As investigations against News Corp. get rolling in the U.K. and possibly the U.S. over e-mail and phone hacking, critics of CEO Rupert Murdoch have been trying hard with the lengths they’re going to to try and make this an America relevant scandal to rock the ages and sink the Murdoch empire. Instead of letting it play out to find out who the bad guys in this situation are, I have been seeing tons of blog and press from Murdochs competitors make that decision.

Mostly it’s just silly grasping at straws. Like this video was posted by the increasingly disappointing ThinkProgress.org with the headline “FLASHBACK: Rupert Murdoch Smacks Down Fox News Host For Bringing Up Hacking Scandal”. I fell for the bait thinking that I was in for a treat with something juicy. What kind of twitchy body language of annoyance or anger would Murdoch show as he told one of his employees to shut up and fall in line? What degrading “don’t forget your place here, boy” type of slam was I in for?

MURDOCH: I’m not talking about that issue at all today, I’m sorry.

and thats it… The dude essentially said “no comment” and Lee Fang writing at Think Progress just made up an alternate reality over it.

VARNEY: The story that is really buzzing all around the country and certainly here in New York is that the News of the World, a News Corporation Newspaper in Britain, used–

MURDOCH: I’m not talking about that issue at all today, I’m sorry.

VARNEY: Okay. No worries, Mr. Chairman that’s fine with me!

Murdoch: I’m too far removed out of here.

Isn’t lying in journalism – even if you don’t like the person or thing you’re lying about – bad journalism? Shouldn’t people who criticize Murdochs publications for doing that, maybe…not do that themselves? It’s also amusing that the beef against Newscorp publications is that they’re allegedly fake news (“Faux News” is an old meme), yet this whole scandal is about Newscorp being so dedicated to reporting news that employees may have illegally hacked into politicians and crime victims phones.

Fox News Watch, a weekend show on the Fox News Channel that discusses media reaction to news items sums up the details of the scandal before discussing here:

Outrage over the audacity of Fox News to allege that their critics and competitors excessive coverage has been excessive has of course already started and will continue with this clip, I’m sure, as it reiterates what I’ve been saying for weeks and what was said during a brief segment on FNC’s morning show Fox & Friends earlier: y’all are lookin silly as f#ck over this.

Rebekah Brooks, Newscorp International CEO has been arrested in London. if she’s guilty of hacking someones phone – throw the book at her. If Rupert Murdoch knew this was happening – throw a copy of the first book at him too. It’s interesting news on it’s own. why do people feel compelled to lie about it to make it even more sensational?

Mediaite describes:

Radio talk show host Nancy Skinner sparked an entertaining–and at times somewhat bizarre–discussion on Fox News Thursday afternoon, as host Martha MacCallum attempted to lead a discussion of Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign announcement. Skinner, who has a show on Detroit radio and has served as a political commentator for Fox, MSNBC and CNN, quickly shifted from Romney to Bush. She suggested that Romney’s speech was about “laying out the case of how badly President Bush screwed up our economy” before beginning a disjointed defense of President Obama that led to an argument over poll results.

I’m making the shriek that came out of her my new ringtone for every female in my address book.

Rule: If this chick can handle it then you should be able to also:

“they want his mane but they wont say his name… im talking of course about Justin Bieber the 16 going on delicious pop star”… and people doubt that this is the best show on cable news?

Call it the Flip and Switch, the Flow, or the Twitch: the Bieber hairstyle — with sideswept bangs that end about an inch past where the Beatles snipped theirs off — is everywhere. Tim Urban wore it on “American Idol” before he was voted off in late April, and Miles Heizer wears it on the NBC show “Parenthood” to play a brooding teenager. The idea is that the front-combed bangs are so long that they must be flicked aside constantly with a whole lot of attitude.

The majority of boys in the sixth-grade class of Ms. Friedman’s son have the Bieber. “You can’t see any eyes,” she said, describing the scene at a school dance she chaperoned recently. “There are no eyes, and there’s a lot of flipping.”

Just last week, a boy who came to Cozy’s Cuts surreptitiously showed his stylist a picture of Justin Bieber on his camera and asked her to replicate the look. “He said, ‘That’s what I want — don’t tell my mom,’ ” said Ms. Friedman, whose three salons charge $29.95 for the cut.

-from the article Bangs Like Justin’s (but Don’t Say So), in the New York Times.. whose motto is “all the news that’s fit to print”…

This part of the speech is what Hannity was referring to:

The worst part is that he could have actually made a point there if he weren’t such a knee-jerk Republican shill that thought non-hilarious one-liners like that were acceptable retorts to the opposition in power.

He could have, for instance, maybe brought up the fact that Obama is going to triple the national deficit this year and even the Whitehouse’s own estimates show they plan to put Bush’s spending to shame.

And it doesn’t stop there, Woody. This Buzz Lightyear is going to Infinity and Beyond:

Karl Rove gave an ACTUAL response to the Bush stuff (is it too late to give him Hannitys job?):

transcript from Karl Rove’s segment with Greta Van Susteren:

“I can find no administration in which there is such a frequent recourse to blame the previous administration…

They want to blame the Bush Administration for the debt. I happened to be last week in a debate with David Plouffe in which he blamed the Bush Administration for the deficit this year. And I said, “Wait a minute, what about your spending bill? It was your bill, President Obama’s $787 billion Stimulus Bill. What about the $33 billion SCHIP bill that he signed? What about the $410 billion Omnibus Bill?” In reflection didn’t Senator Obama support the rescue package the recovery package last fall, the $750 billion to help rescue the banks? $350 billion dollars of that was spent by the time he got into office. If he didn’t like that spending he could have said, “You know were not going to spend another dime of that $350 billion,” and yet he did…

I think this is wearing thin. This is causing the American people to say, “Wait a minute. This is all your spending. Why do you keep blaming the guy who came before you?”