Herodotus
Ostensible bust of Herodotus

History is supposedly something you study in school. For me, news is a report of some event or some writing or some speech that just happened.  Recently. Because news refers to something new.

History is simply the context for that news. Without context, all of w bush's speeches or edicts would not inform us of much. If you read one of his speeches for instance, you would be in no position to agree with it or to take umbrage with it.  When you actually listen to the tapes of that idiot speaking, you really do not need much context to understand that the man was ill prepared, ill read (since he never read the speech before hand anyway) and ill qualified to give that particular speech. The context is right there for all to see.

What history would tell you concerning a speech of w bush's in, say 2007, would be that besides being incompetent, he was a goddamnable liar. History would provide you with copies of prior speeches so that you could readily see the inconsistencies. History would provide you with copies of other speeches given by other members of w bush's administration or party and that would lead any reasonable person to the conclusion that w bush was a goddamnable liar. 

I could delve into this nonsense further, but I take up too much space as it is in order to state the obvious.

There are instances every single day airing on MSM where the pundit or emcee or q-tee renders a false history in order to provide a false context for the 'news'. Sometimes the error more than just appears to be made intentionally by the would-be historian. Sometimes the error appears to just be reckless disregard for the truth. Sometimes the error is made in order to provide hyperbole to further an evil purpose.  Sometimes the speaker is just an idiot.

Glenn Beck is probably the worst historian I have ever witnessed. My opinion here would be based upon quantity and quality. Just this past week, beckerhead has stated that:

The new health legislation will foment something akin to the French Revolution-- http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201003180017

I do not wish to get into the events leading up to the French Revolution in this space, but suffice it to say that peckerhead has no frickin idea what led up to the French Revolution or what that revolution entailed. 

That the new proposed health care legislation is a 'turning point' like the Civil War or Pearl Harbor.

650,000 Americans lost their lives in a four year period fighting the Civil War. 250.000 Americans lost their lives in a four year global war.  For peckerhead to compare the pending vote in both houses of Congress relating to health care  to this kind of carnage is despicable to the nth degree of despicableness. It grieves me so damn much that I really would like to see someone bash him in the head with a Louisville Slugger, ten or twenty times.

Here are just some other historical perspectives of peckerhead:

4. "The only [Katrina victims] we're seeing on television are the scumbags." -"The Glenn Beck Program," Sept. 9, 2005 (Source)

5. "I think there is a handful of people who hate America. Unfortunately for them, a lot of them are losing their homes in a forest fire today." -on why people who lost their homes in forest fires in California had it coming, "The Glenn Beck Program," Oct. 22, 2007 (Source)

7. "Al Gore's not going to be rounding up Jews and exterminating them. It is the same tactic, however. The goal is different. The goal is globalization...And you must silence all dissenting voices. That's what Hitler did. That's what Al Gore, the U.N., and everybody on the global warming bandwagon [are doing]." -"The Glenn Beck Program," May 1, 2007 (Source)

8. "So here you have Barack Obama going in and spending the money on embryonic stem cell research. ... Eugenics. In case you don't know what Eugenics led us to: the Final Solution. A master race! A perfect person. ... The stuff that we are facing is absolutely frightening." -"The Glenn Beck Program," March 9, 2009 (Source)

9. "You have the artwork of Mussolini there, here in New York at Rockefeller Plaza." -analyzing the artwork decorating Rockefeller Plaza, which he said contained a hammer and sickle, Glenn Beck show on FOX News Channel, Sept. 2, 2009 (Source) http://politicalhumor.about.com/od/stupidquotes/a/glenn-beck-quotes.htm

10. "O-L-I-G-A-R-H-Y." -misspelling "oligarchy" on his chalk board while claiming he had deciphered a secret code that he said was proof President Obama was trying to create an "Oligarhy," Aug. 27, 2009, Glenn Beck show on FOX News Channel (Source) 

Recently Bret Bairer (pronounced Bare ass hat) had the opportunity to interview the President of the United States of America. He interrupted the Commander-in-Chief over and over and over again:

The conservative blogosphere is abuzz over the Bret Baier's contentious interview Wednesday with President Obama. Of course, Baier's repeated interruptions and confrontational tone should come as no surprise. After all, the Fox News hatchet man established his partisan bona fides two years ago in an exclusive interview with President Bush titled, "George W. Bush: Fighting to the Finish." And in that lovefest which Fox News deemed a "historic documentary" (and which is available from Amazon.com for $19.95), Baier compared Bush to Abraham Lincoln.

Mercifully, you don't waste your money or your time listening to a fawning Bret Baier toss George W. Bush softball questions or lay rhetorical rose pedals as his feet during that 2008 hagiography. After his "unflinching, fair and balanced interview with the 43rd president," Baier explained how Bush "was inspired by the writings and deeds of Abraham Lincoln":

"We talked a lot about President Lincoln. And there's going to be a lot of people out there who watch this hour and say, is he trying to equate himself with Lincoln?

I tell you what - he thinks about Lincoln and the tough times that he had during the Civil War. 600,000 dead. The country essentially hated him when he was leaving office.   http://crooksandliars.com/node?destination=node

As that one wise sage once asked: Other than that Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play? And Lincoln was idolized by just about everybody above the Mason Dixon Line and the racist, secessionist Nazis south of that border did in fact despise the man. And it should be pointed out, those people residing in those states at the time of Abraham Lincoln's death were not citizens of the United States of America.  The Southern States (with the exception of Louisiana) had not yet been readmitted to the Union. So, I suppose, if asshat had stated that at the time Lincoln left office (I mean how stupid do you have to be to get a job on the air at Fox anyway?) that all the traitors really hated the President.

And comparing one of the four or five worst presidents who ever sat in the oval office with Abraham Lincoln demonstrates an intent on the part of the 'journalist' to obfuscate, misrepresent and prevaricate to an extent rarely seen.

Just looking at  asshat's history, there should be no doubt in anybody's mind what his intent was during that interview with President Obama.

Now CNN has hired a new commentator. His name is Erick Erickson. (What shall we call him dear? Oh, let me think....how about Erick. Oh a wonderful idea.) And this guy demonstrates an intent that almost makes the fascist Dick Morris seem civil at times.

He started a right wing fascist conservative corporate oligarchist blog a few years ago...fine. Josh Marshall started a liberal blog site here once upon a time.

As Rachel Slajda points out, when Erick Erickson writes about liberals, he tends to violate the old RedState bans on obscenities and insults. Mr Erickson called retired Supreme Court justice David Souter a "goat fucking child molester". With regard to the Tim Tebow anti-abortion Super-Bowl commercial, he tweeted: "That's what the feminazis were enraged over? Seriously?!? Wow. That's what being too ugly to get a date does to your brain". Another post's opening must be quoted in full to get the flavour:

Is Obama Shagging Hookers Behind the Media's Back?

I assume not. I assume that Obama's marxist harpy wife would go Lorena Bobbit on him should he even think about it, but I ask the question to make one simple point: Barack Obama, like Elliott Spitzer, is a creation of the liberal media and, as a result, could be a serial killing transvestite and the media would turn a blind eye.

It goes on; it gets worse. But what worries me about Mr Erickson's selection as a political commentator on CNN is not so much his history of insults or obscenities as his history as a manipulative propagandist. The RedState project doesn't seem to have worked, in the end; "flyerhawk" seems to have posted his last comment in 2008, and a quick search appears to indicate there are no liberals left on the site, self-censoring or otherwise. On the other hand, when Mr Erickson joins CNN, it will be a victory for the Overton-window strategy of hammering away at bomb-throwing, insulting, radical, extremist rhetoric until people come to see once-unacceptable positions as reasonable  http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2010/03/cnn_and_right

MSM has demonstrated that it is not a good source for understanding history. The history of anything. The history of any time. The history of any person. The history of its own inception.

There are about 90 seconds--if you are lucky--to respond to some historical question on MSM. The pundits who run the actual show can go on and on as long as they wish subject to pressure from producers and directors. MSM is there to sell cleaning products and sponges on a stick.

But Fox has decided that History is so much in the eyes of the beholder that they will just make up their own, whenever they wish.

And Fox is being rewarded for acting in such a manner with the highest ratings of all the news stations.

CNN is now capitulating. It is losing one of its few liberal correspondents to ABC and bringing on this fascist prick Erickson.

I have four hours of good news to play in the background every week day on MSNBC. Normally all four hours repeat the same news. Soon it will be the only four hours available on all of the 24 hour news stations to receive some perspective on today's events.

I am going to finish this post with a fine comment from Peckerhead no too long ago that I witnessed:

2. "I'm thinking about killing Michael Moore, and I'm wondering if I could kill him myself, or if I would need to hire somebody to do it. ... No, I think I could. I think he could be looking me in the eye, you know, and I could just be choking the life out. Is this wrong? I stopped wearing my What Would Jesus -- band -- Do, and I've lost all sense of right and wrong now. I used to be able to say, 'Yeah, I'd kill Michael Moore,' and then I'd see the little band: What Would Jesus Do? And then I'd realize, 'Oh, you wouldn't kill Michael Moore. Or at least you wouldn't choke him to death.'

What this blog has left out of this quote is even more illuminating. He said that he could shoot Michael Moore right in the head with no hesitancy. And the least he would be able to do for America would be to reimburse anyone who did shoot Michael Moore for the cost of the bullets.