Fred Barnes, a frequent Fox News commentator and executive editor of the Weekly Standard, has issued a call to arms: conservatives must “infiltrate” the supposedly liberal mainstream media. “What we need to do right now is dedicate ourselves to expanding our influence and not just sitting back and complaining about the mainstream media, but infiltrating them, overtaking them and changing the American media into something that is fair and balanced, once and for all,” Barnes told a dinner held by the conservative magazine American Spectator.

Barnes outlined his takeover plan for attendees at the swanky event:

Barnes and some other media critics argue that the broader, more liberal media still decide the daily story and political agenda, so he’s calling for a two-pronged war. One goal is to develop conservative reporters. “We need more smart, young people in journalism,” he argues, “to infiltrate—infiltrate!—the mainstream media. It can be done.”

Then he wants wealthy conservatives to build media outlets. Citing the millions of dollars thrown at political campaigns, he says “there is a lot of money out there that can be used to start new magazines, to buy television networks, to buy newspapers, to start newspapers—so much can be done.”

Barnes begins with a popular but false premise: that the mainstream media is somehow biased against conservatives. The “liberal media” myth has been widely analyzed and debunked, and it’s especially curious that Barnes calls for a more powerful conservative media funded by wealthy conservatives. Barnes, of course, is a highly visible commentator for Fox News, which is owned by conservative billionaire Rupert Murdoch and consistently gets more viewers than MSNBC, CNN, and CNBC combined.

Fox’s significant influence aside, conservatives have already done a fairly good job of “infiltrating” the mainstream media. RedState founder Erick Erickson appears regularly on CNN; paleoconservative Pat Buchanan airs his views almost every day on MSNBC, frequently on Morning Joe, where the eponymous host is a former Republican congressman; conservative flamethrower Andrew Breitbart was hired (then fired) by ABC to do election analysis; the Washington Post regularly gives space to people like Marc Thiessen, Charles Krauthammer, William Kristol, Robert Kagan, and now Jennifer Rubin, and even recently invited Dinesh D’Souza to write an op-ed explaining that President Obama is actually and African anti-colonialist.

And Barnes’ complaints aside, there’s not much evidence that even Tea Partiers feel maligned by the evil “lamestream” media. A recent Washington Post survey found that by a 76-23 margin, most local Tea Party leaders found coverage of their groups to be fair.

The American Spectator, which hosted the event Barnes spoke at, has been advancing the plans for self-financed conservative media for over a decade. In the 1990s, billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife, who owns the Spectator, invested millions of dollars in “The Arkansas Project,” the magazine’s “investigative” effort that produced wild, unfounded stories tying Bill Clinton to everything from Whitewater to murder, drug dealing, and the death of Vince Foster. Their efforts are echoed today by the likes of Breitbart, who began “Big Government,” a well-funded conservative news effort known so far for producing “journalism” that would make Scaife proud: the ACORN videos and the Shirley Sherrod “expose.” Both were projects of James O’Keefe, presumably the one of the “smart, young people in journalism” that Barnes is advocating for.

Barnes’ whining and agitating about the “liberal media” is likely aimed at further advancing more journalism in the mold of Fox News, Scaife and Breitbart. That’s not something our political dialogue lacks, and certainly not something it needs more of.

Moments after President Obama nominated Solicitor General Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court, the right wing mobilized against her, claiming that she “banned” military recruiters during her tenure as dean of Harvard Law School.

Yesterday, Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) became the first senator to oppose Kagan, citing her “poor judgment” when she “banned the U.S. military from recruiting on campus.” Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) said last night that Kagan “block[ed] these wonderful men and women from being on the campus,” while House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) said in statement that her decision to “ban” recruiters was “troubling.”

The right-wing media has dutifully latched onto this talking point. Watch a compilation:

In reality, Kagan never booted, banned, or barred recruiters from Harvard Law School. As White House adviser Valerie Jarrett noted on MSNBC this morning, “One of the years she was dean, actually [military] enrollment went up on campus.” Here are the key facts:

1) Kagan briefly prevented the military from using the school’s Office of Career Services (OCS), but never barred recruiters from campus, allowing them to operate through the school’s Veterans Association during her entire tenure.

2) Harvard Law School has a long-standing policy designed to prohibit employers that discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation from recruiting through the OCS, but made an exception for the military, which Kagan observed.

3) Seeking to fully enforce Harvard’s policy, Kagan supported an effort to overturn the Solomon Amendment, which would have stripped Harvard of $400 million in federal grant money had she barred recruiters from using the OCS.

4) In 2004, a federal appeals court ruled against the Pentagon on the Solomon Amendment, and Kagan briefly prohibited the military from using the OCS.

5) In 2006, the Supreme Court overturned the appeals court, and Kagan reinstated the military’s right to use the OCS.

Even ultra-conservative Fox News legal analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano understood this, explaining that Kagan was “following the law as it then existed.”

As former Harvard Law School dean Robert Clark explained in today’s Wall Street Journal, “Outside observers may disagree with the moral and policy judgments made by those at Harvard Law School. But it would be very wrong to portray Elena Kagan as hostile to the U.S. military. Quite the opposite is true.” Despite expressing her objections to the military’s discrimination against gays, Kagan never “banned” military recruiters from the law school campus.

On MSNBC yesterday, Pat Buchanan repeatedly attacked Supreme Court nominee Judge Sonia Sotomayor as an “affirmative action candidate,” echoing right-wing claims that she has “been the recipient of preferential treatment for most of her life.” On Bill Bennett’s radio show this morning, Weekly Standard editor Fred Barnes argued “that she’s one of those who has benefited from affirmative action over the years tremendously.” When Bennett noted that she graduated Summa Cum Laude from Princeton, which he called “a pretty big deal,” Barnes dismissed it, saying “I guess it is”:

BARNES: I think you can make the case that she’s one of those who has benefited from affirmative action over the years tremendously.

BENNETT: Yeah, well, maybe so. Did she get into Princeton on affirmative action, one wonders.

BARNES: One wonders.

BENNETT: Summa Cum Laude, I don’t think you get on affirmative action. I don’t know what her major was, but Summa Cum Laude’s a pretty big deal.

BARNES: I guess it is, but you know, there’s some schools and maybe Princeton’s not one of them, where if you don’t get Summa Cum Laude then or some kind of Cum Laude, you then, you’re a D+ student.

Listen here:

On Tuesday night, former Bush adviser Karl Rove said that despite her stellar academic credentials, Sotomayor was “not necessarily” smart. “I know lots of stupid people who went to Ivy League schools,” said Rove.

Transcript: Read more

Unlike a large majority of the country (and the world), the Weekly Standard’s Fred Barnes loves former President Bush. Last month, Barnes declared that Bush is just like Abraham Lincoln (despite what historians think). “Not only was [Lincoln] America’s greatest president, I think he was America’s greatest political leader,” he said. “You know what was more like Lincoln in his presidency? George W. Bush.”

Barnes picked up on this delusion last weekend during Fox News’s “Beltway Boys” program. When co-host Mort Kondracke said Bush deserves credit for declining to criticize President Obama last week, Barnes claimed that Bush will eventually get credit for “his Iraq intervention, which worked.” And like Kondracke, Barnes added that Iraqis have given Bush credit too — for “feel[ing] secure”:

BARNES: There’s one group, that I haven’t heard of until recently, is giving Bush credit and that’s the Iraqi people. Look, a recent poll of over 2,000 Iraqis shows 46 percent say they feel secure where they live, which is in Iraq. Last March, only 20 percent could say that. Pretty impressive, huh? I thought so.

Watch it:

A recent ABC/BBC/NHK poll found that 46 percent of Iraqis said that “conditions” where they live are “very good.” But unfortunately, the poll never asks where the credit lies. In fact, some of the results in the very same poll suggest that Iraqis dislike Bush, dislike his decision to invade, and want U.S. forces to leave.

According to the poll, 62 percent said Muntadar al-Zaidi, the journalist who threw his shoes at Bush last December, “is a hero.” A further 10 percent said he is a hero but deemed his actions to be criminal. Moreover, many said that the election of Obama “will make things better for Iraq.” But also, the poll found that a majority of Iraqis also think Bush’s decision to invade Iraq was “somewhat” or “absolutely” wrong while a plurality (46 percent) said they want all U.S. forces out of Iraq before the 2011 deadline set by last year’s security agreement.

Just last week, Barnes declared “Mission Accomplished” in Iraq.

Last weekend on Fox News’s “Beltway Boys” program, co-hosts Mort Kondracke and Fred Barnes brought up the 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s birth, on February 12. “I’m glad you pointed this out,” Kondracke said to Barnes. “Well I’m a great Lincoln fan,” Barnes added.

Barnes, of course, is also a great George W. Bush fan and thus seized the opportunity to boast about how much Bush is just like Lincoln:

BARNES: Not only was he America’s greatest president, I think he was America’s greatest political leader. He was so incredibly shrewd. Well, Obama has made — he was from Illinois and Lincoln was from Illinois and that’s fine. But in some ways, you know what was more like Lincoln in his presidency? George W. Bush.

Watch it:

But Barnes may be disappointed by a recent analysis from a group of — what some might probably argue — more objective observers. On Sunday, C-SPAN released a survey in which 65 presidential historians ranked the former presidents “on ten attributes of leadership.” While they ranked Lincoln first, Bush came in at number 36.

Moreover, many historians “are now wondering whether Bush, in fact, will be remembered as the very worst president in all of American history.” Indeed, according to an informal poll of historians last year, 98 percent rated Bush’s presidency a failure while 60 percent said Bush is the worst of all U.S. presidents.

Nevertheless, the loyal Bushies like Barnes (and Karl Rove, Alberto Gonzales, Newt Gingrich, John Gibson, David Brooks, Glenn Beck, Rudy Giuliani and even Bush himself) will continue to fog the mirrors trying to make you believe Bush is one of the best presidents ever — just like Lincoln. But as legal scholar Garrett Epps once noted, “George W. Bush is Lincoln the way Dan Quayle is Jack Kennedy.”

Last night on Fox News, war hawks Charles Krauthammer and Fred Barnes expressed outrage at President-elect Obama’s pledge to close the Guantanamo Bay prison for suspected terrorists. As an alternative, Krauthammer called on Democrats to pass an “indefinite detention” law; Barnes wholeheartedly agreed:

KRAUTHAMMER: We’re going to have to have a law which is going to allow indefinite detention, and it is going to be Democrats who will actually have to craft it. I think that’s poetic justice. [...]

BARNES: Guantanamo will be hard. You have to pass new laws. As Charles says, you have to pass a permanent detention law in the case of some of these guys.

However the two did not agree on the rationalization for such a law. Barnes said Gitmo detainees are “almost” treated better there than in any other prison in the world, while Krauthammer argued that the U.S. interned Germans and Japanese indefinitely during WWII and the same should apply now. Watch it:

Countdown to Crawford notes that White House spokesman Tony Fratto took issue today with journalists using the term “bailout” to describe the $700 billion package. “It’s really unfortunate shorthand for a very complicated issue,” he said. The White House prefers the word “rescue.” For insight into why the White House is playing semantic word games, consider what Fred Barnes said last week on Fox News:

We would be in a better situation, or at least the Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson would if this were known as a “rescue” rather than a “bailout.” “Bailout” sounds terrible. Who is for a bailout? A lot of people are for a rescue.

UPDATE: This morning, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) made a similar a comment:

Well I think what happened is we didn’t convince enough Republicans and Democrats…that this was a rescue package and not a bailout.

Watch it:

UPDATE II: Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) today: “When you call it a bailout, nobody’s in favor of a bailout.”