One day after the New York Times hailed a grand total of four protesters of immigration enforcement, another tiny left-wing protest of “dozens” against Arizona’s new immigration law made The New York Times on Friday — outside a Chicago Cubs game at Wrigley Field. Reporters Monica Davey and Michael S. Schmidt never used a liberal label for the protesters, even as they cited organizer Leone Jose Bicchieri, who’s hailed in one biography as a “Witness for Peace” when Marxist-Leninists ran Nicaragua in the 1980s. The leftists even called a black man a racist for opposing them:

At one point, a fan, carrying his own bullhorn and two large American flags, got into a screaming match with protesters as he declared that he was "standing with America’s favorite pastime" and urged the crowd not to boycott Arizona at all. The protesters chanted at the man, who was African-American, "Racist, go home!"

Davey and Schmidt also relayed: “Outside Wrigley, Connie Andersen, dressed in Cubs gear, said of the Arizona law, ‘This is a speedy path to Nazi Germany fascism.’”

Arizona Republic reporter Nick Piecoro also reported the protest, and began by estimating “a boisterous group of roughly 50 people” protested. “Among the signs on display was one comparing Arizona to Nazi Germany, and another with a hooded Ku Klux Klansman replacing the star in Arizona’s state flag.”

Bicchieri was featured on page A-12 shouting into a bullhorn in a color photo. The Times explained: “Protest organizers here called for like-minded people elsewhere to take the fight to other games – basketball, hockey, you name it – against any Arizona team. Leone Jose Bicchieri, one such organizer, said his group also was urging baseball teams (including the Cubs) to move their spring training headquarters out of Arizona.”

More context on how much of leftist Bicchieri is comes from the web site of the Main Street Project:

Leone Jose Bicchieri has almost 20 years experience organizing Latino and other immigrant workers. He is the executive director of the Chicago Workers Collaborative (CWC), a worker center which organizes low-wage workers to understand and fight for their rights. He is also a Senior Fellow at the Chicago-based Center for New Community. Leone has played organizing and leadership roles with Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride, Interfaith Worker Justice, Oregon’s Farmworker Union, known by its Spanish acronym of PCUN, and was an organizer for the Justice for Janitors Campaign with SEIU Local 1 and Witness for Peace in a rural war zone in Nicaragua.

Another biography elaborated on the Sandinista sympathizer: "Leone worked with Witness for Peace in a rural war zone in Nicaragua from 1988-1991, collaborating with the local catholic parish to document the effects of the Contra War." There’s some details on his activities here.

Bicchieri went to Reed College, where his 1988 anthropology thesis was titled "Ideology and Expressiveness: The Russian Language in Soviet Society." 

Newsweek will go to some pretty silly lengths to paint Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama as no liberal hippies on foreign policy. Their cover story promoted Hillary as "Obama’s Bad Cop" and a "steely messenger." The cover story by Michael Hirsh went further, comparing Hillary and Obama to the 1970s TV buddy cops "Starsky and Hutch."

Hirsh began at the Copenhagen global-warming summit, which most people saw as accomplishing little. But Hirsh was scripting for Hollywood: "It was almost like one of those moments in a buddy-cop movie when the two partners who dislike each other at the beginning finally bond while taking on the bad guys."

The bad guys were the Chinese, but not because they were communists, but because they weren’t bending to the world on carbon reduction targets. Hillary and Obama barged in on premier Wen Jiabao: "The former political rivals suddenly morphed into a diplomatic version of Starsky and Hutch."

One serious problem with this analogy is that Starsky and Hutch wouldn’t barge into a criminal’s den….to offer a bribe. Hirsh continued:

Two days before, the secretary of state has flown in to Copenhagen by surprise to deliver a sweetener to help win over developing countries. In essence, it was a global bribe: $100 billion a year from rich nations by 2020 to help poorer countries cope with climate controls. It was political hardball, Hillary style, and it had helped to isolate Beijing. Now Obama was closing the deal Clinton had set up…

Clinton later called it one of ‘the most extraordinary 48 hours she’s spent in public life,’ said her global-warming negotiator, Todd Stern.

In case readers tuned out early (or were called into the dentist chair), all that gushy detail was in the first few paragraphs. Later, Hirsh found that Hillary and Obama were not that far apart in their foreign-policy views — which, in case you were wondering, aren’t liberal, they’re practical and realistic. (Like expecting the Chinese to observe carbon emissions mandates?)

Copenhagen also provided further evidence that the sharp differences between Obama and Clinton over foreign policy on the campaign trail were, as many on both sides now acknowledge, largely political theater. In fact, their views of American power had never been that far apart. "We’re both, at bottom, problem solvers and practical, realistic people," Clinton says now. "

Hirsh also conducted an interview with Hillary where he tried to solidify the magazine’s positive spin: "You have delivered some of the toughest messages to come out of this administration. Are you President Obama’s bad cop these days?"

Conservative critics of Hillary might have followed up: "If you’re such a steely messenger and bad cop, why didn’t you have the steel to stop your husband from having sex with the interns?"

HBO’s Bill Maher on Friday asked an extraordinary question of his guest panel: "Why isn’t Barack Obama getting more s–t’ for the oil spill in the Gulf?

Almost as surprising, the studio audience applauded after the "Real Time" host said this. 

"Okay, so I mentioned in the monologue I’m a little mad this week," Maher began after introducing his guests.  

"I’m mad at the oil company who didn’t obviously build their rig well enough," he continued. "I’m mad at America in general because we should have gotten off the oil tit starting in the ’70s."

Hold on to you seats: "But I’ll tell you who I’m really mad at which is Barack Obama…So, why isn’t Barack Obama getting more s–t for this" (video follows with transcript and commentary): 

BILL MAHER: Okay, so I mentioned in the monologue I’m a little mad this week. I usually try to hide that, but, you know, when the Teabaggers say that they feel like they have no…

CHRIS MATTHEWS, MSNBC: I love the way you say that.

MAHER: What?

ROSS DOUTHAT, NEW YORK TIMES: Just trips off the tongue.

MATTHEWS: The Teabaggers.

MAHER: The Teabag, well, you know they always say they feel like neither Party represents them. That’s how I feel this week. So Teabaggers, you’re not alone. And the reason why is because yes, I’m mad at the oil company who didn’t obviously build their rig well enough. I’m mad at America in general because we should have gotten off the oil tit starting in the ’70s. I’m mad at the people who go, "Drill, baby, drill." And by the way, they should turn up on the Gulf Coast and start cleaning up the birds with their "Drill, baby, drill" t-shirts. But I’ll tell you who I’m really mad at which is Barack Obama. Couple of weeks ago, the President, our President said, "It turns out the oil rigs today generally don’t cause oil spills. They are technologically very advanced." Now if, if I was quoting George Bush, this crowd would be laughing in hysterics.

LAURA TYSON, ECONOMIST AND FORMER CLINTON ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Yes they would.

MAHER: So, why isn’t Barack Obama getting more shit for this? I think he should.

(Applause.)

And the audience applauded.

To be sure, many people on the right have been asking this same question for days, albeit without the vulgarity. I asked it myself in an article published Friday.

But for a devout Obama supporter like Maher? And to have his audience applaud?

Exit question: When WILL the Obama-loving media follow Maher and start pointing fingers at the White House for what’s happening in the Gulf? 

Former United Nations ambassador John Bolton had one of the best lines on Friday’s "Real Time" when after he got some scattered applause from the typically liberal audience in attendance, he said to Bill Maher, "You let Republicans in."

As the subject turned to America’s military operations abroad, the HBO host told his guest, "You can’t really believe that radical Muslim terrorists…need Afghanistan to launch an attack on us."

"I think there are plenty of alternative places," replied Bolton. "And I would say the bigger strategic interest going forward is keeping those nuclear weapons out of the hands of terrorists."

This produced some scattered applause from the crowd leading Bolton to marvelously say, "You let Republicans in" (video follows with transcript and commentary): 

BILL MAHER: You can’t really believe that radical Muslim terrorists, the people who we’re afraid, who might get us, who got us before, need Afghanistan to launch an attack on us. It’s been proven over and over again. They can do it from anywhere. They don’t need Afghanistan as a training ground.

JOHN BOLTON: No, I, I think there are plenty of alternative places, but we know precisely because of the relationship between Afghanistan and Pakistan that a terrorist led Afghanistan endangers Pakistan. And I would say the bigger strategic interest going forward is keeping those nuclear weapons out of the hands of terrorists.

(Scattered applause)

BOLTON: You let Republicans in.

(Laughter)

MAHER: Okay. Alright.

BOLTON: California, no less.

MAHER: (Laughing) Touche’.

Indeed.

Exit question: How often have you seen Maher so speechless?

Bill Maher Friday went on quite a little rant about conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh.

During the opening monologue of HBO’s "Real Time," Maher mocked something Limbaugh mentioned on his show about the leaking oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico possibly having been attacked by environmentalists.

"That’s right, a secret team of hippie frogmen snuck on board an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico and blew it up to frame the oil companies," Maher quipped. 

Next came the cheap shots: "You know what Rush, how many pills is your maid giving you?…Congratulations, Rush Limbaugh, you are now officially the Louis Farrakhan of white people" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

BILL MAHER, HOST: So Rush Limbaugh today said that the oil rig could have been deliberately sabotaged by environmentalists to make oil companies look bad. That’s right, a secret team of hippie frogmen snuck on board an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico and blew it up to frame the oil companies. You know what Rush, how many pills is your maid giving you? Wow. Congratulations, Rush Limbaugh, you are now officially the Louis Farrakhan of white people.

For the record, this didn’t happen on Friday; it happened Thursday.

More importantly, Maher was playing fast and loose with Limbaugh’s words. Here’s what he actually said:

RUSH LIMBAUGH: I want to get back to the timing of the blowing up, the explosion out there in the Gulf of Mexico of this oil rig. Since they’re sending SWAT teams down there now this changes the whole perspective of this. Now, lest we forget, ladies and gentlemen, the carbon tax bill, cap and trade that was scheduled to be announced on Earth Day. I remember that. And then it was postponed for a couple of days later after Earth Day, and then of course immigration has now moved in front of it. But this bill, the cap-and-trade bill, was strongly criticized by hardcore environmentalist wackos because it supposedly allowed more offshore drilling and nuclear plants, nuclear plant investment. So, since they’re sending SWAT teams down there, folks, since they’re sending SWAT teams to inspect the other rigs, what better way to head off more oil drilling, nuclear plants, than by blowing up a rig? I’m just noting the timing here.

From The Hill, about the Senate bill: "Sierra Club chief Michael Brune told The Hill’s E2 Wire: ‘We will go to the mat for defending Clean Air Act authority.’ Brune also pointed to another potential stumbling block: offshore drilling. ‘We will not be able to accept the dramatic giveaway that offshore oil drilling represents,’ he said." The five hurdles the climate bill must clear, and one of them is offshore drilling. That’s in TheHill.com.

As such, this wasn’t about anyone trying to frame oil companies. Instead, Limbaugh was pointing out the bizarre coincidence of President Obama last month, much to liberals’ chagrin, proposing an expansion of offshore oil drilling as part of the cap and trade bill that’s been dead in the Senate since last year and an oil rig explosion shortly before Congress was going to take this issue up again. 

But Maher wasn’t done, for he then went after another famous conservative: 

And of course Sarah Palin weighed in on this issue today. Not apologizing for drilling, it’s now "Spill Baby, Spill." She does admit that when she prayed to Jesus to flood America with oil she should have been more specific.

And concluded with a bash at Arizona: 

So, alright, I’ll get off this. I don’t know, it was just, it was just a crappy week for America. The oil spill making a huge mess, and Arizona deporting all the people who mop up.

Bah dum bum bum.

Anybody laughing?