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I'm a liberal. I've been in favor of President Obama. But I've got to tell you, it's outrageous. And as a member of the White House press corps, it is a matter of who they let in to the morning gaggle, who they let in to breifings, and its -- I've never seen anything like it. And, listen, I bashed the Bushs administration every day on Fox News. And, you know what? They were kind to me, they let me into everything, they never excluded anybody.

This week several journalists and bloggers had breakfast with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Reid just published a book, "The Good Fight: Hard Lessons from Searchlight to Washington." It is a very honest book and very direct, not the usual political fare from Washington politicians. There are journalists from both the right and left who do not think he is an effective majority leader, but I beg to differ. He is very effective precisely because he flies under the radar as soft spoken but tough. There are pundits who think that if Sen. Clinton does not win the Democratic nomination...

Putin's Russia poses a grave threat to the United States. But America lacks the moral standing to confront it. That was the view expressed by Ellen Ratner on this morning's Fox & Friends. Ratner, the short, liberal side of 'The Long & the Short of It' duo [seen here in file photo], expressed little doubt that Putin's government was behind the murder of Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko.Ratner: "I think that there's no question. If I were a betting woman it would be 100% Putin and Russia, it's just their operation and they have the means to do it."She continued: "We...

by Mark Finkelstein September 3, 2006 - 09:54 It was a rollicking episode of 'The Long & The Short of It' this morning, and even taking my personal biases into account, it was hard not to score it 2-0 for the tall man. The regular Sunday-morning feature of Fox & Friends Weekend pits long, conservative Newsday and TCS columnist Jim Pinkerton against short, liberal Ellen Ratner of Talk Radio News. The opening topic this morning, in a match refereed by FNC host Kiran Chetry, was a report that retired General and former Dem presidential nomination-seeker Wesley Clark will be issuing...

A very interesting conversation this morning on WMAL. Andy Parks and Bryan Nehman (a dimwit if there ever was one) were discussing the court ruling from yesterday concerning the NSA wire tapping. Andy basically came out and stated he wants a bumper sticker saying DEMOCRATS=TERRORISTS. He also said the Dems would be happy if there was another attack on America. The dimwit was aghast that someone would say such a thing. Callers called in and basically agreed with Andy. There was one caller who called them a bunch of government supporting statists. Kudos for Andy calling that guy a dummy!...

by Mark Finkelstein July 30, 2006 If private citizens met a few years ago with the ambassador of a hostile country, then top US officials should do the same in the current sensitive context. That was the liberal logic Ellen Ratner of Talk Radio News put on display this morning during 'The Long & the Short of It' segment on Fox & Friends Weekend. The topic was the conflict in the Middle East. Ratner decreed that the time had come for bringing in the "partners" in the area, and that in addition to Lebanon, "that means Syria." Syria? Partner? What-evuh....

by Mark Finkelstein July 9, 2006 - 14:12 Twice in less than 24 hours, conservative columnist Jim Pinkerton left liberal talking-head rivals at a loss for words on the issue of missile defense. Pinkerton's first victim was Neal Gabler, on last evening's Fox News Watch. In the context of the North Korean missile tests, liberal Gabler flatly stated: "Missile defense does not work. That is what we have learned." Shot back Pinkerton: "The Japanese believe in it. That's why they're building it right now." Gabler's silence was golden. Then this morning, Pinkerton made his regular appearance with Ellen Ratner in...

by Mark Finkelstein May 13, 2006 If you're not outraged by the NSA program that monitors phone-calling patterns, you're probably . . . too dumb to understand its implications. That, in a nutshell, and I do mean nutshell, was Ellen Ratner's argument on this morning's 'Long & the Short of It' segment on Fox & Friends Weekend. Oh, well, that - and opening our borders with Mexico. Host Julian Phillips [who expressed his personal opposition to the NSA program] put it to Ratner that "most Americans don't care about this. They say the NSA should do that to keep our...

by Mark Finkelstein April 29, 2006 Give Ellen Ratner credit for consistency - if not for logic. For the second week running Ratner used her 'Long & Short of It' platform on Fox & Friends Weekend to tout her solution to the immigration problem - sheer surrender in the form of 'open borders'. Here is Ratner's rant on the same subject from last week's show. Ratner: "I want to say again . . . I know it gets a lot of mail, why I am in favor of really having open borders between Canada and Mexico, because there is not...

by Mark Finkelstein on April 22, 2006 - 07:56. When Ellen Ratner went a couple weeks without any major liberal loopiness, one wondered whether perhaps Jim Pinkerton was having a salubrious effect on her. But things got back to normal this morning when Ratner let Pinkerton goad her into boasting that she supports "open immigration." The opening topic on today's 'Long & the Short of It' segment on Fox & Friends Weekend dealt with Howard Dean's recent claim that job # 1 in his view is tougher border security. Pinkerton smelled politics, describing Dean as "somebody who is reading the...

by Mark Finkelstein February 25, 2006 Look for Ellen Ratner on the barricades next time the World Trade Organization gets together for a coffee klatsch. On this morning's Fox & Friends Weekend, Ratner hurled the verbal equivalent of a paving brick through the window of a Mickey D's. Ratner escalated the flap over the UAE ports deal to an entirely new level, claiming no foreign companies, regardless of nationality, should control our ports, or for that matter other significant chunks of our economy. Claimed Ratner, the real issue is "what kind of jobs, what kind of outsourcing are we going...

This is only my second post. I apologize for any mistsakes with the topics, keywords or any other ancillary info. If this is more appropriately posted in some other forum I apologize for posting it here. Today the II MEF PAO asked for folks on Camp Fallujah to have dinner with radio personalities and reporters from around the US. Two places that caught my attention were Kansas City, Missouri and Washington D.C. I was born in the former and live near the latter. Normally I would not care to have any interaction with any reporters but given the controlled environment...

Despite evidence that the ABC poll on Terri Schiavo used misleading statements to push people toward certain responses, there was Juliet Huddy on Fox & Friends Weekend this morning parroting the poll results that ostensibly show that three quarters of Americans oppose Congress' involvement and believe those supporting the legislation were politically motivated. Huddy offered the poll results as fodder to Jim Pinkerton and the noisome Ellen Ratner during their "The Long and the Short of It" segment. As she did last week, Ratner managed to keep a hideously inappropriate smile on her face throughout the segment. She rejected Pinkerton's...

There are two ways to tell when a political party thinks it is losing an election. The obvious one is where the candidates are choosing to campaign. If they’re stumping in their own backyards and shoring up their bases, while the other side is on the attack, that’s a clear sign. But so is the level of lying. When all is almost lost, the unethical campaign will haul out the lies – the bigger the better. Others have commented on the political geography of where Bush and Kerry are respectively campaigning in the closing days of this campaign. This comments...

Two heads of three-headed Iraqi Hydra have been chopped off. While I oppose capital punishment with all of my corpuscles, what happened to these two monsters wasn't an execution. When ordered by U.S. troops over a loudspeaker to surrender, the Brothers Grim answered with gunfire and wounded four of our finest. We fired back, and, as the saying goes, it looks like Uday and Qusay won't be coming down for breakfast tomorrow. Together, they combined all the qualities possessed by an entire dock of hanged Nazis tried at Nuremberg. But, unlike the Nazis, whose mass murders were conducted by signing...

Ellen Ratner was on this morning's Fox&Friends and tried to weasel out of her previous attack on GW Bush whom she wished would 'screw up the war in Iraq' so that the Dems could regain the WhiteHouse by saying she was 'just trying to be funny' and it 'backfired on her'. Like oh, oops. Well, it's time that EVERY Freeper immediately write Ms Ratner and let her and FoxNews know that her so-called apology is simply NOT ACCEPTED! or acceptable.I've written to every FoxNews email address the same letter: That we viewers of FoxNews will not accept Ellen Ratner's apology...

I just got of the air from broadcasting on "American Breakfast" with Ellen Ratner. Recall that she is the one who said on Neil Cavuto's Show on Fox that she "hoped" that President Bush would "mess up the war," so he "would not be reelected." In short, she wants enough Americans to be killed in Iraq to cause the President to be defeated in 2004. She told me, live on air three minutes ago, that "Fox News has just renewed [her] contract." Fox News had an ideal opportunity to get rid of this politically-bigoted and hateful "reporter" by not renewing...

Loyal readers may remember last year's column calling for a return of the draft. Just to show that I wasn't quite howling in the wilderness, the same cause has now been publicly embraced by Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., who has promised to introduce new Selective Service legislation when Congress reconvenes. Since my last column on the subject, the nature of the War on Terror has been clarified, and with it, my thoughts on mandatory service. I would like to take this opportunity to modify my original proposal along the lines of the reality now facing the country. During the last...

A FReeper Call To ACTION (Vanity, sort of) Last Friday Ellen Ratner was on Fox's Your World with Neil Cavuto substitute-hosted by Brenda Butner. She basically said that she hoped Bush botches the war so he won't get reelected. There were a couple of threads on it, Ellen Ratner on Cavuto: "I hope he [Bush] screws up the war so he isn't re-elected".[Vanity] , ELLEN RATNER SAYS SHE HOPES WAR IN IRAQ GOES BADLY FOR U.S. (FOX INTERVIEW, and most recently Report on Ellen Ratner's "Dead Americans" Comment. A number of us emailed various Fox personnel and there was a...

On Thursday mornings, I do a half-hour segment on the national radio show, "American Breakfast." I expected Ellen Ratner to come on for the last five minutes of that segment, as she has the last two weeks. She knows me, and I know her. My feeling is that she was afraid to come on this morning and face the music about her "dead Americans" comment. To recap for those who just tuned in, last Friday on Neal Cavuto's Show on Fox, the following exchange took place between Ratner and Brenda Buttner, sitting in for Cavuto: [After a discussion that George...

This is every columnist's nightmare and opportunity – the chance to make in-print predictions about the future. Look, the truth is that if I knew even the contents of next Tuesday's Wall Street Journal, I'd be too rich to have to work for a living. The fact that I'm not rich should clue you in about my track-record as a prophet. Nevertheless, I'm going to make a bunch of predictions anyway, and devil take the hindmost (which in all likelihood, will be me). The Dow Jones will be higher by December 2003. Yep, I don't know much about next Tuesday's...

MIDI - I'D LIKE TO TEACH THE WORLD TO SING I'd hate to hear some awful news had just been sent to us That Ellen Ratner crossed the street and got hit by a bus It really wouldn't be too good if lightning struck her head 'Cause then, oh my, we'd have to read that poor Ellen was dead I know we'd freak if someone said while reading on a log That Ellen had been bitten by a vicious rabid dog That would be so bad…I would be very sad Perhaps wanting our troops to die is just a...

Jesda Gulati and Kyle Varner, hosts of The Political Fire, debated Ellen Ratner, WorldNetDaily columnist and Fox News Channel contributor on the air this weekend. Issues discussed included gun control (Ratner supports it), psychiatric institutionalization for Andrea Yates (Ratner supports it), and nuclear disarmament (Rather supports it). The radio program, broadcast this past weekend in Spokane, Washington, has been archived online for listening on demand at ThePoliticalFire.com.