Fox News' faux documentary sets new low

Now and then, Fox News makes a stab at living up to its "fair and balanced" tag line. At other times, the cable network's operatives throw off all pretense, let their neatly trimmed hair down and do what they seem to love best -- blame all of the world's evils on those pointy-headed, America-hating liberals. Like, say, Barack Obama! Fox host Sean Hannity and his producers served up a heaping portion of just such red meat Sunday night on "Hannity's America." And they've since been making lame defenses of the faux documentary, which bore the subtle title: "Obama and Friends: The History of Radicalism." Fox's hourlong screed is just the kind of media coverage that has contributed to the increasingly angry and irrational tone on the campaign trail. Even by the low standards of this election's advocacy journalism, the program plumbed new depths -- relying on innuendo and guilt by association to paint the Illinois senator as a dupe of the shadowy forces of the left. Much of Hannity's report was based on interviews with half a dozen partisan commentators, whose main qualification seems to have been a previously expressed disdain for Obama.