Watching Fox News struggle with reporting the Republican opposition to the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act of 2010 has been maddening. It's shameful to see an ostensible “news” outfit run cover for the GOP's obstruction of the bill, given the ways that both Fox and the Republicans have exploited 9-11 for political benefit. (Case in point: Peter Johnson Jr.'s tour-de-force of very carefully worded outrage.)

But this afternoon on Your World, guest host Brian Sullivan interviewed Rudy Giuliani, who supports passage of the bill, and came close -- so close! -- to getting it right, but ended up sabotaging himself. Sullivan noted that Giuliani has “been fighting the Republicans, in large part” regarding the bill, but then immediately added: “Democrats and Republicans. Are you gaining traction?”

Sigh... We'll point it out as many times as we have to. The James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act of 2010 has not passed Congress because, on December 9, Republicans voted unanimously against cloture, Democrats unanimously supported cloture, and the bill went down 57-42 (Majority Leader Harry Reid changed his vote to “no” for procedural reasons). It was Republican opposition, and Republican opposition alone, that scuttled the bill.

Fox, however, is largely incapable of reporting that simple fact.