Chris Matthews on The Huffington Post

Marcia G. Yerman: The Rehabilitation of Eliot Spitzer

2009-12-03T10:31:13Z

All of a sudden, he seems to be everywhere. I first saw Eliot Spitzer weighing in as a talking head on the MSNBC Morning Meeting with Dylan Ratigan. After repeated appearances there, The Chris Matthews Show - one of the station's top-rated programs - booked him. Perhaps because of his former moniker as "The Sheriff of Wall Street," he has been sought out to discuss the failings of the big boys in the stock market and banking sectors. As Matthews repeatedly called him "governor," I wondered what the exact protocol was for retaining your title even after you have resigned in disgrace.

For those who may have forgotten, I offer a short primer. Eliot Spitzer served as the New York State attorney general before taking up residence in the governor's mansion on January 1st, 2007. He stepped down on March 17th, 2008. A week earlier, a New York Times article related how Spitzer had been the patron of a prostitution ring. The information came to light during a federal wiretap that was put into place when Spitzer's bank reported money transfers that appeared suspicious. Questions were raised about the possibility of bribery funds. It was learned that Spitzer had spent $80,000 for the services of prostitutes over a period of time that included both his tenure as attorney general, and as governor.

In November 2008, Manhattan U.S. Attorney Michael Garcia announced that no federal charges would be filed against Spitzer. Garcia concluded that after a thorough investigation, no evidence had been found that Spitzer -- or his office -- had misused public or campaign funds for prostitution. Garcia said, "We have concluded that the public interest would not be further advanced by filing criminal charges in this matter." Not every one saw it that way. Sunny Hostin, a legal analyst for CNN and former assistant U.S. attorney in Washington, D.C., wrote an opinion piece asking, "Why did feds give Spitzer a pass?"

Now, a year later, Spitzer has been securing public speaking engagements in a range of venues. At Harvard University (Spitzer is a graduate of Harvard Law School) on November 12, Spitzer participated in a panel about "policing Wall Street." It was part of the school's public series exploring "ethical issues in public life." In an article by Katie Zezima, "Spitzer Talks About, Well. Ethics," the reporter quoted Washington lawyer Lily Mazahery, also on the panel, as saying "she was outraged when she heard Mr. Spitzer was speaking."

In my hometown of New York City, Spitzer popped up as the moderator of a debate about American foreign policy and Israel with Alan Dershowitz and Jeremy Ben-Ami (November 21). Attending the event, I questioned why Spitzer had been chosen for this role. When Spitzer mentioned that Dershowitz had been his professor at Harvard Law School, I contemplated if that were the connection. A simple Google search yielded an enlightening clip of Dershowitz defending Spitzer. In the interview, Dershowitz suggested that Spitzer's involvement with prostitutes "was a private matter." He chided the American public stating, "Let's not exaggerate this...Let's not make more of this than it is."

As a writer who focuses on women's issues, I opined in March 2008 that the Spitzer imbroglio was an opportunity to look at prostitution, human trafficking and related matters with a seriousness of purpose. At the time, those who felt the most severely betrayed by the governor's actions were the activists who had stood with Spitzer when he signed the Legislation to Prevent Human Trafficking into law in June 2007.

That's the visceral image that resonates for me when I see Spitzer reclaiming a public role. Perhaps in addition to his expertise on corruption in the Wall Street sector, Spitzer has something even more valuable to offer the public. He could be a leader in a conversation about prostitution, human trafficking, and what drives the demand for these services.

That's a story I would look forward to covering.

This article originally appeared at WomenMakeNews.

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Chris Matthews: Obama Made Speech At 'Enemy Camp,' Cheney Is A 'Troll' (VIDEO) UPDATED

2009-12-02T08:46:02Z

***UPDATE 5:55PM*** Matthews has apologized for referring to West Point as an "enemy camp" when talking about President Obama's speech last night:

Now I've heard too many politicians say things like, "oh that was taken out context" to explain something they wish they hadn't said let me just say to the cadets, their parents, former cadets and everyone who cares about this country and those who defend it: I used the wrong words and worse than that I said something that is just not right and for that I deeply apologize.

As those who watch me regularly probably got right away, my point was that the military up at West Point was probably a skeptical audience for President Obama given his strong position against the war in Iraq and generally more dovish image. I was wrong to make that conclusion based on the lack of applause or apparent enthusiasm in the ranks of officers and cadets last night.

---

MSNBC host Chris Matthews wishes he could have phrased his point about President Obama's speech at West Point last night a little better after he referred to the venerated military academy as an "enemy camp." Matthews was saying that Obama was not getting the warmest of receptions from the cadets in the audience, and that his decision to make this speech at West Point was "interesting" because Obama "went to maybe the enemy camp tonight."

WATCH:

The host later acknowledged that "enemy camp" was perhaps the wrong phrase, but that his point about the location remains: "Maybe earlier tonight I used the wrong phrase, 'enemy camp,' but the fact of the matter is that he went up there to a place that's obviously military."

Matthews also did not have the most flattering reaction last night to the interview Dick Cheney gave to Politico yesterday. Cheney slammed President Obama throughout the interview, accusing him of "projecting weakness" to America's enemies. Matthews said Cheney reminds him of a "troll":

Does he ever stop? He's crawled troll-like out from under his bridge to say that President Obama is projecting weakness to our enemies. [...]

But he is really tough. I compare him to the troll that comes out from under the bridge and bites the ankle of the kid crossing.

WATCH:

"Family Guy" Mocks Chris Matthews With Help From Chris Matthews (VIDEO)

2009-11-30T08:14:15Z

Chris Matthews voiced a satiric version of himself on last night's "Family Guy." The MSNBC host helped the Fox writers mock him for his "giant head" and inability to let anyone finish talking. "My forehead, my rules," he says to Senator Harry Reid who appears remotely in a box projected on his brow.

WATCH:

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Chris Matthews Thinks Health Care Reform Is Being "Hung Up By The Left"

2009-11-04T18:27:52Z

On this evening's edition of Hardball, Chris Matthews hosted Republican National Committee Chair Michael Steele, and the two men proceeded to have the following preposterous conversation:

STEELE: Excuse me. What about the left wingnuts who won't let the President get his agenda through? What about all the left wingnuts that are the reason we don't have health care right now? You have 60 votes in the Senate. You have a 78-seat majority in the House and I don't see anyone talking about the left wingnuts who are stifling the health care for my mother, my family and my community. Don't give me the name calling. That was a political process. Now we are talking real things here when you talk about the Democratic Party the division is real because we don't have health care. The division is real because we have --

MATTHEWS: Interesting. The President would be better off if he didn't have a left and he could push a more moderate health care bill.

STEELE: I don't know. That is the choice the Democrats have to make. I'm embracing my party, I'm embracing--

MATTHEWS: You are making it for me. You are saying something smart. That the President of the United States has to make a tough discerning decision to find the kind of bill that will pass and pass it instead of being hung up by his far left?

Yeah. Not only is that not "something smart" to say, it is a rivetingly dumb thing to say and Matthews has nary a fact on hand to support his cosigning of Steele's contention.

I'll concede Steele's point that the significant majorities the Democrats enjoy in both the House and the Senate make the Republicans irrelevant to the health care discussion. But there's a reason you don't hear "anyone talking about the left wingnuts who are stifling the health care." It's because there are no left wingnuts stifling the health care bill!

Just as an example, here, once again, are the Senators who are doing more than anyone else to stifle the health care reform bill. They include such luminaries as Joe Lieberman, Olympia Snowe, Ben Nelson, Mary Landrieu, Kent Conrad, and Blanche Lincoln, and there's nary a "left wingnut" among them! The facts are these: the progressive membership of both houses have been nothing but accommodating to the health care process. From Jump Street, the legislators to Obama's left willingly bargained away the single-payer health care system they favored in order to lend unified support behind a reform package that was more sellable to moderate Democrats and Republicans. They ended up uniting behind the "public option," only to discover that President Obama wasn't willing to say much in praise of that idea other than to say, "Yeah, sure, that public option thingy would be neat, I guess?"

The sum total of progressive obstructionism came when a progressive bloc in the House of Representatives briefly let it be known that they would not support a bill that did not contain a public option. Did health care reform get "stifled" in the House as a result? No! The bill that will be sent forth for a vote contains a public option! So, what has the "left" stopped from happening, exactly? Meanwhile, the Senate's reform bill waters down the public option still further, into the "opt out" version. So, once again, progressives have given ground, have done nothing but accommodate the process, and in the end they may be asked to give still more ground, to get a watered down version of the health care bill that Obama sometimes says he wants, depending on which way the wind is blowing.

And really, having given ground on the matter three or four times already, how could anyone object to "the left" refusing to bargain away anything further? Let's remember, public option supporters are reflecting the will of a vast majority of the American people. You really cannot pretend that 55-75% of the country is a "wingnut fringe."

Chris Matthews is supposed to be some sort of shrewd and meticulous chronicler of political reality, but if he really thinks Steele is offering a smart idea, he needs to have his head examined. There is not one single shred of reality to back up Matthews' contention that the "left" is gumming up the health care reform process. That is what we call a "nimrod fantasia." But let's call the ball where it lies: Chris Matthews doesn't really care about reporting political fact, he cares about pleasing Michael Steele with enough adequacy so that he'll return to his show to share more of his so-called wisdom.

[Would you like to follow me on Twitter? Because why not? Also, please send tips to tv@huffingtonpost.com -- learn more about our media monitoring project here.]

Steven G. Brant: Wall Street and the US Government: Where's Jimmy Stewart When We Need Him?

2009-10-18T10:34:26Z

How fitting that the scandalous relationship between Goldman Sachs and the Obama administration (thank you Glenn Greenwald) and Goldman Sachs' "no value added to the American people's way of life" methods of earning the bulk of its profits (thanks Dylan Ratigan) and a brilliant analysis of the overall control Wall Street has over Washington (thank you Frank Rich) have all come out on or about the 17th or October.

"What's so special about the 17th of October?" you ask?

Here's what's so special (thanks to Wikipedia)...

When it was first released -- the film premiered in Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C., on October 17, 1939, sponsored by the National Press Club, an event to which 4000 guests were invited, including 45 senators -- Mr. Smith Goes to Washington was attacked by the Washington press, and politicians in the U.S. Congress, as anti-American and pro-Communist for its portrayal of corruption in the American government. While Capra claims in his autobiography that some senators walked out of the premiere, contemporary press accounts are unclear about whether this occurred or not, or whether senators yelled back at the screen during the film.

That's right. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington -- perhaps the most perfect portrayal of systemic corruption in politics ever put on film -- had its world premiere 70 years ago yesterday.

I've seen this film many times. If you haven't seen it lately, I urge you to do so quickly. Because there's something in that film that America desperately needs.

If you know the film and think I'm talking about American needing a straight-talking senator or congressperson, I'm not.

As much as I love the classic filibuster by "Jeff Smith" that leads to the downfall of the film's Taylor machine, I believe the world -- and the Congress -- of 2009 is significantly different from that portrayed in the film. I believe that "we, the people" can no longer expect one man or woman of conscience to change the system from within Washington, DC.

While I hope the work of Glen Greenwald, Dylan Ratigan, and Frank Rich has gotten you plenty steamed, I'm going to ask you to watch this interview with Ralph Nader (conducted by TruthOut.org), so that we can begin a dialogue about what to do, not just about how angry we are.

In this interview, Mr. Nader discusses his new book "Only The Super-Rich Can Save Us." This novel -- Mr. Nader's first -- falls into the category known in the literary world as a practical uptopia. "I call it a fictional vision that could become a new reality. Some known and not-well-known people
appear in fictional roles. I invite your imaginative engagement," he says.

Personally, I think this is a brilliant move by Mr. Nader, because as Proverbs 29:18 says "Where there is no vision, the people perish."

Mr. Nader is providing us with a vision. A vision of a particular kind of action -- by a group of progressive-thinking, very wealthy individuals -- that results in the creation of a well-thought-out effort that succeeds in giving power back to "we, the people." (Note: In this interview, Mr. Nader also does an interesting job of analyzing President Obama's psychology -- his need to compromise. Coincidentally, Maureen Down does the same thing in today's NY Times.

Whether you agree with Mr. Nader's scenario or not, at least he's presenting a roadmap we can discuss. He's not just complaining. He's suggesting what to do.

(And, if Mr. Nader and Ms. Dowd's takes on Pres. Obama's psychology turns out to be correct, the need for us to start a discussion about what to do has, in my opinion, just doubled. Because we may have elected a man who is willing to put the most critical issues of the day on the table -- (finally, thank God) -- but who doesn't have the leadership skills to resolve those issues in a way that produces the kind of progress the times demand. But that's okay. That's what we're here to do, I guess.)

So, Mr. Nader's scenario is a starting point for discussion. The very wealthiest of the progressive side of our society decide to help us regain control of our lives and our country from those who have that power right now.

Here's the first thing I'm going to add to the discussion Mr. Nader has started:

The Corporate Social Responsibility movement. Especially, Business for Social Responsibility (BSR) and The UN Global Compact (UNGC).

You see, there's a movement within the business community to stop this "Thanks for bailing us out, but we're in this just for ourselves" Wall Street attitude. It's a movement to build the values of environmental stewardship, human rights, fair labor relations, and fighting corruption into the DNA of businesses around the world.

Never heard of it? I'm not surprised.

BSR just held its annual conference. But you wouldn't know it from reading the news. According to Google, the only news coverage of this conference -- one in which approximately 1000 business leaders and managers met to discuss making the world work better rather than worse - was a pre-conference interview with BSR's president, Aron Cramer, conducted by GreenBiz.com and posted on the Reuters web site...

That's it. Pretty amazing... and sad.

You'd think that with all the interest in how much damage Wall Street has done that this activity that's completely the opposite would draw some media attention.

But apparently mainstream coverage of the corporate social responsibility movement is not yet an idea whose time has come in the minds of our media's editors and producers.

Of course, that's if the mainstream media even knows about this movement. And I have evidence they do. I personally talked to Katie Couric about all this at the Paley Center for Media a couple of years ago. (Sorry to call you out on this, Katie. And I know how busy you are with other world events. But you did seem interested in the subject at the time. And I've been hoping you'd follow up with me. Well, maybe "timing is everything," and now is the time!)

These editors and producers apparently don't know about -- or are choosing not to cover -- The UNGC's Principles of Responsible Investing either.

Well, perhaps the media will cover the UNGC's Leadership Summit, which is held every three years and next June will be held at UN HQ in NYC. The list of USA-based corporations that belong to The Global Compact include the Campbell Soup Co., Cicso Systems, Coca-Cola Company, DuPont, Ford, Intel, JCPenny, and Nike.

Come on CBS, NBC, and ABC ... Fox, CNN, and MSNBC ... there's a story worth reporting here!!!

So, the first point I've added to Mr. Nader's discussion is that the corporate world is not universally evil. It's just that the "non-evil" side of that world is practically invisible to the public at large. (And how can the public support something it doesn't know exists?)

And here's the second point: We don't need progressive billionaires to start getting organized.

We can do this ourselves. Back in 2000, the sociologist Paul Ray (in his 2000 book "The Cultural Creatives") estimated there were 65 million Americans who were thinking creatively about society's problems. And in the 2008 election, millions of us contributed hundreds of millions of dollars to the Obama for President campaign.

People Power. It's an option. And with today's social networking tools, self-organizing would be a simple task. I'm not saying the help of people like Ted Turner wouldn't help. But what I am suggesting is that it's not essential that this start with people like Mr. Turner.

It can start with people like you and me.

My first experience in political activism as an adult came in 1979. It was after President Carter gave his famous "malaise speech".

Pres. Carter was criticized at the time for saying there was something wrong with America. (Boy, do we hate being told to look in the mirror as a country!) But I didn't see it that way at all.

I saw President Carter telling us we needed to take responsibility for our country. And in 1979 -- at 24 years of age -- I wrote an OpEd about how we could do just that by becoming much more involved as citizens, by becoming, essentially, the largest interest group that our elected representatives had to deal with. I ultimately presented my essay on WQXR radio -- "the radio station of the New York Times" -- here in NYC.

I didn't know what to do with this personal breakthrough at the time. But now -- 30 years later -- I find myself coming full circle and wanting, once again, to urge us all to rise up (as we did in last year's election) and not just "take back our country" (as if what's going on out there is "all bad all the time") but also support those existing, healthy trends that have the potential to contribute to the transformation that we so desperately need: in their case, contributing from inside the system.

There are good trends out there -- a healthy, "alternative DNA" to the social Darwinism of Wall Street -- even if we're not currently hearing about them in the mainstream media. The corporate social responsibility movement is one such trend.

President Obama is a very good man, when you look at his intentions. He may not have the leadership skills to do more than put the most important issues of the day on the table, but that's not an insignificant thing!

And from that starting point, we can carry the ball forward, working with him in spirit even if we don't get to see him personally at the White House. (I think he'll meet with us eventually, once he sees that we're here, all 65 million of us, if Paul Ray's calculations were correct.)

Am I calling for another variation on the Tea Party movement? Well, I'm not sure how this should be structured. But I am reminded of one very special public display of strength and intention that I participated in over 20 years ago. How many of you remember "Hands Across America"?

It took place on May 25, 1986. and it's aim was to raise money to fight hunger and homelessness in America.

I'm not sure how many billionaires were involved, but a great many celebrities were. It was organized by the USA for Africa group, which was founded when the song We Are The World was first recorded. There was corporate funding for this event, apparently principally from The Coca-Cola Company.

But it was the power of the people physically standing together holding hands all across our great country that demonstrated who owns this place. And in many ways, it was a more powerful statement than the one "Jeff Smith" makes from the floor of the Senate in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. You could physically see it. And -- with its celebrity participation and theme song -- the news media couldn't help but cover it.

Perhaps a similar national "demonstration of whose country this is" could be organized in time for next year's mid-term elections. That sounds like the right timing to me!

What do you think?

I titled this essay, in part, "Where's Jimmy Stewart when we need him?" And I'd like to end by suggesting this answer: He's here, inside all of us, if we'll just take a look.

That's the power of the entertainment industry. It can show us our better angels and encourage us to do the right thing based on what we see portrayed on the screen in front of us.

Once again, I urge you all to watch "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" sometime soon. I hope President Obama does this as well.

And if you can, go visit The Jimmy Stewart Museum in his home town of Indiana, PA (about 60 miles East of Pittsburgh). I've been there, and it's a lot like the town in another classic Jimmy Stewart motion picture: It's a Wonderful Life.

And then let's figure out how we can take back our country and do so with the help of those who -- while they may not be in the news (yet!) -- want to do so too!
---------------------------------
UPDATE Tuesday 2:25am

To give those of you questioning how entertainment can be used for good today, I offer this example: the first 15 minutes of a special educational event held at the UN earlier this year in which the UN's work was presented in conjunction with film clips and actors and creators of the SyFy Channel's landmark series "Battlestar Galactica".

Linda Milazzo: Step Up to Mike's Challenge

2009-10-17T16:47:03Z

Our great buddy Mike is angry. For the past twenty years, Michael Moore, our everyday hero, has worked hard for us. He's documented sadistic acts against us by industry and government. He's exposed case after case of devious schemes that robbed us of our homes and our jobs, sent our children to war, and sacrificed our health. He's given us irrefutable proof that our leaders lied us to war, our insurers denied us care, and our lenders deceived us into hopelessness and destitution.

Mike's been our teacher, our ally and our devoted friend. Few people in recent memory have worked harder to inform us - ALL OF US - of the inhumanity and greed that are decaying our nation, which we perpetuate through apathy and inertia.

It is our apathy and inertia that frustrate our pal Mike. No matter how much he tries to revive us, we still don't seem to revive. We continue the same behavior that leads to our demise. We elect socio-sadist politicians who finance themselves off our sorrow. We enrich socio-sadist bankers who leave us homeless and in debt. We toil for socio-sadist employers who terminate our jobs. Despite all we've learned from Sicko, Fahrenheit 9/11 and Roger and Me, we continue to take this abuse.

The punches keep landing. The socio-sadists score blow after blow. POW! Another foreclosure. POW! Another job gone. Again and again we're down for the count. Politicians retain office, corporations turn profits, and we sell our blood to get by. We're perpetual victims. No wonder Mike's so angry that at the end of his new movie he challenges us to act.

Our pal Mike, who's never asked a thing from us, is now asking us to act - and act fast. At the end of Capitalism: A Love Story, which I saw on September 25th, Mike issues this challenge to his audience:

You know, I can't really do this anymore - unless those of you who are watching this in the theater want to join me. I hope you will. And please, speed it up.

Mike's right. He can't solve our problems on his own. He can't create a movement all alone. He's given us the truth for twenty years. He's exposed the thieves, liars and sadists we elected to office. He's shown us the thieves, liars and sadists who run the corporations that foreclose on our homes and refuse us medical treatment. Mike's shown us the enemy. If there's to be a movement to rescue our economy, to restore our humanity, and close the gap between rich and poor, WE-THE-PEOPLE have to do it. Mike's done his part. It's time that we do ours.

But what is Mike's challenge?

Here's his response to that question when asked by Chris Matthews on MSNBC:

I want them [the American people] to start pressuring our Congress people to get the money out of Congress. We need publicly financed elections and we need the people deciding how this democracy is run.

Pushing our Congress to pass legislation for campaign finance reform is a move toward freeing legislators from entanglements with big money interests who finance their campaigns - and to whom they presume allegiance.

We can do this. We can step up to Mike's challenge. Right now in the House and Senate there is key campaign finance legislation called the Fair Elections Now Act (FENA - S. 752 in the Senate and H.R. 1826 in the House).

FENA was introduced in the Senate by Senators Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Arlen Specter (D-Pa.), and in the House by Representatives John Larson (D-Conn.) and Walter Jones, Jr. (R-N.C.). If passed, this bill allows federal candidates to run for office without relying on large contributions, big money bundlers, and donations from lobbyists. Candidates will be free from constant fundraising to focus on constituent needs.

I've called my Senators, Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, and my Congressman Henry Waxman, to ask their support for FENA. If you visit Change Congress, you can do the same.

We live in a participatory democracy that requires participation beyond voting. As Mike tells CNN's Anderson Cooper (in the video below), Americans can't vote every two and four years, then walk away and expect our democracy will just fall in line:

The Democrats may control the House, Senate and the Presidency, but the corporate sadists, like health insurers and Wall Street financiers, control the Democrats and Republicans. As long as there are backroom deals with big money special interests, the American people will suffer.

We see from the substantial contributions made to Democratic and Republican Senators and Representatives by the health care industry, that electeds' opposition to legislation that eliminates corporations is expected. Also expected is universal single-payer not being on the table since it cuts corporations all together. The ongoing histrionics behind the battle for a public option speaks volumes to the need for public financing of campaigns. Only when lobbyist bribery is forced entirely out of campaigns can we have any probability of honest representation.

Gratefully, my resident state of California is moving forward on campaign finance reform. The Fair Elections Bill, AB 583, authored by California Assemblymember Loni Hancock, will appear on the June 8, 2010 ballot. Californians who are interested in working to bring campaign finance to California are welcome to volunteer to help pass this landmark legislation.

According to California Fair Elections, campaign financing is currently quite successful in seven states where the system has been in place. Arizona, Connecticut, Maine, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, and Vermont have all adopted Fair Elections systems. In the seven states and two cities where the system is being used, nearly 400 candidates were elected using only Fair Elections funding in their 2008 campaigns. Since public financing was first instituted in Arizona and Maine, elected officials have passed bi-partisan, critically important legislation that would not have been possible if they continued to fear retribution from powerful special interests. In addition, more women and candidates of diverse backgrounds have won election in these states.

At the end of Capitalism: A Love Story, before he issues his audience challenge, our pal Mike tells us:

We live in the richest country in the world. We all deserve a decent job, health care, a good education, a home to call our own... and it's a crime that we don't have it. And we never will as long as we have a system that enriches the few at the expense of the many. Capitalism is an evil and you cannot regulate evil. You have to eliminate it and replace it with something that is good for all people. And that something is called DEMOCRACY.

My overly expensive iPhone dictionary app (Wordbook, $7.99) defines DEMOCRACY as:

1. the political orientation of those who favor government by the people or by their elected representatives.
2. a political system in which the supreme power lies in a body of citizens who can elect people to represent them.
3. the doctrine that the numerical majority of an organized group can make decisions binding on the whole group.

I deduce from this definition that if our elected officials represent those who bribe them over those who elect them, democracy doesn't exist. Thus, in our current system, we do not have a democracy. It is crystal clear to me why our pal Mike is challenging us "to start pressuring our Congress people to get the money out of Congress." I understand why Mike believes "we need publicly financed elections and we need THE PEOPLE deciding how this democracy is run."

I'm wholly on board with our buddy's challenge. I will participate fully and energetically to get the bribery, thuggery and robbery out of government. Only when that task is accomplished can a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, exist.

Thanks, Mike, for issuing this challenge!

Glenn Beck Mocks Keith Olbermann, Chris Matthews (VIDEO)

2009-10-15T00:57:14Z

Glenn Beck mocked his cable news competitors Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews Wednesday afternoon on his Fox News show.

"The president has an entire network devoted to singing his praises," Beck said of MSNBC. "There's a guy on at night I love, and he's like Shakespearean. He is waxing poetic about his oratory skills, writing soliloquies," he said, showing off his impression of Olbermann.

"And then another guy's like, 'I've got a thrill going up my leg' when they just hear him speak." he said of Matthews. "It's incredible!"

Beck also knocked the network news broadcasts and "Saturday Night Live," claiming they haven't been tough on Obama.

Watch:

Joseph A. Palermo: Reaction to President Obama's Nobel Peace Prize is Another "Teaching Moment"

2009-10-10T12:55:22Z

During the initial 24-hour news cycle following the announcement that the President of the United States had won the Nobel Peace Prize we heard all manner of demeaning, diminishing, and ridiculing of the President and the prize. Beltway pundits David Brooks and Ruth Marcus appearing on Jim Lehrer's News Hour both bashed President Obama and the Nobel prize as being unwarranted and insignificant. Brooks called it "a joke." On Democracy Now! I heard Naomi Klein say pretty much the same thing as the Beltway savants. A lot of commentators heaped praise on John McCain for being "gracious" because he didn't diss Obama for winning the prize. But what would you expect that grumpy old man to do? Spit bile all over it like the rest of his Republican colleagues?

The cynical and sordid response in America raises a few questions: Have we lost the ability as a nation to accept something good when it comes our way internationally? Have we become so traumatized by the belligerent Bush-Cheney-Bolton unilateral militarism of the previous eight years, with its attendant hatred for the world and its people, that we are incapable of recognizing the simple fact that it is much better for America to have a president who is admired and respected in the world than one who is despised and feared?

It wasn't long ago when Republicans and right-wingers across the country (the evolutionary predecessors of the Tea Baggers) were pouring out French wine into gutters and burning Dixie Chick CDs in protest of anyone who had the wisdom or forethought to try to warn us that invading Iraq, toppling its government, and militarily occupying the country without international support might not be a good idea. The Franco-phobia ran so deep that Republicans in Congress, led by Representative Bob Ney (who is now fittingly in prison), changed the name of "French Fries" in the House cafeteria to "Freedom Fries." Anyone not going along with the party line that invading Iraq was a vital national project had his or her patriotism questioned and was silenced in the mainstream media.

Fast forward to the 2008 Republican National Convention and we hear Rudy Giuliani demean and diminish Obama's experience as a "community organizer," which was one of the more memorable laugh lines from the gathering. And then from that point onward just about everything Obama has achieved has been met with withering sarcasm and ridicule. He sends Bill Clinton to free American prisoners in North Korea and it turns out to be a stunning success that offers a breakthrough in relations with that weird and dangerous nation and the media greet the news with a collective yawn. His efforts to win the 2016 Olympics are fruitless but provide hours of content for right-wing bloviators who ridicule and demean his effort. He wins the Nobel Peace Prize and these same gasbags trash the Nobel Prize and the President. David Brooks said on the News Hour that "nobody cares what five Norwegian guys" think.

What's missed in the deafening cacophony of right-wing noise and chatter is that Americans should use this Nobel Prize as yet another Obama-inspired "teaching moment" to come to terms with just how much George W. Bush's foreign policy scared the hell out of the rest of the world. And we should understand how the world is relieved Americans came to their senses and looks to us for global leadership.

To illustrate this point one only has to compare the media coverage of Bush's landing on the aircraft carrier the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln off the San Diego coast on May 1, 2003. Chris Matthews and the rest of the political media talking heads embarked on hours of breathless commentary about how regal and wonderful the spectacle was and how proud they all were to be Americans and blah, blah, blah. G. Gordon Liddy even spoke admiringly of the bulge in President Bush's codpiece. Masculine virility and macho militarism was fused with the national symbols of the flag and the military.

Europeans have seen this before. When we were engaged in our little rah-rah rally, the rest of the world was absolutely horrified. The biggest military power on Earth was acting belligerent and its president was indulging in bombastic nationalistic grandstanding. And this display was happening at the same time Baghdad was gearing up for a horrific sectarian bloodbath that everyone seemed to be able to see except for the Americans and their imperial president prancing in a flight suit and declaring "Mission Accomplished."

What Bush did was shift the posture of American foreign policy toward militarism and unilateralism, and he did so with a jingoistic right-wing Christian fundamentalist flair. President Obama, in less than ten months, has reset American foreign policy more toward multilateralism and a mature engagement with the world.

He has a long way to go and things might not work out. But at least he is moving in the right direction. The Nobel committee was just trying to give him a nudge. It's a symbolic prize. I don't understand the vitriol aimed at the President for winning it. But it is an international recognition that Obama is at least on the right track.

If the media would only cover Obama's peace prize win with half as much enthusiasm as they did Bush's landing on the aircraft carrier we might have made some measurable progress. We'll have to wait for Obama's next success and see what happens. Maybe all the demeaning and diminishing of Obama will grow old and tired, boring and repetitive, and then the media can move on to find something else to ridicule. But I won't hold my breath.

Chris Matthews On Jay Leno: Does Bill Clinton Impression, Talks Glenn Beck, Jon Stewart (VIDEO)

2009-10-02T13:59:06Z

Chris Matthews appeared on "The Jay Leno Show" for its "Ten @ Ten" segment, where he revealed his past as a singing waiter, said he wouldn't appear on the "Glenn Beck" show, recited the Declaration of Independence, and showed off his impression of Bill Clinton.

His ten answers below:

1. The oddest job he ever had was as a singing waiter at Father's Mustache in Somers Point, NJ. He was fired because he didn't clap right.
2. Asked if he's ever seen a ghost, Matthews replied: "Yeah, Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton. These guys, you think they're dead and they keep coming back!"
3. The last concert he went to was U2 Tuesday night in Washington.
4. The last movie to make him laugh was "The Hangover."
5. One political show he will not appear on is Fox News' "Glenn Beck."
6. One guest who was so upset by his "Hardball" appearance that he never came back was Georgia Senator Zell Miller. Miller challenged Matthews to a duel while in New York for the 2004 Republican National Convention.
7. Matthews is able to recite the Declaration of Independence in 15 seconds.
8. He can do a mean impression of Bill Clinton.
9. His biggest junk-food weakness is Starbucks apple fritters.
10. Jon Stewart gave him his worst review of his career.

Watch:

Ronald B. Robinson: Democrat Calls Republicans "Knuckle Dragging Neanderthals." Is Berlusconi One Too? You Bet!

2009-10-01T17:38:36Z

Take Note, Take Note Oh World! - Democrat Alan Grayson "calls out lying Repugs on CNN" - and truth tellers and seekers the world over, like those trying to oust Italy's neanderthal, Silvio Berlusconi, ought study his technique!

Grayson's appearance on CNN's "The Situation Room" is the real deal.

Grayson tells it like it is and the way it needs to be told. His approach represents the prototype of how to promote a positive agenda and take on what has become the modern day Karl Rove version of the old Mussolini Repubblichini - those loyal to and who fought for Mussolini against anti-fascist Italians after Mussolini was deposed (recall Rove's master plan of essentially creating one-party Republican rule tied to corporate control, i.e. fascism). This includes the "Kinder, Gentler Fascism" the GOP (aping its Italian political cousins) has spawned and the mainstream media has helped legitimate.

After all, Rove/Bush/Cheney and the Republican clan were deposed and Obama is now our President. Yet those loyal to these scoundrels, like those loyal to Mussolini and Mussolini wannabee, Berlusconi, continue to fight on, full of fascistic fervor, for the most "Neanderthal" social, cultural, political, and economic components of their agenda.

Of course, the media compliantly confers respectability on this agenda by giving it equal status if not more currency than Obama's, bequeathing it the title of conservatism rather than that of fascism, which it rightly deserves.

And the media continues to countenance the mobs that show up at Town Hall meetings with their kids in tow, unconcealed weapons, and hateful slogans -- successfully intimidated many Democratic lawmakers into dropping the public option for health care. The media called them "grassroots activists," rehabilitating their image, actions, and history, which includes terrorist Timothy McVeigh and the bombing of the Oklahoma Federal Building. Remember when Republicans controlled Congress after McVeigh's terrorist bombing killed 167 and injured hundreds more of his fellow Americans? Rather than aggressively pursue hearings into the bombing, Republicans fueled the flames, legitimating McVeigh's sentiments by pursuing hearings into the Clinton administration's handling of the raid on Waco, Texas.

Republicans knew that McVeigh was upset about the Federal Government's raid on Waco and used it as an excuse to blow up the Federal building. But more importantly, they knew he was connected to key Republican constituencies - the militia movement, and those that have become the Town Hall and "Tea Party" mobs, "birthers," "deathers," and anti-ACORN fanatics of today. That's why they tried to hide these facts from the public -- so the fascist movement would retain its air of legitimacy.

Yet, whenever anyone dares describe them as mobs, like Nancy Pelosi and some in the media, the Republicans immediately denounced Pelosi et al as "fascist" and "racist." Their strategy seems to use the words "fascist" and "racist" against liberals and the left in order to insulate themselves from these charges, hurling them first and ferociously and deliberately inverting and distorting their meaning.

Significantly, Italy seems to be reciprocally grappling with some similar influences and dynamics, which include over sixty years of American right-wing meddling in their affairs. Most recent examples include (a) Karl Rove's involvement with Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi, who along with his political partners, the "post-fascist" National Alliance, are pushing to rehabilitate the image of the Repubblichini and Mussolini fascism, just as the Republicans are doing in the U.S. with the followers of McVeigh and mobs at the Town Hall meetings, and (b) key Rove and Bush adviser, infamous neo-con, and Republican "intellectual" guru Michael Ledeen.

Of note, Ledeen not only apparently plagiarized the writings of Italian fascist, F.T. Marinetti, so enamored he is reported to be of Italian fascism, but he is also reputedly linked to some of Italy's most notorious, feared, and shadowy right-wing groups. Ledeen seems to believe that the black shirted Mussolini thugs and the mob serve as prototypes for pushing for "positive" change in the U.S. Hence the thuggery we see at the Town Halls and the image remaking and utilization of the American "militia movement," which is growing by leaps and bounds. As in the U.S., Ledeen and Rovian "advice" to Berlusconi is to also essentially bankrupt the federal treasury and/or de-fund essential public services, like education, health-care, transportation, emergency management, etc. while scapegoating immigrants for the additional costs and burdens placed on society. Of course, the ultimate goal is to privatize as much of the public sector as possible -- doling out as many private contracts to political supporters as one can get away with -- whether or not they happen to be criminal enterprises -- and to do so by abusing all of the levers of the democratic political process, evidence planting, intimidation, destroying opponents, and behind the scenes bureaucratic machinations. That's what earned Rove the title of "the architect."

Such is the portfolio not only of Rove and Ledeen, but the right-wing's flagship think tank, the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where Ledeen holds its most prestigious post -- the AEI "Freedom Chair." As Huffington Post readers know, AEI's global influence and privitization agenda knows no bounds. Nor does the deference paid to this neo-con refuge by American mainstream media -- despite how horribly wrong and complicit Ledeen and AEI were in helping lead the country into the Iraq disaster. Their primary propaganda project now is to rehabilitate the image and utilization of fascistic mob activism and extremism in the service of corporate conglomerate interests (e.g., Insurance, health care providers, big oil, etc.) and special interest foreign policy objectives.

They know that without these mobs and the intimidation/fear factor, the Rovian and Republican fascistic agenda would not survive the democratic political process nor objective media scrutiny. I believe that is a component of why their agenda includes reciprocally assisting their Italian proteges resurrect and rehabilitate the image of the Rupubblichini and why they so admire the mob (including, perhaps, the grande mob, or mafia).

Perhaps it's time to give the Republicans a couple of new names that better match what they've become: The GOP Republichini and the Nagger Party since it seems they've also become a bunch of naysaying naggers with nothing to say but "NO!" to any of the President's initiatives.

This is why Rep. Grayson referred to them as a bunch of "knuckle-dragging Neanderthals" and exposed their hidden health-care plan as essentially hoping that Americans without adequate coverage die quickly. He outed their agenda and the cruelty on which it's based. But then the CNN punks on "the Situation Room" tried to beat him down. They never did that to the GOP Repubblichini during all of their lying, predatory, death threatening, unethical actions, which continue to this very second. Grayson stood his ground against this onslaught of hypocrisy from Wolf Blitzer, Gloria Borgia, Alex Castellanos, and "Token Brotha"...and CNN needs to be taken to task for their own cruel double standard.

Especially since CNN spawned Glenn Beck and continues to give refuge to Lou Dobbs who daily dishes out Nagger Party lies and neanderthal lines like he was an outpost for Fox "Fact Free" News on "Americas Most Trusted Name in News." Sadly, it appears that CNN has become another Media Mouthpiece for Republican predation and the only thing it seems they can be trusted to do is continue their predatory ways. And regarding Grayson, MSNBC did their best to follow suit, except for their afternoon lineup of Chris Matthews, Ed Schultz, Keith Olbermann, and Rachel Maddow. Of course, the rest of the mainstream media just fell in line with the CNN approach.

And this is part of the problem and why it's so hard for Dems to show backbone and stand strong -- the mainstream media has accepted as legitimate the role and identity of Republicans as predator and Democrats as prey. Therefore, anytime Dems veer from this media enforced script they catch hell while Repubs get a free ride!

Please study the vids and spread them around. I am adding the video of Grayson's comments on the floor of the Congress as well (shown on Keith Olbermann, including Keith's and Arianna Huffington's Commentary.) It also represents a prototype for confronting both Republican and Berlusconi predatory politics and economics and what Drew Westen, author of "The Political Brain" has long been advocating for.

Being progressives and promoting a positive agenda or Socio-Spiritual Liberation and Joyful Justice doesn't mean being wimpy. Nor do we need to seek a disembodied, abstract, "moral highground" when confronting these naggers with their fraudulent ACORN-birther-deather fetish. In other words, we don't need to pursue or preserve a fake image and idol of what it means to be progressive, positive, spiritual, and/or advocate Oneness and Unity.

So let's stop stooping and seeking security in pleasant platitudes and a false sense of superiority and instead be positively SPIRITED in the face of falsity and fascism. It's time to assert the truth with vigor and verve, seizing the joy of the moment - not just like Grayson, but like those Italians and their anti-fascist supporters who will loudly and proudly proclaim, "NO MORE BERLUSCONI. NO MORE NEANDERTHALS" at 2:00 pm on December 5th at Piazza della Repubblica in Rome. See you there!

"Hardball" Explores Palin And Liz Cheney As The New Faces Of The GOP (VIDEO)

2009-09-29T20:26:45Z

A "Hardball" panel featuring Democratic strategist Steve McMahon and Republican strategist Todd Harris discussed whether Sarah Palin, whose book comes out in November, and Liz Cheney are the new faces of the GOP. Harris touted Palin's skill in commanding the spotlight: "She is white hot as far as her ability to capture the attention of not only the press but the public."

However, he did agree with McMahon that her ability to actually win elections is pretty suspect: "The one thing that I do really agree with Steve on is that her popularity ends, or I shouldn't say ends, is largely diminished the day that her name actually appears on a ballot."

In perhaps an example of how Palin's star outshines all others in the GOP right now, the panel never really got around to discussing Cheney.

WATCH:

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Michael Rubin, Bob Baer: Better Than 50-50 Chance Israel Strikes Iran Within A Year (VIDEO)

2009-09-28T19:06:17Z

Michael Rubin, resident scholar at the conservative think tank the American Enterprise Institute, and Bob Baer, a former CIA officer who now writes an intelligence column for Time.com, joined Chris Matthews on "Hardball" tonight to discuss the possibility that Israel will unilaterally attack Iran after the Islamic nation's recent missile tests. In a lengthy conversation about what such an attack might look like and what the fallout would be, both analysts agreed that there's better than a 50-50 chance that Israel will strike Iran in the next year.

Rubin and Baer also agreed that the time frame in which the United States can exercise any influence over Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu regarding an airstrike is very limited:

Matthews: How long do we have to keep Netanyahu from acting?

Rubin: I'd say it's in months, if not weeks.

Baer: He's given three months. He's got to see something happening in three months or he's going to start his planning. They've already started their planning.

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James Traficant Is Out Of Jail And On Hardball

2009-09-23T21:25:46Z

This afternoon, on Hardball, Chris Matthews hosted an interview with James Traficant, the Youngstown, Ohio Democratic Representative best known for his "Beam me up!" catchphrase, his conviction and subsequent incarceration for racketeering, and his hair, which looks like a carpet remnant sewn from the fur of swamp rats, stapled to his head. Traficant is now a free man, and he's GOING ROGUE.

Matthews' interview with Traficant was MAGICAL. Traficant adopted the tactics of Rod Blagojevich: have mesmerizing hair, deliver a full-throated declaration of support for the little guy, and make a series of robust claims that he is a man more sinned against than sinning. "I still have Federales swarming around me," he told Matthews, "They won't admit that, but they're looking for every opportunity to send me back." Over the course of their interview, Traficant decried spending and taxes, claimed to have spoken at Tea Party Rallies, and professed support for a "fair tax" and the abolishment of the Internal Revenue Service. Critically, he did not rule out -- and indeed, threatened -- a future run for office.

Yes. He said, "Beam me up!" He also offered a new catchphrase: "Stimulate this!" Basically, James Traficant wants his collected volume of zingers to be considered a "governing philosophy."

All of this was amazing. Someone, please, teach James Traficant about Twitter, and do it soon.

[WATCH]

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Michael D. Brown: Talk Radio Inciting Violence? What Happened to Listener Discernment?

2009-09-21T20:50:10Z

Today's email digest of talk radio news has an article saying talkers may be inciting listeners to violence. According to the article, right-wing talkers are said to send subliminal messages. The author, talk-radio consultant Holland Cooke, invokes Chris Matthews' reference to the "dog whistle" and claims that "fringe ears" might hear those subliminal messages, thus "inciting the next nut."

Why must it always be the talk shows' fault? Any why must it always be the right-wing talk shows' fault? I could make the same argument about left-wing talk shows and left-wing talk show hosts. However, that is not the point.

Do we really believe that talk radio on both the left and right really incites violence? If Chris is correct that hosts use a dog whistle to get the ear of those fringe listeners, where is the causal link between the nutcase at the Holocaust Museum or the shooter who recently killed a pro-life supporter?

The nut cases exist regardless of talk radio or cable news.

Anything can trigger the irrational behavior of a nut case. Just as we cannot fully eliminate traffic accidents unless we eliminate automobiles, neither can we eliminate nut cases taking irrational actions.

We can, however, improve the quality and tone of our discourse.

The point that Holland Cooke misses is that most talk radio hosts truly want a debate. They want those with opposing points of views to call-in and debate the topic. Whether your point of view is from the left or the right, what better opportunity to make your case than to debate someone with an opposing point of view?

Those debates can be civil, too. Even after David Sirota penned in his column that the apocalypse must surely be nearing because he and I host talk shows in the same Clear Channel Denver building, we nonetheless have held civil and, at least from my point of view, enlightening discussions on health care and politics.

We often fail to acknowledge the responsibility of the listener or viewer. As consumers of news and opinion, each of us has a civic obligation to not only hear the other point of view, but to listen with discernment to those who ostensibly reflect our own point of view.

The balance we seek should not be some government-imposed fairness doctrine, or some corporate policy dictating what a talk show host says or discusses. Rather, the balance should exist in our ears and brains, in our willingness to listen -- and I mean really listen -- to what the other side is saying. Not that you have to agree with what the other side says, only that you understand the "what" and "why" of the other side's views.

We should never refrain from expressing our opinions with emotions and passions for fear that the nut case will hear it wrong and act out violently. The nut cases will be with us always, and they should not dictate our willingness to debate with passion, logic and reason our respective views.

Trying to tie violence and radio talk shows or cable opinion shows together ignores the personal responsibility each of us have as consumers of news and opinion to listen, watch and read with judiciousness and discrimination. Otherwise we scapegoat talk show hosts and cable news hosts for the irresponsible and irrational behavior of those nuts.

The Return Of McCarthyism: Hysteria In Action On The Right (VIDEO)

2009-09-21T11:52:32Z

***UPDATE 9/22/09*** I haven't found another embeddable version yet, but sharp-eyed reader Mark points out that you can watch the video here.

***UPDATE 9/22/09*** The video has been removed by the user. Please email TV@huffingtonpost.com if you know of another copy.

Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh are paving the way for a return of McCarthyism with their hysterical and shrill denunciations of President Obama and his administration as secret Communists and Marxists and Fascists who actually hate America and are trying to destroy it from the inside. Crooks and Liars highlights this well-done video juxtaposing the conspiracy theorists on the right with the disgraced Senator Joseph McCarthy. The result is pretty revealing.

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Chris Matthews Hits Joe Wilson: He Offered Obama "A High-Schooler's Definition Of An Apology" (VIDEO)

2009-09-15T20:13:56Z

Chris Matthews is less than impressed with GOP Congressman Joe Wilson's apology to President Obama for his outburst during Obama's speech to Congress. During an interview with Congressman Trent Franks (R-Az.), in which Franks defended Wilson and called the House resolution condemning Wilson a "partisan stunt," Matthews went off on Wilson for offering a "high-schooler's definition of an apology":

Chris Matthews:

[Wilson] called up Rahm Emnauel, the President's staffer, and said I was told by the Republican leader to make this call. And then the next day he told the press 'I was told to make the call.' Excuse me, you call that, that's a high-schooler's definition of an apology. My father told me to say I was sorry.

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Landon Ross: Rep. Wilson's Insincere Apology - Hardball

2009-09-14T20:09:52Z

Today on Hardball, Chris Matthews made what is easily the most cogent observation I have yet seen in the MSM,
regarding Rep. Joe Wilson's unrestrained attack on President Obama.
Last Wednesday, Rep. Wilson accused the president of being a liar by
shouting from the bench during the president's Joint Congressional
Address.

Wilson promptly apologized to The White House for
failing to "control his emotions," suggesting that the outburst was
spontaneous and unplanned.

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Initially,
I had no intention of commenting on the story, which I saw blanketing
news coverage on T.V. and on the Internet. Yet, Matthews made the
point that other pundits who commented on the story should have made, or at least considered. Namely, he suggested this was, almost certainly, not an "emotional outburst" or
failure to restrain oneself from spontaneity, but a planned, attention-grabbing gimmick that Rep. Wilson had strategically calculated.

There
are no shortage of pundits and political analysts who make their livings
by guessing the political motives of elected officials, and yet, to my knowledge, Matthews
is the only one who has questioned, by insinuation, the sincerity of
the apology made by Wilson to The White House Chief of Staff (though
many have pointed out that Wilson's accusation was, in itself,
dishonest).

More concerning is that, in all probability, Wilson's
calculation will prove accurate, and he and his party will gain
politically from the uncivil act (whether through Congressional distraction from health care, campaign contributions, or another spectacle to fire up the conservative base).

We should all run the exercise
of imagining the media reaction, were a Democrat to have shouted "liar"
at President Bush during one of his State of the Union addresses,
especially one in which the topic was the Iraq War. The result is
clear: they would have been politically skewered, not only by
Republicans, but by the MSM (obviously, one can not rise to the
challenge of PROVING the reaction, however, anyone who remembers the
then dogmatic climate, and the "patriotism" attacks on other lawmakers
who chose to question President Bush's policies, would likely agree). This double-standard should be noticed and addressed.

Why are Republicans able to frame the issues in
ways that are favorable to them, even within the left-leaning
media outlets, and frequently when the methods themselves are dishonest? Why
do Republicans, within the media, excel in getting away with far more
egregious acts than Democrats ever would? It is one of their most impressive
talents as a party.

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Blagojevich Defends Scooter Libby On "Hardball" (VIDEO)

2009-09-14T20:00:11Z

Disgraced former Governor Rod Blagojevich was a guest on "Hardball" as he continues to defend himself against charges that he tried to sell to the highest bidder the vacant Senate seat left behind by President Obama. He's also promoting his new book.

Matthews did his best to grill Blagojevich over the charges facing him but Blagojevich proved slippery prey and managed to dodge and hedge on most answers. One of the more interesting exchanges came during the discussion of his book, in which Blagojevich defends Scooter Libby. Matthews says the book implies that Libby was "railroaded" but Blagojevich, as usual, hedged:

He was scrutinized for a long time on a lot of other things that ultimately nothing came of and then they ultimately caught him unfortunately he didn't tell the truth. And that's what he ultimately was prosecuted on [...] The point I'm making in the book is there was a pursuit of him, in the substance of the things they were pursuing he didn't do those things wrong evidently. What he was ultimately held culpable for was not telling the truth and preventing the truth from being heard.

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Stephen C. Rose: My Problem With MSNBC

2009-09-10T12:01:58Z

My problem is I hardly watch it any more. A while back I thought it had real potential. Now I think it is on its way down.

Not because I do not agree with what I assume to be its hopes for the President. But because they serve these hopes in the following ways:

1. I cannot believe the Rachel Maddow peremptory attitude that says essentially, "We'll see what the President can do now..." As though it was up to him alone. It is up to us and if she is a true progressive she will get with the program and stop playing wise guy. I know she often does exemplary things. But I also know she has shied away from major global human rights issues that cried out for some progressive attention. I think she is probably the best of the lot now, but a shaky best.

2. Keith Olbermann's format is becoming a bore to me. I liked Jean Shepherd and his music and other anachronistic things on Keith remind me that the next time around is never equal to what is being evoked. The plain fact is we do not care about the pissing contests and fun-making and grimaces and other posturing. The most recent denouement of the current style was the Glen Beck Daily Kos fiasco in which Keith went full bore and then pulled a Wizard of Oz nothing act on the air. It was literally unbelievable. And I think full justification for the President's gentle chiding of progressives last night.

3. Then there is Chris Matthews who has evidently decided that visible aging is an excuse for the emulation of a gravitas that he lacks. Many of us who have served in various ranks have a choice to make when we talk about our less-than-central role in things. One can shut up or write a novel or start celebrating yourself at every turn. Chris has chosen the last option with numbing effect. But that is probably a nasty jab, even if true. The main problem I have with Chris is that while he is routinely being rude and interrupting his guests, he is also allowing his own opinions and feelings to so predominate that he becomes a most unreliable witness to events. Because he is dealing with important issues, this is bigger than just accusing him of being opinionated. He is using words to distort the truth at times. And this makes him no better than the more obvious examples of this sad tendency.

4. I reserve my last place concern for the Ed Show which I think would require a H. L. Mencken to adequately describe. Again I agree with many of his impulses and points but I find his show a travesty, a production bust and an exercise in blather and bloviation beyond my capacity to describe or adequately criticize. I do not think he serves the causes he so obviously represents. I think he toadys to some guests and thinks that off-the-cuff will play to his audience. I find the whole thing frankly unbelievable. A man of the people in 30 Rock ? Enough said.

This is the MSNBC lineup and this is how I see it. I know there are many who are happy with this channel. I think it is precariously perched on the road to perdition. I wish CSPAN would put up a news channel that simply reads news in something like real time.

Daniel Menaker: Politics and Pressure

2009-09-02T22:34:51Z

Tom Ridge has been on TV recently flacking for his new book, The Test of Our Times, about his tenure as head of the Department of Homeland Security. Among other appearances, yesterday, he braved the "Rachel Maddow Show," and today he was interviewed by Chris Matthews, on "Hardball." Speaking of balls, Ridge has a couple, putting his head (to mix anatomical cliches) between the jaws of these two liberal lions. He was trying to coax the hottest sentence in the book, "I wondered, 'Is this about security or politics?' "-- which was about the pressure to raise the threat level a week before the 2004 election -- into meaning something other than what it obviously meant. Namely, that the threat-level elevation was at least in part an effort to help scare people into reelecting George Bush. On both programs he was speaking a mile a minute, like a kid lying about breaking a window, torturing his syntax as if it were an al-Qaeda suspect in Guantanamo -- no deer ever looked more afraid of any headlights than Ridge did in the glare of these TV studio lights.

Why isn't he standing by what he has written? It must be pressure once again, as it was in that 2004 meeting. It was so pathetically unconvincing that Matthews took pity on him and tried to help him figure out a way to save a bit of face. He said something like, "I think you've been consistent and now what you're doing is presenting a different viewpoint." It was embarrassing -- a microcosm of the vast cosmos of denial and mendacity that characterized that presidency. At least Ridge had the decency to squirm, and thus give himself away. The way that he said that he didn't mean what he said showed me that he did.

Chris Matthews Slams Gov. Rick Perry For Secessionist Group Involvement: "Ignorance Of These People Is Unbelievable" (VIDEO)

2009-08-31T19:40:38Z

Despite the ridicule Texas Governor Rick Perry received when he suggested during a 'tea party' protest that Texas could secede from the Union if it wanted to, that hasn't stopped him from continuing to promote the notion.

Perry is involved with a group called the Texas Nationalist Movement, and they held a secessionist rally on the steps of the state capitol.

One of the speakers cited Sam Houston as a secessionist role model, prompting Matthews to point out that nothing could be further from the truth. Matthews took Perry and his group to task, remarking at the beginning of the segment, "The ignorance of these people is unbelievable."

WATCH:

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Michael Winship: Even Camelot Needed Health Care

2009-08-28T14:08:56Z

Toward the end of George McGovern's failed presidential bid in 1972, I was helping advance a bus trip for vice presidential candidate Sargent Shriver. The final weekend of the campaign, his caravan would start in New Hampshire and work its way down the Eastern seaboard, holding rallies along the way and winding up in Washington, DC, just before Election Day.

As we spoke with mayors whose cities would be visited, the draw wasn't Shriver but the news that his brother-in-law, Senator Ted Kennedy, would be accompanying him. Even though Chappaquiddick had taken place just a little more than three years before, it was the Kennedy charisma, the power of that family that still got even the most seasoned local politico excited.

Imagine how popular we were a few days later when we had to go back to tell them Teddy wasn't coming. His bad back from that near fatal plane crash in 1964 made a long bus journey impossible to endure. Shriver still drew crowds but it just wasn't the same.

Nearly twenty years later, I ran into Kennedy on an escalator at the AFL-CIO convention in Detroit as he arrived to make a speech. No bodyguards (visible, anyway), no entourage. I thought that I had never seen him look so healthy and vigorous. The gregariousness that made him such a consummate politician was on full display as we chatted and he loudly greeted union officials as we ascended, each a hail fellow, well met.

To those belonging to the post-baby boomer generations, it may be difficult to comprehend the change that took place in America when Ted Kennedy's older brother Jack became President in 1961 -- although the successful embracing of the Obama candidacy by young people comes close.

As we ended the years of the Eisenhower administration, even though the nation was more prosperous than ever, there was a grayness to everyday life that seemed to shift to Technicolor with the advent of those brief Kennedy years, like Dorothy shaking off the dust of Kansas for Oz.

John F. Kennedy's presidential race against Richard Nixon split my family neatly in two. My dad and older brother were for Nixon, my mother and I favored JFK (but I still have a gold Nixon tie clip my father prized, with an engraved caricature of Tricky Dick that looks more like Bob Hope than the presidential incubus we all came to know and love).

My father and brother came around. I witnessed Kennedy's inauguration on the elementary school's TV set, and was allowed to stay up late to watch the inaugural balls. My mother kept scrapbooks about Jack and Jackie and Caroline and John-John. All of us snapped up stories about family life in the White House and wept when the President died in Dallas. A few years later we would do the same for Bobby.

As time went by we would learn that we had been fooled about a lot of it; that the Wizard was a man behind a curtain, that much of the Camelot legend's glitter was media hype as bogus as fool's gold. But there remained about the Kennedy family a sort of grand, Shakespearean sublimity that applied as equally to the hubris and heartbreak as the good luck and achievement.

Or, in the words of playwright, journalist and Republican Clare Boothe Luce, cited in some of this week's obituaries, "Where else but in gothic fiction, where else among real people could one encounter such triumphs and tragedies, such beauty and charm and ambition and pride and human wreckage, such dedication to the best and lapses into the mire of life; such vulgar, noble, driven, generous, self-centered, loving, suspicious, devious, honorable, vulnerable, indomitable people?"

But how interesting that despite their grossest and most callow foibles and failings, throughout the life and times of the three Kennedy brothers who survived their older brother Joe there was a deep, moral concern for the nation's health that continued right up through Ted Kennedy's death. Notice in their memories of him this week how many friends and colleagues mentioned help that Senator Kennedy got for them during medical crises of their own.

Vice President Joe Biden remembered that when his two sons were recovering from the car crash that took the life of his wife and daughter in 1972, Kennedy "was on the phone with me literally ever day in the hospital... I'd turn around and there would be some specialist from Massachusetts, a doc I had never even asked for, literally sitting in the room with me."

And in Thursday's Washington Post, Howard Kurtz reported that, "Chris Matthews, a Type 2 diabetic, spoke of Kennedy calling him with advice after the 'Hardball' host had an attack of hypoglycemia. Paul Begala, a Democratic strategist, recalled on CNN that when his father had received a cancer diagnosis, Kennedy called and 'gave me the name of one of the world's foremost experts in cancer treatment. He said, "He's expecting your call. I just talked to him." And he helped pave the way to get my father the treatment that, frankly, saved his life.'"

Perhaps such concern was inspired by the example of the matriarch Rose's selfless devotion to service in the name of the Catholic Church or simply all the time the Kennedy family has spent in hospital wards through the years, nursing or mourning their own.

The first time I ever heard the dreaded phrase "socialized medicine" was during John F. Kennedy's presidency, when the GOP fought his administration's attempts at health care reform. And during his own, all too brief presidential campaign in 1968, when Bobby Kennedy told audiences that decent medical care should not be a luxury of the rich, he quoted Aristotle: "If we believe men have any personal rights at all, then they must have an absolute moral right to such a measure of good health as society can provide."

The only one of the brothers to live beyond the age of fifty and make it to senior citizenship, Ted Kennedy honed his skills as a legislator over nearly as many decades in the US Senate, and universal health care was, in his words, the cause of his life.

Through his years there, Kennedy pushed for it incrementally with the Americans with Disabilities Act, creation of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (S-Chip), the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act allowing folks to hang onto their insurance after leaving a job, the creation of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), increased funds for AIDS and cancer research and community medical centers.

But many believe the time for increments has passed. In Edward Moore Kennedy's name, it's time to do the right thing, the big thing; time to revive flagging support and step up to universal reform. Already there has been far too much shouting and far too little healing.

In Newsweek last month, Kennedy wrote with his longtime speechwriter and advisor Bob Shrum, "I've thought in an even more powerful way than before about what this will mean to others. And I am resolved to see to it this year that we create a system to ensure that someday, when there is a cure for the disease I now have, no American who needs it will be denied it."

Ted Kennedy, resolute in his faith and passionately, unabashedly liberal to the last breath, said he wanted "a good ending for myself." Universal health care -- at its best with a public option -- would be it.

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Michael Winship is senior writer of the weekly public affairs program Bill Moyers Journal, which airs Friday night on PBS. Check local airtimes or comment at The Moyers Blog at www.pbs.org/moyers.

Further Adventures In Torture Equivalencies

2009-08-26T16:06:41Z

The recently declassified torture documents have yielded ample food for thought, if you can stomach it. One of the more difficult revelations appears in the lede of the AP's story on the disclosures:

CIA interrogators threatened to kill the children of one detainee at the height of the Bush administration's war on terror and implied that another's mother would be sexually assaulted, newly declassified documents revealed Monday as the government launched a criminal investigation into the spy agency's "unauthorized, improvised, inhumane" practices.

The tactics described above do not belong in the same category of interrogation as waterboarding, or any other sort of physical abuse. After all, the damage being inflicted is all based on pretense, on threats which the interrogator has no means or intention of carrying out. Nevertheless, these tactics are not benign. And yesterday, conservative pundit Tony Blankley went on Hardball to inflict this extraordinary argument upon our rational minds.

BLANKLEY: You know, it's times like this that I think we conservatives and liberals are like different species because we view this so differently. For me and I know for the vice president and conservatives, we are terribly concerned we're going to go through the 1970s and the Church Commission, that we're going to demoralize the people who have been fighting to protect us. On the other hand, I think you folks tend to see we have got to enforce our higher standards, they've been violated, the law must be vindicated. And so we sort of have a strategic view of our national security and focus on that, and others focus on what they think are violations of either ethics or law.

MATTHEWS: So basically, Tony, you don't see anything wrong with CIA operatives doing things like making prisoners think they're about to be executed, making prisoners believe they're about to have their mothers raped in front of them? I'm just asking an open-ended question. Is that okay with you?

BLANKLEY: I think there are a couple things. First of all, lying to suspects when you interrogate is what police do. You should have a big city policeman come in, a detective. I used to be a prosecutor. It's perfectly standard form to lie. You tell them your partner has already confessed. You tell them all kinds of things. That's never been considered a war crime to lie to a criminal suspect as you interrogate them. That's different from doing the thing. Obviously, if they were actually raping and killing, that would be felonies, they ought to be prosecuted.

Uhm...maybe it's just me, but I think that if the police in Washington, DC were eliciting confessions from suspects by threatening their children with corporal harm and their loved ones with rape, the public would not deem this acceptable.

Moreover, I think the equivalency falls apart when one considers the setting of the interrogations. Threatening a detainee's children only works in a circumstance where the detainee believes the interrogator to be capable of such a thing. Sure, police may lie, tell a suspect that an accomplice has flipped, suggest the existence of evidence, or pull that old photocopier-lie detector trick from The Wire. But it's unlikely a suspect is going to believe that the police are going to start murdering children.

At this point, I think it's worthwhile to consider the thoughtful way libertarian blogger Julian Sanchez responded to the news that these were among the interrogation tactics being used by the CIA:

I guess what especially turns my stomach here is that the idea wasn't just to inflict mental anguish on a presumably odious man in order to extract information. It was to inflict that pain by exploiting, as a weakness, whatever flicker of nobility or love remained in an otherwise wretched soul. It was a method of torture that would have been effective only because and to the extent there was something human left in him. Maybe I'm being overly sentimental, but every cell in my body is telling me this is sick and wrong.

I'd like to associate myself one hundred percent with the sentiments Sanchez expresses. I'll also largely accept Blankley's premise that he and I are of two entirely distinct species.

[Would you like to follow me on Twitter? Because why not? Also, please send tips to tv@huffingtonpost.com -- learn more about our media monitoring project here.]

Larry Gellman: It Was Never Fair and Balanced -- Now It's Not Even News

2009-08-24T13:32:18Z

We are all painfully familiar with the many casualties of the deep economic decline that has ravaged the value of our homes, businesses, and investment accounts.

Another less obvious victim of the economic crisis has been the truth. Hatespeech and lies have been on the rise in politics and the media while fact checking has almost disappeared. The actions of those with a political agenda are reprehensible but at least easy to understand.

But I have always assumed that the real journalists would step in at some point and refuse to cover the rantings of crazy people, fanatics and liars as though they were actually news. For decades these types have stood on street corners handing out pamphlets and screaming about the coming end of the American way of life but none of them ever showed up on the national news or was written up in real newspapers.

But that has all changed in a big time hurry. Forget about "Fair and Balanced" or "News You Can Believe In." What we now see on cable TV is nothing resembling news. The entertainers who pose as newsmen now routinely spew lies, distortions, and biased opinions or provide a platforms of legitimacy to the sociopaths who do.

It's all right to have personal opinions expressed on television or the radio. Just label them appropriately.

There is a guy who sits near me at the University of Arizona games who starts screaming at the referees at the opening jump ball and never stops for a minute throughout the game. He and the other fans don't want the game called fairly -- they just want their team to win. You certainly wouldn't ask the president of the Booster Club to be the referee. He would have no interest in being fair and balanced and could never be objective.

But that's what we now have on cable news. People who are on the payrolls of or involved with partisan groups or political parties are introduced as "analysts" with no disclosure of their obvious conflicts of interest.

For years Fox News has been the unofficial network of the Right wing and Republican party while hilariously calling its coverage "fair and balanced." If Bill O'Reilly or Sean Hannity were actually fair and balanced then none of the Fox viewers would watch them -- and they know it.

But during the last year, Glenn Beck has taken hatred, bias, and unabashed lying and demonization to a level that Hannity and O'Reilly could only dream about.

Last month, Beck went on the air and called President Obama "a racist -- who hates white people" without giving any support or documentation for his claim. He also did not explain if Obama's hatred of white people extended to his own mother and white family members of the hundreds of white people he has chosen to advise and represent our country in his administration.

Just a few days ago, Beck came up with a blatant lie claiming that Mark Lloyd, the newly appointed FCC Diversity Chief will levy exorbitant taxes against Right wing radio stations with the proceeds slated to go to public radio, The fact is that Lloyd has neither the plans nor the authority to do any such thing. Non-Beck watchers should view this link as Beck and his guest talk in very specific terms about a complete falsehood.

When this happened, I was at the Aspen Institute FOCAS conference with 40 media leaders from around the U.S.

When the News Corp (the parent company of Fox) people at the Aspen conference were asked about how Beck could keep his job given his record of blatant fabrications and racist rants they admitted that they were personally embarrassed by his behavior. But they confessed that Fox has made so much money by pandering to the hateful Right wing that nothing is going to change in the foreseeable future. Maybe the fact that many of Beck's sponsors have recently canceled their advertising on his show will make a difference.

The unfair and unbalanced hatemeisters of Fox have been recently joined by Lou Dobbs of CNN ("The Most Trusted Name in News") who for years has railed on a daily basis about how Americans are being victimized by foreign countries and undocumented immigrants who come here in search of a better life. In recent weeks, Dobbs became of hero of the Right wing with his endorsement of the Birther movement.

Apparently Dobbs and a many Republicans believe that Americans should not have had the right to vote for the man they wanted to be their next president because he was born in Kenya. The Birther movement is a thinly veiled racist effort to undo the will of the American people that has been promoted by a depressingly large group of people who simply can't deal with the notion that we have elected a Black president by an overwhelming margin.

The management of CNN, like the leaders of Fox, have not been able to turn their backs on the revenues that have accompanied the journalistic malpractice that in the past would have caused Dobbs to be fired. Today, the truth is apparently just a matter of opinion and it's just fine for a newsman to call the President of the United States a traitor, socialist, Nazi, Kenyan, and such with no evidence or supporting facts.

Chris Matthews of MSNBC provides a more troubling case study. Matthews has repeatedly questioned the sincerity and "grass roots" credentials of protesters at the health care town meetings and the sanity of the Birthers accurately claiming that they are either paid or political stooges or well meaning real people who have fallen under the influence of the political operatives who are trying to bring Obama down.

He has referred to the Birthers and the anti-health care reform mercenaries and liars as "whack-jobs, crazies, and nut cases." But then he invites these very people to be guests on his show to state their cases.

He does not seem to understand that once you provide liars, haters and people who bring loaded guns to presidential meetings with a platform, you have already lost the battle. If a person is crazy or hateful, they should get no platform at all. Once you start presenting "both sides" of an issue where one side feels free to rant and lie you have already lost.

There was a time when we could have expected our most respected journalists and news reporters to be an effective filter and only present us with issues and stories that had real merit. But the economic crisis facing all types of journalism have put us in a different place.

During the three days I spent with a broad range of print, internet, and media managers and contributors in Aspen, most of the conversation focused on financial survival and ways to monetize the variety of information services being provided and how to keep from going broke in a very challenging environment. Many were mourning the imminent loss of print journalism. Few were grieving over the ongoing loss of journalism itself.

I came away from this experience with a better understanding of what is going on and why. It didn't make me happier. Even in a tough environment, there is no way to excuse the blatant lying, distortion, and almost complete absence of fact-checking that is now business as usual at media organizations that claim to be reporting news.

It's just plain wrong to call it "Fair and Balanced" or "News You Can Believe In" and it has been for quite a while.

Now there's no way to justify calling it "news" at all.

B. Jeffrey Madoff: Firing Squads and Death Panels

2009-08-24T10:18:44Z

"Akron Woman Dies 19 Times and Lives" was the front page of the Akron Beacon Journal in 1961. That was my grandmother. She was one of the first people a pacemaker was used on. Doctors didn't pull her plug, they plugged her in, jolting her heart like jump-starting a car. She survived for five more years, running up her total deaths to 29. The last time she died, she died.

My mother's birthday is coming up soon. No one is sure how old she is. When I asked her age, her response was, "What difference does it make? I'm too old to die young."

A lot of very sincere people believe that if Obama's health care reform bill passes, old people will essentially be facing death panels and denied care.

"I could die any time you know," my mother said. "It won't be long before I'm called in front of the death panels. They're not going to decide to keep an old woman alive. First the death panels decide, then they put you in front of a firing squad. You tell your kids, the government is going to kill their grandma."

"Do you really believe that?" I asked.

"Do you really believe I believe that? I'm old, not stupid," she replied.

My mother reads three newspapers a day and watches the news constantly. "These people compare the president to Hitler? Hitler was not known for his health care initiatives. But I'm much more afraid of those who show up at town hall meetings with guns strapped to their legs - they look like the death panels to me."

It's the aberrant behavior that gets television attention rather than an intelligent discussion of the real issues. Want to get interviewed on television? Yell irrational "Hitler-Nazi-Socialist-Death Panel-birther" noise loud enough to disrupt any meaningful discussion. When that is no longer effective, strap a gun to your leg. That could get you a segment on Chris Matthews' show. Once that becomes old news, carry an assault rifle - that will get you air time. The ante is always being upped.

It will be no surprise when someone who is exercising their Second Amendment right to bear arms becomes unhinged enough to start shooting people who are exercising their First Amendment right to free assembly.

Much of the news media, instead of challenging the deliberate lies and misinformation, lends credibility to them by giving air time to the most outrageous points of view. Sensationalism drives ratings but is often at odds with the truth.

There are constant falsehoods circulating that try to link the Obama health care plan to the U.K. or Canadian model, which in turn tries to scare people into thinking that what allegedly happens there will happen here.

Claims of the health care system in the U.K. denying care to the elderly are false. The National Health System Constitution provides comprehensive health care service to all, irrespective of gender, race, disability, age, sexual orientation, religion or belief.

Claims that Dr. Anne Doig, the new head of the Canadian Medical Association stated, "The system is about to implode. The system is going to fail," referring to the Canadian Health Care System, are totally misleading. Her statement was made in response to a question about accusations from groups in the U.S. about what they believe is wrong with the Canadian system - she was quoting them, not stating her beliefs. That statement has since been taken out of context and distributed to many groups in the U.S. as evidence of Canada's failing health care system. This is another example of the endless hailstorm of misdirection and misinformation clouding serious debate.

No health care system is perfect. Our health care system has severe problems. There are honest disagreements to be debated based on fact, not the tabloid fiction we are exposed to on a daily basis. The cost of ignoring the actual issues, both human and financial, is dangerously high.

Since 1970, health care costs in the United States have gone from $352 to $7,000 per person, per year. This is the highest annual cost increase of any sector of our economy. Who benefits from these constantly increasing costs? It's not the citizens. The U.S. health care system is ranked 37th in the world by the World Health Organization. The country ranks 47th in the world for life expectancy. Contrary to the latest misinformation being put out there, these numbers relate to health care and do not factor in stats for murder or fatal car crashes. However, we do rank first in the world in fatal car crashes

Who benefits? Who puts their money where their money is? The top three lobbying groups ranked by money spent to influence policy/opinion this year are:

Pharmaceuticals/Health Products: $134,458,183

Oil & Gas: $82,102,040

Insurance: $81,528,794

(Center for Responsive Politics)

Who suffers? Most of us. Providing health insurance is the largest growing cost for employers. Many small businesses have either cut back or eliminated coverage. The burden falls on individuals and their families, which means the number of uninsured will grow as health care becomes less and less affordable. Couple that with the established pattern of cost increases per year and it is estimated that health care costs will double by 2017.

It's ironic that the same critics who claim the government cannot run anything efficiently are concerned that the government is going to run a health care system that is so cost-efficient insurance companies won't be able to compete.

Health care should not be a political issue. It's a civil rights issue. The people who have the least are constantly being manipulated by those who have the most and don't want to lose it.

"Facts don't matter," said my mother. "If there's anything I've learned in my 90 years, it's that people believe what they want to believe. How can we as a nation tolerate armed thugs at town hall meetings? It's crazy."

One person's crazy is another's reality.