Can you say "bitter"? That's the vibe Slate.com Editor-in-Chief Jacob Weisberg gave off in an Oct. 17 column, which will appear in the Oct. 26 issue of Newsweek, about Fox News headlined "The O'Garbage Factor."

Weisberg, who once diagnosed former President George W. Bush with a learning disability, contends the Fox News Channel goes beyond just making liberal media elitist like himself cringe - it's actually un-American. Weisberg alluded to the recent rift between the White House and the Fox News Channel.

He contended, with an almost-overdone effort to be self-righteous and snarky, that the analysis of the feud, done on a recent broadcast of "The O'Reilly Factor," was all just too slanted for his tastes. He went along with the left-wing noise machine's notion that Bill O'Reilly, who isn't exactly a Reagan Republican, is some sort of tool of the right-wing.

It's one thing to disparage fellow Americans with a vulgar sexual reference, but it's really disgraceful to further insult them when they call you out for your deplorable behavior.

Such is what happened to Sean Hannity's former partner Alan Colmes this weekend when he published two articles at his blog with the word "teabagger" in the title:

• Teabagger Co-sponsor Warns Of Pitchforks, Guns, Civil War And Revolution
• The GOP Corporate Push Behind The 9/12 Teabaggers

As a result, he received numerous responses from readers via his Twitter account leaving Colmes to further ridicule such folks rather than apologizing:

Conservative author Ann Coulter and Sean Hannity's former liberal co-host Alan Colmes were Dr. Phil's guests Thursday, and an astounding thing happened: the crowd seemed to like Coulter more than Colmes.

I kid you not.

The topics up for discussion were Barack Obama, the presidential campaign, and the media, and whenever Coulter said anything, the crowd applauded loudly.

Maybe even more delicious when Dr. Phil introduced former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan the audience booed (video embedded below the fold courtesy our dear friend MsUnderestimated, file photo):

Don't listen to folks in the media claiming conservatism is either dead or dying, for on Monday night the premiere of Fox News's "Hannity" attracted more viewers than CNN's "Larry King Live" and MSNBC's "Rachel Maddow Show" combined.

And, in the critical demographic of folks aged 25-54, host Sean Hannity, now flying solo without longtime co-host Alan Colmes, bested his liberal competition by wide margins suggesting that it's not just older people interested in conservative views.

Here are the specifics from TV by the Numbers.com:

H/T Johnny Dollar.

Conservative author Ann Coulter believes that media during last year's presidential campaign behaved as if they wanted to have sex with Barack Obama.

Such was revealed during Monday's "Hannity & Colmes" as were her views about NBC's sudden cancellation of her appearance on Tuesday's "Today Show."

In the end, she believes "the whole thing was a charade and a setup" so that she wouldn't be able to go on any other morning shows (video embedded below the fold courtesy MsUnderestimated with a partial transcript):  

As most Fox News fans are aware, Alan Colmes is going to be leaving the hit show "Hannity & Colmes."

Readers have voiced their opinions about this here and here.

At the end of Monday's program, Alan briefly explained his decision, and had a very charming exchange with his longtime co-host Sean Hannity (video embedded below the fold courtesy our dear friend Johnny Dollar):

As you may have heard by now, or guessed by our poll, the liberal half of FNC's "Hannity & Colmes" is exiting the network stage left at year's end.

For the full story, check out Radio Equalizer's reporting here.

If you were in charge of finding his replacement, whom would you choose?

Kirsten Powers or Juan Williams are names floating around the office here as liberal, yet sensible options for Fox News to choose.

Or should Fox News try to find a more fire-breathing Olbermannesque counterpart, perhaps like James Carville?

The wife of former GOP presidential aspirant Fred Thompson took on Alan Colmes on the October 23 broadcast. Jeri Thompson, who heads up Team Sarah, a campaign effort to get out the vote for the McCain/Palin ticket, went toe-to-toe with the liberal co-host of "Hannity & Colmes" on the matter of the media's hyping the non-scandal of the RNC's wardrobe expenses for the Alaska governor.

Mrs. Thompson has personal experience with the viciousness of the liberal media against conservative Republican women, as NewsBusters coverage about the media dismissing her as a "trophy wife" can attest.

Video above via Gateway Pundit.

On Tuesday’s Hannity and Colmes program top Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs displayed the latest example of the Democratic campaign attempting to whitewash their opponents. When co-host Sean Hannity asked him about Obama’s connections to William Ayers, Gibbs shot back, "Are you anti-Semitic?" He then changed the entire subject of the discussion to whether Hannity was anti-Semitic for recently interviewing Andy Martin, who in 2000, accused George W. Bush of using cocaine, has been a candidate for various offices in several states, and is accused by the Washington Post of starting the rumor that Obama is a Muslim.

This charge by Gibbs caused a three-plus minute back-and-forth argument in which the Obama spokesman continued to charge that Hannity was anti-Semitic, and also asked at one point, "Why am I not to believe that everyone who works for the network is anti-Semitic because Sean Hannity gave a platform to a man who thinks Jews are slimy?" The argument was finally stopped by co-host Alan Colmes, who defended Hannity as "not anti-Semitic" [see video at right; direct link to video here].

Your humble correspondent, as diligent as ever, carefully checked out much of the post-debate analysis and spin last evening. Perhaps the highlight of all such activity, chock full of drama, was this heated exchange between Dick Morris and Alan Colmes on FOX News. The first part of this video shows Morris giving effusive praise of Sarah Palin's performance in last night's debate. The sparks begin to fly soon after the two-minute mark when Colmes cuts in to robotically attempt to run through his list of obvious talking points which Morris took great offense to (emphasis mine):

SEAN HANNITY: The author New York Times best seller, "Fleeced," starring Dick Morris. Why do I know this is probably going to be the debate we agree on here? What did you think?

Alan Colmes has been on a downward spiral for the ages since John McCain introduced Sarah Palin as his presumptive Vice-Presidential nominee.

Fellow NewsBuster Warner Todd Huston caught Colmes scraping bottom at his Liberaland web site last night, as the lefty talker and Sean Hannity piñata asked "Did Palin Take Proper Pre-Natal Care?" in connection with Palin's pregnancy and childbirth earlier this year. Trig Palin was born with Down's Syndrome on April 18.

A whiff of sanity appears to have prevailed, as the entry is now empty. Also not present: an apology. (Update, 3:30 p.m. -- Here's Colmes's "apology." You can decide whether it's adequate or simply blame-shifting.)

But apparently Colmes has no problem with this entry he put up on Friday afternoon about the circumstances surrounding Todd and Sarah Palin's wedding (full entry follows; links were in original):

One of the more astounding post-9/11 liberal media affectations has been the extraordinary concern press members have for how terrorists looking to kill innocent Americans are treated at detention centers.

A fine example of this occurred on Thursday's "Hannity & Colmes" when the left-leaning part of Fox News's successful duo debated former White House adviser Karl Rove about the recent Supreme Court decision granting habeas corpus rights to Guantanamo Bay detainees.

Readers are advised to get a big bag of popcorn for this barnburner (video embedded right):

Wednesday's Hannity and Colmes showed viewers clips of Barack Obama making contradictory statements from Sunday and Tuesday about whether Iran was a serious threat, with the Illinois Senator on Sunday saying "they don't pose a serious threat to us," but on Tuesday saying "Iran is a grave threat." Pollster Frank Luntz also sparred with FNC's liberal co-host Alan Colmes over whether it would be wise to meet with dictators like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Adolf Hitler, and got Colmes to admit that "I might" meet with Hitler. Luntz: "Would you talk to Hitler?" Colmes: "It would depend upon the circumstances. ... I might." (Transcript follows)

The segment began with a clip of Democratic Governor and Obama supporter Bill Richardson talking about Obama's desire to "talk to the Iranian leaderhip," and the clip of Obama talking about Iran were soon played, as they had been played on the previous night's show:

BARACK OBAMA CLIP #1, DATED MAY 18: Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, these countries are tiny compared to the Soviet Union. They don't pose a serious threat to us.

It appears MSNBC's Dan Abrams is shamefully mimicking colleague Keith Olbermann's somewhat successful strategy to bring in viewers by belittling his competition.

Think of it as the largely unwatched liberal media member's "If you can't beat 'em, bash 'em" motif.

Despite how pathetic it is, it's certainly worked for Olbermann, whose incessant invective aimed at Bill O'Reilly -- interspersed, of course, between vitriolic rants against any politician with an "R" after his or her name, especially if it ends with "Bush" -- has nearly doubled the "Countdown" host's audience to almost a cool million.

Now, the man that used to be Olbermann's boss -- mired in his own viewership slump as he continually gets trounced in his time slot by "Hannity & Colmes" to the tune of four to one! -- has decided to adopt the former sportcaster's strategy as evidenced by the following partial transcript of Wednesday's "Verdict" (video available here):

Git out yer shootin' irons and settle in for a blog duel, folks, because the inestimable Alan Colmes has answered to NewsBusters on his less than secret blog, LiberalLand.com. Mr. Colmes sent me a little email notice that he has answered to my ribbing of him on the 13th and I have the honor to reply in kind with a fisking of his latest.

Firstly, I will certainly admit that Mr. Colmes' guns might bark a little louder than your humble NewsBuster's (that's me, of course). After all, he has a TV show and a radio show, as well as a well-visited blog. On the other hand, I merely watch TV and have been but a radio show guest speaker... however, I DO blog on one of the most visited conservative sites on the Internet (that would be Newsbusters.org, naturally).

And now to add to the ever-lengthening list of Obamessiah apologists comes TV and Radio talker Alan Colmes to say that Barack Obama is right, Middle America IS filled with racist, overly religious, gun-nuts.

On his LiberalLand blog (the formerly secret blog he was hiding from the greater world), Sean Hannity's co-host said the following:

And just where is he wrong? Pointing out why people may be bitter or frustrated, that there is xenophobia, that people sometimes cling to religion or feel paranoid about the government and embrace guns doesn’t mean you hate or disdain a portion of the population.

First of all people do not "cling" to guns and religion because of what a government does or does not do. It is especially demeaning to people's religious sentiment to say that government is their reason for "clinging" to their religion. And secondly, Obama did not mean to say that people were merely frustrated. He was clearly trying to paint Middle America as racist, gun-nuts that were too stupid to understand what was going on around them.

If Alan Colmes turns up at your Thanksgiving get-together sporting a couple shiners and a re-arranged smile, don't press the poor guy if he claims to have walked into a door. The FNC host just got clobbered by a certified DC heavyweight -- Bob Novak.

Novak was a guest on this evening's Hannity & Colmes. Colmes first questioned the venerable reporter about the item he published this week regarding the Clinton campaign's claim to have a scandalous story about Barack Obama. For the record, Novak stated this evening that since first reporting the story, "I've had substantiation from another source, another very, very good source, who with his own ears heard Clinton people putting out" allegations about Obama.

That's when Colmes decided to press his luck. Mistake.

View video here.

Here's something you don't see every day: a well-known liberal journalist slamming the owner of Daily Kos, Markos Moulitsas.

Yet, that's what happened on Wednesday's "Hannity & Colmes" when NPR's Juan Williams was invited on to discuss the recent hiring of Moulitsas by Newsweek.

In a rather stunning turn of events, Williams seemed absolutely disgusted by the announcement (video available here, relevant section begins at minute 3:37):