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The cast of The West Wing has come to Washington DC to support the Employee Free Choice Act. Bradley Whitford and Richard Schiff weigh in with David Shuster on the need to debunk some of the myths being put out there well funded anti-union campaigns being run by right to work groups and corporate America. They note the importance of being allowed to form a union without fear of being fired or retribution from ones' employer as we have now and hope to put some real faces on those types of stories which are all too common when workers try to organize.

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David Shuster's Hypocrisy Watch for March 31, 2009.

Chris Matthews brings on Cliff May and Joe Conason to discuss Sy Hersh's recent allegations that Dick Cheney told the Israelis that President Obama was "pro-Palestinian" and described him as someone who would "never make it in the major leagues" while the incoming administration was trying to broker a cease fire.

The best May can muster to defend Cheney? Well maybe Sy Hersh's reporting is wrong. Cliff May has been an apologist for everything done by any of his fellow neo-cons at every turn. Let's see how long it takes him to do a one eighty on this one if he's proven wrong and take to defending Cheney's actions instead.

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Good to see. Sam "Joe the fake Plumber" Wurzelbacher was met by some real plumbers in Pittsburgh. His latest gig is attacking the Employee Free Choice Act for the anti-labor group Americans for Prosperity. Hopefully Mr. Wurzelbacher is continued to be greeted as warmly on the rest of his stops.

Think Progress has more. The report is from local affilitate KDKA. At the end of the segment they claim that Wurzelbacher supports union members but just not their leadership. Anyone who would say something like that obviously doesn't understand anything about unions because you cannot separate the two.

March 30, 2009 News Corp

Dave N: I'm sure Glenn Beck will take comfort in the serene knowledge that his own ratings are kicking those of Joe Scarborough's "Morning Joe," but it must still be somewhat disconcerting for him to see the conservative Republican ex-congressman break into uncontrollable gales of laughter upon viewing a compendium of Beck's greatest hits of the past couple of months at Fox.

On the other hand, it's comforting to know we aren't alone in being astonished by the bizarre, slow-motion train wreck that has been Beck's show. Indeed, no one on the "Morning Joe" panel seemed inclined to defend Beck's bizarre behavior, except to note that his ratings speak for themselves.

Scarborough tries to ameliorate his derision once he regains control, but the damage was done. Anyone want to wager whether Beck responds?

March 30, 2009 C-SPAN

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Stephen thinks all we need is ambition, self-confidence and extreme good looks to rebuild America. Slate's Emily Yoffe has another opinion as she writes in her column

But Enough About You:

The narcissists did it. Some commentators are fingering them as the culprits of the financial meltdown. A Bloomberg columnist blamed the conceited for our financial troubles in a piece titled "Harvard Narcissists With MBAs Killed Wall Street." A Wall Street Journal op-ed on California's economy suggested that Gov. Schwarzenegger's desire for voter's love ("It's classic narcissism") helped cause the state's budget debacle. A forthcoming book, The Narcissism Epidemic, says we went on a national binge of I-deserve-it consumption that's now resulting in our economic purging.

.....

These days, "narcissist" gets tossed around as an all-purpose insult, a description of self-aggrandizing, obnoxious behavior. Unfortunately, the same word is used to describe a quality that comes in three gradations: a characteristic that in the right amount is a normal component of healthy ego; a troublesome trait when there is too much; and a pathological state when it overwhelms a personality. Narcissism fuels drive and ambition, a desire to be recognized for one's accomplishments, a sense that one's life has meaning and importance. The problem occurs when narcissism becomes the primary principle of someone's personality. Its most extreme form is narcissistic personality disorder, a psychological condition that impairs a person's ability to form normal relationships and wreaks havoc on those who have close encounters with it.

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Rachel Maddow talks to David Sirota about whether the Obama administration is being tougher on the auto makers than they are on Wall Street. They also take Sen. Bob Corker to task for complaining about the CEO being forced out of GM but having no problem saying that it's perfectly fine to tear up the union contracts of the workers and slash their wages.

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David Shuster talks to former IMF chief economist Simon Johnson about whether the United States could be headed for another great depression. After getting tough with the auto industry they discuss why Wall Street is not getting the same treatment. They also discuss Simon Johnson's article at The Atlantic The Quiet Coup. From the article:

The crash has laid bare many unpleasant truths about the United States. One of the most alarming, says a former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, is that the finance industry has effectively captured our government—a state of affairs that more typically describes emerging markets, and is at the center of many emerging-market crises. If the IMF’s staff could speak freely about the U.S., it would tell us what it tells all countries in this situation: recovery will fail unless we break the financial oligarchy that is blocking essential reform. And if we are to prevent a true depression, we’re running out of time.

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Rachel Maddow on the recent decision by a Spanish court to look into allegations of torture by former Bush administration officials. Ron Suskind, author of Way of the World notes that we always knew the Bush administration's defense of torture would break down as soon as the fear of retribution was lifted from those that might speak out about what happened.

From Perrspectives: Growing Blowback for Bush Torture Team:

The past 48 hours have not been kind to the architects of the Bush administration's regime of detainee torture. In the UK, British police are investigating whether its MI5 intelligence service was complicit in the torture of former Guantanamo prisoner Binyam Mohammed. Meanhile, a Spanish court is poised to launch a criminal probe of Alberto Gonzales, John Yoo and four other Bush administration officials over their roles in crafting the legal framework condoning U.S. torture. And in a devastating piece in Sunday's Washington Post, Americans learned that the waterboarding of Bush all-star terror detainee Abu Zubaida "foiled no plots" and "produced false leads."