Today, we released a report extensively documenting how Fox News political analyst Dick Morris engages in ethically dubious behavior, unabashed GOP advocacy, hypocrisy, outright fabrication of smears of progressives, failed political prognostication, extreme and inflammatory rhetoric, and repeated falsehoods.
That report by the numbers:
0: Number of 2008 major-party presidential nominees Morris correctly predicted in his 2005 book, Condi vs. Hillary: The Next Great Presidential Race. (Hillary Clinton was “virtually uncontested” among Democrats while John McCain won't “ever be nominated” by the GOP.)
12: Percentage points by which Hillary Clinton won her 2000 Senate race, the day after Morris predicted she would lose.
20: Percentage points by which Barack Obama lost in Arkansas in the 2008 presidential election, following Morris' final electoral map prediction that the state was “leaning Obama.”
$1,495: What Newsmax charges for the “Money Matrix Insider” foreign currency investment method it promoted in a February webcast that featured Morris.
$1,295: What Newsmax charges for its “Million Dollar Secret Code” package, which includes stock tips from its CEO's “chief financial adviser” and was endorsed by Morris.
24: Number of separate Morris appearances on Fox News between January 1 and April 1 in which Morris' website -- which he uses to raise money for conservative causes -- was mentioned by Morris or the host.
13: Number of times Morris implored Fox News viewers to call Congress to oppose health care reform in February and March.
10: Number of Fox News appearances in Febraury and March in which Morris implored viewers to donate to the conservative group League of American Voters (LAV) to fund their anti-health care reform ads.
$200,000: Amount Morris claimed in a February 26 email that LAV had raised over the previous three days to run ads in the districts of “marginal Democrats who voted for healthcare last time.”
$300,000: Amount Morris urged readers to contribute to fund ads in support of Scott Brown, the Republican candidate in the January special election for the Massachusetts U.S. Senate seat. On Fox, Morris urged viewers to “go to DickMorris.com ... to help elect Brown.”
44: Number of hours that passed before Morris retracted his dubious “never been said before” claim that in 1997, President Clinton had told him that Janet Reno had threatened that she was “gonna tell the truth about Waco” if Clinton did not reappoint her as attorney general.
10: Number of fundraisers for Republican candidates or party organizations Morris has appeared in since September 2008 or in which he is currently scheduled to appear.
$20,000: Morris' reported monthly payment during his 2009 tenure as a consultant for Massachusetts politician Christy Mihos' gubernatorial campaign.
$2,000: Amount Morris donated to Republican federal candidates in 2009.
13: Number of Fox News appearances between October 27, 2008, and November 17, 2008, in which Morris mentioned GOPTrust.com, the website of the National Republican Trust PAC.
$24,000: Amount paid by GOPTrust.com to a company apparently connected to Morris.
6: Morris' rank among Connecticut's biggest tax delinquents on November 1, 2007.
$443,915: Amount Morris owed the state of Connecticut at that time.
$1.5 million: Size of the lien the IRS reportedly filed against Morris in 2003.
0: Amount of evidence Morris cited in claiming that then-Rep. Eric Massa faced an ethics investigation because of his “sin” of voting against health care reform and “is being hung out to dry as an example to other would-be independent minded Democrats.”