Fox Mogul Rupert Murdoch Echoes Glenn Beck, Calls Obama a Racist
Posted by Steve Benen, Washington Monthly on November 10, 2009 at 3:10 PM.

MURDOCH FANS THE FLAMES.... It seemed, for a while, like the political world was prepared to move beyond the animosity between Fox News and the White House. Presidential aides seemed to cut back on noticing the Republican network's partisan efforts, and Fox News returned to more routine, everyday bashing of Democrats.

Indeed, just 13 days ago, we learned that White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs met personally with Fox News SVP Michael Clemente. There was talk of a "truce." It was time to move on.

Or so we thought. just four days after the reported "truce," Chris Wallace gave Rush Limbaugh a half-hour of airtime on "Fox News Sunday," which the right-wing radio host used to make one ridiculous attack against the president after another. There was no obvious reason for the interview.

And just a few days after Wallace's love-fest with Limbaugh, Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch told Sky News Australia that Glenn Beck's infamous anti-Obama tirade -- Beck called the president a "racist" with "a deep-seated hatred for white people or white culture" -- was accurate.

SKY NEWS: The Glenn Beck, who you mentioned, has called Barack Obama a racist and he helped organize a protest against him. Others on Fox have likened him to Stalin. Is that defensible?

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Call Joe Lieberman's Bluff: A Real Fort Hood Inquiry Would Likely Shut Him Up
Posted by John Nichols, TheNation.com on November 10, 2009 at 11:00 AM.

Following the horrific shootings at the Fort Hood army base in Texas, Connecticut Senator Lieberman pulled a thread from the right-wing blogosphere and called for a congressional inquiry into whether the incident was an act of "terrorism."

Not domestic terrorism, but full-blown terrorism that is comparable to what is seen in the most unstable of warzones.

"This was an attack on America troops," Lieberman chirped on Fox New Sunday. "You've got to see it as if 12 American troops were killed in Afghanistan."

But, wait, U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan are fighting a strategically-sophisticated and structurally-coordinated enemy that employs traditional military tactics and terrorist strategies such as suicide bombings in urban areas.

Is Lieberman serious about making a comparison between what happened at Fort Hood and what happens in Kabul?

Not really.

When he's pinned down, Lieberman makes the slightly more precise calim that the Army doctor who killed 13 people and wounded 29 at Fort Hood showed signs of being a "self-radicalized, homegrown terrorist."

Never mind that another way of saying "self-radicalized, homegrown terrorist" might be "completely isolated mental-health case."

Never might that, when he started running the "terrorist" line on Fox New Sunday, host Chris Wallace used a sound line of questioning to make it clear that the senator did not have "any evidence so far (from) what you and your staff have heard in briefings that.. he was exchanging communications either in this country or overseas with other Islamic radicals."

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Korean Warships Exchange Fire on the SK/NK Border
Posted by Staff, AlterNet on November 10, 2009 at 8:29 AM.

From AFP:

A North Korean patrol boat was set ablaze after exchanging fire with South Korea's navy on Tuesday, Seoul officials said, as cross-border tensions rose a week before a scheduled US presidential visit.

The two sides blamed each other for the clash, the first for seven years near the disputed Yellow Sea border.

President Lee Myung-Bak called an emergency meeting of security ministers as his Prime Minister Chung Un-Chan accused the North of making a "direct attack" on a South Korean high-speed patrol craft.

"There was no damage on our side while a North Korean patrol boat engulfed in flame sailed back (across the border)," Chung told parliament.

He described the clash, which follows recent peace overtures from the North, as unplanned and urged people to stay calm.

Some analysts, however, said Pyongyang may be sending President Barack Obama a message, eight days before he arrives in South Korea as part of an Asian tour.

Defence Minister Kim Tae-Young told parliament the North's boat sailed more than 1.6 kilometres (one mile) south of the border and "I believe they clearly knew about the intrusion".

The Joint Chiefs of Staff said the South's boat sent several warning signals after the North's craft crossed the border, but the intruder held its course.

After the South fired warning shots, "the North's side opened fire, directly aiming at our ship. Then our ship responded by firing back, forcing the North Korean boat to return to the north," the statement said.

"There were no casualties on our side. We are on the lookout for any further provocations by the North," it said.

"We fired heavily on the North Korean vessel," an unidentified navy official told Yonhap news agency, adding the initial assessment was that it suffered considerable damage.

"We express our strong protest to North Korea and urge it to prevent a recurrence of such incidents," said Brigadier-General Lee Ki-Sik of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

He said the two sides exchanged fire for two minutes from a distance of about three kilometres. The North fired about 50 rounds, 15 of which hit the South Korean boat.

The border known as the Northern Limit Line (NLL) has always been a potential flashpoint and was the scene of bloody naval clashes in 1999 and 2002.

General Lee said the North breached the NLL 22 times this year. But this was the first time the South had to fire warning shots, because the patrol boat kept intruding despite five warning signals.

North Korea's military, however, told its South Korean counterpart to apologise for a "grave armed provocation" and said Seoul's ships had opened fire while its craft was north of the border.

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