There’s really no one who better represents the insidious nature of the Fox project than Kelly. Hannity and O’Reilly are packaged and sold as right-wing shouters. Kelly’s an “anchor” who professes to have no partisan bias of her own. And she could very well be telling the truth! She doesn’t need to personally believe the things she says, after all. When she casually refers to the tax burden on “the so-called rich” (so called because they are, generally), she’s just doing her job. When Kelly, in the midst of excoriating a Democrat, claims that Fox personalities don’t regularly compare liberals and Democrats to Nazis, everyone (besides some unknown non-savvy portion of her audience) knows we’re not supposed to take her seriously.

I imagine that perma-sneer, that disgusted look of disbelieving contempt that remains plastered on Kelly’s face during the entirety of “America Live,” disappears the minute the red light on top of the camera goes off, because Megyn Kelly doesn’t actually give a shit about the National Day of Prayer or seriously believe the New Black Panther Party represents a threat to democracy. She’s just happy to have a job doing something she loves: being a reliable bile-delivery system for a massive political messaging organization.

Recently, in an argument with some repulsive talk radio hack, Kelly defended not just her own paid maternity leave — the sort of professional perk that a high-powered attorney like herself would (justifiably!) feel totally entitled to — but went on to seemingly endorse European-style government-mandated paid leave for all, including fathers. The fact that a pre-leave Kelly had savagely mocked the idea of paternity leave is amusing but unsurprising. She’s a former attorney. Her primarily professional skill is convincingly making whatever argument you pay her to make. (She said as much to Rebecca Dana, in fact.) Which is so much worse and hackier than being a simple ideologue.

HACKIEST 2011 MOMENT:
Her offhand claim that police pepper spray is “a food product, essentially,” which seems like a very rough first draft of a right-wing talking point that was not quite ready for standard use by the noise machine.
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(Read the introduction here. Read the 2010 Salon Hack 30 List here.)

If I were a libertarian, I’d be embarrassed by Stossel’s prominence. Sneering contempt for supposed liberal shibboleths is not actually a well-considered political philosophy. There’s nothing “libertarian,” for example, about not believing in climate change. That’s just tribal corporatism, totally disconnected from any economics-based belief about the superiority of market forces over government industrial policy.

Stossel rehashes received wisdom without truly understanding, let alone questioning, any of it, which is basically what conservatives think every leftist college student is doing. The limits of his conclusion-first mode of advocacy journalism are exposed when he’s forced to apologize for reporting his predetermined conclusions even when the evidence doesn’t bear them out, like when he attempted to report that organic produce (which hippies and liberals like) is more dangerous than conventional produce (which is grown and picked by the great free market god, who bestows his grace on giant agribusiness conglomerates), only for it to be revealed that his own tests showed no such thing.

Of course, it’s perfectly libertarian to profess not to see what exactly is unfair or exploitative about the widespread practice of unpaid internships, a system that provides profitable organizations with free labor while offering work experience only to college students privileged enough to devote significant amounts of time to unpaid internships. “I built my career on unpaid interns,” Mr. Stossel says, which does at least explain the quality of research that goes into his specials.

HACKIEST 2011 MOMENT:
In which Stossel plays a clip from the film “Gasland,” a documentary exposing the dangers of natural gas extraction for people living near the extraction sites, and then announces that it is perfectly normal for your tap water to contain highly flammable amounts of methane. “Weird stuff happens,” Stossel says. The fact that a peer-reviewed study showed that water wells close to natural gas mines had 17 times the levels of methane in the water than wells farther away from fracturing sites is just one of those nutty coincidences.
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(Read the introduction here. Read the 2010 Salon Hack 30 List here.)

Fox has indulged its audience’s brief surges of affection for unelectable fringe candidates, from Trump through Cain, but the channel’s always been careful to remind the base that they may eventually have to hold their noses and vote for Romney. Karl Rove, who’s already running a shadow campaign against Obama, has made this point explicitly during his Fox appearances.

Romney went from trailing in the Fox News appearances list to getting more uninterrupted airtime over the last week than any other candidate. But Gingrich beat him in minutes the week before. And Newt was just on Hannity last night, where he seemed much more comfortable than Romney did in his earlier sit-down with Bret Baier, a tougher interviewer by any standard.

Watching Fox this morning, clips of Gingrich’s Hannity interview were replayed multiple times. Ron Paul’s devastating anti-Gingrich ad was excerpted for a minute, followed by a clip of Romney sounding like he believed in anthropogenic climate change.

The network seems, in other words, undecided at the moment, or at least willing to see if Gingrich can pull this out without humiliating himself like he always does. The Rovians may yet win the day, but for now Fox seems to be joining the GOP base in convincing itself that Gingrich is electable.

Ortega-Hernandez will soon be a minor historical footnote, like the guy who tried to crash a plane into Nixon’s White House, Squeaky Fromme and Sara Jane Moore, the weird guy who may have been a part of a secret plot to kill or scare Jimmy Carter, John Hinkley, the guy who tried to crash an airplane into Bill Clinton’s White House, the guy who fired bullets at Bill Clinton’s White House and the guy who fired bullets at George W. Bush’s White House. What did all of these people have in common? Their motives were … slightly difficult for rational people to comprehend. They tended to be paranoid and disturbed and their stated reasons for wishing the president dead were usually fairly incoherent.

Ortega-Hernandez wanted to kill President Obama because Ortega-Hernandez thought himself the second coming of Jesus Christ and was convinced Barack Obama was the antichrist. It’d hard to make any sort of coherent political point out of that.

But because of a bad bit of reporting — bad but understandable — ABC initially said that police suspected Ortega-Hernandez had spent time at the Occupy DC encampment, before heading out to shoot the White House. Police may have suspected that, but there’s been no evidence whatsoever that it’s the case. (He seems to have more of a connection to Oprah than Occupy, but no one is calling him the “Oprah shooter.”)

The truth has not dissuaded Fox News from repeatedly referencing Ortega-Hernandez’s completely imaginary time spent at the Occupy camp. The NRA’s radio show did the same.

But the fact that it is now known that there has never been any evidence linking Ortega-Hernandez to any Occupy event anywhere has not stopped conservatives from … crying about liberal media bias against conservatives. John Nolte at Big Journalism says: “the MSM is working overtime to make sure no narrative is created from the suspected White House shooter’s connection to #OccupyDC.”

Right, because … there’s no connection. Except that some guy at Occupy San Diego said something stupid and regrettable about feeling sympathy for the crazy guy who shot at the White House. Which is, as “connections” go, a stretch!

So here we have a wholly invented right-wing meme based on fantasy and one out-of-context line from a now out-of-date news story, repeated endlessly in an attempt to unfairly smear a political movement they despise, and the fact that responsible media outlets aren’t repeating the smear is an example of the nefarious leftist media conspiracy. Sorry the New York Times isn’t repeating this particular lie, guys!

I for one wonder why the media ins’t investigating the shooter’s connections to the University of Texas College Republicans.

For instance, I learned that basically everyone in Congress is demanding that Eric Holder retire because of something to do with Solyndra. Someone on a panel said that the people in Congress demanding Holder’s retirement were not very important members of Congress but that person was shouted down because every member of Congress is important, especially when they are providing grist for the Fox faux-scandal mill.

I also learned that there is a baby missing, named Baby Lisa, and that Baby Lisa’s mother almost certainly is responsible, because Baby Lisa’s mother had an online dating profile. I had literally never heard of Baby Lisa before Monday, but Fox covered Baby Lisa more than any other story save the Penn State situation. The Murdoch tabloid ethos still drives Fox as much as the Ailes political agenda.

And I learned that Megyn Kelly and her child take the subway, which I found slightly hard to believe.

But here’s what I learned about Occupy Wall Street and its related movements across the nation: They are gross.

On Monday, most Occupy movement coverage was handled by field correspondent Casey Stegall, a bland, sufficiently handsome local news veteran working out of Fox’s Los Angeles bureau. His noon report referenced “the squalor of the camps,” used quotes from city and police sources exclusively, and only featured anti-Occupy “man on the street” clips. (One lady was disgusted at the presence of a futon at Occupy Oakland.)

An hour later, Stegall returned for another report hitting the same notes: A “squalid mess,” “defecating, urinating, and vomiting all over the plaza,” and more clips of citizens grossed out by the dinginess of those squalid hippies in their squalor. Plus: Reports of violence! “Clearly the violence detracts from the message they’re trying to send,” Stegall said, though “the message they’re trying to send” was never once addressed.

Occupy wasn’t mentioned again until 3:45, when Shepard Smith had a brief but mostly objective report on Occupy Wall Street from Jonathan Hunt. Shep mentioned that the demonstrations are against “what they call corporate greed.” Hunt brought up reports of TB, because “crime and squalor” were clearly Fox’s talking points, but Smith’s segment was largely fair, if not particularly sympathetic.

Bret Baier’s “Special Report” led with a brief attack on Michael Moore for being fat attempting to “profit” off the movement, but then it was back to Baby Lisa.

So in a workday’s worth of news, there was not one actual interview with an occupier, or even someone remotely sympathetic to the Occupy movement. There was only one mention of what the Occupy movement is supposed to be about, in fact. The rest was filth and crime.

Much more time was spent dissecting President Obama’s ill-considered but essentially harmless statement about how America has become “lazy” about attracting foreign investment. “Obama calls Americans lazy” was the official attack line, and every show devoted at least one full segment to a lengthy discussion of Obama’s contempt for America.

On early Tuesday morning, Occupy Wall Street was forcibly evicted by the NYPD in a violent paramilitary raid. Hundreds of protesters and multiple members of the press were arrested. The police used tear gas and, reportedly, an anti-terror “acoustic” weapon. On Tuesday, though, Fox was still much more concerned with former Penn State coach and accused child abuser Jerry Sandusky than with the raid and eviction.

“Fox & Friends” did cheer the raid, putting a very Fox “GOOD RIDDANCE” chyron on footage of police in Zuccotti Park. But I didn’t hear more about the raid until 10:10 a.m., when Martha MacCallum teased an upcoming segment: After the break, Steve Forbes would be on to discuss the Occupy Wall Street eviction!

Yes, Steve Forbes, the millionaire media scion and flat-tax advocate. The Forbes segment was only half devoted to OWS, with Forbes offering pearls of wisdom like “I wish they’d go to Washington and start protesting at the Federal Reserve.” MacCallum and Forbes agreed that the Federal Housing Administration would also be a worthy target of an occupation, and then they began talking about Herman Cain and Newt Gingrich.

At 11, Julie Banderas did a routine cable news report on the eviction, though at no point was it mentioned that the city and the NYPD were in violation of a court order requiring them to allow protesters and their belongings back into the park until the judge had ruled on the legality of anti-occupation rules. They played video of Michael Bloomberg’s statement, and, obviously, did not counter it with any sort of statement from occupiers or their legal representatives.

The same, more or less, an hour later. “This is now a legal issue, and as we get more information we’ll pass it on to you.”

At 1:00, the vicious Megyn Kelly takes over, and all the news is delivered with an extra dose of sneering. “The party’s over,” she said of the OWS raid, bringing up “sanitary problems” again, and not mentioning reports of police brutality or the arrests of reporters.

OWS was ignored until, once again, Shepard Smith came on at 3 to actually treat the story with a bit of nuance and objectivity. He led by mentioning the court order the city was ignoring, then went back to Jonathan Hunt, who noted “a marked rise in tensions as we await the judge’s ruling.” Smith: “Protesters and some journalists, for that matter, are saying cops were heavy-handed here.” Hunt, trying very hard not to accuse the NYPD of what they did: “We cannot independently confirm any of that.” Though he did note that the police moved all cameras well away from the park.

Smith then hosted an annoying discussion of the legal issues with two Fox lawyers: Arthur Aidala and Randy Zelin. For two New York criminal defense attorneys, they’re both markedly pro-NYPD. Zelin in particular was excitedly scaremongering. OWS will “shut down the New York City Criminal Courts system” — and the city as a whole — if the judge rules against them, Zelin predicted, repeatedly calling the prospect of civil disobedience “scary.” Smith pointed out that widespread civil disobedience “is not a new concept in America.” “No, but it’s scary nonetheless,” Zelin responded. Smith brought up anti-Vietnam protests, and the segment ended with one of the lawyers “joking” that we should send all the protesters to Guantanamo Bay.

The “scary” prospect of widespread action was clearly the late-developing talking point du jour, as 4 p.m. host Neil Cavuto repeatedly seemed almost annoyed that occupiers weren’t violently rioting. He kept hyping the prospect of eventual riots, even as nothing of the sort materialized. “This might not go down well,” he said. “This might get dicey,” he prayed. (He also brought on South Dakota Rep. Kristi Noem, who said she thinks Occupiers should instead be Occupying the White House.)

At 4:18, Cavuto brought on libertarian commentator Andrew Napolitano, a man who is definitely a kook but who is at least a kook with principles beyond naked Republican partisanship. Napolitano declined to criticize OWS at all, instead attacking the city of New York for requiring private corporations to provide public (or semi-public) spaces. He correctly noted that the NYPD and the city were in violation of a court order ordering them to allow protesters in the park, and when Cavuto brought up his much-hoped-for riots (“this could get messy, legal argument notwithstanding”), Napolitano simply said that if the judge ruled against OWS, protesters attempting to Occupy Zuccotti could be charged with contempt of court.

After the judge ruled against allowing OWS to have tents and structures in the park, Cavuto bemoaned the “subdued response so far,” as everyone simply refused to riot. “Whether that remains the case, we’ll see.” Then legal anaylist Mercedes Colwin — another defense attorney — said “bravo for the judge,” because “it was really all about public safety.” (If OWS isn’t violent, it is at least still gross.) Cavuto prayed once more for mass arrests, and then it was on to Fox News’ “The Five,” a panel discussion show so deeply stupid and awful that I cannot bring myself to summarize a single thing anyone said on it.

So after two days of the supposedly “news”-based Fox News programming, I now know that the entire Occupy movement is mostly about their right to vomit and defecate wherever they like. And it threatens to become violent — deadly violent! — at literally any moment.

I imagine coverage of this sort — the “grossness” of the entire thing, with any discussion of the movement’s aims or goals entirely absent — is a large part of what made public opinion of the Occupy movement grow slightly sour.