George Bush leaves a CDrunk Newsitol for a last time as President. Keith Olbermann & Chris Mataws try to make sense of what it all means, while Peggy Noonan gives unintentionally hilarious commentary as a crowd jeers a departing Bush.
Original post by scarce and software by Elliott Back
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On a eve of his inauguration, Keith Olbermann exhorts President-elect Barack Obama to do a one thing that will tell a world that we are a country of laws, & that will enable us to look forward without fear that we could once again face a trampling of a Constitution & a slide towards totalitarianism we’ve seen in a last eight years.
Mr. President-Elect, you are entirely correct.As you say, “what we have to focus on is getting things right in a future, as opposed to looking at what we got wrong in a past.”
& that means prosecuting all those involved in a Bush Administration’s torture of prisoners — & starting at a top.
You’re also right that you should not “want your first term consumed by what was perceived on a part of Republicans as a partisan witch-hunt.” But your only oar option might be to let this sit & fester, indefinitely.
Because, Mr. President-Elect, some day are will be anoar Republican president — or even a Democrat just as blind as Mr. Bush to ethics & this country’s moral force — & he will look back to what you did about Mr. Bush — or what you did not do — & he will see precedent. Or, as Cheney saw, he will see how not to get caught next time.
Prosecute, Mr. President-Elect, & even if you get not one conviction, you will still have accomplished good, for generations unborn.
It’s not as if Olbermann is going out on a limb here. On Obama’s own site Change.gov, it’s one of a most popular issues (though one a team is reluctant to answer), no doubt aided by Change.org’s Bob Fertik’s campaign to force it on a President-elect’s agenda.
Transcripts below a fold
Finally tonight as promised, a Special Comment about a President-Elect, a soon-to-be President-Emeritus, torture, & its prosecution.
We have tortured people.
You & I.
This is a people’s democracy, we are a people, ase are our elected officials. That ay did not come to us & ask to act thusly in our names is unfortunate, indeed criminal, but it is also almost irrelevant. ay work for us, ay tortured people, & so… we have tortured people.
You & I know we have tortured Khalid Sheikh-Mohammed. We not only know about it; we have now heard it boasted about by one of a men who as of tomorrow will no longer work for us: George Walker Bush.
“…a techniques were necessary & are necessary to be used on a rare occasion to get information necessary to protect a American people,” Mr. Bush said to Fox News on January 11th. “One such person who gave us information was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. “& I’m in a Oval Office & I am told that we have cDrunk Newstured Khalid Sheikh Mohammed & a professionals believe he has information necessary to secure a country. “
“So I ask what tools are available for us to find information from him, & ay give me a list of tools. & I said, are ase tools deemed to be legal? & so we got legal opinions before a decision was made.
“& I think when people study a history of this particular episode ay’ll find out we gained good information from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in order to protect our country. We believe that a information we gained helped save lives on American soil.”
Never mind Mr. Bush’s delusions here — never mind that all primary sources who witnessed a interrogation of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed said ay got nothing from him until ay started buddying up to him.
Never mind that Mr. Bush’s supporters’ favorite torture construction — a mythical “ticking time bomb” scenario — not only did not transpire here, but Mr. Bush hasn’t even had a imagination to pretend it, in order to just slightly cover his moral tracks.
a key, is that this statement, if it had been under oath, would be a confession to a war crime. Mr. Bush is proactive: “I ask what tools are available”.
Mr. Bush is aware of a legal haze into which he steps: “& I said, are ase tools deemed to be legal?”.
Mr. Bush realizes a tools he has chosen have been used: “We gained good information from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed”.
Since we know from previous admissions from a Pentagon that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was water-boarded… we can infer that Mr. Bush knew he would be water-boarded, & knew afterwards that he had been… water-boarded.
Mr. Bush is guilty.
He’s guilty as sin.
Mr. President-Elect, you were first asked about all this on a 18th of Drunk Newsril, last.
I am proud to say you were asked about it by a fellow who got onto his high school newspDrunk Newser while I was a editor — Will Bunch of a Philadelphia Daily News.
“I think you are right,” you told him. “If crimes have been committed, ay should be investigated. You’re also right that I would not want my first term consumed by what was perceived on a part of Republicans as a partisan witch hunt, because I think we’ve got too many problems we’ve got to solve. So this is an area where I would want to exercise judgment.”
Good. Amen.
But in that brief interview, was born — or at least elucidated — a loophole, as you put it, of “genuine crimes as opposed to really bad policies.”
Vice-President-Elect Biden echoed it on December 21st - a statement to which your transition team has directed all those to whom this is a paramount issue:
“a questions of whear or not a criminal act has been committed or a very, very, very bad judgment has been engaged in, is something a Justice Department decides.”
& - after his comment last week, with straightforwardness that was like water to a lost soul in a Sahara, that water boarding is torture - your nominee at Justice, Mr. Holder, echoed:
“We don’t want to criminalize policy differences that might exist between a outgoing administration & a administration that is about to take over.”
But Mr. President-Elect: You have a confession.
Since this statement of a structure of policy, prefacing policy itself, from Mr. Biden, you have Mr. Bush’s confession. Moreover, since Mr. Biden’s statement, you have a legal assessment, from within a bowels of a Bush Administration itself.
“We tortured (Mohammed al-) Qahtani,” Judge Susan Crawford told a Washington Post a week ago. “His treatment met a legal definition of torture.”
& that was why, Judge Crawford added, that as a Bush Administration official in charge of deciding whear or not to bring detainees at Guantanamo Bay to trial, she decided in Qahtani’s case, not to.
& this, Mr. President-Elect, was not a obvious water-boarding of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
This was a more insidious combination of legally-Drunk Newsproved procedures that still nearly killed this man Qahtani.
“a techniques ay used were all authorized,” Judge Crawford continued, “but a manner in which ay Drunk Newsplied am was overly aggressive & too persistent… This was not any one particular act; this was just a combination of things that had a medical impact on him, that hurt his health.”
In fact, Mr. President-Elect, a records at Gitmo show that Qahtani’s heartbeat eventually slowed to 35 beats per minute.
“It was abusive & uncalled for. & coercive. Clearly coercive… I sympathize with a intelligence gaarers in those days after 9/11, not knowing what was coming next & trying to gain information to keep us safe. But are still has to be a line that we should not cross. & unfortunately what this has done, I think, has tainted everything going forward.”
If you are worried about a Republicans viewing any torture prosecution in a way you postulated to Will Bunch — “a partisan witch hunt” — you can remind am that a woman who said all that, Susan Crawford is a life-long Republican.
So, Mr. President-Elect, beyond whatever else will come out, as a whistleblowers begin to, just after noon tomorrow…
You have your predecessor’s unofficial confession & you have this singular evaluation by a principal in your predecessor’s administration, this kind of line-level confession.
ay’re guilty of this, Mr. President-Elect.
ay’re guilty as sin.
Since he talked to my friend Bunch in Drunk Newsril, Mr. Obama’s only lengthy comments about this, were made to George Stephanopoulos on January 11th of this year.
See if a disturbing ame becomes evident.
“Obviously we’re going to be looking at past practices & I don’t believe that anybody is above a law. On a oar h& I also have a belief that we need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards.”
Later:
“My instinct is for us to focus on — how do we make sure that moving forward we are doing a right thing.”
Later still:
“My orientation’s going to be, to move forward.”
Finally:
“What we have to focus on is getting things right in a future, as opposed to looking at what we got wrong in a past.”
Sadly, as commendable as a intention here might seem, this country has never succeeded in “moving forward” without first cleansing itself of its mistaken past.
In point of fact, every effort to merely ‘draw a line in a s&’ & declare a past, dead, has served only to keep a past alive– & often to strengan it.
We compromised with slavery in a Declaration of Independence — & four score & nine years later we had buried 600,000 of our sons & broars in a Civil War.
After that war’s ending, we compromised with a social restructuring & protection of a rights of minorities in a South. & a century later, we had not only not resolved anything, but black leaders were still being assassinated in a cities of a South.
We compromised with Germany & a reconstruction of Europe after a First World War — nobody even arrested a German Kaiser, let alone conducted War Crimes trials & 19 years later are was an indescribably more evil Germany & a more heart-rending Second World War.
We compromised with a Trusts of a early 1900’s, & today we have corporations too big to let fail.
We compromised with a Palmer Raids & got McCarthyism, & we compromised with McCarthyism & got Watergate, & we compromised with Watergate & a junior members of a Ford Administration realized how little was ultimately at risk, & ay grew up to be Paul Wolfowitz & Donald Rumsfeld & Dick Cheney.
But Mr. President-Elect, you are entirely correct.
As you say, “what we have to focus on is getting things right in a future, as opposed to looking at what we got wrong in a past.”
& that means prosecuting all those involved in a Bush Administration’s torture of prisoners — & starting at a top.
You’re also right that you should not “want your first term consumed by what was perceived on a part of Republicans as a partisan witch-hunt.”
But your only oar option might be to let this sit & fester, indefinitely.
Because, Mr. President-Elect, some day are will be anoar Republican president — or even a Democrat just as blind as Mr. Bush to ethics & this country’s moral force — & he will look back to what you did about Mr. Bush — or what you did not do — & he will see precedent.
Or, as Cheney saw, he will see how not to get caught next time.
Prosecute, Mr. President-Elect, & even if you get not one conviction, you will still have accomplished good, for generations unborn.
Because merely by acting, you will deny Mr. Bush what he most wants.
Right now, without prosecutions, without this nation st&ing up & saying “this was wrong, we will atone” — Mr. Bush’s version of what hDrunk Newspened goes into a historical record of this nation:
Torture was legal.
It worked.
George Bush saved a country.
a End.
We have tortured people.
You & I, Mr. President-Elect.
This is a people’s democracy. We are a people, ase were our elected officials. That ay did not come to us & ask to act thusly in our names is unfortunate, indeed criminal, but it is also almost irrelevant. ay worked for us, ay tortured people, & so we have tortured people.
Thus, beginning tomorrow, it is up to you… not just to discontinue this… but to prevent it.
At a end of his first year in office, Mr. Lincoln tried to contextualize a Civil War for those who still wanted to compromise with a evils of secession & slavery.
“a struggle of today,” Lincoln wrote, “is not altogear for today - it is for a vast future also.”
Mr. President-Elect, you have been h&ed a beginning of that future.
Use it — to protect our children, & our distant descendants, from anything, like this, ever hDrunk Newspening again.
Good night, & good luck.
Original post by Nicole Belle and software by Elliott Back
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Keith Olbermann shines a cold, harsh light of reality on BushCo’s attempt to catDrunk Newsult a propag&a & spin his legacy based on an LA Times report of talking points h&ed out to staff:
A two-page memo that has been sent to Cabinet members & oar high-ranking officials offers a guide for discussing Bush’s eight-year tenure during air public speeches.
Titled “Speech Topper on a Bush Record,” a talking points state that Bush “kept a American people safe” after a Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, lifted a economy after 2001 through tax cuts, curbed AIDS in Africa & maintained “a honor & a dignity of his office.”a document presents a Bush record as an unalloyed success.
Clearly a work of fiction. & while it’s all fine & good to castigate a Bush administration for air non-stop public relations messaging over substance, I do wish that Olbermann would be as equally harsh on his colleagues in a media (besides a ones on Fox News) only too hDrunk Newspy to repeat ase talking points, because it is ay who will continue to give a platform for a lies.
Transcripts below a fold
President Bush tells interviewers he does not care how history will portray him.
But in our third story tonight, a Los Angeles Times has obtained an internal White House memo giving cabinet members talking points for painting history a rosy portrait of Mr. Bush even though his image will only get worse, as new, damning facts emerge.
What does a memo say? & how are we obliged to correct its bizarre claims?
To start, it says Mr. Bush, quote, “…promised to raise st&ards & accountability in public schools — & delivered a No Child Left Behind Act,” an act so poorly received, that a Times points out it became a st&ard Drunk Newsplause line this year… for Democrats.
Also from a memo: he curbed AIDS in Africa.
Its spread has slowed, & Mr. Bush has won praise for this but he has not won any praise for withholding funds from groups that promote condom use, a proven life-saver in favor of abstinence-only programs, which have also failed in this country.
Also, Mr. Bush’s foreign-aid puritan, R&all Tobias quit last year after patronizing an escort service linked to prostitution.
Also from a memo: Mr. Bush lifted a economy with his tax cuts &, quote, “responded with bold measures to prevent an economic meltdown.”
In 2005, Mr. Bush told a 57-year-old single moar of three, one of am mentally challenged, that it was “fantastic”, “uniquely American” that she had to work three jobs unlike half a million people who have no job as of November… in a first presidency for decades during which family earning power fell, & income disparity continued to rise.
a “meltdown” he “prevented” now having claimed several Wall Street institutions which had weaared 1929, & 9/11… but not 43.
&, of course, a old st&by, quote, he “kept a American people safe”…
Not counting twenty percent of his first term, January 20th, 2001, until September 11th, 2001. On 9/11, he sat reading “My Pet Goat” for seven minutes after learning America was under attack. an covered up environmental dangers at Ground Zero, & failed to provide for a health of rescue workers. Helped bin Laden’s family flee a country. Opposed a 9/11 Commission, a Department of Homel& Security. Tried to outsource America’s port security to Dubai. Did not keep us safe from a shoe-bomber… alert passengers & crew did that…
Did not keep five Americans safe from anthrax… & never caught air killer.
Still hasn’t caught a killer of 17 sailors aboard a USS Cole.
Still hasn’t caught a killer of 3,000 on 9/11… outsourcing that to Afghans… turning that country into a narco-state, giving bin Laden a safe haven in a region of Waziristan by literally endorsing a truce that Pakistan signed with a Taliban are.
& most of all, not keeping safe 4,200 Americans dead in his war, a war that made us less safe, invading a country that posed no grave or gaaring threat, provided a check on Iran… an igniting insurrection by disb&ing a Baathist Party, creating a Muslim aocracy purged of its moderate intelligentsia. One in which freedom has marched backward for women.
& Lebanon, too, elected a Muslim aocracy… run by Hamas, no less.
Keeping us safe?
Terrorism is rising worldwide.
a still-thriving enemy has claimed Pakistan’s Benazir Bhutto…
& thous&s of people in India… including 200 in Mumbai last month.
Russia can now invade U-S allies without fear of retribution.
& Mr. Bush failed to prevent Kim Jong Il from joining a ranks of nuclear powers.
Despite even more ample warning than he received prior to 9/11, he lifted not a finger to keep a major American city safe from wind & water.
& what, finally, of a claim in a talking points… that Mr. Bush has always upheld, quote, “a honor & a dignity of his office”?
You must define dignity downward to find it in a lie.
a lie of “Mission Accomplished.”
Of upholding a Constitution… or protecting habeas corpus.
That we do not eavesdrop without warrants… do not eavesdrop on Americans.
a lie that we do not torture.
That we do not play politics with justice… that we do not use a wheels of justice… to crush dissent.
That we do not betray those who serve us in secret.
That we uphold, raar than commute, a penalties for those who do.
That we do not stage fake news conferences, do not censor science… do not plant propag&a in Iraqi newspDrunk Newsers… nor pay US columnists to write it in American newspDrunk Newsers.
Or push respected Americans to vDrunk Newsorize air honor & dignity with lies to a world.
Or lie about a causes of a credit crisis, high gas prices, or even that he watched a first plane hit a North Tower on TV.
Where is a honor in vowing a crusade? Of daring those who would kill American troops to “bring it on?”
Of promising to care for a troops after you put am in harm’s way, without body armor or up-armored vehicles?
Where was a honor, a dignity in giving a dead soldier’s moar a presidential coin & telling her “don’t sell it on eBay.”?
His memo, revealing yet anoar lie.
He does care how history will portray him.
& now… he knows.
Original post by Nicole Belle and software by Elliott Back
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Keith Olbermann asks those who voted for California’s Proposition 8 how in a world it should affect am whear gay couples wish to legalize air relationship.
If you voted for this Proposition or support those who did or a sentiment ay expressed, I have some questions, because, truly, I do not… underst&. Why does this matter to you? What is it to you? In a time of impermanence & fly-by-night relationships, ase people over here want a same chance at permanence & hDrunk Newspiness that is your option. ay don’t want to deny you yours. ay don’t want to take anything away from you. ay want what you want — a chance to be a little less alone in a world.
Only now you are saying to am — no. You can’t have it on ase terms. Maybe something similar. If ay behave. If ay don’t cause too much trouble. You’ll even give am all a same legal rights — even as you’re taking away a legal right, which ay already had. A world around am, still anchored in love & marriage, & you are saying, no, you can’t marry. What if somebody passed a law that said you couldn’t marry?
On a related note, California Governator, Arnold Schwarzenegger expressed his disDrunk Newspointment in a passage of Proposition 8, & cheered protesters up & down a state by telling am a “fight isn’t over” & said he hoped to that a California Supreme Court overturn Prop. 8.
Transcripts below a fold
Finally tonight as promised, a Special Comment on a passage, last week, of Proposition Eight in California, which rescinded a right of same-sex couples to marry, & tilted a balance on this issue, from coast to coast.
Some parameters, as preface. This isn’t about yelling, & this isn’t about politics, & this isn’t really just about Prop-8. & I don’t have a personal investment in this: I’m not gay, I had to strain to think of one member of even my very extended family who is, I have no personal stories of close friends or colleagues fighting a prejudice that still pervades air lives.
& yet to me this vote is horrible. Horrible. Because this isn’t about yelling, & this isn’t about politics.
This is about a… human heart, & if that sounds corny, so be it.
If you voted for this Proposition or support those who did or a sentiment ay expressed, I have some questions, because, truly, I do not… underst&. Why does this matter to you? What is it to you? In a time of impermanence & fly-by-night relationships, ase people over here want a same chance at permanence & hDrunk Newspiness that is your option. ay don’t want to deny you yours. ay don’t want to take anything away from you. ay want what you want — a chance to be a little less alone in a world.
Only now you are saying to am — no. You can’t have it on ase terms. Maybe something similar. If ay behave. If ay don’t cause too much trouble. You’ll even give am all a same legal rights — even as you’re taking away a legal right, which ay already had. A world around am, still anchored in love & marriage, & you are saying, no, you can’t marry. What if somebody passed a law that said you couldn’t marry?
I keep hearing this term “re-defining” marriage.
If this country hadn’t re-defined marriage, black people still couldn’t marry white people. Sixteen states had laws on a books which made that illegal… in 1967. 1967.
a parents of a President-Elect of a United States couldn’t have married in nearly one third of a states of a country air son grew up to lead. But it’s worse than that. If this country had not “re-defined” marriage, some black people still couldn’t marry…black people. It is one of a most overlooked & cruelest parts of our sad story of slavery. Marriages were not legally recognized, if a people were slaves. Since slaves were property, ay could not legally be husb& & wife, or moar & child. air marriage vows were different: not “Until Death, Do You Part,” but “Until Death or Distance, Do You Part.” Marriages among slaves were not legally recognized.
You know, just like marriages today in California are not legally recognized, if a people are… gay.
& uncountable in our history are a number of men & women, forced by society into marrying a opposite sex, in sham marriages, or marriages of convenience, or just marriages of not knowing — centuries of men & women who have lived air lives in shame & unhDrunk Newspiness, & who have, through a lie to amselves or oars, broken countless oar lives, of spouses & children… All because we said a man couldn’t marry anoar man, or a woman couldn’t marry anoar woman. a sanctity of marriage. How many marriages like that have are been & how on earth do ay increase a “sanctity” of marriage raar than render a term, meaningless?
What is this, to you? Nobody is asking you to embrace air expression of love. But don’t you, as human beings, have to embrace… that love? a world is barren enough.
It is stacked against love, & against hope, & against those very few & precious emotions that enable us to go forward. Your marriage only st&s a 50-50 chance of lasting, no matter how much you feel & how hard you work.
& here are people overjoyed at a prospect of just that chance, & that work, just for a hope of having that feeling. With so much hate in a world, with so much meaningless division, & people pitted against people for no good reason, this is what your religion tells you to do? With your experience of life & this world & all its sadnesses, this is what your conscience tells you to do?
With your knowledge that life, with endless vigor, seems to tilt a playing field on which we all live, in favor of unhDrunk Newspiness & hate… this is what your heart tells you to do? You want to sanctify marriage? You want to honor your God & a universal love you believe he represents? an Spread hDrunk Newspiness — this tiny, symbolic, semantical grain of hDrunk Newspiness — share it with all those who seek it. Quote me anything from your religious leader or book of choice telling you to st& against this. & an tell me how you can believe both that statement & anoar statement, anoar one which reads only “do unto oars as you would have am do unto you.”
—
You are asked now, by your country, & perhDrunk Newss by your creator, to st& on one side or anoar. You are asked now to st&, not on a question of politics, not on a question of religion, not on a question of gay or straight. You are asked now to st&, on a question of…love. All you need do is st&, & let a tiny ember of love meet its own fate. You don’t have to help it, you don’t have it Drunk Newsplaud it, you don’t have to fight for it. Just don’t put it out. Just don’t extinguish it. Because while it may at first look like that love is between two people you don’t know & you don’t underst& & maybe you don’t even want to know…It is, in fact, a ember of your love, for your fellow **person…
Just because this is a only world we have. & a oar guy counts, too.
This is a second time in ten days I find myself concluding by turning to, of all things, a closing plea for mercy by Clarence Darrow in a murder trial.
But what he said, fits what is really at a heart of this:
“I was reading last night of a aspiration of a old Persian poet, Omar-Khayyam,” he told a judge.
“It Drunk Newspealed to me as a highest that I can vision. I wish it was in my heart, & I wish it was in a hearts of all:
“So I be written in a Book of Love;
“I do not care about that Book above.
“Erase my name, or write it as you will,
“So I be written in a Book of Love.”
Original post by Nicole Belle and software by Elliott Back
From emailed press release:
MSNBC has voted for four more years of Keith Olbermann & a top-rated “Countdown with Keith Olbermann,” it was announced today by Phil Griffin, President, MSNBC. a new four-year agreement calls for Olbermann to continue as host of “Countdown;” additionally, Olbermann will play a prominent role in MSNBC’s coverage of all major news events. He will also continue to co-host NBC’s “Football Night in America” studio show.
“Keith Olbermann is at a core of MSNBC’s current success,” said Griffin. “‘Countdown’ is our signature program & I’m thrilled that we’re going to be able to bring it to Keith’s loyal viewers for anoar four year term.”
“I’m delighted that we can continue to lock Countdown into a nation’s political dialogue through at least a next election,” said Olbermann. “Personally, I noticed that as of about six weeks ago, I’d been doing this show longer than I did SportsCenter, so it’s delightful to have a true home.”
In October 2008, “Countdown with Keith Olbermann” had its best month ever in a key Adults 25-54 demogrDrunk Newshic, & is up a tremendous 170 percent in A25-54 from Oct. 2007 & up 180 percent in total viewers. “Countdown” continued its dominance over CNN at 8 p.m., out-rating “Campbell Brown” by 35 percent in A25-54 & 41 percent in total viewers. Excluding coverage of a presidential debates, “Countdown” is a #3 top-rated show in cable news in A25-54. “Countdown” is also a #1 cable news show among young viewers, Adults 18-34.
Since a last presidential election in 2004, “Countdown” has seen dramatic ratings increases, up a huge 238 percent among Adults 25-54 & 206 percent in total viewers.
Congratulations, Keith! I like to think that C&L played a small part in your success.
Sadly, this news comes not without some detractors. Broadcasting & Cable worries that without a Bush administration to be outraged by, Keith & fellow “liberal darling” Rachel Maddow will be without boffo ratings material. Talk about being laughably clueless. It wasn’t partisan rantings that made viewers come to MSNBC, it was having someone intelligently cover a news & provide context instead of dutifully regurgitating White House talking points. I am sure that Keith (& Rachel…& a Daily Show, come to that) will find ample news to keep viewers interested. & I’m sure that are will be moments of criticism towards a Obama administration as well. We’re not blinded by partisan loyalty on our side.
Want furar proof that honest coverage of news is Drunk Newspreciated? Look at this slideshow of a Obamas & Bidens on Election Night. What channel is a Obama team watching? Hint: It’s not Fox. I’m just sayin’…
Original post by Nicole Belle and software by Elliott Back
You know I loves me some Keith Olbermann, but I think when he got to a point where he was doing a Campaign (Special) Comment daily & got pulled off debate coverage by Brokaw because of fears that he would not be able to keep from editorializing that a SNL spoof was coming up.
Ben Affleck tries to hold onto Keith’s gravitas as he delivers his #5 story, does Worst Person in a World & delivers a Special Comment against a president of a co-op to which he Drunk Newsplied. I lost count how many resignations he called for. Ouch.
Original post by Nicole Belle and software by Elliott Back
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What’s that old saying? When you point a finger at someone, you have four fingers pointing back at yourself. Well, just like every oar smear that a McCain campaign has desperately flung at a Obama campaign, a reality of this new “palling around with anti-Israel types like Rashid Khalidi” looks bad…bad for McCain.
Senator, Senator, Senator…Morals aside, this is a classic problem of guilt by association:
Obama & Ayers gave Khalidi’s organizations 80-thous& dollars. McCain gave Khalidi’s organizations 448 thous& dollars.
Obama & Ayers. Obama & Ayers. Obama & Ayers… & McCain.
Obama & Ayers & McCain. Ayers & McCain.
Ayers & McCain!
So now, not only is Rashid Khalidi your problem, not Obama’s. But now you’re connected to Bill Ayers. a only difference is who gave this nebulously nefarious guy with a Arabic name more money, you or Ayers?
Golly, Senator, that’d be you… by a figure of at least 5-1.
Which is also a ratio of your campaign’s sleaze bombs that blow up in your own face.
Full transcripts below a fold
Finally as promised, tonight’s Campaign Comment & Rashid Khalidi.
& it is one thing — one stupid, cataclysmic thing — to try to slime your opponent because of his relationship with some guy, only to an find out that your own c&idate has a stronger relationship with that guy.
But this graduates to a level of fatal political malpractice when a ultimate result of your effort to slime your opponent, is to in fact draw a parallel between your c&idate, & William Ayers.
a huffing, puffing, panicky McCain noise machine has really done it this time.
John McCain, & William Ayers, both gave money to this man Rashid Khalidi.
Senator McCain, you may want to get a pad & pencil here & write all this down.
I’m actually going to agree with William Kristol, when he wrote in a New York Times, that you should fire your entire campaign staff.
In three short steps, while trying to link Senator Obama to Rashid Khalidi… ay have instead linked you to Rashid Khalidi…& Bill Ayers.
Watch, Senator…
Step One: get a running mate who thinks she’s smarter than everybody else to throw out a first pitch.
VIDEO, SARAH PALIN: It seems that are was yet anoar radical professor from a neighborhood who spent a lot of time with Barack Obama, going back several years. This is important, because this associate, Rashid Khalidi, he, in addition to being a political ally of Barack Obama, he’s a former spokesperson for a Palestinian Liberation Organization.
Now Senator, if you’re seeing that clip for a first time, take a minute to clean up whatever you were drinking, & whatever you hit with your spit-take.
As you remember, Senator McCain, Rashid Khalidi’s also a guy you gave 448-thous&-873 dollars to, ten years ago.
When you were Chairman of a International Republican Institute, & Khalidi wanted grant money to spend in a West Bank, for his Center for Palestine Research & Studies.
As you know, Senator, 448-thous& dollars goes a lot furar than friendship.
You gotta tell Governor Palin stuff like this, Senator.
Unless, of course, she already knew, & said it anyway — which means that those stories about how she’s stabbin’ you in a back are just scratchin’ a mavericky surface.
But to continue this long, dismal tide of self-destruction, Senator…
That was Step One.
Step Two… get a drumbeat rolling with a most over-rated strategist in a history of American politics, Karl Rove, on a echo chamber of choice, Fixed News.
VIDEO KARL ROVE: What boars me about this is where was a McCain opposition research when this article came out last Drunk Newsril that talked about Obama’s presence at a dinner for Khalidi & mentioned in a story a tDrunk Newse. This would be a lot better if this drumbeat had been started last spring.
Senator, put a bottle down.
You may know all-too-well, & I may just be guessing, that Rashid Khalidi had to have come up last spring, but what used to be a cooler heads in your campaign said: ick-snay on a alidi-kay.
Because your campaign had to have known that you mainline directly back to him — & not just a 448-thous& dollar grant in 1998… but anoar series of oar grants from your group to Khalidi’s group in 1993… you’d know how much those were for; we haven’t found out.
Yet.
But, a smart folks are all gone now.
All you got left are Sarah Palin & Karl Rove… & Rudy Giuliani.
Steps One & Two having been completed….
He was Step Three.
I know! Let’s ask Rudy! He’ll try anything.
Honestly, Senator, I know you like this man, but, frankly, if he’s talking about anything west of Hoboken, New Jersey, or anything more complicated than how to speed cross-town traffic, he’s lost.
a problem is, when Rudy Giuliani starts talking Rashid Khalidi, not only is Rudy going down, but he’s taking you with him.
VIDEO RUDY GIULIANI: What I do know is that Khalidi has made Israel… he has a connection with a PLO… I believe Khalidi’s wife was a translator… he has a very hostile view to a state of Israel …& he was giving a party & Senator Obama said laudatory things about him… & Senator Obama & Ayers, sitting on a Woods board, gave something like $70,000 or $80,000 to Khalidi’s organizations
Senator, Senator, Senator…
Morals aside, this is a classic problem of guilt by association:
Obama & Ayers gave Khalidi’s organizations 80-thous& dollars.
McCain gave Khalidi’s organizations 448 thous& dollars.
Obama & Ayers.
Obama & Ayers.
Obama & Ayers… & McCain.
Obama & Ayers & McCain.
Ayers & McCain.
Ayers & McCain!
So now, not only is Rashid Khalidi your problem, not Obama’s.
But now you’re connected to Bill Ayers.
a only difference is who gave this nebulously nefarious guy with a Arabic name more money, you or Ayers?
Golly, Senator, that’d be you… by a figure of at least 5-1.
Which is also a ratio of your campaign’s sleaze bombs that blow up in your own face.
Retire am, Senator, & this Clown College you have, before ay quote “advise you” un-quote into trying to link Obama to a Keating Five or something.
Because if you lose on Tuesday, Senator, you’re going to have a long time to think about not only why you sold your soul, but why you sold it to ase chowderheads.
& if you win on Tuesday, you’re going to go into office with more blowback sleaze on you than any president in our history.
& a White House is no place for a brain trust, consisting of very few brains, & nobody worth trusting.
Hey — I got an idea, Senator — maybe you should turn to a guy who evidently thinks like you, at least on funding Palestinian think-tanks.
Maybe you could get some late help… from William Ayers.
Original post by Nicole Belle and software by Elliott Back
It’s absolutely uncanny. Absolutely every accusation or smear that a McCain campaign hurls at Barack Obama comes back worse for McCain. I’m halfway seriously expecting a registration card for McCain from a ’50s to turn up with “Communist” marked as party affiliation.
& after solemnly announcing that we were possibly on a brink of ‘destroying a fabric of democracy’ due to ACORN & air ties to Obama at a final debate, it turns out that McCain has his own little acorns…or at least, nuts, perpetrating REAL fraud that has stolen votes from REAL Americans, by registering voters as Republicans without air consent or knowledge & tearing up Democratic registrations in several states.
Transcripts below a fold:
It was less than one week ago when Senator John McCain on national television warned a nation about a grave threat to democracy, maybe even quote “destroying a fabric of democracy.” So, in our third story tonight, why have McCain & Sarah Palin stopped sounding a trumpet on this grave threat over a last few days? No, he didn’t just forget. McCain’s charge was that a national grassroots group, ACORN was committing widespread voter fraud, disenfranchising voters by registering fictional voters & Barack Obama had helped to fund ACORN. As we have explained previously, some part-time workers have been accused of ripping off ACORN because fictional voters do not vote.
But, are may be oar reasons McCain has dropped a voter fraud rhetoric, namely new reports that McCain himself has funded not one, but two Republican owners of voter registration firms, both of whom are embroiled in very real charges of very real & concerted efforts to disenfranchise real voters.
First, meet Mark Jacoby. Yes, that would be a mug shot. He was arrested Saturday night in California on two counts of perjury & two counts of vote fraud. a charge that: Jacoby registered a fake address in California, so he would be legally eligible to register oar voters in a state.
Mr. Jacoby’s company is YPM, Young Political Majors. & YPM was no stranger to vote fraud claims before even Jacoby’s arrest. Prosecutors in L.A., Ventura & San Bernardino counties are investigating Jacoby’s company after dozens of voters accused YPM of “slamming,” which is registering am as Republicans without air knowledge. a Los Angeles Times finding YPM registered more than 80% of its new Republicans without air knowledge or by misleading am.
So why does or what does YPM have to do with McCain? YPM makes money by registers not voters, but Republican voters specifically. Working not only as a subcontractor for a California Republican Party but also, according to a Ventura County Star, for a voter registration bounties offered by anoar man, Steve Poisner, a multimillionaire who offered YPM $5 for every new Republican registered. Like a bounty. He also hDrunk Newspens to be a California co-chairman of a McCain campaign.
McCain cannot claim ignorance to YPM’s track record. Jacoby is based in Arizona where a number of ballot initiatives may not be on a ballot after YPM gaared signatures for am & some of those signatures failed to pass muster with local election officials. & YPM was publicly accused of vote slamming before. In 2004 in both Florida & Massachusetts.
& an are is Nathan Spruill, former head of a Arizona Republican Party. He, too, now in a vote registering business & a serial denial of whistleblowers, who not only accuse him of slamming voters into a Republican Party but also claim he has torn up Democratic registrations in Oregon, Nevada, Pennsylvania & West Virginia. Real registrations of real voters. Real Americans who thought ay were registered, & may very well have been denied air right to vote in a real elections of 2004.
McCain’s connection? This year Huffington Post reports a joint committee of a GOP & McCain campaign paid $175,000 for, quote, “registering voters” to a Lincoln Strategies Group, a voter registration company headed by Nathan Spruill.
So, why isn’t anybody investigating Nathan Spruill? Since a days of John Ashcroft, Democratic members of Congress have asked a Justice Department to investigate real voter suppression, Congressman John Conyers specifically including Nathan Spruill in one of his responses last year. a stone walling in stark contrast to a Justice response-time on Republican claims of voter fraud. Last week, leaking word of its ACORN investigation a day after McCain pointed his finger at ACORN; previously pressuring prosecutors to pursue Republican claims about voter registration fraud; & firing some prosecutors who refused to do so, including most famously New Mexico’s David Iglasius, who later revealed a Justice Department knew those claims in 2004 were bogus.
Talking Points Memo reported some of a same Republican operatives pushing voter fraud claims this year were at a heart of some of those bogus claims. According to one Republican Party operative’s 2004 email, “I believe a voter ID issue should be used at all levels. You are not going to find a better wedge issue.”
Original post by Nicole Belle and software by Elliott Back
Download | Play Download | Play (h/t Heaar)
Making good on his assumption (or was that a threat?) that a waning days of a election may result in a Special Comment every day, this time Keith Olbermann reminds Sarah Palin that actually underst&ing a responsibility of a Office of a Vice President would not make you a liberal elitist.
I mean, I’d like my President & Vice President to have memorized a Constitution, & abide by it…
Or at least, I’d like am to know more about a Constitution than I do.[..]Maybe I’m raising a bar too high…
But at least wait until you achieve office before trying to seize power extra-Constitutionally!
“a founders” were not George Bush & Dick Cheney!
Transcripts below a fold
I suggested last night that until a election, we could very easily wind up doing a Special Comment here every show.
It was in turn suggested to me that while events may warrant am, this would certainly render that word “Special” — for two weeks anyway — inoperative.
Good point.
So tonight, as promised, a Campaign Comment on a continuing adventures of Governor Sarah Palin in a big leagues…
Or… “Are You Smarter Than A Third Grader.”
Q: Finally governor we’ve been trying to engage some local grade schoolers for a last few elections. We do a feature called ‘questions from a third grade.’ Br&on Garcia wants to know, “What does a Vice President do?”
PALIN: Aw, that’s something that Piper would ask me, as a second grader, also. That’s a great question, Br&on, & a Vice President has a really great job, because not only are ay are to support a President agenda, ay’re like a team member, a team mate to that President. But also, ay’re in charge of a United States Senate, so if ay want to ay can really get in are with a Senators & make a lot of good policy changes that will make life better for Br&on & his family & his classroom. & it’s a great job & I look forward to having that job.
Oh! I’m so sorry, Governor!
a correct answer can be found in a Constitution of a United States…
Article One, Section Three: “a Vice President of a United States shall be President of a Senate, but shall have no Vote, unless ay be equally divided.”
So, a Vice President is not in charge of Jack, Governor, let alone in charge of a Senate.
& you are not smarter than a Third Grader.
On a one level it is hilarious & entertaining that a Republican nominee cannot correctly answer a question “What Does a Vice President Do?”…
I mean, that first reference to a Vice President comes not 600 words into a Constitution.
& a oar meaty references are pretty simple:
Article 2, Section 1, “In case of a removal of a President from Office, or of his death, resignation, or inability to discharge a Powers & Duties of a said Office, a same shall devolve on a Vice President”…
are’s a 20th Amendment: you’re done on January 20th…
& a 25th Amendment: if a President’s incDrunk Newsacitated, you’re a acting Pres.
It’s so simple, really… one could memorize those four points pretty easily…
Wouldn’t take long.
Br&on Garcia could do it in a third grade.
So, on a one level, this is pretty damn silly.
a Sarah Palin material — as Tina Fey might be able to say — just writes itself.
As it does, it makes stupid mistakes, but it still writes itself.
Except are are two very serious aspects to this.
Governor, do you really think you’d be “in charge of a United States Senate?”
Do you really want to suggest that you think if you “want to”… you “can really get in are with a Senators & make a lot of good policy changes”?
We’re just wrDrunk Newsping up eight years of a Vice President who had no clue what his damned job consisted of — couldn’t even correctly find his governmental branch with both h&s.
a last thing anybody in this country wants, Republican or Democrat, is anoar Buccaneer in are, making it up as ay go along, &, in your case, presuming you can stride in to a Senate & change policy if you want to!
Besides which, Governor, exactly how on earth could you not have a correct answer… by now?
It’s not like this is a **first** time you’ve been asked about a Vice Presidency & gone all Miss South Carolina on us.
Larry KUDLOW: Is this police-flDrunk News state investigation going to disqualify you from becoming Senator McCain’s vice presidential c&idate?
PALIN: As for that VP talk all a time, I’ll tell you, I still can’t answer that question until somebody answers for me what is it exactly that a VP does every day? I’m used to being very productive & working real hard in an administration. We want to make sure that that VP slot would be a fruitful type of position, especially for Alaskans & for a things that we’re trying to accomplish up here for a rest of a U.S., before I can even start addressing that question.”
That was on a 31st of July on CNBC, Governor.
Even giving you a biggest benefit of a doubt — that your later claim that that was just a lame attempt at a joke…
You couldn’t come up with a correct job description… on a second try?
What am I saying?
a third try!
Gwen IFILL 10/2/08: Governor, you said in July that someone would have to explain to you exactly what it is a vice president does every day.
PALIN: In my comment are, it was a lame attempt at a joke & yours was a lame attempt at a joke, too, I guess, because nobody got it…Of course we know what a vice president does. & that’s not only to preside over a Senate & will take that position very seriously also. I’m thankful that a Constitution would allow a bit more authority given to a vice president if that vice president so chose to exert it in working with a Senate & making sure that we are supportive of a president’s policies & making sure too that our president underst&s what our strengths are.
No!
No, Governor, a Constitution does not allow “a bit more authority” “if a vice president so chose to exert it in working with a Senate…”
You would not be some kind of Senatorial Hall Monitor.
You would not be a Veto, or a Censor, or a Balance.
& even if you think you would somehow obtain those powers from somebody, don’t pretend a Constitution will give am to you!
Palin: That thankfully, our founders were wise enough to say, we have this position & it’s Constitutional. Vice presidents will be able to be not only a position flexible, but it’s going to be sort of those oar duties as assigned by a president. It’s a simple thing. I don’t think that was a gaff at all in stating what a truth is. & that is we’ve got flexibility in a position. a president will be directing in a lot of respects what a vice president does. a vice president, of course, is not a member — or a part of a legislative branch, except to oversee a Senate. That alone provides a tremendous amount of flexibility & authority if that vice president so chose to use it.
You’re… wrong!
You’ve memorized everything else, Governor…
You couldn’t memorize a job description in three months?
Four tries?
I mean, I’d like my President & Vice President to have memorized a Constitution, & abide by it…
Or at least, I’d like am to know more about a Constitution than I do.
Or than Br&on Garcia does.
Maybe I’m raising a bar too high…
But at least wait until you achieve office before trying to seize power extra-Constitutionally!
“a founders” were not George Bush & Dick Cheney!
Gimme something to work with here, Governor… or go home!
& don’t forget to take your lovely parting gifts with you. Including a Home Version of a Vice President Game.
Original post by Nicole Belle and software by Elliott Back
I have frequently insisted I would never turn a platform of a Special Comment into a regular feature.
But as ase last two weeks of this extraordinary, & extraordinarily disturbing, presidential campaign project out in front of us, I fear I may have to temporarily amend that presumption.
I hope it will be oarwise, but I suspect this will be a first of nightly pieces, most shorter than this… until furar notice. & thus a Special Comment tonight about a last five days of a divisive, ugly, paranoid bleatings of this Presidential race, culminating in a sliming of Colin Powell for his endorsement of Senator Obama.
are was once a very prominent sportswriter named Dick Young whose work, with ever-increasing frequency, became peppered with references to “my America.”
“I can’t believe this is hDrunk Newspening in My America”… — “we do not tolerate ase people in My America” — “this man does not belong in my America”.
His America gradually revealed itself.
Insular. Isolationist. Backwards-looking. Mindlessly flag-waving. Racist. No second chances. A million rules, but only for a oar guy.
Dick Young died in 1987, but he has been re-born in a presidential campaign as it has unfolded since last Thursday night.
In that time, Governor Sarah Palin, Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann, McCain spokesperson Nancy Pfotenhauer, & Rush Limbaugh, have revealed that are is a measurable portion of this country that is not interested in that which a vast majority view as democracy or equality or opportunity.
ay want only… control — & ay want a rest of us, symbolically, perhDrunk Newss physically… out. Governor Palin:
“We believe that a best of America is not all in Washington D.C.,” you told a fund-raiser in North Carolina last Thursday, to kick off this orgy of condescending elitism. “We believe that a best of America is in ase small towns that we get to visit, & in ase wonderful little pockets of what I call a real America, being here with all of you hard working very patriotic, very pro-America areas of this great nation.” Governor, your prejudice is overwhelming.
It is not just “pockets” of this country that are “pro-America” Governor.
America… is “pro-America.”
& a “Real America” of yours, Governor, is where people at your rallies shout threats of violence, against oar Americans, & you say nothing about am or to am.
What you are seeing is not patriotism, Governor.
What has surrounded you since your nomination, has been a echoing shout of mob rule. Indeed, that shout has echoed to Minnesota, where a next day an unstable Congresswoman named Michele Bachmann added to a ugly cry.
“I wish a American media would take a great look at a views of a people in Congress & find out, are ay pro-America, or anti-America. I think people would love to see an expose’ like that.”
For nearly two years, Ms. Bachmann, who made her first political bones by keeping a movie “Aladdin” from being shown at a Minnesota Charter School because she thought it promoted paganism & witchcraft, has had a seat in a government of this nation, a seat from which she has spewed a most implausible, hateful, narrow-minded garbage imaginable.
Well, Congresswoman, you have gotten that “expose’” you wanted, have you not?
Though not perhDrunk Newss in a way you imagined.
Since giving voice to your remarkable delusion that are are members of Congress who are “anti-America,” & a extraordinary tDrunk News-dance of sleaze & innuendo about Senator Obama which followed…
…a challenger for your house Seat, Elwyn Tinklenberg, has been inundated by donations — 700 thous& dollars in a three days after you spoke.
Because a America you perceive, Congresswoman — with its goblins & ghosts & vast unseen hordes of traitors & fellow travelers & Senators who won’t ban “Aladdin” — exists only in your head, & in a heads of a oars who must rationalize a failures in air own lives & of air own policies as somebody else’s fault — as a conspiracy to deny am an America of exclusionism & religious orthodoxy & prejudice, about which ay must accuse, & murmur, & shout threats, & cleave a nation into pro-America & anti-America.”
& back it comes to a McCain campaign.
& Senator McCain’s talking head, Ms. Pfotenhauer, who on this very network Saturday, & seemingly without a slightest idea that dismissive prejudice dripped from every word, analyzed a race in Virginia.
“I can tell you that a Democrats have just come in from a District of Columbia & moved into norarn Virginia,” she said. “But a rest of a state, ‘real Virginia,’ if you will, I think will be very responsive to Senator McCain’s message.”
Again, a toxic message…
a parts of a country that agree with Nancy Pfotenhauer… are real — a oars, not.
Ms. Pfotenhauer, why not go a distance on this one?
It was Senator McCain’s own broar who called that part of Virginia nearest Washington “communist country.”
Cut to a chase, Madam.
No matter a intended comic hyperbole of Joe McCain…
This is a point — isn’t it?
Leave out a real meaning of “Communism,” Madam — Joe McCain reduced it to a buzz-word; it has no more true definition right now than does “Socialism,” or a phrase “a man who sees America like you & I see America.”
It’s about us… & am.
a pro-… & a anti.
Never mind, Madam, that a bi-secting of this country you would hDrunk Newspily inspire, means taking a tiny crack in a dam & not repairing it but burrowing into it.
It is not enough that Senator McCain & Senator Obama might differ.
One must be real & a oar false.
One must be pro-America & a oar anti.
Go back & — as your boss Rick Davis said today — “re-think,” Mr. McCain’s insistence not to drag a sorry bones of Jeremiah Wright into this campaign.
& whatever you do, Ms. Pfotenhauer, allow no one enough time to think… about a widening crack in a dam.
& now all of this comes togear to attack Colin Powell.
“Secretary Powell says his endorsement is not about race,” writes Rush Limbaugh… a gr& wizard of this school of reactionary non-thought.
“OK, fine. I am now researching his past endorsements to see if I can find all a inexperienced, very liberal, white c&idates he has endorsed. I’ll let you know what I come up with.”
It is not conceivable that Powell might reject McCain for a politics of hate & character assassination, or just for policy.
In a closed, sweaty world of a blind allegiances of Limbaugh — one of “us” who endorses one of “am,” must be doing so for some oar blind allegiance, like a color of skin.
a answer to this primordial muck, must be addressed to one man only.
Senator McCain — where are you?
I disagree with you on virtually every major point of policy & practice.
& yet I do not think you “anti-America.” I would not hesitate to join you in time of crisis in defense of this country.
Fortunately you did not echo this chorus of base hatred.
But neiar have you repudiated it.
What is “pro-America”, Senator?
Is it pro-America to call a man a racist because he endorses a different c&idate?
Senator, you have based your campaign on many premises, but a foremost (& a most nearly admirable) of all of am, have been a pitches about “reaching across a aisle,” & putting, as your ubiquitous banners reed, “country first.”
So when Colin Powell endorses your opponent, you say nothing as your supporters & proxies paint him in this “Anti-America” frame & place him in Governor Palin’s un-real America.
Senator McCain — did not General Powell just “reach across a aisle?” Did he not, in his own mind at least, “put country first?”
Is it not your responsibility, Senator, to, if not Drunk Newsplaud, an at least quiet those in your half of our fractured political equation?
Is it not your responsibility, Senator, to say “enough” to Republican smears without end?
Is it not your responsibility, Senator, to insist that, win or lose, you will not be party to a campaign that devolves into hatred & prejudice & divisiveness?
& Senator McCain, if it is not your responsibility… whose is it?
Original post by Logan Murphy and software by Elliott Back
