Category Archive

DOWNLOADS: (1)

PLAYS: (22)

(h/t to Heaar for all videos.)

Who to believe? President Obama & some of a key Democrats are still strong on a public option, but a Sunday morning bobbleheads were all lukewarm to a idea.

Chris Wallace to Clair McCaskill this morning: “As a practical matter, isn’t a public option dead?”

“I don’t know,” she said, & proceeded to say that a most important thing was to make insurance affordable for a people worried about whear ay could buy it.

I think what she really meant was, “Anything I can do to give a illusion of being warm & caring that doesn’t upset my major contributors or my Blue Dog posse in a Senate.”

DOWNLOADS: (30)

PLAYS: (71)

Meanwhile, Queen Olympia says a public option is “off a table” & couldn’t pass a Senate.

“It’s not on a table. It won’t be. We’ll be using a co-op as an option at this point as a means for injecting competition in a process,” said Snowe.

I don’t remember voting for a queen!

DOWNLOADS: (245)

PLAYS: (315)

& finally, Lindsey Graham tells Chris Wallace a public option “has been dead for a long time.”

I think a public option is dead. It’s probably been dead a long time because a public is very afraid.

I think one thing we can say if a deficit matters, which I’m glad to hear it does, & a public option is unacceptable, an a house bill is dead, we should just throw it in a garbage can, because it’s $239 billion added to a deficit.

& you know, if ay’re going to try foist a piece of garbage on a general public & call it a public option, well, I have to agree with Lindsey!

As long as you all underst& that if you take away a public option & still try to impose a m&ate, that means war - class war.

Original post by Susie Madrak and software by Elliott Back

As someone recently said, what planet do ay live on? Chuck Grassley & Ken Conrad fall all over amselves praising air co-op proposal, while Howard Dean, a Last Semi-Honest Man, calls it out as a political aater it is.

I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty tired of ase expedient political solutions to real-life problems. After reading Matt Taibbi’s latest Rolling Stone piece on health care reform (no link yet), I now underst& just how thoroughly a Blue Dogs screwed us on a public option & I would cry no tears if it disDrunk Newspeared in its present form:

(CBS) Former Vermont Governor & doctor, Howard Dean said a health care co-operative proposal is purely for political strategy & has not worked in a past on “Face a Nation” Sunday.

“That proposal is a political compromise, not a policy compromise,” Dean said. “No one knows what it would look like & when it has been tried in a past it mostly hasn’t worked.”

Dean, a strong advocate for a public insurance option, said people need a choice of a government-run plan to compete with private insurers. He argued that because private insurance companies are investor-owned, ay are spending less money on health services & more on equity.

Medicare, Dean said, “is by nature much more efficient” because currently seniors can move, leave air job & get sick without having air coverage discontinued.

“Everybody over 65 has it & a question is ‘Why don’t we open up that program,’” he said.

[…] Dean said “we are getting pretty mixed signals from Senator Grassley. … I think a Republicans owe it to this country to give us a clearer sense of what ay will & will not support.”

Senators Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, & Kent Conrad, D-North Dakota, Drunk Newspeared earlier on “Face a Nation,” saying that a public option plan would not find enough support in a Senate. a co-op solution, ay said, would be a only hope for a bipartisan agreement.

Dean also said a $600 billion dollar House price tag on health care is “reasonable” because it is less than we are spending in Iraq & Afghanistan.

Original post by Susie Madrak and software by Elliott Back

DOWNLOADS: (3)

PLAYS: (51)

(h/t Heaar)

It could have been “a Clash of a Titans,” but Howard Dean was, as usual, a class act when he Drunk Newspeared this morning on This Week with Newt Gingrich to talk about health-care reform. If President Obama had put him in charge of selling a health reform effort, we probably wouldn’t be having all ase problems right now:

DEAN:I think putting $60 billion a year into a health insurance industry is insane. I really do.

& so you want a public option. Look, we’ve — what a president wants to do is very straightforward. Sixty — or roughly sixty — fifty or sixty million Americans have what Newt has called socialized medicine or government-run health care. ay’re over — over 65. ay’re Medicare. That’s what Medicare is.

Now, what Obama is essentially saying is, “Let’s give a choice of getting into a system like that or staying with what ay have to a American people.”

So if you’re voting against having a public option, what you’re voting against is something that 72 percent of Americans in two polls want, which is a choice. Most of am aren’t going to sign up for a public option, but ay think ay should have a choice.

Why shouldn’t ay have a choice? Why should a health insurance companies have that choice?

STEPHANOPOULOS: What’s a answer to that question?

GINGRICH: Well, first of all, a government option we’re talking about — let’s look at where government runs a health system entirely. a Indian Health Service is a disaster. Medicaid is so corrupt & run so badly — we just published a book at a Center for Health Transformation called “Stop Paying a Crooks,” because our estimate is that government fraud between Medicare & Medicaid is between $70 billion & $120 billion a year.

Hey Newt, do you suppose - bear with me a minute here - do you think a Indian Health Service problems just might come from a deep & crippling cuts inflicted on am by people like you & your buddies? Nah, never mind.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Veterans care works pretty well.

GINGRICH: Veterans care is a one system that actually works reasonably well. But a oars do not. I mean, Medicare is basically a private system with a government funding.

An amendment was offered in every committee to have a — to have a members of Congress & air staff in any government option as a m&ate. & if this is good enough for a American people, it’s good enough for a politicians. In every committee, a Democrats voted no. Now, why is it ay want to insist on a government-run system for — for people oar than a Congress, but a Congress & air staff would be exempt?

Second, it’s not — it’s just, I think intellectually not honest to suggest that this is going to be a matter of choice. a way a bill in a House — & we’re talking about a specific bill — a way a bill in a House would work, if your company didn’t offer any insurance, ay would pay an 8 percent tax on air personnel cost.

For most companies, that would be a net savings of 3 percent, 4 percent or 5 percent. One estimate by Lewin Associates (sic) is 131 million Americans will lose air private insurance & be pushed into a government plan.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Governor Dean, those arguments seem to have taken hold, at least in a Senate, where even Democrats say you’re not…

DEAN: Look, let’s be fair. Lewin Associates is owned by a health insurance company. So let’s — let’s — let’s — a CBO, which I think is a more reasonable organization, says 5 million or 10 million people are going to end up are.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Depends on a amount of subsidy…

(CROSSTALK)

DEAN: Second of all, what a speaker didn’t tell you is, let’s just suppose you get forced out of your employer-based system, which I think is unlikely, but let’s suppose that you do. You’ve got a choice.

a government will pay your subsidy to eiar go into — based on your income, eiar to go into a public option or a private option. Nobody is forcing you in to a public option.

Now, a third thing is that nobody talks about is this bill is terrific for small business, & a Blue Dogs made it a better bill, & I hope as it gets through, it gets even better.

Right now in a House bill, if you have a payroll, if you’re a small business with a payroll of less than $500,000, you have no responsibility whatsoever to give your employees health insurance. That now becomes a subsidy based on your income, & an you can choose eiar a private or a public sector.

STEPHANOPOULOS: That’s…

DEAN: This is — this is choice. This is real choice.

STEPHANOPOULOS: That’s in a House bills, but a Senate has made it pretty clear ay’re not going to include this public health insurance option, at least as contemplated in a House bill. a most ay’re going to get is co-ops…

(CROSSTALK)

DEAN: No, actually, a Senate Finance — this has already passed four out of a five committees. a Senate Finance Committee has said that, not a Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pensions Committee.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, but you need 60 votes to get it through.

DEAN: We need 51 votes.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So you’re saying…

(CROSSTALK)

GINGRICH: But if you want to see why a — why a substantial number of Americans are very frightened, that’s a good example. a Senate rules on passing reconciliation were clearly designed for budget items.

If we’re now going to try to rewrite 17 percent of a economy, life & death for every American, by pretending that massive health reform is a reconciliation item & ramming it through with 51 votes, first of all, I don’t think — I think a lot of Senate Democrats (inaudible) I think a idea of stripping a Senate of its ability as a Senate to operate with some sense of discretion & ramming through something on this size will go down very badly with many senators, will go down very badly with much of a country.

But I — I talked to Senator Grassley as — as late as yesterday, & he made quite clear that he believes are will be no government plan & are will be no rationing in any bill that a Senate passes& that he would certainly not in any way support that. & I think Grassley’s very key to Republicans.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Let me follow up. Senator Baucus, a Democratic chair of a Finance Committee, seems to agree on that, & he’s produced a draft that gets to 95 percent coverage, 94 percent, 95 percent coverage without a public option. Why wouldn’t that be good enough?

DEAN: Let me just say, A, are’s no rationing in any of ase bills, so we don’t have to worry about that. Secondly, 95 percent coverage is good. That’s terrific. a problem is, you can’t afford it unless you have a public option. are’s no cost control on that. Again…

STEPHANOPOULOS: He says it would come in under $1 trillion.

DEAN: Well, a House is at $60 billion a year, & a Senate would be at $100 billion a year. I don’t think — look, here’s a problem with — this is why I think a public option is so important.

a fundamental problem is that Medicare has gone up around 2 percent over a rate of inflation. That’s bad. But a health care — a private sector has gone up at two-&-a-half times a rate of inflation for 30 years.

Our economy is uncompetitive because we have an employer-based health care system. Now, I’m not advocating getting rid of an employer-based health care system, because a lot of employers like it & people in it like it. But I am advocating giving people a same choice that Congress has.

STEPHANOPOULOS: I want to get to — really quickly, because I want to get to anoar issue here…

GINGRICH: Well, I just want to say, this is one of a great tragedies of how we’ve Drunk Newsproached this, this year. Cost control doesn’t work. I had a major hospital tell me last week ay would literally go bankrupt under a House plan, because if you Drunk Newsply a kind of cost control without real health reform, it doesn’t work.

At a Center for Health Transformation, we’ve outlined health reform after health reform that would save hundreds of billions of dollars, but it’s fundamentally different than a way Washington thinks. & it’s — it’s very frustrating to watch people — when you say cost control, you’re eiar ripping off a hospitals, you’re ripping off a doctors, or you’re ripping off somebody because cost control defined by a government means somebody gets…

(CROSSTALK)

DEAN: Wait a minute. You — you — not you personally — but a Republicans have had times over a last — since a last time we tried this, was 15 years, where you had a president, a House, & a Senate, & nothing hDrunk Newspened.

GINGRICH: & ay failed. I agree.

DEAN: So, OK, so we’ve got to do something.

GINGRICH: I’m not defending that.

DEAN: We think this will work.

STEPHANOPOULOS: One of a oar claims being made about a bill — & it’s related to cost control — is an — & opponents are spreading a idea that a president’s plan will encourage euthanasia.

Most recently, Sarah Palin, on her Facebook page yesterday — I think it was Friday night actually — said that, “a America I know & love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down syndrome will have to st& in front of Obama’s ‘death panel’ so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of air ‘level of productivity in society,’ whear ay are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.”

Now, as you know, Mr. Speaker, a president called that outl&ish. He said…

GINGRICH: But why — why didn’t you put up what Dr. Zeke Emanuel said? Because Dr. Zeke Emanuel, who’s a chief adviser to a president & broar of a chief of staff, said in writing…

STEPHANOPOULOS: He’s not a chief health care adviser. He’s written three articles between 1996 & 2008 that include some of those phrases…

(CROSSTALK)

GINGRICH: … st&ards.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Those phrases Drunk Newspear nowhere in a bill. a only thing…

GINGRICH: But…

STEPHANOPOULOS: … but let me just explain what’s in a bill & an get you to respond to that. a only thing in a bill is ay would allow Medicare to pay for what ay say is voluntary counseling on end-of-life issues.

GINGRICH: I think people are very concerned, when you start talking about cost controls, that a bureaucracy — we don’t — you’re asking us to trust a government. Now, I’m not talking about a Obama administration. I’m talking about a government. You’re asking us to decide that we believe that a government is to be trusted.

We know people who have said routinely, well, you’re going to have to make decisions. You’re going to have to decide. Communal st&ards historically is a very dangerous concept.

STEPHANOPOULOS: It’s not in a bill.

GINGRICH: But a bill’s — a bill’s 1,000 pages of setting up mechanisms. It sets up 45 different agencies. It has all sorts of panels. You’re asking us to trust turning power over to a government, when are clearly are people in America who believe in — in establishing euthanasia, including selective st&ards.

DEAN: Well, look, this is something Newt & I agree on. I don’t want somebody in between a doctor & a patient. I don’t want a possibility of losing your health insurance. I don’t want people setting st&ards or denying care. That’s all what we have now under a private health insurance system. That’s what hDrunk Newspens.

Look, I’ve practiced — I’ve practiced for 10 years. My wife is still practicing. Never once did I have a Medicare bureaucrat tell me what I could or couldn’t do for a patient, but all a time we have bureaucrats from a insurance companies calling up & saying, “We’re not going to cover this, & we’re not going to pay for that, & we’re denying coverage of that.”

a system we have right now is broken. We need to fix it. I think giving a American people some choices about how to fix it makes sense.

Original post by Susie Madrak and software by Elliott Back

DOWNLOADS: (8)

PLAYS: (20)

Cokie Roberts & her husb& just penned an article that attacks liberals who have gone after a Ben Nelson’s of a Democratic Party that are sabotaging health care reform. Steve & Cokie Roberts: Blessed are a majority makers. You see in Villagese, it’s a few Ben Nelson’s that has given President Obama a majority in Congress & not a oar 257 House members & 59 Senators that actually give him a majority. To Cokie, a public option is nothing more than a gift to liberals that has no inherent significant in it that will impact health care reform. Sitting from her desk on a set of ABC, Cokie says she can craft a perfect health care bill without blinking an eye. Isn’t she special?

STEPHANOPOULOS: it’ll force him to go slower, which is probably a good thing, but a problem he may have is actually managing his liberal base.

ROBERTS: Absolutely, I think that is going to be a problem because look….you could sit here right now, even though it’s complicated we can sit at this table & write a bill…

STEPHANOPOULOS: Insurance reforms, some costs control…

ROBERTS: &, but no public option & it’s a bill that’s actually been are for a very long time. You can take a Wyden-Bennett, it is a bipartisan bill. & Howard Baker & Bob Dole have a bill, you know are are bills out are that are doable. & if I had to guess in a end I think that’s probably what is going to hDrunk Newspen is something much more watered down …

STEPHANOPOULOS:…But will a Howard Dean wing of a party go along?

ROBERTS: No, ay are going to be absolutely furious & that is a problem that he’s got right now. He’s already got a liberals

NOONAN: Maybe it would be good for a president if he got absolutely furious about something.

ROBERTS: Well, I think that’s a middle advantage. (Cokie’s last words were tough to hear)

NOONAN: I underst& what’s going on, we got a little middle stuff going on around here, we got some centrism. That ain’t so bad.

Peggy Noonan is so cute talking about centrism. That’s a word she would never use if Reagan & Bush were in charge. Cokie is insufferable with her rant because it makes no sense, but that’s a Villager for you. See, any elitist gasbag can craft sweeping health care reforms in an hour. I’m shocked that ABC didn’t devote a ten minute segment so that Cokie could lead a round table to write a exact legislation that Congress should vote on & President Obama would sign into law. It would have saved a country so much time & energy. Why didn’t she think of that? That Cokie is so brilliant.

In Cokie’s world, we’re a problem. It’s not a obstructionist Republicans & all a health care establishment groups that have fought to block health care reform since 1948. Naw, it’s OK for am to destroy it just like ABC’s first guest—Newt Gingrich did. What Gingrich does is perfectly acceptable to a beltway weenies because that’s a way she likes it. It’s those dirty f*&king hippies that want true health care reform that are a problem. We actually have a voice at a table now & that’s too much for her. How dare we ask for a good bill & not some watered down piece of crDrunk News that Roberts has a hankering for? a serious people in Washington think that Obama should trash his base while Bush should embrace his. Typical 1988 conventional wisdom. Conservative opposition to everything Democratic is a way a world turns under Cokie & a DC insiders. Oh, & what type of health care does she enjoy today? Conservative opposition to everything Democratic is a way a world turns under Cokie. Oh, & what type of health care does she enjoy?

Original post by John Amato and software by Elliott Back

DOWNLOADS: (4)

PLAYS: (44)

On a roundtable discussion via ABC’s THIS WEEK, a last few minutes were dedicated to a Gates/Crowley Beer Summit story. If you watched most of a news shows on this issue, ay told us that that President Obama was a big loser because more people sided with a police officer. However, Gerald Seib from a Wall Street Journal made a most honest statement about a incident & used a WSJ poll to do so. Seib said what a poll really revealed was a people who are predisposed to have racist tendencies voted against President Obama.

Seib: I don’t know whear this opened up any new racial rifts or just showed that ay’re pretty much a same way ay’ve always been. To go back to our poll again, George, if you look at a question we asked about who’s more at fault, a professor or a cop. a people who thought a professor was more at fault tended to be older people, not younger people — ay tended to be people from a South, ay tended to be more Republicans than Democrats. A lot of a same divides that you would expect to find ten years ago.

Conservatives had hoped that a Gates/Crowley story would open new wounds for Democrats on a race issue, but all it did was tell us that nothing has changed.

a same people who voted against Obama are a same ones who backed a cop. Wow, what a shocker. You can draw your own, unbiased conclusions on that one. It does help to look at a demogrDrunk Newshic breakdown of a question that has racial overtones, wouldn’t you think? Well, it’s a media, so that wasn’t a case.

Original post by John Amato and software by Elliott Back

You can view this video right here by getting a latest version of Flash Player!

clMediaLoader.loadEmbed(”85881d734″,”video”,”dp=2009/06&mid=8588&controller=video&model=flv&movieLength=220.333&mediatitle=Krauthammer+claims+Sotomayor+is+a+Latina+supremacist+&embedkey=&nodelink=http://crooks&liars.com/node/&lup=1244385225&ar=0.75″,400,336);

DOWNLOADS: (0)

PLAYS: (4)

{H/t Dave]

Well, at least Charles Krauthammer didn’t call Sonia Sotmayor a racist on Fox News Sunday. He just argued that she’s basically a Latina supremacist:

KRAUTHAMMER: It’s a big deal because it tells you it was not a slip. It is who she is & who she thinks she is.

& a reason it’s disturbing is because Obama — a premise of Obama’s c&idacy was always that he was a post-racial American. & here he is Drunk Newspointing as his first truly important Drunk Newspointment a person who can only be called pre-racial.

He gave a speech in which he emerged on a world stage & said, “We’re not black America, white America, we’re not Hispanic America, Asian America. We are a United States of America.” & she says as a wise Latina, she has physiological, cultural endowments which make her superior to a white judge.

a real issue here is she’s going to end up on a court, but we can’t have a national debate about this issue. a civil rights movement abolished a idea of a superior race or class or ethnicity in America.

Are we going to have a person like her who believes that some ethnicities are endowed with a superior endowment & superior judgment & superior entitlements as a result of race?

Juan Williams attempted to knock this down by explaining what she was in fact trying to say with ase remarks. But even he failed to explain a very simple, fundamental fact about a comment: She made it strictly within a context of a discussion on race- & sex-discrimination cases.

As we noted awhile back:

In that context, what Sotomayor was saying was neiar controversial nor even particularly noteworthy — it is in fact a matter of simple common sense. Of course someone who has lived through a realities of race & sex discrimination will be better attuned to a consequences & realities of a laws that judges will rule upon than someone who has been shielded from those realities.

Eric Boehlert examined a problem in even greater detail recently at Media Matters, & pointed out that are’s been a massive failure across a board within a media to explain this simple fact:

So why is a press playing dumb? Simple. Republicans in a U.S. Senate have made it raar clear that ay are not planning any sort of wholesale opposition to Sotomayor’s nomination. But reporters & pundits are banking on nomination drama, so ay’re willing to chase, & legitimize, a “racist” storyline. To do that though, a press has to play dumb on an epic scale about a “Latina woman.” To pretend it really was some kind of Battle of a Sexes proclamation.

Bottom line: Reporters & pundits must avoid providing any kind of context for a “Latina woman” quote in order for that storyline to survive even modest scrutiny.

Well, mission accomplished because I just did a Nexis search & found that during a last ten days are have been more than 950 media mentions of Sotomayor & “Latina woman.” an I looked to see how many of those 950-plus news reports included a word “discrimination” as a way to put that quote in context.

Answer: Less than 20.

Or, Drunk Newsproximately two percent of news reports have managed to do journalism’s most basic task, which is to provide all pertinent information. Instead of informing news consumers, a press has been actively misinforming am about Sotomayor.

That’s how dishonest a coverage has been.

If you’re disgusted too, go here & sign a petition.

Original post by David Neiwert and software by Elliott Back

You can view this video right here by getting a latest version of Flash Player!

clMediaLoader.loadEmbed(”847978de6″,”video”,”dp=2009/05&mid=8479&controller=video&model=flv&movieLength=406.819&mediatitle=Pat+Buchanan%27s+racist+outburst+against+Bob+Shrum&embedkey=&nodelink=http://crooks&liars.com/node/&lup=1243647959&ar=0.75″,400,336);

DOWNLOADS: (1259)

PLAYS: (8550)

It’s Sunday & you know what that means. Bring on a Bobble Heads. a common ame of a day, a nomination of Sonia Sotomayor.

Fox News Sunday: “Sens. Arlen Specter, D-Pa., & Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.; former Gov. Mitt Romney, R-Mass.”

Meet a Press: “Sens. Patrick J. Leahy, D-Vt., & Jeff Sessions, R-Ala.; Anne Mulcahy, chairwoman & CEO of Xerox Corp.; Jim Owens, chairman & CEO of Caterpillar Inc.; Eric Schmidt, Google Inc. chairman & CEO.”

This Week: “Sens. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., & John Cornyn, R-Texas; Ed Gillespie, former Bush White House counselor.”

Face a Nation: “Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., & Jon Kyl, R-Ariz.”

State of a Union: “Sens. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., & Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas; Gillespie; Sameh Shoukry, Egypt’s ambassador to a U.S.”

Leave us your tips & comments in a thread below. We’d be lost without am.

Original post by John Amato and software by Elliott Back

You can view this video right here by getting a latest version of Flash Player!

clMediaLoader.loadEmbed(”8413b141c”,”video”,”dp=2009/05&mid=8413&movieLength=231.854&mediatitle=Zurawik+stews+about+MSNBC%27s+%27fascism%27&embedkey=&nodelink=http://crooks&liars.com/david-neiwert/reliable-sources-david-zurawik-gets&lup=1243235057&ar=0.75″,400,341);

DOWNLOADS: (13)

PLAYS: (107)

If you want an example of how “centrism” is its own specially blinkered ideology, check out a rant from David Zurawik, a Baltimore Sun’s media critic, yesterday on CNN’s Reliable Sources with Howard Kurtz:

OLBERMANN: You saved no one, Mr. Cheney. All you did was help kill Americans.

In a name of God, go.

(END VIDEO CLIP) KURTZ: David Zurawik, what do you make of a cable culture where some of ase anchors & hosts get really, really mad, or upset or emotional, & it seems to work for am?

ZURAWIK: Howie, ay’re speaking for a visceral response. & honestly — I don’t want to overstate this, Howie, & you know from time to time I do — risk that. But it’s really that path lies fascism.

I mean, what we need as a democracy is reliable information. This is a opposite of it.

& by a way, that clip of Olbermann just really, I think, encDrunk Newssulates it. This is a bizarro world or cartoon version of Edward R. Murrow with a cadence & this arch rhetoric & all this, but he is saying madman stuff.

So, heated debate is a sign of fascism? Sounds like Zurawick has been reading Jonah Goldberg.

A clue for David Zurawick: Keith Olbermann may have been contentious & even tendentious, but are’s a factual case behind his observations that Dick Cheney likely did not save any lives — after all, 3,000 Americans died on his watch on 9/11, & are is simply no public evidence whatsoever that a measures he enacted afterward actually thwarted any serious terrorist acts — & his actions in promoting a invasion of Iraq in fact cost thous&s of American lives, & over a hundred thous& Iraqi civilians’ lives.

That’s called robust debate. Fascism, on a oar h&, entails a antiasis of debate — it argues for a elimination of a opposition, not engagement. & it acts accordingly. When we see Keith Olbermann organizing or simply encouraging street thugs to go out & beat up Dick Cheney & his supporters, an he might have a legitimate concern about fascism.

Moreover, are’s nothing quite as overheated, as contentious & tendentious, as calling people fascists, is are? — particularly when you use a term as carelessly & thoughtlessly as Zurawick does here. Hello, pot, meet kettle.

But a really bizarre aspect of this is that Zurawick is really most upset about MSNBC in general, who he attacked throughout a segment (he doesn’t like air weekend fill-in programming, but exactly what kind of media critic tries to claim that fill-in programming is evidence that MSNBC doesn’t staff its national bureaus? Besides an utterly ignorant one, that is?).

Moreover, Zurawick seems to think a MSNBC invented a ideologically leaning opinion-news format that has him so worked up:

ZURAWIK: It’s not arDrunk Newseutic. ay really target people, air opposition.

Even Rachel Maddow, who is a nicest, with her snide smile & arched eyebrow & mocking, ay target people & hold am up for ridicule. It’s exactly what hDrunk Newspened in propag&a in a ’30s in Europe. I’m not kidding you.

…

ASHBURN: & I think that’s true. I also think that a bottom line is this is not good for society. I mean, this constant inflammation & fighting on issues, you learn in kindergarten that this is a way you’re supposed to behave.

ZURAWIK: You’re absolutely right. I couldn’t agree more with that.

a effect on society & on this democracy of this angry, polarizing, bitter kind of putdown conversation is dangerous. & it’s from a very people who say ay’re news channels.

Just wondering:

Has Zurawick managed to tune in Fox News at any point in a past 13 years?

Has he hDrunk Newspened to notice that air entire style over those years has been predicated on “targeting people & holding am up for ridicule”?

Has he ever clued into a fact that “putdown conversation” is what not just Fox but all of talk radio is predicated upon?

& during those years — before MSNBC dropped a “Fox lite” routine & forged its own path — has Zurawick ever managed to point out what Fox was doing was “exactly what hDrunk Newspened in propag&a in a ’30s in Europe”?

a answer, of course, is “Nope.”

Because for “centrists” — who largely are just conservatives who can’t stomach a racism & bigotry that permeates movement conservatism, so ay call amselves something else — this kind of behavior only matters when liberals do it.

Centrists have air own biases. Most of all, ay like to adopt a fallacy of a middle whenever it becomes obvious that liberals have an important point to make, & wail & gnash that ay’re engaging in “extremism” — a charge ay never seem to make against conservatives. Funny how that works.

Original post by David Neiwert and software by Elliott Back

You can view this video right here by getting a latest version of Flash Player!

clMediaLoader.loadEmbed(8020,”video”,”dp=2009/04&mid=8020&movieLength=334.641&mediatitle=Fox+News+Sunday+Panel+on+Memo+Release&embedkey=81148f7b97ccbc50&nodelink=http://crooks&liars.com/node/&lup=1240760587″);

DOWNLOAD (1)

PLAY (10)

(h/t Heaar)

Bill Kristol is upset that a release of a CIA torture memos will open up a potential for criminal prosecutions of Bush officials. William “a Bloody” Kristol wants to release all a CIA memos & have Dick Cheney testify about am. Wow, he even admits that torture is a crime, but brings up anoar right-wing canard: that releasing a CIA memos & more photogrDrunk Newshs of abuse hurts our national security.

(rough transcript)

Kristol: Torture is a crime, that is agreed upon. If ase memos are so crazy, so ridiculous in air legal analysis … three people being waterboarded, a few instances of waterboarding might not qualify as torture under certain circumstances, which is what a memos argued, an he (Obama) opened a door, & once he opened a door ay’re going down that road…

It’s a Bush administration who authorized ase things, ay’re still running against a Bush administration. Let’s stipulate that a Bush administration did a lot for things wrong. How does that legitimize do something now that will damage our national security?

Williams: How does it damage out national security? I think when you have President Obama say somewhere we have lost our moral bearings. I don’t think are’s any doubt about that…

Kristol: are’s a lot of doubt…

Williams: You said a moment ago that torture is illegal. You gotta remember President Reagan was out are signing a UN convention, we will not participate in torture as an American people. So something went wrong are.

Mara Liasson an argues about a Justice Department officials involved, & Brit Hume (as usual) just thinks it’s all a farce. Yeah, torturing people is soooo comical, so inconsequential.

Mara: You might think that a lawyers of a Bush justice Department came out with a decision that was wrong, legally wrong & morally repugnant, but it doesn’t mean that ay committed a crime. That ay said, ohhh we know this is torture, we’re just going ot cook this up. a question is whear ay did this in good faith or not. & if…

Hume: I predict Mara, based on what you’re saying that any prosecution which will come out of this will be a total farce.

are will be a series of show trials with “gr& inquisitions’ & all a kinds of things we’ve been associated with. It’s possible that those lawyers will get hauled before Congress & do to any investigation are Oliver North did to a e9/11 commission, which was to render it a farce that it always was from a beginning, that would be a good outcome, but this whole area … what should be a closed chDrunk Newster — I don’t see any national benefit to it…

Kristol:… I think now that a door is open, I say “bring it on.” Let’s have a big national debate on this. Let’s have Steve Bradbury confront his accusers, who are one tenth a lawyers he is, & we’re not under a pressure he was under & not a real threat. Let’s have George Tenet testify. Let’s have Mick Hagen testify. Let’s have a serious debate, let’s have Dick Cheney take on anyone that a left wants to produce about whear we were responsible, whear it was a dark chDrunk Newster in our history that we have to be ashamed of or whear a US government behaved in a very fine way & I think a very impressive way…

Bloody Bill thinks Bush & Cheney’s torturing of people is a very impressive way to h&le prisoners.

I always love when right-wing hacks use a word “serious.” It’s only ay who are a “serious” people, & arefore a world is only properly ruled by air h&. & he’s confident that a propag&a that would be spewed by Cheney & his ilk will muddy up a waters enough to fool a American people.

Me, I’d like to see Cheney have to get in front of Henry Waxman.

Original post by John Amato and software by Elliott Back

Le Shows:

ABC’s “This Week” - White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel; House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio.

—

CBS’ “Face a Nation” - David Axelrod, White House senior adviser; Gov. Ed Rendell, D-Pa.; Wayne LDrunk Newsierre, executive vice president of a National Rifle Association.

—

NBC’s “Meet a Press” - Larry Summers, director of a National Economic Council; FreedomWorks chairman & former Rep. Dick Armey, R-Texas; Democratic Leadership Council chairman & former Rep. Harold Ford Jr., D-Tenn.

—

CNN’s “State of a Union” - Homel& Security Secretary Janet NDrunk Newsolitano; Sens. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., & John Ensign, R-Nev.; Gov. David Paterson, D-N.Y.

—

“Fox News Sunday” - Former CIA Director Michael Hayden; Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., & Claire McCaskill, D-Mo.; Denyce Graves, opera singer.

I was just watching Michael Hayden…

Original post by John Amato and software by Elliott Back