You would expect Fox News to handle the News of the World scandal dishonestly–lying, obfuscating, rationalizing, and indulging in a broad variety of logical fallacies to make it sound like the issue was not only a minor thing if even an issue at all, but that Murdoch has really been the victim in the whole thing, and deserves an apology.

Well, they did not disappoint, as professional idiot Steve Doocy had on, of all people, an undisguised PR expert, even announced as such, to unabashedly try to sweep this all under the rug. It is truly a sight to behold:

Steve Doocy: Meanwhile: more fallout from Britain’s News of the World newspaper hacking scandal. Rebekah Brooks has now resigned as chief executive of our parent company’s British newspaper unit, Newscorp, just one of the recent hacking scandals. This morning we’re finding out that the Pentagon suffered one of its largest hacking events ever, a cyber-theft of more than 24,000 files, the Pentagon says they were stolen by a foreign government. Joining us right now is a man who knows about the media, Bob Dilenschneider, the head of the New York-based Dilenschneider group and he used to run one of the biggest PR firms in the country. Good morning Bob.

Bob Dilenschneider: Good morning Steve, how are you?

Doocy: Fine, thank you very much. What do you make of what…this particular hacking scandal with the News of the World?

Dilenschneider: Well, the News of the World is a hacking scandal, it can’t be denied, but the issue is why are so many people piling on at this point? We know it’s a hacking scandal, shouldn’t we really get beyond it and deal with the issue of hacking? Citicorp has been hacked into, Bank of America has been hacked into, American Express has been hacked into, insurance companies have been hacked into, we’ve got a serious hacking problem in this country, and this morning, the government’s obviously been hacked into, 24,000 files. So we’ve got to figure out a way to deal with this hacking problem.

Doocy: The company has come forward to say that it happened a long time ago, at a tabloid, in London, someone did something really bad and the company reacted. They closed the newspaper, all those people got fired, even though 99 percent of them absolutely had nothing to do with it.

Dilenschneider: And if I’m not mistaken. Murdoch, who owns it, has apologized, but for some reason, the public and the media going over this, again and again.

Doocy: The piling on!

Dilenschneider: It’s a little bit too much. But I think the bigger issue is really hacking and how we as the public going to protect our privacy and deal with it. And, I would also say, by the way, Citigroup, great bank. Bank of America, great bank. Are they getting the same attention for hacking that took place less than a year ago, that News Corp is getting today.

Doocy: Right, and then, along those lines, you got the news about this thing at the Pentagon… I mean, it sounds like the country of China, who we all owe a whole bunch of debt to, it sounds like they got into our Pentagon supercomputers and sucked out 24,000 different files, where is that as a big story?

Dilenschneider: It’s really very very scary, and I think that we should be very concerned as a public about our privacy and people getting access to what we have and we’ve got to find ways to defend ourselves.

Doocy: Sure, and one of the other things about media piling on, you know, you look at some sites, you would think that Martians had landed in New Jersey, again. Uh, we’ve got some serious problems in this country right now. We are teetering on default. And what do they do? They talk about this!

Dilenschneider: We’ve got major problems in the country. John Boehner’s dealing with tough problems, the president’s dealing with tough problems, we have problems in the states, and we’re dealing with this issue over in London that took place more than a decade ago. I don’t quite understand it.

Doocy: And Mr. Murdoch himself has said that he’s going to cooperate, he’s going to show up at Parliament next week, and news this morning that Rebekah Brooks, who headed up that unit, is calling it quits.

Dilenschneider: All the right things have been done from a crisis point of view, in terms of this News of the World issue. It really should get put behind us, investigators, the courts, should deal with this, and we should move on, and deal with the important topics of the day.

Now, that is chutzpah. Or, as Michele Bachmann would say, “chitzpah.”

The problem is, as is so often the case with conservatives these days, that this is simply exactly what you would expect from these people. Nothing is too outrageous for them.

We have the false equivalency: Mudoch’s hacking scandal is equivalent to hacking scandals at places like Bank of America. Except that in Murdoch’s case, he was the hacker. If Bank of America had spent much of the past decade hacking other people, that would be a news story, too. Over at Fox they must think their viewers are complete idiots or else willing to believe any rationalization–as if people who hack maliciously are equivalent to people who get hacked.

Then we have the misdirection: saying that attention should not be given to one crime spree just because others are happening; it’s like saying, “With all the bank robberies going on, why should anyone pay attention to corporate fraud?” Sure, Murdoch’s news industry went on a decade-long crime spree. But hey, China is hacking too! Why pay attention to us? Fear them! They are “really very very scary”!

Then we have the “it’s no big deal” excuse: it was over a decade ago! And it was in London, which is, like, so incredibly far away! Of course, distance is no issue, and it was not all “over a decade ago.” Merely one of the more reprehensible acts, the altering of Milly Dowler’s voice mail, was–well, actually, less than a decade ago. It was 2002. And News Corp continued to hack into accounts, even of the Prime Minister, over the course of the entire decade. That we know about.

But Fox wants us to take the next step–it’s all over, nothing to see here, move along. All these people were fired, Brooks “called it quits,” Murdoch apologized, he’s cooperating. Why is anyone even talking about this? It’s so stupid! We should get beyond this! Like we’re beyond Obama’s birth certificate! We only spent two, three years on that–why spend more than one week on this? What are you all, vultures?! Of course, this is far from over–the story is still just breaking, and there is probably quite a bit more that will come out in the coming weeks and months.

Which brings us to the biggest step, playing the Victim Card. The media is “piling on” (it’s the liberal media!). Even though Murdoch apologized, “the public and the media going over this, again and again,” “The piling on!” “It’s a little bit too much!” News Corp is getting more attention than Bank of America, even though BofA was the victim of hacking once and News Corp was guilty of hacking for years and years, again and again. All the way over in London, light years from here! Murdoch has done everything right and is working to help track down those truly responsible, so why, oh why, is everyone piling on???

Finally, a PR expert? Why have him on to discuss a hacking scandal? It’s as if Doocy and Fox have given up on any pretense of not trying to snow people–that they understand how far gone Fox News viewers are that they can bring on not a technology expert, not a legal expert, but a PR hack. It’s as if they said, “here to help make this scandal seem like nothing is a man whose profession it is to lie in order to save the image their paid customers,” and went from there.

I would be tempted to say, as Republicans implode over the debt ceiling issue and News Corp implodes over the phone hacking scandal, that the conservative world is heading for self-destruction and will have no credibility or future.

The problem is, these people are like cockroaches–even nuclear war won’t touch them. All that will happen is that people will come to expect this kind of behavior, the bar will be raised yet again, and these kinds of things will be just ignored more and more.

I hope I am wrong. I just don’t think so.

Update: The Wall Street journal chimes in: same message, simply written more slickly.