The spying activities being currently revealed about Rupert Murdoch's operations should be anything but surprising to anyone taking the trouble to analyze what has been happening.

There was the same rush to war in Iraq as there would be to instill George W. Bush in office and keep him there by hook or crook, using such unsubtle means in 2004 as to have commentators that Bill O'Reilly assured us operated objectively count down the number of days to Bush's re-election.  

To use the term re-election was a falsehood since it has been fully documented that Bush was never actually elected in 2000.

Murdoch's Fox News operation received a break.  It came when New York Times reporter Judith Miller's revealed in print and in a PBS series that Iraq's ruthless dictator Saddam Hussein, who was brought to power with ample CIA assistance, possessed weapons of mass destruction including deadly chemical weapons.  

Few political operatives and quasi journalists would be daring enough to combine burglary, pornography, and patriotism in a political campaign, but then Rupert Murdoch's minions with their ravenous appetites for sensationalism and success at any price play by their own rules.

Australian Murdoch set his sights on Britain in the early seventies.  It was not long before his sensation seeking tabloids masquerading as newspapers had played a key role in installing a personal favorite as prime minister with Margaret Thatcher's Conservative Party victory in 1979 over a badly divided Labour Party led by James Callaghan.

Thatcher had served longer during a continuous period than any British prime minister since Lord Liverpool's 14-year run commenced in 1812.  Storm clouds hovered by 1990, however, after Thatcher's Conservatives trailed Labour consistently over a year and a half period.  

Thatcher's scolding nanny manner began rankling many voters.  Many saw Thatcher as harsh and heartless, as evidenced by the manner that she used oppressive taxation to wring inflation out of the British economy, drawing even the opposition of Milton Friedman, the American economist she idolized.  During this period British homelessness began dramatically increasing.

Rupert Murdoch earned tremendous credit for reaching the crescendo of unintended humor with his statement that Fox News is fighting for its "Credibility"!

To even use a term such as credibility in connection with the Bush Criminal Enterprise's propaganda tool that helped steal the 2000 presidential election by using Bush's cousin John Ellis to make the first call for that same cousin at Fox takes colossal nerve and Murdoch has that in spades.

This is also the same network that later helped launch the Iraq War by presenting every Bush and Dick Cheney distortion as gospel truth, playing on fear as it controlled its faithful Fox Zombie audience.  

The Fox story reads like a horror film written by George Orwell.

In the current college football fever to determine which two teams should meet for the national championship this season, the term "style points" has caught on big with sports commentator and writers in conjunction with how teams might fare in the continuing Bowl College Series computer sweepstakes.

Fox Television is a tough act to beat when it comes to finishing dead last in any style points media sweepstakes.  

Just when you think the network has hit rock bottom with another session of Ann Coulter shrieking that the Democratic Party exists "to kill babies" or Bill O'Reilly delivering another hand wringing declaration that to criticize Cheney and Bush on Iraq is at least coming perilously close to treason Fox delivers a fresh surprise.

Fox's latest effort at informing the public is a two part series arranged by book publisher Judith Regan.  Regan has scored a two-tiered "triumph" by announcing a book and two part interview on Fox starring O.J. Simpson.

Ann Coulter is in trouble. Her long time habit of plagiarizing other writers is finally catching up with her, as not just the bloggers have noticed, but a wholly owned subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch's media empire, the New York Post, has taken a crack at bottom feeding bomb-thrower:

Anyone seeking to understand the roots behind the tragic devastation of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans should trace it to two key statements that reveal what the Cheney-Bush Junta is all about.  

The saying "a picture is worth a thousand words" was never truer than when George Bush, wearing a tux for a very special occasion, faced a roomful of fat cat contributors at a Republican fundraiser and exclaimed with a grin, "Some call you the elite.  I call you my base."

Laughter exploded throughout the room.  Bush chortled joyously about his fat cat roots.  The assembled gathering was there to thank him for his generous tax cuts for the wealthy and through providing checks of large amounts sent a message that they anticipated more of the same.

The second important statement came from issues management strategist Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform.  To acknowledge favoring tax reform is akin to saying one is opposed to sin, so it is necessary to study Norquist's agenda to see where he is coming from and it is best summarized in the statement, "It is our desire to drown government in the bathtub."  It is then essential to ascertain what fits into Norquist's definition of "government" and observe is not in favor of reducing the military or the thought police established under the so-called Patriot Act.