This video of the buffoonish morning crew at Fox News is laughable at first. The idea that the newsreaders and spokesmodels employed by the propaganda organ of the Bush White House political shop would spend five minutes criticizing another media outlet for bias is a real hoot.
To be clear, Rachel Maddow in no way can be compared with sexual deviants like Dick Morris and Bill O’Reilly.
But then, at 01:20, the segment turns ugly when the media “expert” they’ve brought on, Tim Graham of Media Analysis MRC, the rightwing front group headed by Brent Bozell, feels it necessary to make the point that MSNBC’s new anchor, Rachel Maddow, is gay. He refers to her, sneeringly, as the “lesbian Air America host.”

Leaving aside the facts that no serious person evaluates Maddow’s performance, or her views, based on her sexuality, or that being gay is not always a marker for liberalism — there are millions of Republican lesbians — the Fox News staff should be careful about throwing stones inside their own glass house.

For example, there are old rumors that Fox News anchor Shephard Smith is gay — he refuses to talk about his personal life. And the son of Fox News anchor Brit Hume, Sandy Hume, a reporter for The Hill newspaper, committed suicide in 1998, at the same time rumors began circulating that he was having an affair with then-Rep. Bill Paxon (R-N.Y.), an up and coming member of the GOP House leadership and the husband of then-Rep. Susan Molinari (R-N.Y.) Paxon and Molinari both retired from the House soon after Sandy Hume’s suicide. (The fact that Paxon is a thoroughly unpleasant person would seem to make this story less than likely, but there is no accounting for taste.)

If Fox is going to use sexuality as a barometer about whom to take seriously, then the network should reconsider the air time they give professional Clinton-hater Dick Morris, who is a notorious adulterer, who consorts with prostitutes and who became a national laughingstock over revelations that he has a toe sucking fetish.

And then there is Fox’s biggest star, Bill O’Reilly, another flamboyant adulterer who famously cost the network millions when he was sued for making unwelcome sexual advances toward a female producer.

To be clear, Rachel Maddow in no way can be compared with sexual deviants like Morris and O’Reilly. The point is, the sexuality and/or sexual shenanigans of all these folks is irrelevant to the job they do — unless, of course, Fox chooses to make it an issue.