a speech by Franklin D. Roosevelt like a ransom note, deliberately inverting the meaning of the original text to make it appear that FDR would have and did support the privatization of Social Security.

That is a lie, and one that has been widely reported. There is no subtlety or nuance here: The original text is in the public domain, as are Mr. Hume's lies, which have been dutifully repeated by other Republican apparatchiks. So the simple question is, why hasn't Mr. Hume resigned? Or why hasn't he been fired? It seems to me that what's good for Dan Rather should certainly be good enough for Brit Hume.

Unfortunately Mr. Williams, members of the general public do not have any public platform from which to challenge Mr. Hume on his lies, but you do. I challenge you to confront a liar with his own words, and ask him why he should keep his job when Dan Rather had to lose his. You will be sitting 15 feet away from Mr. Hume and millions of us will be watching you to see what you are really made of.

This is a job for a journalist, Mr. Williams: Please just do your job.